Music has always been one of my favourite things – in life. And the creation of music is always satisfying – being able to take notes and make it evoke emotions has, and will always be powerful.
Over the years, as a creative content producer, I have dabbled in music production here and there, and here are some beats I have put together from about 2018-2019. No, I’m not a Pharrell, but hopefully somewhere in the field — even if its on the bench, on the practice field away from the main game.
Feel free to connect for this and all your other music placement needs.
Some design work I did for Audio Dynamix Sound & Design (www.ADxSD.com). The concept was to create an InfoGraphic that broke down the Audio Mixing & Mastering process.
Heard this track on the ending credits of HBO’s Entourage episode “Sniff Sniff Gang Bang” from Season 7, episode 8, and the track is infectious. A sort of Pop/Rock/R&B fusion that hits hard. One thing about Entourage: Its not the greatest show, but the music selections are on point. The artist is Jared Evan, the track is ‘In Love with you’.
Breaking conventions of the day – a blueprint for hip-hop
Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and ’50s. Each in their own way, free jazz musicians attempted to alter, extend, or break down the conventions of jazz, often by discarding hitherto invariable features of jazz, such as fixed chord changes or tempos. While usually considered experimental and avant-garde, free jazz has also oppositely been conceived as an attempt to return jazz to its “primitive,” often religious roots, and emphasis on collective improvisation.
Free jazz is most strongly associated with the ’50s innovations of Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor and the later works of saxophonist John Coltrane. Other important pioneers included Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Bill Dixon, and Sun Ra.
Starting in bebop and hard bop, Coltrane later pioneered free jazz. He influenced generations of other musicians, and remains one of the most significant tenor saxophonists in jazz history. He was astonishingly prolific: he made about fifty recordings as a leader in his twelve-year-long recording career, and appeared as a sideman on many other albums, notably with trumpeter Miles Davis.
Here are some classic compositions from Coltrane and Davis:
I say all this to state that hip-hop is in a similar state that jazz was in; and hip-hop is in dire need of something to break it from the current dismal convention – luckily, we have a few artists that are defying limits like Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West, but we need more or I fear that my little baby nephew will think that stringing a bunch of similies together and shouting on the track is ‘hip-hop’ …. (I shudder the thought).
I thought that we were done with fan renditions of their favorite artists’ songs, but this guy named ‘TK’ is building a buzz with his wack ass singing abilities (or lack thereof). In this video he takes on T.I.’s ‘Whatever You Like’, and TK butches it terribly – off beat, off key, just plain off … but funny. What is interesting about this guy, is that he asks for donations for his talent. I guess people will do anything for a buck …
The Demise of Classic Rock from ‘Dwight K. Shrute’ When the Establishment gets involved with the music
First off, If y’all don’t know about the hit NBC show ‘The Office’, it is one of the better shows on television that is clever and witty. The U.S. version of the The Office is an adaptation of a British version with the same name. Now, Dwight K. Shrute is one of the show’s staple characters that has a funny personality; he can be described as the loyal office employee who is the ultra geek and has the brownest nose in the office. His real name is Rainn Wilson, and he provided an interesting comment on the decline of rock, and its current state …
“I grew up listening to a lot of classic rock. I loved AC/DC, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, but as soon as it started to get girly, as soon as they were wearing women’s blouses, mascara and eyeliner – guy-liner I call it – as soon as it went there then it kind of lost me.”
I don’t know about you, but basically Rainn is saying that when rock music got commercialized with other elements, the music was no longer the focus, and the image become more important than the actual musical content. Relating this to hip-hop, I think that many of the older hip-hop generation (anyone 25 and older or so) can identify when hip-hop’s focus was no longer on the music, but on the actual image. Once it got commercialized, and corporations got more involved, and big music video budgets, many of the devoted hip-hop heads got turned off. In my reminiscing, this happened during the ‘Diddy years’, when P. Diddy came in with his flamboyant style and kinda changed the face of Hip-Hop as we know it … and it really has not looked back since. Remember P. Diddy and the L.O.X. with the shiny suits, the bling bling of Cash Money, the foreign cars in the videos? All this was spawned in the mid 90’s, and now in 2008, the formula is still the same, and the content in the music has gotten even dumber.
But I guess, as with Rock, Jazz, R&B, and other black-created music, once the establishment (corporations) get involved with a musical genre, the artform — the essence of the music loses something that is really, really, really hard to get back.
.:: d.b ::.
P.S. And just in case you don’t know who Rainn Wilson is, here are some clips:
“When I walked into the party I ran into Usher and we immediately gave each other a hug. While he was holding me, he turned to the side and kind of put my neck in a playful choke hold and started squeezing me. I tried to tell him that I couldn’t breathe but he couldn’t hear me because the music was loud. It didn’t help that he was drunk. I was yelling, ‘yo, yo, yo let me go! I can’t breathe!’ He was excited to see me and he was just expressing himself with this gesture. He was so drunk he didn’t realize what he was doing.”
When you are a recording artist, your image is everything – it defines whom you are. With that said, it would be wise to always present a positive image about yourself, in this case Bobby Brown made an ominous mistake of trying to present a negative image of Usher, but in the same breath as Bobby Brown is presenting an image of Usher, Bobby comes off looking bad also. It can be said that Bobby Brown was the King of R&B for awhile before the Reality shows and the coke; Usher grew up on images of Bobby Brown and was no doubt influenced by him. Now, Usher can be viewed as the King of R&B, and it is kind of sad that Bobby Brown appeared to be helpless as Usher had in a ‘playful choke’. I mean, you want to have the appearance that you can hold your own and be a ‘man’ – but this situation has Bobby Brown looking like a real b*tch as he was pleading for mercy from the might ‘Usher’ … I don’t even want to get into the metaphorical symbolism that is laced in this incident.
So for you new artists’ out there, especially the dudes, in your press interviews & sound bites, you want to come-off as a man that can stand on his own, not as a man that is pleading for help and comes off as effeminate … not a good look.
I get why Kanye is cocky, arrogant, obnoxious – not saying that it is ‘right’, but when you are so ahead of the pack (other rap artists), then it is only a matter of time before one gets ‘gassed’ and their ego takes over time. This video is very creative, and is a breath of fresh air into the ‘hip-hop music video genre’ – there is no rudimentary booty shaking or club scene, then a hood/block scene … this video actually has creative treatment, and makes you think ….. some of y’all may have forgotten how that feels.
Some say that Estelle is the next ‘Amy’ from the U.K., as in Amy they mean the ‘talent’ not the wrecked artist. Will.i.am delivers on the production and Kanye is Kanye on the raps.
