Perception

Check out this video of Watsky. He's a 24 year old rapper from San Francisco who became a viral sensation after appearing on Russel Simmon's HBO program Def Poetry in 2007. Since that time, he has successfully launched an album on itunes, appeared on the Ellen Degeneres show and has made the rounds on college campuses. Besides being so entertaining to watch, Watsky is extremely talented with his word play and delivery, challenging the likes of Eminem, Outkast and Busta Rhymes with the speed of his rapping.

What I find most interesting about Watsky, however, is the way he challenges general perceptions or stereotypes of rappers. For one, he's white, doesn't live the typical rapper lifestyle, or even really rap about the same topics as mainstream rappers. He's received a lot of mixed feedback, with many people attacking him as a wanna-be, or even saying that he is mocking other artists. If you break rap music down to its purest, truest form, though, and think of it as spoken word with musical accompaniment, Watsky hits the nail right on the head. How much does an artist need to stay within certain thematic boundaries, live a certain lifestyle, or look a certain way to be considered an "authentic" rapper? Is rap just as much about the music as it is about the cultural and social values which it professes?

Diam's

With France's recent ban on Islamic face veils I thought it would be appropriate to post a video by female French rapper Diam's. This woman is amazing! Her music is very politically charged and she has been lauded for staying away from the misogynistic and materialistic tropes that many female rappers use in their music. Last year, she converted to Islam and began donning a Hijab. When she made the decision to convert and started being seen in public wearing the Hijab, people criticized her for perpetuating the same gender inequality that she raps against in her music, but Diam is proof that many women--including those politically and socially aware--see the Hijab as an empowering aspect of their religious beliefs.

While the ban in France is directed toward the face veils that are part of the Burqa and not the Hijab, the widespread animosity directed at Muslims and removal of religious freedoms in France are part of an un-enlightened philosophy directly challenged by the likes of Diam's.

Watching Albums

The cover art for Kanye West's latest album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" is a painting by the artist George Condo.



Increasingly, bands are finding ways to make their music, and its application, more diverse. Simply releasing an album doesn't necessarily cut it anymore because we are so eager to be stimulated constantly, and in a variety of ways, that just listening to the music is often not enough to hold our attention.

On top of this, music and musicians are beginning to be seen as capable of so much more than just releasing albums. Take Kanye West for example. As much as his behavior can be infuriating, it's undeniable that West has talent. In fact, he's shaping the trajectory of rap and hip hop with his sampling of classical music rifs, and use of non-traditional harmonies and song structure. For his latest album, West also produced a 34 minute video which is essentially a narrative in visual form to accompany his tracks. If you've ever seen any Matthew Barney films, you'll definitely be able to make comparisons between the two. The video is strange, non-linear, non-verbal, but epic in its scale and set design. I'll also add that the cinematography is beautiful and the pairing of rap songs with such a visually jarring film is an entirely new and different sensory experience.

The New York Times recently did a segment about the band TV on the Radio and their new full-length album video. The band completed music videos for all ten of the songs on their album and are editing them together to create a cohesive, feature length film. While the Times framed the band's work as never having been done before, what TV on the Radio is doing is part of a new movement on the part of artists to demonstrate that their artistic talents extend beyond music.

It is also about changing the way we think of music. With the advent of MTV in the 80s, music videos became a standard accompaniment to at least one song on an artist's album. Now, however, musicians are expanding that to include full-length videos which provide visual context for their music. It is expensive to produce these videos, and there is almost no way to make a profit from them, so it is unlikely that this will become the new norm. For a new generation of genre-benders, however, music video is beginning to have a whole new meaning.

Remembering Biggie

On this day 14 years ago, rapper Biggie Smalls, AKA The Notorious B.I.G., was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in L.A. He was only 24 years old when he was killed, but over the course of his short career he had already topped the rap charts and become known as one of the major players on the East Coast rap scene. Since his death, Biggie has been sampled by scores of artists, been the subject of a film chronicling his life, and sold 17 million albums in the U.S. alone. In 2006, MTV ranked him number three on a list of the greatest MC’s of all time.

To this day, Biggie’s technique and voice go unmatched. He developed his deep, throaty style when he was still a kid growing up in Brooklyn and went by the name Chris Wallace. He asked his neighbor Donald Harrison, who was a jazz saxophonist, to give him music lessons. Harrison introduced him to Charlie Parker and Ella Fitzgerald and taught him how to scat. You can hear the influence in his music: he raps his lyrics in a staccato, pronounced manner, but the effect is smooth and lyrical.

Despite his natural talent, Biggie didn’t always imagine himself becoming a rapper. He excelled in school and had hopes of going to college and becoming a doctor or a lawyer. But the pull of the streets proved too tempting. At the age of 16 he dropped out of high school and started selling drugs. He continued to work on his music, though, and was signed by rapper Puff Daddy after he heard Biggie’s mixtape through Source magazine’s Unsigned Hype column. His career took off from there, and although he only made two albums while he was alive, Biggie was beginning to push the limits of the genre. Most agree that Biggie’s greatest strength was his flow. which the rapper AZ describes like this: "flow is like water. It's like current. It's the fluidity of your words — and how you can slow it up, pick it up, chop it up. You can take a slow beat and flow fast on it because it's the structure of the words. Or you could take a fast beat and really screw it up and make it slow. Flow is a beautiful thing."

Biggie certainly had it. He matched his words to the beat, going slow enough so people could hear what he was saying. He was telling stories and he wanted people to listen. His lyricism is still lauded by rappers who sample his songs and try to emulate his style, but Biggie’s originality can’t be rivaled. In Mo Money Mo Problems Biggie raps, “I just speak my piece, keep my peace.” Indeed, he was rapping about what he knew. Even though much of it was street lore, it wasn’t the same as the braggadocio that some rappers today carry on with. Biggie could always back it up.