Good music speaks volumes… rather than impose analysis, step back and expose linguistic artistry… why critique that which has achieved perfection at its own masterful conception… listen, look, and linger in fantastic rhythmic reality: lyrically speaking
As much the Four Evangelists as they are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Britney, Jay-Z, Kanye, and GaGa – our proud and prestigious pillars of Pop – stood tall and held rapturous court this year as the cause and cure for our ailing culture…
The modern music industry’s Mitochondrial Eve returns with a fervor to prove – once again – that despite all patriarchal restrictions and destruction: she who bears the womb… the forever battlefield, and said burden… is she who is best equipped to commandeer the cultural revolution. Who rev the world? Girls.
I’m sitting here about to get my next tattoo at a popular tattoo shop in downtown Atlanta. This next tattoo is the one with the most meaning. It’s maktub. Maktub is Arabic for ‘it was written’. A strong, spiritual sentiment that eludes many to think of faith and destiny, all heavy religious concepts automatically once the denotation is learned. I picked up the phrase from one of my favorite books, The Alchemist. But I’m getting it tattooed on me. So, a religious thought is becoming a fashionable trivial decoration on my body. This trend is not rare in our society. I’m participating in seemingly the bastardization of a sacred world. Making things that are of God be also in vogue, no matter what the eventual results may be. Even when those results are most commonly breaking the sacred and holy.
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Little Robots: How Our Generation of Young Business People Are Trying to Kill Themselves Before 2012
Just like any other year, 2011 was a musical hodgepodge. We had our queen bees and our wanna be’s, our good, bad, ugly, uglier, and everything in between. I don’t want to give too much away, but let’s just say this year brought the tears, the pain, the Acid, and the rain. And then of course, there was “Ni**as in Paris.” On that note, I’ll leave you with the music. Ladies and Gentleman, the Soundtrack of 2011:
If Miami had a beat, Urban Noize produced it. After years of tirelessly remixing tracks by the best artists in Urban and Pop Music, the Miami-based twin producer duo has perfected their version of the Mash Up.
Graduation is that “October Song” masterpiece: a piece of art that needs no external interpretation because it is complete in and of itself. At the most superficial and benign level, Kanye is Alec Trebeck and Graduation is Jeopardy: a series of answers engaging you to question. It is a fact that when immersed in the surreal, people’s ability to make sense of the world around them is increased. The fragmented fantastical enhances our ability to connect themes and build structure — when given fantasy we are best equipped to perceive reality. Thus is Kanye’s Graduation. An artist of West’s caliber is beyond “this world;” his ability to connect words, ideas, art forms, the abstract and concrete is unreal. Nowhere is this more present than in his masterful encapsulation of modern life – above and below: Graduation.
Venturing out of the kaleidoscopic jungle fever pitch of M.I.A.’s Arular we find ourselves at the concrete crossroads between Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects and London’s Abbey Road with DJ Danger Mouse’s brilliant return to basics, the masterful Jay-Z versus Beatles mash-up, The Grey Album. The Grey Album is a cataclysmic crux of two epic absolutes: The Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album with the rhapsodic rodent at the helm. Burton blurs the lines and illuminates the bonds between good and d’evils to create a gritty grey area – platinum records sans the shine.
Right now it seems we are caught in the midst of a massive sea change, most glaringly evident in our Transatlantic home-away-from-home… time and space clash radically across the pond’s many currents… on one hand we have a tale of two cities upon a hill: London on behalf of Mother England, and DC on behalf of Lady Liberty… on the other we have a tale of two soundtracks… Watch the Throne versus The Adventures of Slick Rick… as Jay-Z and Kanye tout the impact and rap/hip-hop’s monarchical status of late – literally now - it would seem as if the future looks back to its golden age. As our generation’s defiance was defined by a one Posted Bill’s existential debate over “what the definition of ‘is’ ‘is’” – young subjective somethings mulling monotone over the “whys” of contemporary ills, micromanaging small fires, hyperfocusing on the nuanced semantics, preserving their fame, sealing their shame, and talking themselves out of a hole they inevitably talked themselves into needlessly… Essentially, just as Slick Willy’s surgically precise wordsmithing paved the way for triumph through hazy abstractions, it seems now as we spearhead our generational voyage towards an age of post-post-modernism, so we shift focus to our literal forefathering England – five hours, and seemingly lifetimes – ahead for ear-to-the-concrete countercultural guidance…
Welcome to the world’s nightmare: hold it against me – we about to go H.A.M on Grey Poupon. Bourgie girl, grab her hand, f-ck that – she dont wanna dance; excuse my French, but I’m in France… I’m just saying: when in Rome – if you weren’t born a Caesar, might as well bard with Brutus #empirestateofdemise So do as the Romans do, and in such sit among those the elite who naturally bleed blue. Prince William ain’t do it right if you ask me, if I was him I woulda married Kate and Ashley – #jiggerishthings. Overt supremacy, with strong undertones of servitude to the throne of inherited American royalty at its most Shakespearean… Britney Jean Spears – don’t let she get in her zone, #toxictragedies Louisiana-style Lady Macbeth, Ophelia, Juliet… the illiterate that could write an American tale of nouveau riche royalty; Hov and Yeezy – Othellos in tow. Miami swelter, Carribean vibe, Bahamian drum and bass, Bermudian Triangle of Pop – inverted everything. Hov would never share the mic with Spears, but Yeezy would – and did; though they are at two ends of the spectrum, Hov and Jean earned their passports the old fashioned way: crime pays, sex sells – passports please. They played to our devious vices, you are the company you keep: welcome to The Crackhouse; where this is a problem, this is not music/I hope you find it – ‘cos we about to lose it.
How Jay-Z Turned The First Legitimate Revolution Of Our Generation Into A Very Profitable T-Shirt
When news first broke last week that Rocawear was releasing their “Occupy All Streets” line of t-shirts I was skeptical to say the least. As most of us know, Rocawear was at one time Jay-Z’s insanely popular clothing line- so popular that for a few years Jay found more success with fashion than he did with music. It was impossible to go anywhere without seeing the company’s trademark flame emblazoned across the front of t-shirts, sweaters and bomber jackets worn by everybody from toddlers to grandmothers. But times change and as Hip Hop’s collective taste shifted, Rocawear was no longer perceived as being a leader in fashion and was quietly sent away to die in the dark corners of TJ Maxx discount clothing stores. Jay, being the smart businessman that he is, saw Rocawear’s run coming to an end and sold the company, keeping a sizable share for himself and staying on as the face of the failing label, which was more than likely the only way he could offload the clothing line since any prospective buyers would need his image in order to drive sales.
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