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rideoutmusicgroup · 4 days

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“We learn best when we’re on edge. Focused on the moment, ready for anything…”

— R.J. Francis, The Orphan’s Secret

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“Early is a priceless timepiece owned by the successful.”

— Johnnie Dent Jr.

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rideoutmusicgroup · 18 days

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rideoutmusicgroup · 19 days

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Okay here's my obligatory post about Tumblr users and their ignorance of rap, as a (white) fan of rap:

Saying "Not all rap music is about violence, here are alternatives" is not helpful, because the violent music ALSO has meaning.

When Biggie Smalls postures about his gang connections and packing heat, he isn't doing it because wow violence is so edgy, it's a powerful statement. Youth in urban areas where gang activity is heavy are often treated as lesser than by default, especially compared to black people the same age from a wealthy background. There's a reason that the "wholesome and respectable" black-lead entertainment of that era was stuff like the Cosby Show, with doctor-lawyer parents, or Family Matters, with a cop dad. There's a reason why the big joke of Fresh Prince is someone with a more unstable upbringing moving in with one of these model black sitcom families.

Standing up and saying yeah, I came from the mean streets, I was molded by this violence and yes, I did what I had to do to survive in a world that refuses to acknowledge my existence as meaningful or worthy of protection. I protected myself, I made my own way, and fuck anybody who tries to stand in the way of that.

Refusing to demonize that environment and wearing it like armor in a way that protects from the authority that wants you to see them as sub humans incapable of only violence and hatred, and saying HEY. I'm here, I lived this, and there is love and there is pain and there is ART in this.

That is powerful. That is the essence of gangster rap.

It isn't about hurting people for fun, it's about holding a mirror up to a society that does the hurting and then calls you a monster for what it's made you. Its about validating the experiences of the disenfranchised and biting back at authority. It's about turning a pain that the world say you deserve being one of those people from those places into POETRY. Into ART.

And thats why it matters.

And thats why you need to shut the yell up and stop dismissing it as violence without substance when you all sat on your ass listening to songs about Hatsune Miku eating people in middle school.

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rideoutmusicgroup · 21 days

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The Artifice of Singing Off-Key in Hip-Hop/R&B Music Explained

Though art is subjective, we can seemingly identify a “bad” song instantly. A “bad” song; is mostly identified by its defiance to sonic conformities and cultural conformities amongst others. So, for the same reasons a Billy Joel fan may not appreciate Death Grips; a Metallica fan may very well dislike them too! They’re awfully different! Throughout the evolution of Hip-Hop and R&B music, there have been technological advancements that impacted the sonic landscape of the two genres. What remains constant through Hip-Hop transitioning to Rap; is the artist’s unique choice to sing.

The earliest form of an MC or Rap Artist like we know today; is identified as a Griot; a kind of bard or itinerant minstrel found in western African societies, who usually sings of local legends, histories, genealogies, or heroic deeds. (Oxford) Griot was later used to identify verbal messengers in American Slave Communities who’d indirectly and openly speak to their contemporaries in a chatter that their over-seer could not understand. That is why there is such emphasis on slang and rhythm in these genre’s today. (Dozier) The genre’s identity is founded on non-conformity. Auto-Tune: paved the way for rude and funny offkey rhymes sung by 80’s Hip-Hop legend Slick Rick the Ruler, to evolve to the candid lyrics that 2000’s Rap & R&B Legend, T-Pain, belts into the digital analog; vocal enhancer. Melodies are constant in music. However, Rap & R&B culture is infatuated with off-key singing. From Biz-Markie’s “He’s Just a Friend” to Lil Yachty’s “One Night;” we hear artists in this same space conjure unique singing-hooks with wild notes that do not theoretically conform to a classical musician’s standard for staying “on-key.” The trend is reasoned purely by artistic expression and the flowing river of new artistic-capabilities enabled by Auto-Tune amongst other vocal synthesizers and note-decoders.

Following the ground-breaking release of “808’s and Heartbreak” Kanye West admitted "I get a lot of backlash for using [Auto-Tune] because it's a tool people use when they can't sing... What it does for me, if I sing off-key, it really points that out. It points out the bad notes. So, what I have to do is sing more perfect.” Ben Rogerson insightfully explains that rather than a rap artist generically employing auto-tune solely for pitch correction, Ye used it as a clearly audible effect throughout the album. In a rap landscape which some artists might have hidden the fact that they implement it, Ye’s choice to double down on his use of vocal synthesizers shifted the sonic standards for the genre.

Auto-Tune turns rappers into singers or a unique combination of both. It enhances the musicality present in the rhythmically cadenced speech, and pushes rapping towards crooning and adlibbing, encouraging rappers to emit trills and melodic flourishes that would otherwise be outside their reach. The introductory song to Yachty’s fifth studio album: “Let’s Start Here,” titled ‘pRETTy,’ is characterized by the magical instrumentations that seemingly grant the listener euphoria, and the trippy chorus that is capitalized by auto-tune. (Banerjee) Future, another artist branded by his uniquely textured auto-tuned vocals “reinvented blues for the 21 century,” curating a style of delivery (somewhere between speech and singing) as a mode of feeling, and outlook. “My music—that’s pain,” Future has said. Paradoxically, Auto-Tune’s most flagrantly artificial effects have come to signify authenticity at its most raw and exposed. (Reynolds)

To further discuss the identifiable reason for rap artists to sing off-key or improper and present it as high-valued talent, we can look closely at the prolific Mixtape Rapper, Max B. Max, whose given name is Charley Wingate, was most musically active in the years, 2006-2008. From more than 20 mixtapes, one full-length on a small independent label and a substantial number of hooks and verses with New York City’s Dipset/ByrdGang crews; the body of work that Max B recorded vary wildly in tone and sound quality from release to release: referencing the stark contrast between the hallucinatory grime of the Coke Wave tapes with French Montana and the crisp G-funk of Vigilante Season. Lyrically, Max explores the depths of inebriation, crime and incarceration, misogyny, money as a means and a motivator, and these lyrics evoke an aggressive stance toward anyone with doubt in his status as the greatest gift to New York City, if not the world. (Cohen) Max B’s delivery exudes confidence, intentionality, and purpose all while singing off-key without the use of auto-tune.

In a recent interview with Complex led by Grant Rindner, Wingate states: “I Don’t Need Auto-Tune. My Voice Is Beautiful.” Max B, renowned as an influential figure whose melodic style predated the current wave of singing rap artists, explains his ear-catching delivery by admitting: “I’m not trying to sing, I’m just trying to be vulnerable... I’m trying to put my soul on there for you. I’m trying to give you me... I’m not getting respected for my musical gifts, so now I’ve got to do the unthinkable, and come with [something else].” (Rindner) Max B. Very early into his contract with Koch Records, Max told his contemporary Jim Jones, that they needed a new sound, one that moved away from the hard-hitting drums and choir samples and horns we’d typically hear in popular New York rap music at that time. Max referred to this sound being a soulful flavor that best resembles the musical roots of Harlem. Considering the cultural significance of the Harlem Renaissance, and the cultural significance of a Grigot and slave chatter in Hip-Hop and Rap music; rap artists who choose to sing off-key tap into a vulnerability and creative consciousness that is inspired by captivity, longing, non-conformity, and revolution.

Future hits it on the head when he describes his music to be simply “Pain.” T-Pain glamorously wears his moniker with the same notion in mind. Though there are many upbeat songs which feature rap artists singing; the creative consciousness inspired by slavery is inherent. Therefore, the artists vulnerability that off-key singing conveys, is most attributed to pain and suffering. It takes painful history from the genre’s lineage and sculpts it into modern chat toward people who feel painfully oppressed in their circumstances. Max B’s intentional vulnerability in his creativity comes from his own painful experiences as a child and the painful lessons that he struggled to learn in his adulthood: when he sings about being incarcerated, his adaptable keys for attaining success, and ways that he is persecuted from the Music Industry and the public. Max was trapped in a non-lucrative record deal, while facing criminal charges that loomed a 35-year sentence over his head and he directed his stress and his pain into his music and rapid productivity; amassing a cult following that awaits his eventual release this coming Autumn. This artist-model or artistic approach works with any rap artist who is confident enough to make the great, powerful choice to be vulnerable and sing honestly instead of correctly and uniformly.

O. Daley

Work Cited

Banerjee, Rhys. “Lil Yachty Made a Psychedelic Rock Album and It’s Pretty Good.” The Chronicle, 13 Feb. 2023, www.dukechronicle.com/article/2023/02/lil-yachty-lets-start-here-psychedelic-rock.

Cohen, Finn. “Lord Is Tryna Tell You Something: How Charly Wingate Became Max B.” Complex, Complex, 4 Feb. 2023, www.complex.com/music/a/finn-cohen/max-b-jail-interview1.

Dozier, Barbra. “The History of Slavery and Its Impact on Contemporary Hip-Hop Music.” Barbra Dozier’s Blog, 24 Apr. 2018, barbradozier.wordpress.com/2018/04/24/the-history-of-slavery-and-its-impact-on-contemporary-hip-hop-music/.

Mahadevan, Tara. “Kid Cudi Says Lil Yachty Is ‘What I Hoped for in the next Generation.’” Complex, Complex, 19 Jan. 2024, www.complex.com/music/a/cmplxtara-mahadevan/kid-cudi-praises-lil-yachty-what-i-hoped-for-next-generation.

The Miscellany News. “The Impact of ‘808s & Heartbreak’ on Modern-Day Rap.” The Miscellany News, 29 Apr. 2021, miscellanynews.org/2021/04/28/arts/the-impact-of-808s-heartbreak-on-modern-day-rap/.

Reynolds, Simon. “How Auto-Tune Revolutionized the Sound of Popular Music.” Pitchfork, 17 Sept. 2018, pitchfork.com/features/article/how-auto-tune-revolutionized-the-sound-of-popular-music/.

Rindner, Grant. “‘I Don’t Need Auto-Tune. My Voice Is Beautiful’: An Interview with Max B.” Complex, Complex, 23 May 2023, www.complex.com/music/a/grant-rindner/max-b-interview.

Rogerson, Ben. “Kanye West Says Auto-Tune Makes Him a Better Singer.” MusicRadar, MusicRadar, 2 Dec. 2008, www.musicradar.com/news/tech/kanye-west-says-auto-tune-makes-him-a-better-singer-185278.