Written: Wednesday, Jan 2, 2008
If you've been reading my blogs lately you'll see that I was kind of on a music kick for a minute. Recently, I've been feeling the need to reunite with my first love, writing about music that is. During high school I'd often daydream about what my life would be like. I initially wanted to work for a record company. I didn't know what exactly I wanted to do at the record company but I just knew that I land an awesome internship at a label and eventually become a large female music executive. That is, until I felt like the music being released was really starting to suck and I didn't want to have any part of it. So I figured I'd be like Sidney, the character Sanna Lathan played in the movie Brown Sugar. I could do one of my favorite pastimes, listen to music and get paid for writing about it! I'm not actually getting paid for typing my rants and raves in my blog but I enjoy it so here's my blurb about the current state of music. If you want to pay me I promise I won't turn anything down but my collar.
It seems like during 2007 the U.S. has been way more accepting of artists from the U.K. Thanks to Corinne Bailey Rae, Amy Winehouse, and M.I.A America is less likely to toot it's nose up at British artists. One of my favorites, Kelis has even gotten more play then when she first hit the scene. What most people don't know is Kelis has been out for a long time. The album that her hit single, "Milkshake" was on was not her first album. Wanderland was her first album, that was followed by Kaleidoscope, and both albums were only released in the U.K. I actually had a chance to see her perform last summer and I was a little upset that she only did one song from her past albums but I understood because most people in the U.S only know her from her latest American released albums. Its kind of sad that she had to get love overseas first but that's how it is for most eclectic artists.
It seems that ears are more in tune with eclectic music period. I'm just going to be frank.When you can ride down the street of almost any hood and hear artists like Rihanna or Maroon 5, or ride down the street of almost any suburb and hear artists like Soulja Boi or T.I. you know that the times have changed. That's what's so great about music. It's so universal.
There has been many discussions regarding the Hip Hop legend, Nas' notion of rap music today, Hip Hop is Dead.I think that the mass majority of Hip Hop heads do believe that true rhymes over beats has deceased. There is a small percentage of people that beg to differ."I kind of think its kind of regressed, like I would say hip hop ain’t dead its disco", said emcee/poet/radio personality, Amanda Diva during an interview with Scheme Magazine in February 07'. I use to think otherwise, but now I couldn't agree more. I was at a wedding reception this fall and this rap song came on and everybody, young and old jumped up and rushed to the dance floor. They were doing this dance, they snapped their fingers and rocked their elbows, and moved from side to side with their hands in the air. At the time I was outdone. I had never heard this song before ( I don't listen to the radio, my Ipod is in constant rotation). I was so excited to see such a large group of people actually dance because there was a time where people didn't dance, especially not to rap. They just kind of posted up and bobbed their heads.
What's even greater about music is the mediums and speeds that we now can receive music. I remember when the whole "Napster" and music downloading thing blew up. People were so scared that downloading would cause people to stop purchasing albums and artists would lose money. Now almost everybody has an ipod and are legally downloading music from Itunes. If you're not downloading songs on your computer you're most likely downloading them on your phone for a ringtone. Who ever would think that a music artist could make money from someone downloading their song on their phone. To top it off, every time someone's phone rings you have free advertisement. If you want to go beyond chump change from ringtones, Beyonce has her own phone with Samsung. This is something that Elvis or The Supremes never could have because of the times.
When I was about maybe seven or eight years old there was a music channel called The Box. You had to call in, pay a fee, and request a music video of your choice. Now we have VH1, MTV, BET, and even better YouTube. Teenagers no longer have to hope and pray that someone else pays and request their favorite video because they don't have a credit card.They can go right online type in the title or artist and click search. Boom! Their favorite video pops up. If they want they can even add the video to their Myspace or Facebook profile. That's free publicity all day for artists.
What I think is most awesome about the movement of music and technology today is that a regular every day girl like myself can publish her opinions and thoughts about music to the internet for the world to see!
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