The Newsroom is back, and with it my undeniable compliance to watch it. I would not say that I like this show; I think that it carries a “holier-than-thou” attitude that is fairly unattractive. How easy is it to always look like the good guys reporting the news when the news you are reporting happened three years ago and your reports are written by Aaron Sorkin? Read More
On the night of July 12, 2013, four of my friends (I’m not typically one to name names, but for the purposes of this piece and clarity, it seems necessary: Laura, Tommy, Mike and Ray) and I met in Brooklyn, packed into Ray’s black Hyundai and departed the five boroughs. Our destination lay on the South Shore of Long Island, around forty miles and an hour outside of the city. We were to meet another one of my friends, Conor, at the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh for what was to be a concert event of the summer, for all the right and wrong reasons. Phish, the legendary genre-disregarding jam band which has been pounding the musical pavement for thirty years, was to perform that night, and if every other Phish show was any indication, it was going to be a night to remember. And so it was. Read More
Genres of music are being broken down into very specific, micro classifications due to the tags that taste makers, music bloggers, and critics fabricate to identify a certain styling that has yet to be labeled. At times, it can be difficult to keep up with but, at the same time, they are very fun to explore. Each week, I will explore a different sub-genre and try to explain the stains left on my shirt after climbing out of each tedious rabbit hole of musical stylings.
Shabba Ranks, one of Ragga’s biggest toasters
“Mercy”, “Crown”, “Blocka”, “Send It Up”, “I’m In It”,“Feds Watching” – besides all being songs that revolve around the nucleus known as Kanye West, they all contain an element of dancehall reggae, specifically Ragga music. While it may seem like a new phenomenon to a younger generation, this infusion of Ragga into Hip-Hop is nothing new. KRS-One, Black Moon, Smif-N-Wessun, Heltah Skeltah, and other East Coast acts of the early ’90s were using the vocal flows of Ragga deejays to formulate boom-bap. Now, Ragga samples are being pumped into trap music and Kanye’s acid house/industrial grind nightmares in a way that seems to clash with the syrupy, pounding production that utilizes it. The closest Ragga comes to a full reincarnation in the current landscape is through artists like Waka Flocka Flame, A$AP Ferg, and Trinidad Jame$ whose high energy, rapid fire delivery, and call and response choruses punctuate their most famous songs. But, what is Ragga and does its stylings have any long time staying power? Read More
Yesterday, A$AP Ferg released the video for “Shabba.” Spoiler alert: it’s a video about a bromance(s). Sure, there might be beautiful women in the fore and background to express some macho posturing, but it’s all window dressing for some serious Judd Apatow, stoner buddy movie material. Let me explain. Read More
When I think about Jay-Z’s Magna Carta… Holy Grail, there’s one lyric that won’t stop bouncing around my brain. It’s eight years old: “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.” I mean, how else could Jay sell a million records before anyone even knew the album existed?
MCHG was announced in conjunction with a $5 million deal with Samsung that allowed one million of its smartphone users to download the album for free five days before its official release. It’s a testament to Jay-Z The Musician’s immense popularity that Jay-Z The Businessman (or Business, Man) could even make such a deal, but it’s also the epitome of “selling out.” And therein lies the problem with Jay-Z: I love him as a musician. I’m impressed by the way he has progressed from the gangster braggadocio of Reasonable Doubt to the King of the Rap Game braggadocio of Watch the Throne, and everything he’s done in between. I love how he proves you don’t need an MBA to be a brilliant business man. But can he continue play both roles?
A lot has changed for Jay-Z since 2011’s Watch the Throne, which serves as social commentary from the top wrapped in a luxury item inventory. His empire has grown tentacles, his influence growing almost on a daily basis. The Brooklyn Nets opened their home at the Barclays Center. Then, he sold his share of the team so he could represent athletes with Roc Nation. Even Magna Carta Holy Grail is a record that is more business than personal. The marketing scheme surrounding the album was based on an app which only Samsung Galaxy owners could download on Independence Day – all others had to wait until July 9th. This is Jay-Z cementing his brand while increasing his bottom line. But, all is not golden at the top of the world.
The intermittent drum roll kicks in. Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez is hurrying Smalls out of his house as the sun sets over Smalltown, USA (or some neighborhood in Los Angeles County). Smalls runs out of the house; Benny follows. The crew is waiting for them in the cul-de-sac: Yeah Yeah, Hamilton Porter, Kenny, Bertram, Tommy and Timmy. They all rush past a block party (with the exception of Porter, who makes himself a hot dog) and head straight for their favorite haunt and the movie’s namesake, The Sandlot.
Genres of music are being broken down into very specific, micro classifications due to the tags that taste makers, music bloggers, and critics fabricate to identify a certain styling that has yet to be labeled. At times, it can be difficult to keep up with but, at the same time, they are very fun to explore. Each week, I will explore a different sub-genre and try to explain the stains left on my shirt after climbing out of each tedious rabbit hole of musical stylings.
PBR&B (also known as indie R&B, alternative R&B, or, yikes, urban contemporary) is a relatively new sub-genre that was slapped with this distinction around the time that artists like Frank Ocean, Miguel, How to Dress Well and Theophilus London started to drop material. The sound of PBR&B is more or less defined by an exchange of ideas from several other genres such as EDM, hip-hop, rock and soul. It draws greatly upon the influence of R&B from generations past and filters it through a modern lens. The best examples of this are Ocean’s Channel Orange and How to Dress Well’s Total Loss. The former utilizes a lot of the same style techniques from legends like Marvin Gaye, Al Green in a lush, hip-hop oriented soundscape, while the latter feels more like a Ralph Tresvant record set to Gregorian chants. The artists that represent the sub-genre also diverge from the common theme that dominates the narratives of its standard bearers.
…well Tariq?
So begins the mid-life memoir of Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson, Mo’ Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove. Thompson, whose drumming with neo-soul outfit The Roots and, consequently, on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon has catapulted him to fringes of the American musical conscience, a place which seems hard-earned and well-deserved, yet perhaps not entirely desired. The dedication, directed toward Roots co-founder Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, sets the tone for an exploration of Thompson’s ego, which rides a strange line between pretension, generally about the history of the music he loves, and modesty, generally about his own career and the experiences which have made him who he is.
Don Draper looks up at the dilapidated, Victorian home that Bobby describes as being in a “bad neighborhood” to which Don replies, “This is where I grew up.” It’s a glimpse of Don coming clean with the demons of his past and letting his children know who he really is. Sally turns to her father, but, unbeknownst to her, it’s Dick Whitman staring back, not the man she caught with his pants down.
Season 5 of Mad Men ended with a shot of Don, in a bar alone, much like how the pilot episode, “Smoke In Your Eyes,” started. But instead of a bartender approaching him, it’s a young blonde woman who asks, “Are you alone?” The scene cut to black as Nancy Sinatra crooned in the background. For some, this served as fodder for “DRAPER BACK,” and people were salivating about an upcoming season where Don went back to being, well, Don. They wanted the man who was responsible for “The Carousel” without the addiction to alcohol. Or the guy who auditioned to Hilton while sleeping around behind his wife’s back. Instead, viewers were treated to the same man’s problems without any charm that served as sort of a justification for the band aids of drink and women which temporarily covered up the hatchet wound left by his upbringing. During Season Six, it seemed like the floor at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Sterling Cooper & Partners had finally disappeared beneath Don’s feet, letting him fall until he ended up, not in an armoire, but a drunk tank. It was a sulking, bloated and disgusting Don Draper.
Tuesdays With Horry 