SF Beat Battle – Aug 15th
GrindfortheGreen.ccom has a beat battle coming up as part of a free music conference in San Francisco in about ten days so you’ve got time to get down. No excuses about short notice on this one.
Here’s the rundown on the battle:
SATURDAY AUGUST 15: 7pm-10pm
Beat Battle
Zeum
In our beat battle 10 youth producers will compete for a cash prize of $500 as well.
Check out the site GrindForTheGreen.com for details
Fullerton California Beat Battle
Coming up tomorrow August 6th in Fullerton CA. Beat battle at the Tropics Lounge.
Check it out and report back here if it was worth it.
What’s Wrong With Hip Hop?
What’s the problem? You hear it over and over: “The hip hop on the radio is garbage.” That’s a strong statement. Is there any truth to it? Does it matter? I say yes to both questions but it goes deeper than one thin statement. It goes back to the beginnings of hip hop, and a point in time when things went wrong.
I’ve watched hip hop as a fan and a participant since it started. Back when the songs rambled without hooks and hip hop was almost never on the radio, it was on a distinct path. It was getting better.
First songs gained structure. Next distinct sub-genres started to form as the hip hop spread beyond the north east. Then it started to move beyond the urban community altogether to fold in the experiences and lifestyles of a diverse mix of people.
Then something strange happened. At the point when hip hop had reached all corners of the U.S. and should have entered its creative renaissance, the producers who wanted a new sound started reaching backwards instead of forwards. They started sampling.
The prevailing explanation for this rise of sampling points to a lack of government funding of music programs in the inner cities. Without a generation of musically literate newcomers to move hip hop forward, where else could it go? Those who would have pushed the envelope did just as the musical geniuses before them, they improvised.
Without the years of training and practice afforded to those with access to music education, producers still had skill and desire but lacked the tools to grow the art of hip hop. Sampling gave us access to great musical performances and allowed us to put together great songs. It didn’t make us great musicians and it didn’t provide us the tools to really sustain the growth hip hop as an art form. It also set the bar for what it meant to produce hip hop. In my opinion that bar was set too low.
Sampling as a step in the evolution of hip hop is cool. Sampling as a sub-genre of hip hop is cool. Sampling as the core of hip hop – what’s considered “real” hip hop is not cool. It’s as though we’ve said, you can be an author of our cultural sound without learning to write. Just go in the library and cut sentences from old books and put something together. It’s cool. Besides, it’s hard to learn to write. Plus it’s expensive and we don’t have the money right now. Just throw something together – the fans are buying it – what’s the problem?
The problem is that you can’t borrow a future from the past. That method can only take you so far before you start spewing out garbage. So of course hip hop on the radio is seen as garbage to people who want “real” hip hop. You want great performances and you can’t have that unless you sample or learn to play. Unfortunately sampling is out of style right now so what you here on the radio is largely the product of producers who never learned to play. Producers with desire and true musical talent who are using an incomplete set of tools.
And don’t expect change anytime soon because mainstream hip hop is making money. Aspiring producers coming up now want to emulate the “success” (or at least income levels) of the chart toppers. “The last generation didn’t learn to play instruments and they got paid! Why should I?” Instead of practicing instruments, producers are satisfied practicing the art of “flipping” samples. Essentially we’ve accepted commercial viability over artistic viability.
What’s wrong with hip hop? Mainstream hip hop stopped reaching for greatness and settled on good enough to make money. Hip hop chose to take the money and run instead of fighting past its’ restraints to create master works for generations to embrace. It started repeating itself before it got worth repeating, and ultimately fell short of its’ time to shine like Blues, Rock, Jazz, Soul, R&B, or even Pop, leaving our Golden Age tarnished.
Hip hop’s current minimal styles of crunk, snap music, and ringtone rap are evidence of the horizontal path of hip hop. We need to change course by breaking from the past and creating more of our own works from our own wells of creative genius. Sean “P Diddy” Combs used to say “we don’t stop” – but we did.
How To Sell Beats Ebook On SALE – $8
MPC500 – ONLY $60 PER MONTH
