rap
Rhythm and Poetry; rap music is a genre centered around speaking truth to power with style.
To Pimp a Butterfly
It was early 2015 and the country was dealing with civil unrest and still is. However one rap album proved to be a huge positive turning point for the culture and the whole world. It was Kendrick Lamar’s third studio album To Pimp a Butterfly released on March 15, 2015. His lyricism throughout shows the everyday frustrations of black people in America, the current state of politics, police brutality and dealing with depression. I was in my freshman year of high school when it came out and everybody I knew was listening to it and any of my classmates who were black could relate to the album and the messages it brings. With a mixture of jazz rap, conscious rap and soul, it changed how hip hop is viewed especially in the eyes of the older and younger generations. It was after a life changing trip to South Africa that inspired the lyrics to all the songs. The first track “Wesley’s Theory” talks about black people should be educated more about managing money and to be careful when achieving success, and the title refers to actor Wesley Snipes’ arrest for tax evasion in 2008. The following track “For Free” speaks from his perspective as a black man who feels that he is being exploited by those in charge and repeats that he is not free. The third track and coincidentally third single “King Kunta” talks about dealing with the negative stereotypes and the use of ghostwriters and the title refers to Kunta Kinte from Roots. “Institutionalized” describes the institutional discrimination black people go through involving a friend wanting to steal from others. The Grammy winning single “These Walls” has a double meaning of a woman’s walls and the walls within a prison cell. The narrator details having sex with the girlfriend of the man who killed one of his friends as a way of revenge while the man is imprisoned for the crime and he is trapped behind the walls while the narrator is on the outside. “U” details how he felt about losing his friends and he berates himself harshly for it. The fourth single “Alright” became a summer hit and an anthem for social and racial justice especially when the Black Live Matters movement and protests against police brutality and the deaths of unarmed black people at the hands of police officers had come into play. It instantly became one of the best songs of the 2010s and won two Grammys. “How Much a Dollar Cost” describes an encounter the narrator has with a homeless person who asks him for a dollar, but he refuses. At the end the person reveals to be God and not giving him a dollar cost the narrator a spot in Heaven. “Complexion (A Zulu Love)” which features Rapsody is a love letter to black people with different complexions and it tackles the subject of colorism from different points of view. “The Blacker the Berry” is a highly profound protest song that is similar to “Alright” but in a much darker tone. He talks about loving his heritage and where he came from, but refers to himself as a hypocrite because he felt that he had not done enough when several black people were killed by police officers, which led to protests across the country and he felt that no better than those who are filled with hate. The Grammy award winning single “i” showcases the love he has for himself and how he wants to unite people and he does so with a spoken word poem after a fight broke out. The final track “Mortal Man” details his trip to South Africa and wonders if his fans would still be on his side, followed by clips of an interview from his idol, the late rapper Tupac Shakur. This album proved to be one of the best rap albums winning a Grammy and it is still relevant today.
By Forest Green12 months ago in Beat
Your Music, mysoundMusic's Mission
Why Independent Playlists Matter: The Truth Behind Spotify's Playlist System As artists, we all know how important playlists are to gaining exposure and growing an audience on Spotify. But if you've ever found yourself frustrated by how your music isn’t getting the visibility you expected, you're not alone.
By mysoundMusicabout a year ago in Beat
2014 Forest Hills Drive
2014 Forest Hills Drive was released by J. Cole as his third recorded studio album on December 9, 2014. There were no features on the album as he was the only one performing on all thirteen tracks but he was not the only producer. I was a teenager when this album came out and it played a huge crucial part of my life at the time. I remember hearing the singles from the album on the radio at night before I went to bed and sometimes in the morning. J named the title after the house he had lived in with his family as a child in Fayetteville, North Carolina which is not that far away from where I lived as a teenager. Eventually he had bought the house years later after he had left for New York and it was put on foreclosure. Those events were brought up in the first verse of the first single “Apparently” where he mentions moving to New York to attend college while his family stayed in Fayetteville and the events that happened during his time there while the house went on foreclosure and how he thanks his love ones for everything and wished things could have been different. Then we jumped into the second single “Wet Dreamz” where he posed as the narrator of the song and described his first love which was more than puppy love. My first thought was that anybody has this type of feeling when it comes to falling in love for the first time and the feeling of losing virginity later on. The video that came with it shows two puppies that strongly represented the puppy love symbolism and it reminded me of the times I fell in love. The third single “No Role Modelz” strongly details his feelings on how black love had changed over the past couple of decades, there is not enough role models as much and the women that he had crushed on have grace but are much older but the ones on reality shows are shallow and have no role models of their own. The song in a way actually proves a point when it comes to reality shows portraying them in a very negative light in comparison with sitcoms and movies that showed love in the truest form. The fourth single “Love Yourz” tells the listeners how they should enjoy and love the life that they have as the lives of others around them are not as better as they expected. “Fire Squad” describes how he feels how a white artist is treated and how a black artist is treated. An example he states is when rapper Macklemore won the Grammy for Best Rap Album for The Heist which caused an uproar as he won over the other artists who were black. He also raps that he would have to try to show a smile if Iggy Azalea won the award next. The song did sit well with those who mentioned but it was not to be seen as malicious. Then there is the track “G.O.M.D.” which stands for “Get Off My Dick” and the lyrics focuses on the challenges that black people deal with on a daily basis and the video shows him portraying a house slave living in a plantation and he leads a group of other slaves into a uprising against the white slave owners and it ends with a dance around a bonfire. Overall I consider it one of the best albums released literally in the last decade and it played a significant part during my high school years and I could not imagine it in any other way. It was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Album in 2016 and it remains beloved by fans and critics.
By Forest Greenabout a year ago in Beat
CHOZIN: The Power of Resilience
Chozin is not just an artist; he’s a living embodiment of resilience, strength, and the power of belief. His path to becoming a musical force in the industry is far from ordinary. It’s a story of overcoming life’s most brutal challenges, of fighting against seemingly insurmountable odds, and finding a renewed sense of purpose through music.
By mysoundMusicabout a year ago in Beat
