http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnba1fKRNZo
I've written about Nujabes in other articles, but never about him directly — he has a distinctive sound, but he doesn't write his lyrics and he doesn't write the instrumentals — he samples. As such, he is a curator; it's easy to attribute the music to him, but it's much easier to look at the individual artist (incidentally, Apani B., who I've never heard of before, absolutely kills it here), and his samples of Gypsy Queen — Part Two and Modesty Blaise (which I guarantee you know), while brilliant for their selection, are nearly unedited; how much credit can I really give him? I love his output, I love the music he puts out, but it's... is it creation? Apani B. wrote the lyrics, which are what I listen to with intention; the instrumentals are large bands full of people, written and arranged and produced by someone else uncredited; what did Nujabes do? Not to say I could do it, but... what work of his can I talk about?
But I do love his choices — his choice of vocalist, his choice of sample — and that's enough, I think. Everything about the creative process is choices. If I praise another artist, it's for their choices — in lyric, instrumentation, all the same. He's just a content aggregator, a modern musician. Perhaps undeserving of the same claims to talent, but certainly not to fame.
Showing posts with label apani b. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apani b. Show all posts
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Friday, March 8, 2013
Sunrise — Shingo Suzuki
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TZy0rBSscA
Perspective — and I write this actively procrastinating a tricky CS125 assignment — is essential. This is why we celebrate, why we talk about our lives to other people, why we escape into fiction.
All music is an international community, whether or not any particular genre likes to admit it. Hip-hop and rap are based especially upon braggadocio, which is unstable in a large perspective. Thus, world music is a distinct genre; international jazz and classical and even rock and pop are normal. But international hip-hop — hip-hop that admits there is a world outside the neighborhood in which it is made — is rare and often phenomenal. Nujabes gets his appeal from being multicultural, a Japanese dude who recorded with American rappers. French hip-hop, like the Shingo song above, serves the same purpose.
Perspective — and I write this actively procrastinating a tricky CS125 assignment — is essential. This is why we celebrate, why we talk about our lives to other people, why we escape into fiction.
All music is an international community, whether or not any particular genre likes to admit it. Hip-hop and rap are based especially upon braggadocio, which is unstable in a large perspective. Thus, world music is a distinct genre; international jazz and classical and even rock and pop are normal. But international hip-hop — hip-hop that admits there is a world outside the neighborhood in which it is made — is rare and often phenomenal. Nujabes gets his appeal from being multicultural, a Japanese dude who recorded with American rappers. French hip-hop, like the Shingo song above, serves the same purpose.
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