Music Musings: Part I

Warning: Long read ahead

I can't sleep, if you can't tell by the number of posts within the last hour or so, so I'm going to write about music, splitting it into two parts.

Part I: Where My Fellas At?
I don't know if I just haven't been looking under the right rocks, turning the wrong corners, or just walking right by, but with the exception a few artists like Wale and Anthony David, I haven't found any new male artists that have caught my attention as of late. I have, however, found several female artists who I think have potential to expand and become huge hits.

Something I feel that is limiting male artists from growing is this their egos and feeling the need to fit into mainstream. In the hip hop/rap industry, all of these young bucks (no pun intended..or was it???) feel like they need to either be gangster, ballin', or lyrical. I have issues with each of these 'requirements.' With the way hip hop is now, people aren't interested in gangster music at all. Hip Hop has gone into its 'disco era' where everyone just wants to dance. 50 Cent and G-Unit dropped their sophomore G-Unit group album earlier in July. Did you even know it came out?

Flossin', being iced out, ballin', or whatever you want to call it is unoriginal and gets boring, just like gangster rap. Unless you're Jay-Z and you can talk about buying professional sports teams (NY Yankees soon to be added to that list?), selling clothing companies for $204 million cash, signing a $150 million record contract, making over $21 million on tour, or be in Bill Gates' retirement video, flaunting your cash and diamonds around your neck gets played out quickly. Did I mention it's also boring? Most of these rappers can't even afford all of the things they have in music videos and just rent out cars, chains and girls. But even when you're someone like Jay-Z, we still grow tired of hearing about it. Look at one reason why his Kingdom Come album didn't do so well: He had no substance or variance in topics. With the exception of one or two tracks, he just talked about having money. Note: Regardless of this, I'm still a huge Jay-Z fan, and I give him a free pass on this issue because of it :)

Switching gears and moving into the R&B/Pop scene..When boybands were big you would hear them praise their woman all the time. Then the boyband era died. Until Robin Thicke came out with his sophomore album, you would rarely hear anyone acknowledge not only did they needed their girl, but were proud of having her by his side and her accomplishments. R&B and pop is filled with love songs, breakup and cheating songs, but you don't hear the other sides of the story coming from men often. Women on the other hand, have been talking about both sides ever since the beginning. We would hear tracks about a woman both needing and not needing a woman. You would hear about wanting a man with dignity and self respect, not just money and looks and you would hear tracks about a woman being proud of her man as a husband and father. Just because you're a male doesn't mean you can't break out of the R&B or hip-hop mold and show your sensitive side.

Jumping back to hip hop, not many artists are able to come through with original ideas lately. With the exception of people like The Cool Kids talking about bikes, Lupe Fiasco talking about zombies, child rebel soldiers, blood diamonds and clothing, and a few others who I'm too lazy to get into right now, hip hop currently doesn't have much substance.

After Nas proclaimed 'Hip Hop Is Dead,' numerous people sought out to prove him wrong. Kanye came out and beat 50 Cent by a landslide, selling just under a million copies in the first week. Jay-Z proved he's still a threat with American Gangster, Lupe Fiasco showed up with a near perfect Cool album, Common found Forever, making timeless music, and Talib Kweli made you Listen!!! with Ear Drum. These, along with several others made their attempts to disprove Nas' statement. With these established artists coming hard, a new wave of mainstream artists attempted to follow. People like Flo-Rida, Young Berg, Lil Boosie and others tried to bring the 90's back, when mainstream hip hop had some lyrical talent. But just because you can spit a 16 filled with more words than this post doesn't mean you a 'lyrical MC.' There are a few possibilities: 1) You're just making wordy rhymes that don't actually go anywhere or say anything, or 2) You don't know how to shorten your 16's into 8's, and cut out the bullshit and get your point across. I do give them props for trying, and not going the Soulja Boy route though. (Not to say I don't give him props, but he gets them for different reasons)

These aren't the only issues with artists, but I feel they're some of the bigger ones. With all of this being said, I feel that the issue of male artists not knowing how to project themselves, (and the over saturation of artists caused by everyone and their 2 year old brother thinking they can become a music artist) is limiting the men in the industry and they need to step their game up by stepping outside of the white line. Let go of the rope that's guiding you and make your own style and image. Women like Estelle are bringing some flavor over from the UK and spicing up pop/R&B with their own unique twist. Janelle Monae comes with an amazing voice, raw talent and vivid imagery illustrated into her songs, creating a whole story out of her Suites. Santogold is mixing up jazz, rock, R&B, pop, electronica all into one melting pot of original styles. Jazmine Sullivan is an upcoming R&B/Reggae artist bringing unique ways of presenting the same old love songs, in a deep and meaningful manner. Finally Karina Pasian is 16 At War, showing off an amazing voice that even has Alicia Keys taking notice, singing about mature topics, but not so mature that they don't fit her style and age. Not only are these girls giving the 'queens' like Alicia Keys and Mary J Blige a run for their money, but separating themselves from the rest of the crowd by creating their own new sound and style. Maybe I'll write something bout each of them later..but not tonight.

I don't think this post makes much sense..and I realize i didn't go in-depth into any of these female artists I'm feeling right now, but I'm tired and i want to sleep. Maybe I'll do that later. Actually, I'll probably re-read this post later on and edit/delete it, depending on what I think of it when I'm actually awake.

Up Next: Breaking into the hip-hop and R&B industry and why it's hard for new R&B artists to succeed.