Final Blog Post

Our final blog post is located on Christopher Taylor's Blog.

Critical Review, Wald

Wald explains the history and importance of corrido or Mexican ballads. Wald describes the importance of coriddos because of their ability to tell stories about the working class. Corridos acted with a dual purpose of entertaining and speaking to the Mexican people. Corridos also serve the purpose of being able to tell history because it was so similar to literature just put to music. Wald also discusses how corridos died out but eventually came back in to 70's with narcorridos. These narcorridos weren't neccesarily all truthful but still did the purpose of talking about events relevant to the working class. The newer narcarridos were also much better to dance to.

Discussion Question: What do you think has caused corridos to last for as long as they have?

Critical Review, Duany

Duany's describes the roots of salsa music. He starts of describing the historical background of salsa by looking at the origins of Puerto Rican music coming from Spain and West Africa. He then says that Puerto Rican music has many different influences besides those making it a mixture of many different types of music. Duany goes on to describe the signifcance of salsa in New York City and its move there. He then describes salsa through analyzing three specific examples of this genre. He concludes by talking about how the best salsa songs express the struggles experienced by the lower class.

Discussion Question: Why is it that the best songs for most genres seem to express a message of some sort (i.e. salsa and the struggle of the lower class)?

Second Field Notes

For our second set of field notes I decided to continue looking at the most common places people go to for music on the internet. Last set I looked at a video from youtube, this time I took a look at itunes. More specifically I looked at the responses on itunes to the new single by Lil Wayne, Prom Queen. I always find that looking at the itunes users comments, helps me find a wide array of opinions on the same music. For Prom Queen there was no exception, the opinions varied greatly.

Either the comment was completely for the integration of rock or completely against this new type of music. For the most part they were completely against. One comment tilted "People Let it Rock!" said "Foget the weezy...The man is not 17 anymore. Gangsta Rap has turned into commercial pop music. Wayne is trying new things instead of doing the same song over and over. Do it wayne! Let it Rock!". Another comment tilted "OMG!" said " OMG... this is the worst I've heard from him. I used to love this guy. Oh well...all good things come to an end. So sad..." There were over 161 pages of reviews and many of them were very similar to this. The people commenting were either completely disgusted with the new song or highly approving of it. It was interesting to see that there was rarely anybody taking a middle ground on the song.

The other thing I found hard to understand was that Wayne fans prior to this release were denoucing him as an artist and saying they would no longer ever be fans of his music. I'm guessing their dissapointment with his new music overshadowed their favorite music made by him earlier.

The whole debate between Lil Wayne's new album Rebirth fascinated me so I searched the web for more publications around it and landed upon a website that interviewed the co-ceo of Cash Money Records, Baby, about the new album. Through out the interview it seemed like Baby was trying to defend Lil Wayne's new direction of music and how he couldnt understand why it wasn't be well recieved by the public. He also pointed out in the interview how the record was just not rock it was fusion of hip-hop and rock. At the bottom of this article, much like the comments on itunes, there was an endless number of comments on how Lil Wayne had fallen off and how he's terrible now. One person went so far as to say the he took his Carter III CD and threw it out the window after hearing Prom Queen.

Looking at the comments on both itunes and on the article on hiphopdx.com it seems that the general hip-hop community(if such a thing exists) is extremely dissappointed with the direction that Lil Wayne is going with his album Rebirth. I looked at about 8 websites that had message boards pertaining to the new album and 80% of the feedback was very negative. Only very few people approved of what he was doing.

Critical Review, Dudrah

Dudrah's article on British bhangra explains that it is a fuse of traditional bhangra with newer urban black pop music. Dundrah's article also describes how other authors writing on this British bhangra genre stereotype it and make it a lot more simple than it actually is. After explaining other authors' views Dundrah goes on to explain the genre within his own views and it is much more complex than others see it. Dundrah talks about how it is a great way to get together a bunch of different minorties and not just British asians.

Discussion Question: Bhangra seems to be growing in popularity in America little by little with Jay Z's Beware of the Boys and numerous techno mixes containing bhangra. Do you think that bhangra could ever reach a level of popularity in America where it becomes popular on its own, or just something mixed with "American" genres that have similar elements?

Critical Review, Back

Chapter 8 of Back's writing discusses the development of black leisure-spaces in post-war Britain. Back talks about how these clubs and dance-halls became to exist by black ownership because they were not welcome elsewhere. The article also talks about the effect of these leisure-spaces on the social structure for Blacks during the post-war time period. Back then goes on to to talk about the type of music that came about from the development of these gatherings of Blacks.

Discussion Question: Why do you think that music is such an integral and effective tool in bringing large social groups together?

Interview Excerpt

For the interviews Chris Taylor and I decided to interview a self proclaimed rock fan and self proclaimed rap fan in order to get differing views on the new rap/rock combination music. Chris Taylor interviewed the rock fan and I interviewed a rap fan. Here's an excerpt from the my interview with Marques Coleman. He is a Freshman at Brown and considers himself almost an exclusive fan of rap and hip-hop.

Question: Who are your top five favorite rap artists?

My top five rap artists as of now would probably be, in no particular order, Nas, Ludacris, Chamillionaire, Kanye West, and The game.

Question: Are you a fan or do you listen to any rock music of any type? Anything on your itunes?

Yeah I have a little bit of rock on my itunes, basically Linkin Park is the extent of the rock.

Question: How would you describe your clothing style in relation to the music genre that you mostly closely associate yourself with?

Most recently I have been getting away a little from dressing up as a hip-hop follower since I entered college at Brown, but I still think I dress with a little hip-hop, like for instance I wear Air Force Ones and stick to baggy jeans and I also have a Marc Ecko watch. I guess you could describe my clothing style as definitely more urban than anything. It definitely reflects a lot of what some rap artists may wear.

Question: Listening to the two new songs Prom Queen and Hot Revolver by Lil’ Wayne do you like the direction that Lil Wayne is going in?

I do like rap/rock mash ups, but the Lil’ Wayne ones…I wasn’t really feeling at all because it has been so far from what Lil’ Wayne has been. It kind of seemed to me like it was not Lil’ Wayne I wasn’t listening to.

Question: Do songs like these tarnish your image of Lil Wayne?

It doesn’t tarnish his image in my eyes. But since I am a little iffy of what he’s doing I think that next time I hear a Lil’ Wayne song I wont be as obliged to like it right off the bat.

Question: Say if Lil’ Wayne comes out with this all rock/rap combination cd and then after comes out with an all rap album after, will you be a fan again?

Yeah definitely, if Lil’ Wayne returns to what he was doing before he started this type of music I’ll definitely like it.

Question: What about Kanye West, he is obviously gotten away a little from his straight up rap with songs like Heartless and Love Lockdown, what do you think about this?

At first I really didn’t like it all to be honest, but after hearing a lot of them I started to catch on and ended up liking that album. They’re catchy songs.

Question: Based on Prom Queen and Hot Revolver would ever think about purchasing new Lil’ Wayne album?

Not at all.

Question: We listened to a little bit of DJ Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album, what do you think about it?

I don’t have anything against The Grey Album, I liked a few of the songs but its not that appealing to me as a whole.

Question: So you like the original Black Alum by Jay Z better than The Grey Album?

I definitely like the Black Album better.

Question: Like you said the new Lil’ Wayne songs are sort of messing with your opinions of him as an artist ever so slightly, is it the same for the Jay Z songs?

No I think because it was a remix by somebody else and Jay Z wasn’t trying to do it himself it doesn’t change my opinion

Question: Alright say a rap artist has the intention to go over to rock music, no matter how much you like them, would your opinion change of them?

Yeah definitely that move signifies a change in their musical make up to me and definitely would make me rethink my opinion of them.

Question: Alright an all encompassing question, do you think that rap/rock combination music has a place in popular music and is a legitimate genre?

Yeah of course, although it is not all for me I approve of where the genre is going and think it is coming up pretty fast especially with the efforts of Lil’ Wayne and Girl Talk.