COLUMN: '17776' and '20020' give the escapism we need
It feels like the life I've been living through is a dystiopian novel sometimes.
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It feels like the life I've been living through is a dystiopian novel sometimes.
For all their faults, I still love Gorillaz. I've talked about my problems with the use of cartoons to showcase their songs before, but this time I'm going to be addressing the musicians behind the songs, Damon Albarn and Remi Kabaka Jr., directly.
It seems kind of pointless to worry about hip-hop detractors. Hip-hop and rap are the reigning kings of the music industry at the moment, pulling in money and listeners like none other and has reached a global audience. Hip-hop is the biggest thing in the music world. But growing up, just a bit before hip-hop and rap became what they are today, I heard the common adage "I listen to anything but rap."
I've never seen a case of people missing the point as badly as the rise of "stan culture." For the uninitiated, "Stan" is a 2000 song from Eminem, which depicts the titular character having an unhealthy obsession with a fictionalized Eminem, to the extent that Stan kills his pregnant girlfriend and himself. "Stan" was used to describe diehard fans of a given celebrity, as the song told a tale of a fan whose devotion led to their downfall. But now it's worn as a badge of pride by said fans.
Do the members of the band Gorillaz count as celebrities? The group has its own extensive history with members changing, fights occurring and tragic backstories — but it's all fiction. The Gorillaz don't exist, they're cartoons. Yet they have a Grammy award.
I don't know who composed most of my favorite songs. It's a quick search away, and I have some educated guesses, but for the most part who composed them is irrelevant – it's all about who performed them.
Kanye West is a man mired in controversy who always does whatever he can to stay on the precipice of pop culture, always trying to make another headline.
I, like many others, rejoiced when R&B artist SZA released new music earlier this month. It was the first song with her leading the vocals since 2017, which was long overdue. It made me think back to SZA’s first album. My immediate reaction to it was, "This ain't Wu-Tang. What is this?"
Spotify's statistics show I mostly listen to jazz and hip-hop, which doesn't come as a surprise. What did come as a surprise was, given my taste of music, the musicians I listen to are primarily white. If I had listened to mostly pop or rock I wouldn't even question it, but this observation left me with a strange feeling and even more questions.
I've been muttering the hook "There's some whores in this house" to myself ever since I first heard "WAP" by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, and for good reason. The two artists have enjoyed a huge amount of success from the single, with it remaining in the No. 1e spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks. That's no small feat either, considering the large amount of backlash the song has gotten.