i loved rap. my mom and dad hated the ‘glorification of ghettos’ that rap implanted into my young and impressionable head. why do you like to listen to people talking about bitch this, fuck that, shoot you in the face, fuck fuck fuck. it really was gold hearing my parents mimic cypress hill and nwa.
nobody over 23 years old knew who lords of the underground, blackmoon, pete rock, south central cartel, masta ace, or a tribe called quest were. these groups were huge, but huge within in a small demographic. at least they were in my local suburban high school world.
flash forward to today, they renamed rap to hip hop and made eminem and 50cent international superstars. i’ve been to technology seminars where 50 year old men in suits talk about downloading the latest 50cent songs off the net. wft? only 10 years prior i was being grounded for buying rap crap with parental advisory stickers for uncensored lyrics.
rap was what i liked, it was cool. hearing witty rhymes, the creative use of words, and of course the raw emotion that rappers conveyed drew me in. my friends liked rap too, but i don’t think they liked it as much as i did. i wanted my driver’s license solely for the fact that i could go to wherehouse music stores and dig through used cd sections
each rapper had his own style, each producer left a fingerprint on his beats, and each album has a nostalgic feel to it.
i liked rap so much, that i’d get home from school as soon as possible in order to catch rap city, on b.e.t. i’d tape the music videos on vhs tapes and share with my friends. if we only had broadband internet and p2p filesharing back when i was 14 years old, i would have been glued to my computer. ha, i currently am glued to my computer.
the music videos directly affected how i felt about the songs. some music videos were so fun, so magical, and so memorable that i would grow an affinity to the song. i’d play the song and remember the video in my head. i’d relive how cool i thought it was (example: dr. dre’s nothin’ but a g thang i wish i was in that video! bow wow wow yippie yo yippie yay.)
some songs were opposite. i’d like the song, watch the video, and start to dislike the song. i.e. wu tang clan’s m.e.t.h.o.d. man, they could have done so much better, and i’m not knocking the lowbudget. it was just a poor vid.
i’ve come to love videos with music. not just music videos, all video with music over it.
almost every movie has that scene in it. i call it the music scene. it’s the part of the movie where time goes really fast, things happen. it’s not just a song with a scene, its many quick scenes. daniel san learns karate, two people get to know eachother, the team starts playing many different games and starts winning. sometimes it’s just a slow motion walk from the club to the car like in swingers, etc. these scenes are what i live for. that and electronics =)
i have done some stabs at video editing and such, and plan to stab more and more. imagine that ‘reeeh reeeeh reeeh’ sound and the motion made famous by alfred hitchcock.
songs resurface the memories you have tied to them. if that song was used over an awesome bit of video, then that memory of the video will resurface when you hear the corresponding song. i recently watched a movie that i can’t stop talking about, survive style 5. it’s japanese, yet uses the cake song ‘i will survive’, in a musical scene. after watching the video with that song playing, i immediately felt a need to hear that song again. a song i didn’t really like, is now marked with five stars on my itunes playlist.
i look forward to making more of these video audio treats that i appreciate so much. i hope you are too.
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