Vince Staples Interviewed by Tyler the Creator

I've listened to two interviews this week - one with Ryan Adams on Marc Maron's podcast WTF and one with Vince Staples on Tyler the Creator's show - and I was blown away at the honesty and matter-of-fact voice that these two guys had with their hosts.

I've written a ton about my love of Vince Staples over the years, and his insight into his world and rap and artistry is very interesting and certainly worth your time. It's a little hard to hear some of Tyler's questions because apparently he forgot how a microphone works or can't listen to the headphones on his head, BUT Staples' answers almost barely need a question because whatever he says is compelling. I did not feel like watching all 33 minutes at 1130 at night, but I couldn't turn it off. Needless to say, I'm very interested to hear his next album as it was apparently inspired by incessantly watching American History X, one of my favorite movies of all time, and trying to provide a landscape based on the feelings he got from that movie. I imagine it'll be pretty dark with maybe a little light at the end of the tunnel. So take a look below if you're so inclined.

There's a strange parallel here with all the "fake news" bullshit that's getting peddled by Agent Orange (who I will say brilliantly turned the actual fake news into a bad word to use against the liberals and succeeded in doing so): artists themselves seem to view the Pitchfork's of the world and all the blogs as fake news to a degree. I say this because they are barely ever forthright in interviews with these publications. I've never read an article on Vince Staples where he speaks as honestly as he does on Tyler's show. So why is that? 

I assume it's about trust and manipulation. I assume Vince trusts Tyler since they've known each other for a while and Vince assumes that Tyler is not trying to manipulate what he says to exploit him for page clicks and money. Instead, he's doing it to create a dialogue.

I can't chastise the Pitchfork's and Stereogum's for trying to make money, but any music fan can clearly see that the good articles on artists are those artists that have no publicity and therefore need a platform to speak so they'll speak honestly. Otherwise, people don't want to be used as headline bait to turn a thousand bloggers into pissed off Twitter trolls who turn the popular consensus against the artist. It's not worth it and many times it will happen beyond their control.

Pitchfork and Stereogum (and almost every other blog for that matter, so please don't think I'm just trying to pick on them AND YES I KNOW ALERT - I am aware that all I do is repost shit for people to see, read, and hear, but I am getting paid nothing for any of this and do it purely because of my love for art and joy of doing it all and the small bit of hope that I get thinking a few of you enjoy listening and reading this blog, AND I get a few brownie points because I do have some original writing and pictures so it's not ALL plagiarized) have turned into regurgitated news that they aren't creating but instead reposting from other sources with click-baity headlines.

Every once in a while we'll get a long form article which can be great. And I have no idea about the economics of this all, but I imagine the writers get paid barely nothing and a few people at the top are making good money and doing so because they've pushed out artistry and demanded clicks and shit that most of the writers feel terrible having to write about. People got to make a living, but i think the lesson is it hurts the artist from helping create a dialogue - like the things Staples is saying here - to a wider audience. Granted, this Staples interview has 400k views so the message is getting across, but I still think if the trust was there between artists and music blogs/publishers, the dialogue would be better. 

SO instead of revealing themselves to fake music news blogs, these artists turn to their own mediums and people of trust to speak honestly. At least that's what I'm gathering because I was blown away with the uncensored stuff Vince Staples was saying. And I was amazed at how open and easygoing Ryan Adams was about his whole life in his interview with Marc Maron.

So with all that being said, yes, Agent Orange, fake news is real.

Enjoy:

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 66

I just started watching the Grammy's and have seen Adele stop her performance because admittedly she sounded off (she started over again) and Chance the Rapper win for Best Rap Album. It was awesome to see Chance win the award considering Coloring Book was a mixtape and never released on any record label. To the indie artists!

Tribe also had an awesome performance dedicated to "Agent Orange" and played their anthem "We the People," a reminder that despite the hate and division that is created, we the people - all the people - will always stand strong and resist the power to divide.   

Anyways, it's the start of the music year and there's a ton of albums slated to come out in 2017 as detailed at Pitchfork and Steregum. My list of most anticipated albums within the lists:      

1. Fleet Foxes
2. Arcade Fire
3. Vampire Weekend
4. Grizzly Bear
5. Haim
6. LCD Soundsystem
7. Vince Staples
8. Phoenix
9. Drake
10. Father John Misty
11. Lorde
12. St. Vincent
13. The War on Drugs
14. Gorillaz
15. Dirty Projectors
16. Jenny Lewis
17. Beck
18. Mac Demarco
19. Alvvays

So a whole lot of amazing stuff to look forward to and certainly could be an incredible year. 

Anyways, enjoy some new music, particularly the stuff from Sampha, whose new album continues to grow on me. And I know the song from John Mayer is a super John Mayer song, and I kind of sighed the first time I heard it. But guess what? I'm still listening to it, singing that chorus, because it's damn catchy. So don't feel bad if you like it too. Finally, I love Vince Staples and his new track is getting me very excited for a new album. Everything he's making is gold.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 49

Can the start get any better than these first two tracks from The Mystery Lights? I still haven’t fully inhaled the whole record, but this is one hell of a start to an album.

I think Vince Staples has earned the crown of best not-totally-mainstream rapper. His debut Summertime ’06 was dark and hypnotic with a forced restraint like a shadow trying to scream. This guy should not be slept on. “All Nite” is one of my favorites he’s released to date.

I heard “Controlla” by Drake on a patio in Croatia overlooking the turquoise Adriatic Sea with mountains beckoning ahead and a beer in hand, and I was in such a chill mood that I realized how great this song was. I had never really listened to it before. It’s amazing how your circumstances dictate how your ears' hear. 

Drake’s Views has been critically panned as his worst album, a self-centered album entirely too long (20 tracks!). I think critics are just starting to hate Drake because he’s become too big for his own good. Yeah, the album isn’t his best, and yeah, he constantly talks about his issues, and yeah, who makes a 20 track album?? but I still have 10 of the 20 tracks on the album saved on Spotify, so that’s a pretty good success rate. Forget the critics.

Over a month ago my buddy Sean clued me to the video that later completely blew up the internet of Pharrell Williams’ listening to a student’s (Maggie Rogers) song at NYU (cue to 18:27):

It's so cool to see Pharrell, a legend and a man I place at the top of the list of influential producers since the 90s react in such genuine appreciation and astonishment at her talent. 

P.S. if you didn’t know Pharrell produced the following track at the tender age of 19:

WELL NOW YOU DO. AND ENJOY YOUR WEEK!

The Silent Majority

As with all things, the Internet has helped to flatten hip-hop — more artists and styles are available to more people, obscurity is a relic, subcultural allegiance can quickly become pop fandom.

- Jon Caramanica, "Vince Staples and J. Cole, Outsiders in the Middle of Hip-Hop," New York Times, July 9, 2015.

Years ago, there were severe categorizations of rap that artists rarely overcame - Talib Kweli and Common preached conscious rap, Dilated Peoples' and People Under the Stairs worked the underground, Nas, Biggie, and Jay-Z as the kings of gangsta rap on the East Coast, and Tupac, Dr. Dre, and Snoop sat on their throne out West. No one really veered outside of their lane. But now, Caramanica interestingly argues, the highway of rap has no lanes, and artists take whichever route they want. Drake, for example, is "an omnivore and a chameleon who never met a target demographic he couldn’t appease, or an Instagram post for which a lyric of his wouldn’t make the perfect caption. He’s post-region, post-era, post-ideology, post-genre." It's the post-label era of rap.

In this post-label era, we have a mix of musicians, such as Kendrick Lamar, Vince Staples, and J. Cole, who despite selling a lot of albums "have been largely shut out of hip-hop's celebrity class" because they don't particularly cater to the ostentatious and moneyed. But by creating music their own way, these guys are being rewarded financially and critically for it. "Their staunch commitment to traditionally underground sentiment has turned out to be lucrative," Caramanica writes, "and also necessitates a rethinking of where hip-hop’s current center of power and influence actually resides."

Kendrick Lamar is one of the highest selling artists in rap, selling upwards of 2 million records from his last two albums, yet he has never had a single in the Billboard Top 10. He's come nowhere close to that with any track on his new album. This is a plus for those like me that devalue singles and hits and place more emphasis on the originality and genuineness of an album and artist. Listen to Vince Staples arresting and ominous debut album, Summetime '06, and you will not hear one hit single; instead, you'll hear an album delicately prepared and exquisitely rapped. You'll hear a story and picture life in the eyes of a man expressing himself for himself and not the money or fame.

Although Caramanica's article speaks only of rap, the Internet has helped to flatten all music to provide more artists and styles to more people. Obscurity is a relic across all genres and the underground can become pop within days. The ubiquitous presence of music in our lives is a fortunate byproduct of technology. I can listen to a teenager in Ireland writing somber melodies, an artist from Atlanta creating strange and incomparable rap, a singer/songwriter composing orchestral anomalies, and any other millions of songs, some terrible, some inspiring, all from my couch. If it wasn't for Spotify, I would never have started this blog and certainly could not have listened to 101,976 minutes of music in 2014.

This democratization of music, the ability to hear almost anything in the world with the stroke of a few buttons, has eliminated anonymity. Even more important, the ability to create music is easier than ever. If someone is truly an amazing talent, he or she won't die undiscovered. That's not possible anymore. It's refreshing to know that brilliance will be discovered but also odd that our unknown musical geniuses are fossils buried in plots around the world.

The majority of music is now out there for consumption, silent and undiscovered for hours, days or months, instead of years or lifetimes. Technology, for all its pro and cons, has brought music and artists to our doorstep.

Knock, knock.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 12

Today's mixtape focuses solely on rap. And if we're talking recent rap, it has to start with Vince Staples debut album, Summertime '06, released last week. It's gotten a lot of love, and it's nice to see a rookie making his space in the world of Kanyes and Drakes. "Street Punks" should have given some credit to Pharrell and The Clipse - that muffled bass drum echoes just like "Grindin'." Like most of his other tracks, the sparse beats leave a ton of space for Staples to find himself.

Speaking of Drake, he just won't disappear from my mixes! He's the modern music Midas, making great music prolifically on both his own tracks and the songs he's featured on. These are all features by Drake, but he makes the tracks.

"CoCo" is a completely ridiculous song. But when the Warriors won the NBA Finals, I was in a bar surrounded by locals going crazy, and amidst the chaos, the bar blasted their Warriors anthem, "CoCo." Everyone started dancing, bobbing their heads, and singing along. A memorable moment and a song that will forever remind me of the Dubs winning the title!