“…The label of “conscious rap,” in many ways has devolved into an elitist tool to divide and reward/punish. The phenomenon that stems from that is that we reward those artists who think of social justice on a highly intellectual level, but neglect, or even punish, the thoughts of artists who find themselves rapping about the violent sub-culture that penetrates our inner cities everyday…” – Jashua Smith
Today I came across this read that posed a very interesting question. Understanding the residual power of any form of spoken word, it is my opinion that conscious rap will ever be an outdated concept. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then the lesson is certainly in the ear of he who actually listens. The following piece does a nice job of examining the question from a several vantage points.
“Google, Universal to Launch Music Hub ‘Vevo’ (from Wired.com, April 2009)
Vevo will launch later this year, a collaboration between Universal Music Group and Google the partners expect to be the leading music video service in the world from day one.
Google confirmed to Wired.com Thursday that all of Universal Music Group’s video assets (music videos, interviews, concert footage and possibly Kyte-style backstage video) will live on Vevo, and that YouTube — and eventually, AOL, MTV and Yahoo — will embed Universal’s videos from Vevo rather than licensing the content directly from the labels.
Although terms of the deal were not disclosed, Google’s licensing worries with Universal are over. The label will be satisfied with its share of revenue from Vevo, YouTube and wherever else these videos end up — plus the control it will have over the Vevo service.
In the end, this is another in a string of deals in which major labels have sued a social media network, settled, licensed, then gained equity in the service (imeem, MySpace and now YouTube).”
When we (as artists) put it on the line and make music to be absorbed by the listener, there is always a deep-seeded aspiration to make history one day. For that reason I look forward to the product that these two are cookin up. Peep it…
“The sequel to Raekwon’s much-loved 1995 solo debut picks up as if no time has passed. He’s still rhyming about cocaine deals, hustlers and urban menace, which makes for an elevated degree of difficulty since a song about the production of crack (“Pyrex Vision”) should not only be impotent in 2009, but deservingly so.”
“The Vatican has released its list of favorite songs for MySpace’s new streaming service MySpace Music, which launched today (December 3).
Surprisingly, one of the 12 tracks is Tupac Shakur’s song “Changes,” which was released in 1998 on Shakur’s Greatest Hits album, which was released in 1998.”
“…Fortunately Lala’s real potential stems from its integrated media player and your web library (which looks a lot like iTunes, but in the cloud). At the top of the screen is a music player that will continue playing whatever song you listen to, no matter where you navigate on the site. And you’ll have lots of content to play: users will be able to play any song on the site’s massive catalog in its entirety exactly one time free of charge. The limitation sounds restrictive at first, but it costs only 10 cents to buy a “web song” – giving you the ability to stream that song as many times as you’d like in the future. And if you decide to buy the normal MP3 later, that 10 cents will go towards your purchase…”
For those looking to upgrade their web presence in the new year, remember these 3 words (and no not the ones Stevie Wonder sang about!) Peep the food for thought in the following article…
(Excerpt)
As designers, we all know that a minimalist design can achieve beautiful results.
Still, many designers have trouble creating one; either they have a hard time making a page with so few elements look good or the final result just doesn’t look “complete.”
There are many articles on the Web about minimalism and this article aims to help you achieve a minimalist design that is beautiful but not bare.
To top it off, we’ll present a small showcase of minimalist designs, so that you can analyze why some designs work and others don’t.
NEW YORK — General Electric Co and Comcast Corp are set to announce a joint venture on Thursday morning that would give the cable company eventual control of NBC Universal in this year’s biggest media deal.
The deal values NBC Universal at about US$30-billion and Comcast’s cable networks at US$7.25-billion, sources familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
The announcement would complete talks between Comcast and GE that began in March, one of the sources said.
For those looking to upgrade their web presence in the new year, remember these 3 words (and no not the ones Stevie Wonder sang about!) Peep the food for thought in the following article…
