"Question Mark Exclamation Point"

solefoodsreal asked: you're a big fag. you have to understand squadda's early/current discography to write an accurate or even reliable review for Back $ellin Crack. Like, honestly who the fuck are you? Do you know anything about Main Attrakionz? Or do you just dick ride whatever you find on blogs and then criticize it for being exactly that?

Today is probably going to be a long day, so let’s get it started off on the right foot with this lovely message, I woke up to this morning. 

First Sentence: really, really?!

Second Sentence: Ha. Ha. Ha. The amount of music that the Main Attrakionz camp—along with their producers—release would preclude that even if I was a huge fan of their work. Saying this again, but most rappers would just be better off with one release in a year, and pushing that instead of flooding the channel with music that only diehard fans will wade through to find the good stuff. Waka Flocka Flame released an amazing album last year, if you were willing to go through the 7 to 8 mixtapes/albums he released last year. Once more: SEVEN to EIGHT all in one year. 

First Question: I am David Turner. I am getting ready to start my Spring Sophomore semester at Elon University. I write about music a lot. I cry a lot, I am now just sort realizing. And I learning more and more about myself as this school year go on. So, shorter: I am a teen living life. Also, love Parks and Rec. 

Second Question: I know Main Attrakionz are rappers; their manager wrote for the really cool blog Space Age Hustle, and I have been never a big fan of their rapping, even though I still love “Legion of Doom”. 

Third Question: TL; DR for this question is: hahaha. But, I’ll give it a bit more than that.

Yes, that is exactly what I do. I mean, will I make up reasons to dislike music, when the music itself gave me enough reasons to not care about it. I still don’t think Main Attrakionz are interesting rap personalities, as they still demonstrate a lack of ability to rap well at all, so of course I am not going to be too positive on their music. And, just to extend this a bit further. At this blog I stopped caring about being timely with music posts well over a year ago, so there are rare cases you won’t find music here that hasn’t been talked about somewhere else. And more importantly, unless I am talking about some pop song or really local rap song, of course I am going to talk about music I found on blogs, because that is the primary way at this point to find out about new music, especially when I am in the middle of North Carolina, not exactly a rap hot bed. 

DUBSTEP! Rihanna with her album Rated R can take credit as one the first US pop star to really have some strong Dubstep influence in their music. Since then, Britney Spears released a pretty good dubstep influenced pop album last year in Femme Fatale and all of the stuff that has happened on this chart has lead to Dubstep being the next big thing people are stumbling over themselves to cover. Last year, I wrote about the slight dubstepiness of “On the Floor” by Jennifer Lopez, and here is a quick update on that idea looking at “Love You Like a Love Song”, “You Da One”, and some general ideas on the Skrillex.

“Love You Like A Love Song” by Selena Gomez is hard to exactly figure out how popular the song truly is, as it came out last summer, but it took some time for it to gain a moderate amount of radio buzz. So, maybe it took some time for the rest of the world to appreciate the bass oddness instead of finding it off putting. It’s a love song about love songs and with an odd pairing of some of the glossiest vocals I’ve heard in a pop song in recent memory with over active bass sounds. But, considering how loose the definition of dubstep has gotten in the last few years that is still enough for music writers (this one included) to say that there is dubstep influence in the song and one of the better ones with roots in pop music to get that distinction.

Dubstep went from something so under-covered in music circles, I’d bet a year ago most music critics would have been asking “What is a Skrillex?” while mocking those people who were saying “Who is Arcade Fire?” after their Grammy victory.  But, where we stand now, dubstep is the music of the young people that must be covered. So, great writers are now wrestling with the music of Skrillex and other more American based Dubstep producers, whose names are usually never mentioned in Dubstep articles, because Skrillex serves to be the head of this second electronic music revolution and conveniently the only one most writers can name.

Not to be too crabby, but when I first heard Skrillex more than a year and half ago I thought he was garbage, so seeing people stumbling over themselves to praise the man is strange to say the least. Which accounts for the name of this article, because early on Dubstep pieces would characterize it as music for bros to mosh out and go crazy to, which while not untrue as people started to pay more attention to the music, it became obvious this was music both genders equally enjoyed. Also, for all of the Grammy nominations and sold out shows that Skrillex will play, the way that dubstep is entering the mainstream is through female artists, who take some dubstep elements are work them into their music far better than Skrillex and his peers (Flux Pavilion, Zeds Dead, Nero, and a the UKF group if you want some other examples of this stuff).

“You Da One” is a weird Rihanna single still trying to find another life to eventually top the charts like so many of her songs have already. Yet, focusing on bass drops in dubstep, quickly loses the fact the drums of most dubstep songs have an instantly recognizable slowed up lurch compared to other more bland four on the floor pound of most pop songs on the radio today. That is the most notable dubstepish part of “You Da One”, as while the bass is noticeable the drum pattern is what gives the anticipation of a bass drop eventually happening, even if it doesn’t really happen. I don’t really enjoy too many Skrillex or Rusko (supposed originator of this Bro-step style) dubstep songs that are heavy on bass drop and not much else, but considering they are probably the reason a songs like “You Da One” or “Love You Like A Love Song” were even considered for a major label means I will begrudgingly accept their place in the world. 

That Wiz Khalifa had one of the biggest rap singles of 2011 with a song called “Roll Up” that was one of the cutest love rap songs instead of an ode to weed reads like a parody rap headline. Produced by Stargate, those quality Swedes who produced Wiz Khalifa’s biggest hit “Black and Yellow” & Rihanna’s great “Only Girl (In the World)”, might account for the fact that the sun-soaked music video and the song would have not sounded out of place on the Disney channel, which instead of being a reason for derision by rappers and rap fan alike, the song should have received more praise for being one of the best rap singles of the year. 

Last year, there had to be some irony lost on people who dismissed Wiz Khalifa major label debut, Rolling Papers, declaring that he sold out instead of sticking with the type of music he had been previously making (I had my problem with the album, but looking back I protested a bit too much against it). Wiz Khalifa for the last few years has primarily only made love songs exclusively about girls and weed; this could be a description of plenty of lesser and better rappers working exclusively in this lane. But by reducing the number of ideas he could be working with, conflict the primary motivation force for so many rappers and for that matter most artists is lost on Wiz Khalifa. Pain or the struggles of life are not topics that ever enter the music of Wiz Khalifa, because why would he want to worry about such bummer things when he has pounds of weed to keep him giddy.

I am sure Wiz Khalifa’s life entails more than smoking weed and having sex, but whenever he mentions girls in his songs all they ever want to do is smoke weed and have sex with him.  The opening song, “Memorized”, from his 2010 breakthrough mixtape Kush and Orange Juice during the chorus goes “These bitches stay memorized, as they recognize I keep it so G.” I am sure this could be describing some girls, but these “bitches” sound an awful like Wiz, as they want to admire his taste and lifestyle, which is essentially the only thing he is selling as a rapper. But, the choice of the word “bitch” seems strange for a dude, who is not describing people he dislikes or hates, because they are essentially him. 

An influence of Snoop Dogg, Max B, or just youth probably accounts for the constant references of women as bitches, but it is more annoying than most cases to hear from Wiz Khalifa, who makes some of the poppiest radio friendly rap music right now. On “Racks (Remix)” he even says to look at this socks, the blonde streak across his hair, and even raps “naps on naps on naps”. When he says “probably some girls that want to fuck a young nigga”, it doesn’t remove the Nickelodeon quality of saying to stare at the gold streak in his black hair. He is bragging that he is doing something different (and easily mocked for it at that), and proud of enough of it to call it out in a song, which is different than the usually rap put down—which Khalifa himself does engage in. It is pretty easy to relate to a guy who brags about the number of naps he takes than the number of girls he is having sex with then ducking afterwards. 

Most rappers use their pain and struggle through their life to motivate their music, whether if it the usual hood-to-mansion story that most rappers run in or even if it is Childish Gambino talking about racial stereotyping affecting his life, but Wiz Khalifa doesn’t really operate in this tradition. There is no pain, strife, or conflict in his music, which makes it far more interesting than an average weed rapper should be. But, this kind of makes sense for this Rap Romantic, who has no need for the street conflict that most rappers never leave and while some might rush to mock Wiz for being “soft” or “weak”, the truth is that adding a pistol and group of a couple dozen hanger-ons doesn’t improve a rapper’s music and it certainly wouldn’t help Wiz Khalifa, who is fine flying planes and drawing his name in the sand with his favorite girl.