Everyone knows I am an urban music lover from way back. Sure I started out from pop origins and moved swiftly into R&B and Hip-Hop when it became much more accessible (and also when I learned to program my radio tuner to 4ZZZ to absolute perfection- thanks Blackbeat and Urban Method.)
I feel I have ventured every possible avenue when it comes to listening to urban music. Sub-Sub Genres such as:
- Pop R&B with SWV or TLC
- New Jack Swing with Teddy Riley and all of his groups
- harmonic R&B with Boyz II Men and En Vogue
- gospel R&B with Take 6 and Michelle Williams
- real gospel with Kirk Franklin
- gangsta rap with Snoop and Tha Dogg Pound
- love rap with LL Cool J
- crazy f*%ker rap with Lil Jon
- spanish tinged rap with Pitbull
- reggaeton with Daddy Yankee
- Aussie rap with Hilltop Hoods and Vents
- East Coast drug rap with Jay-Z
- fighting with self, God and Devil rap with DMX
- funny and upbeat rap with Outkast
- odd but entertaining rap with Tech N9ne
- sweet R&B rap with Ja Rule and Ashanti (yeah, I know, revoke my urban card)
- neo soul with Maxwell
- Fob rap & R&B with Che Fu and Scribe
- real woman soul with Jill Scott
- white girl soul with Joss Stone
- reggae tinged rap with Busy Signal
- weird soul with Erykah Badu
- breathy R&B with Ciara
- intelligent rap with Mos Def and Talib Kweli
- comedy rap with Weird Al Yankovic
Having listed all those, I know I have a come long way and for me to still enjoy urban music, I am having a somewhat of a hiatus from the urban music genre (and those affiliated) for the time being.
Please take note: I don’t hate the music or the artists.
But I have grown really bored of the same old, same old. I visit a CD store every now and again and whenever I browse the urban music section, it is the same boring albums over, each visit.
Online, every 2nd post on tag surfer here on WordPress, is of the same bloody track! The week Kanye’s “Amazing” vid went up, every 2nd, 3rd and 4th post was posting the same thing.
I can barely find anything new and groundbreaking. If I was a talent scout, I’d really be re-thinking my choice of career ‘cos all people seem to want in urban music is the same shite recycled and remixed. Remember my post a while back when I cut Busta Rhymes off from my listening ‘cos I was so pissed that all these shitty remixes kept dropping from Arab Money. Then the album finally dropped and I’m less than impressed. (Fancy puttin’ effin’ Estelle on a song that sounded awesome in its first rendition but with her on it, sounds like a tone deaf and bored accountant about to slit her throat with a paperclip… stupid bloody decision that was. Wanker.)
Sorry for that quiet rambling, like I said, unimpressed to say the least.
Until I really find some urban music that changes the world, that is not a complete rip-off, auto tuned/vocoded, that actually says something, I have better things to listen to. (To be fair and honest: Mos Def and artists of the same will still stay gettin’ play counts…)
I really hope something changes soon. Music isn’t supposed to be stagnant yet most urban music artists are happy to stay where they are and not try anything new. It is a shame that talent cannot or does not want to be a moving force behind life and changing it for the better.
I guess urban music is a damn party. And I am temporarily removing myself from the guest list.
Take me home, Driver.
Urban music has suffered the same fate pop music ran headlong into; that being the producers/record company execs/artists have found a formula that works, and they dare not deviate from the path lest they suffer the loss of $success. Hey, A+B+C=$$$$$, don’t mess with the formula. Rinse, cycle, repeat. What they don’t realise is that the urban artists/groups who paved the way for their success did so by NOT sticking to the formula. They broke ground not by going A+B+C, but by thinking ‘Hey, what if we try A+C+D, or B+C+A. And it worked. Case in pointfor the rinse/cycle/repeat formula: nearly every Timbaland song I hear (or one he has produced) sounds pretty much the same, or has the same formula running through it (to me, anyway). Nelly Furtado’s Loose album’s beats could easily be interchanged with Chris Cornell’s Scream album (both have Timbaland’s fingerprints all over them). Same backing beats, throw in his trademark ‘wikky-wikky’ backing vocal, and there you have it, generic formulaic sound, although some would call it his ‘trademark’ sound. I beg to differ. It’s bloody repetitive.
But, as I said before, pop, and rock to some extent (that’s right rock music, you don’t get off scott free either. Don’t even get me started on the state of British music at the moment compared to what it was) has suffered this terminal fate for some time now, eg: Idol.Every Idol winner has the same formula. A+B+C=$$$$(except for Casey Donovan, A+B+C=$0. Oh SNAP!) Listen to any of the top 40 radio stations, and there is no discernable difference between any of them, except for their station ID’s.Urban (and I say this with no malice) it seems just turned up late to the party.
Better late than never, they say. Some would have probably prefered never.
The state of urban music, and your party reference, made me think of the Peeping Tom song ‘Mojo’, and a line from it:
‘It’s my party, but I’m waiting for someone to start it’
I’m pretty pleased with the music I am listening to at the current time- Muse, Paramore, my old faves- Disturbed, Richard Cheese, Korn, The Chariot. Huge differences from what I was listening to. BTW, I liked the Chris Cornell album (bought the whole album) but yeah, way overdone- Timbaland spent that much time on it and it still sounded like Shock Value 2 or Loose? I think he may have made Chris lose his way, big time. I’m way over Timbaland’s signature sound. I think that formula was B+A+D=Casey Donovan status!
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