‘’Has the internet had an impact on the way music is recorded In Hip Hop?’’

By Asbati Bashir (Wednesday, January 8, 2014)

“If we don’t know where we have been we won’t know where we are going” — Malik Yoba (Actor, C-Walk Volume 1 Documentary)

The internet has played a phenomenally huge role in the growth of spreading music (and especially Hip Hop), by having people of different backgrounds and language barriers enjoy the sonic qualities of songs made by people who have their own twist on what they see as mainstream music. The internet has provided a platform for the general public to choose an alternative area for them to search, study and enjoy the music of their own liking. Millions of people take to the internet to tell the world stories whether they be fact or fiction. The internet has now become our TV news report that we would watch except now there is the power to report whatever you would deem as important. The internet in a better term is a liberator for the individual that does not find mainstream media appealing to their personality. “Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual you have an obligation to be one.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt.

How technological advancements and the internet has empowered individuals:

“Individuals are not in a position to process the immense and always growing mass of information that enters their computers, their cell phones, their television screens their electronic diaries and their heads” -Mark Fisher

Websites such as YouTube allows internet users to watch uploaded videos as well as uploading videos to the internet for others to watch. An individual at home now has the same power as television producers, editors, and screenwriters as well as being the viewer. The once upon a time question children used to ask whether people “lived in the television” will be a different question in this era of the internet. Individuals now have taken it upon themselves to use video streaming channels such as YouTube and Vimeo for entertainment, health, financial, social and educational purposes. An example of this is where Grammy award winning Hip-hop producer 9th Wonder, who happens to be a professor at the University of North Carolina, uploads his lectures onto YouTube for others who are not his students to get the same information that his students are receiving. 9th Wonder also has a YouTube channel under the name of his music group “It’s a wonderful world music group” where he takes the liberty of interviewing himself as well as the artists within his own record label ranging from vocal artists to record producers. Thanks to the internet and the advancement of technology the everyday person is able to buy quality DSLR cameras to produce quality videos. Education has now allowed people to utilize these advancements making it easier for a person to come up with the same things that major record labels use in order to advertise their products. In fact it places the person in a position of advantage.

In the early 2000s before the birth of video streaming websites, in the genre of Hip-hop anything that was not reported in the news or newspapers, had to be found out through alternative means. There were two main ways to know what was going on outside of the billboard charts. The first means was magazines such as “The Source” or “XXL” and “Vibe Magazine” and street DVD’s or DVD Magazines such as “Smack DVD”, “Cocaine City”. Where an individual or an independent production house would follow artists and document them for people to see. In these DVD’s they would gather a montage of many different elements that are around individual artists that were either famous already or soon to be famous which would help the general public know who they should look out for. The other means that came about later were Hip-Hop blogs where artists and their fans together could come into better contact with one another.

An individual in the past would have had to put in extensive effort and would probably have to be within a tight circle to gather the same information that is now being put on the internet for free by people in positions in industries, who were not visible behind the scenes when watching a television screen. Thanks to video streaming websites individuals can now learn techniques in a moment that previously took people years to learn. This now means information that once would have been called ‘sacred’ and hard to find is now accessible to everyone, to find, learn and use to their own advantage without needing to go to extensive lengths (University, institutions etc.).

The birth of the internet itself is a development of technology, growing from and merging the aspects of radio broadcast, television and telephone all in one. Technology has also advanced with regards to hardware. Telephones are decreasing in size and have the ability to accomplish what in the 80’s would have taken three to four pieces of hardware to do. Now instead of being in a studio which needs sound proofed rooms and heavy equipment that costs thousands of pounds which initially was used to sell multimillion pound records, individuals have the ability to use DAW software on portable laptops and on computers to create the same item.

The birth of video streaming channels has allowed individuals to document how they work and also tell their viewers how to use the equipment or software shown. Video streaming sites have allowed individuals who wish to get into a certain field but do not have sufficient knowledge or the means to get knowledge, help them to learn about what it is they wish to do and allows them to get a deeper look into what they are doing in order to make a good choice or not. The internet has given an opportunity to the customer to have a selection where once upon a time they had no choice or say in what he or she was or would be listening to or watching that day because it was the “main stream”. The same thing that is being aired on the radio and shown on the television in one house is also aired in another house and neither occupants have say in what is being streamed. The internet gives these individuals the choice of what they want to watch or listen to.

“Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign” — Paul Valery

How The internet has become a platform:

“Mass listening habits today gravitate about recognition, What is necessary in order to understand the reason for popularity if the current type of music is a theoretical analysis of the processes involved in the transformation of repetition into a recognition and recognition into acceptance” — Adorno

The internet now being the predominant place where people can express their individualism and broadcast it across the world in a split second has given what television and radio could not give, which is interaction with media. For example with radio and television the information that is being broadcast and presented is already selected by the producers of a select channel. The internet isn’t limited to that because the internet is something an individual must use with a digital computer that can understand, read and carry out tasks using calculations where by the television is a mirror reflecting electrical signals. The computer is a generator whereas the television is a transmitter. Taking into consideration the two different uses of a computer and a television and their abilities, the computer has the advantage in regards to what more it can do for the individual where by the television is more of a machine that can only give you what it receives. Thus every television could air the same stream but that is not the same for a computer; it is customized to the individual using it. What was once a technique used by the television of synchronizing the same information within different households; showing them the same thing as well as pushing advertisements, the internet has allowed the individuals of these homes to do the same thing except that they are not limited to the frequencies that are being used by the television channel; they are connected to any and every computer that is online. Artists that once had nowhere to go because of lack of funding to have their work shown or displayed in front of an audience can now show off their work online and receive a fan base; this has been proven time and time again. Many musicians have risen to fame due to exposure on the internet and social media networks that help the artist to give their fans a closer interaction with them.

Artists like RnB singer Justin Bieber, rapper and show host Timothy DeLaGhetto and Grammy award winning producer Jermaine Dupri have all used YouTube and the internet to help them in their careers. Through the internet and social media networks artists have now become less dependent on the need for major record labels. Record labels that once cared about building their artists from scratch starting from an individual who can mediocrely sing a few notes to a fully-fledged Madonna. This has changed drastically throughout the years. Record labels care about income and artists care more about individualism and their craft. The internet has helped the public eye have more insight into the world of media broadcast and production; you can find anything you want granted you look hard enough. Rather than having to deal with A&R’s record executives and other people who will eventually take a percentage of what the artist is working towards. Individuals on the internet would much rather take the freedom of choice into their own hands and do what they would feel is better for them rather than be a statistic on a pop chart.

How we listen to music has changed:

This platform has solely changed how an individual would be introduced to music due to the fact that there is the option of finding something out .Whereas the television is set to the limits it is already given (e.g. select amount of channels). Previously you would have to wait to hear your favourite song to play on the radio or have a music video with it in order for you to find it. You would have most likely needed to buy the single if you did not want to buy the whole album. Nowadays people can type in the specific song they want and listen to it many times without having to purchase it. Sites like ITunes allow individuals to stream full length albums and songs so that the listener can hear them but in order for him to be able to possess the tracks he is listening to, he would have to purchase the music and then download it. So with the advent of the internet one could say that there would be no need for him to purchase the music that he was listening to. Music over time has become easier to access thanks to the internet and it has also become easier for us to discover music from areas and regions one wouldn’t be able to travel to.

How Musicians have changed over time:

When Soul and Mowtown records were made in the early 70’s instrumentalists would play their part of the song and then the session would then be sent off to another studio most likely in another city where another artist whom has no prior connection to the song on the instrumental would then add his part and the process would be repeated until the song was finished. In this day and age a similar thing has been happening but this time via the internet. People are able to see who they are working with. In this day and age history repeats itself but with a lot more technological advancement. Record producers ranging from bedroom producers to Grammy award winning rapper producer Kanye West has also said that they have made music online over the communication based software “Skype”. YouTube Artists online have made efforts in joining artists not only from different cities but also different regions of the world in what is called a “Cyphers” where artists of the rap background engage in reciting lyrics one after the other and selecting whom shall rap after them. Thus allowing the viewers to see and also be knowledgeable of other independent artists online. The market that was once confined to what we saw in a box in our living room claiming which is the newest hit has now been expanded to an endless possibility where the number at the bottom of the screen will tell you the popularity of what you are watching

Conclusion:

So has the internet mainly changed the way we listen to Hip Hop music and has it also had an impact on the way music is recorded In Hip Hop?

The internet has done a great deal in the advancement and changes in music in general not only the sub -genre of Hip Hop. The internet has changed what we can do with music and also how we interact with our daily lives. In the past a trip to the store was required to purchase music, now it can be sent to us or downloaded by a click of a button. One could argue that because of the internet people do not have the same spirit and drive as those before them; current technological advancements make things easier for an individual. The birth of the internet has not only changed how we see and perceive things outside but also how we view things inside our homes. As opposed to a television where it is a machine which does not give you the opportunity to learn according to your personal preferences, the internet gives you the absolute freedom to stream, look and listen to what you want. Learning from a variety of people who have had different experiences, techniques and interests allows an individual to devise their own technique by incorporating whatever it is that they need. In this particular case the recording of music in the genre of Hip Hop. Simply by looking and knowing who how and why an individual has chosen to take a particular direction artistically we can simply decide whether we wish to use the same technique or strategy as what we have seen on the internet.

Bibliography:
1.”If we don’t know where we have been we won’t know where we are going” — Malik Yoba ( C-Walk Volume 1 Documentary 2000)

2.”Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual you have an obligation to be one.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt

3 .Mark, Fisher (2013). “Time Wars” http://www.gonzocircus.com/xtrpgs/incubate-special-exclusive-essay-time-wars-by-mark-fisher/

4. Walter, Benjamin (1936). “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical

Reproduction”, in Illuminations, 1999

London: Jonathan Cape

5. Adorno, Theodor (1990). ‘On Popular Music’, in Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin (eds), On Popular Music: Rock, Pop and the Written Word.

London: Routledge