Red vs. Blue: Is Modern Music Production Driving Our Political Divide?
How the Early 2000s Adoption of DAWs and AI Tools Coincides with America’s Growing Political Divide
“This is my natural rhythm. It’s how I bob my head.” — J Dilla
J Dilla, a revolutionary hip-hop producer and beatmaker, transformed the art of beat-making in the ‘90s. His creative process was deeply embodied — he used machines not as tools to dictate rhythm but to express his own sense of time. Through this approach, his beats resonated globally.
Dilla’s creative process was an extension of his environment. When he sat with the Akai MPC, he used the machine to fit his embodied experiences. He did not let the machine use him. A common refrain upon first encountering a J Dilla beat is, ‘That seems off… wait, that feels great’
I don’t know about you, but lately, not only do things seem off — they don’t feel great either. Maybe that’s because, unlike J Dilla, we’ve started letting the machines use us.
Since 1999, DAWs and AI tools have come to dominate music production; we’ve surrendered our symbolic, embodied processes of creation to the idealized perfection of the machinic grid. The flattening of music into mere signs — devoid of the symbolic, multi-layered…
