#59 second timestamp particularly got to me

[dustyspines]

listening to the cc music on shuffle (bad idea) and being strangely floored by something written (very unexpected) and now i cant stop thinking about CLEVER BOY!!!!

[placegrenette]

This is the first all-Russian interview they've done in ages. (I still don't feel like I can conclusively answer the question of who feels comfortable speaking Russian to whom, and when, and for what purpose; I wish I did.) And in the meantime LLM language translation capabilities have developed to the point that you can ask YouTube to not only generate Russian subtitles, but translate those subtitles on the fly, and not get gibberish.

To be clear: the result isn't nearly as far from gibberish as we would like. I'd say the machine-generated subtitles can get you 20-30% of the way to actual comprehension. Which is a ways off from actually being able to understand them, and also, nevertheless, a huge step up from zero.

Machine-generated translation of the timestamps:

0:00 - start 00:59 - where did you come from for the Ninety One interview 01:27 - Alem what is happening in Kazakhstan Dauysy 02:00 - about children at "Kazakhstan Dauysy" 06:35 - about the new album 18:30 - courses on the fulfillment of desires from Zaq 19:55 - about the development of the festival industry 23:00 - about popularity and fans 23:40 - about the concerts of Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Maroon 5 26:47 - about the cancellation of the performance of Say Mo and unscrupulous organizers 27:31 - about responsibility to the fans, about communication with the organizers 29:31 - about contemporary artists 31:50 - about Kazakh rap, about the cool sound of the language 35:00 - about beefs and battles of rappers 40:44 - about creating your own label 41:31 - Bala about the second wind in creativity thanks to dancing 43:18 - Bala on ideas for creating dance battles 45:25 - Zaq is the winner of the International Russian Language Olympiad 51:10 - about critical thinking 55.30– Kazakhstan - the country of instant karma 58:00 - about stress, love and acceptance 59:30 - about transforming yourself 1:05:10 - rules of life

I continue to be grateful to Kazakhstani interviewers (in whatever language) and their ongoing allergy to simple filler questions.

I did listen to / attempt to read the subtitles of the section about Gap, since I'm still thinking about the album -- yes, we're well past "thinking" and into "overthinking" at this point, but one, that's what I do, and two, even if you take out the translation difficulties I'm not sure they're being crystal clear about the album goals and their motivations. At one point ZaQ says something about the Gap era not starting or ending with this album; at another he says something about there being songs that they wanted to release in 2018 (I feel a little more confident with these quotes, as they dovetail with translations the lovely Sara has made independently). But going back to any songs they created in 2018 would have been difficult, as they would have had to strip out AZ's planned parts, no? Tying Gap into Dopamine explains some parts of the pre-album symbolism-fest (specifically, all the references to "Why'm"; in fact I've started thinking about "Jur Mapelep" as a sequel to "Why'm") but doesn't explain why they referenced their 2091 concept, which postdates Dopamine (and which I never got fully explained to me, to be honest), in the "Biz" music video.

I haven't listened-to-slash-read the rest of the interview; I suspect from 51 minutes on the distance between their actual words and Google Translate's renditions of such will frustrate me more than teach me anything. But if something particularly striking emerges I'll come back and let you know.

[supere1113]

The Conflict Within Myself - Track 5: Diversity

From the wind howling in the background at the end of Synchronized Sound emerges a song even older. A love letter to creativity and ingenuity well as the longest social media bio ever written. But above nearly all, a sign of its own time.

It was late October in 2013. I was on the bus headed back from a Skills USA trip when some creative force entered my head. It had this spunk, this swag, this air about it that was just a feel-good type of vibe. Now that I typed it out, it sounds a lot like the Spirit of Hip Hop paid me a visit on the bus. So, I whipped out my phone, opened Springpad and started writing what would become the first song I would ever write... and complete.

I wasn’t really looking very hard for a name or a writing prompt, but the word “Diversity” seemed to fit what I was itching to write, the spirit of it, at least. When you haven’t ever seriously written anything in a song before, some advice I would give (and you could continue to use this the rest of your life, honestly) is to write what’s around you, and inside of you. What do you do? What happens as a result of that? How does that make you feel? These are the questions I was subconsciously asking myself (I guess) and the song became a poetic stream of answers to those questions.

So yeah, the first official song I ever wrote started with “I walk into school, dominate my classes!” I literally started there. if you’re interested in expressing yourself through written or spoken word, just know that greatness and success are not these esoteric things only so-called “great people” can reach. Everybody has (even if hidden) greatness inside of them, and you can start from anywhere that makes you comfortable. Anywhere.

With Diversity, I wasn’t focused on song structure. I was just letting myself rhyme and stitching together ideas as they came, in the order that they came. As a result, I riff over and bring up a lot of different topics and things that mean something to me. The flow of the song is a confident meandering through the core values of my mind, starting with school.

I’ve always been a passionate person, giving everything my all, and school was most of my life for most of my life up to this point (I’m 22). So, I naturally started with that. I wrote this the year after I got my first (and only) iPod, so I threw that in there before simultaneously representing hip hop and 60s Americana culture (You know, beat poetry and all that lot). After referencing my own overactive mind and the far-reaching extent of my music tastes, I go postmodern on y’all and write about my writing ability.

For the second time on the album, I make note of my own perfectionism, in this case, in the context of writing and literature in general. people always tell/told me that “it doesn’t have to be perfect,” but no one really ever asked me why I thought everything had to be. My answer at that point in my life: I want them to be perfect because as the Christian that I am, I’m doing God’s work, and I want it to be right, and I want to help people. I’m not that far removed from this ideology right now, even at 22, but as a current recovering perfectionist, I would revise a few things to cut me some slack, but I’d be aiming high for the same reasons (bear in mind that the first line of my first album, The Artist In Me, is “It all comes from God.”)

I mention my faith a little more, explaining how we are all a part of each other intrinsically, whether you consider it fate, the universe, God, the force or whatever you may believe. Riffing off of that idea, I start speaking of equality and questioning hierarchy in the same breath before throwing y’all off in saying “God is the pinnacle.” I’m not fine with a person standing above everyone else, but I’m fine with God doing that because he knows everything, and he unconditionally loves us and he’s not out to screw me/us over, not ultimately.

I think I wrote Diversity in three stages over a few, about 6 months, and this next part was the beginning of the third stage.

I start by passing on some of the advice from the music I was listening to at the time in a nice, creative little package. I reference Linkin Park, Fall Out Boy, Whitney Houston and Third World, all in that first part. Then, I wanted to yet again mix the past of modern music with the present by referencing Paramore and No Doubt. After that string of references, I put a lil disclaimer on there unless someone a little too picky tries to hit me with copyright infringement. I was learning how to write songs, and when you’re learning, it helps to lean on the shoulders of those who came before you. That’s how you find your taste, your writing style. Try a lot of different things, and keep the parts you like, and there, you have a style! I finish by referencing a song I haven’t put out yet and finally explaining where in my mind the genesis of this song came from (What!).

I have this thing with with time and this thing with numbers (and kinda all symbols). I like beautiful, even arithmetic and nice, round numbers. But I also like the complexity of exact numbers and, in the context of song creation, estimating how long you think a song will end up being after you write it. As for the numbers and other symbols, I have what’s known as Personification Synethesia. That basically means I see personas in numbers and other symbols (even letters). Like, 1-5 are guys, 6-9 are women, 5 is a jockey who’s really full of himself, 6 is feminist who wants to put 5 in his place, and 7 is her lanky, quieter, yet equally passionate, wingwoman. 4 lowkey kinda has a thing for 7, and 0 is gender fluid. When I see combinations of the 10 digits (larger numbers, time stamps, etc.), I begin to see situations, where the digits are interacting with each other (4:40s are an army fighting a battle or war, 58 and 59 are symbolic of death, 3:42, the length of Synchronized Sound, is fierce, light and tight. J is a hillbilly lolz! The list goes on...). Anyway, when I was making Diversity, I had a vibe that I wanted the length of the song to match with. The song, was epic, fierce, imposing, and quite interesting and beautiful. Lengths from 5:00 to 5:30 fit that bill for me, and Skillet’s song My Obsession (which I heard somewhere was lowkey about John’s love of Dr. Pepper, or at least in part lolz) was about 5:01 and had a similar vibe to Diversity’s, so taking the lyrical song length into account, I put it around 5 minutes, and due to the similar vibes, I aimed to put Diversity’s timestamp around that of My Obsession. I ended up with about 5:03. not bad. Personification Synethesia, everybody!

I only say the word “diversity’ once in the song; intentionally. Ever since I found out the title of ‘I Write Sins, Not Tragedies’ by Panic! At the Disco in the late 2000′s, I’ve always been perplexed by such instances when the artist or band does not include the title of the song in the lyrics. Or, when an album (or any project, really) does not include a title track (like Linkin Park with Hybrid Theory and literally every album of theirs before One More Light, which did include a title track). And also when a music act doesn’t have a self-titled album. And this is no statement on the quality of any form of music including these things, but moreso my preferences on how music should be, particularly at this point in my life.

If you were to pin down one thing Diversity stands for, it would be that the sky is the limit for whatever you want to do in life. Whatever it is. Or, as Big Sean will tell you, the sky’s the point of view, so... you’re basically limitless. And I say that because although there may be limits and obstacles that get in your way, you can conquer anything, so it won’t stay in your way.

The sky is the limit. If you want something, you can go get it.