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sweet-croissants · 4 years

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Julie and the Phantoms Character Appreciation

Part 1 - Alex

I’ve never seen a character like Alex. No I don’t mean I’ve never seen a gay character/ character with anxiety. I’ve never seen a character where it’s not their entire personality or a show handle it the way they do. They didn’t have his “combing out scene” be this huge dramatic moment, they didn’t stop the spin of the earth so they could “reveal the truth about his sexuality!” No, it’s was said in a way that you could have almost missed it if you weren’t paying attention and it was said so casually that I almost forgot how important the representation he symbolized was. It was normal. They didn’t wait till the the 7th season, or even the end of the season to say it, so there was no queer baiting and no hesitation to embrace who he was in the show. Finally, the guys don’t ever, not once, talk about it to him as if he is going to burst out into tears if they say a word wrong. They don’t treat him as if he’s fragile about it, and I get it for some people it’s a sensitive topic and should be talked about carefully, but they know how Alex doesn’t want to be treated as if he’s weak. (E9 when they are in the hug circle thing “I feel stronger....not that I was ever weak”) And because of this, they don’t treat him like it. Obviously they aren’t insensitive but they don’t act as if they are walking on a minefield. His anxiety is relatable too. It’s not over done, exaggerated, or enhanced so they can get the point across that he has it only to drop in 10 minutes later to never mention it again. And both his anxiety and him being gay I’d done in a way that little kids can understand I think that we think topics like these to hard or difficult for kids to understand, but the truth is they can. You just have to be blunt in a way. Boys can like boys, girls can be boys, you can be whoever you wanna be, and it’s okay to worry over things even if they seem like you shouldn’t because “they are simple”, it’s all okay and natural.

Part 2 - Reggie

Reggie makes me happy to see because it shows certain things about kids who’s parents are divorced and are neglected. At the very least he was emotionally neglected, but neglected non the less. And obviously, not all kids handle this the same way, and that’s why Reggie is so important to me. Reggie obviously rebelled, even a little by joining a rock band and I don’t think he took on all the responsibility to take care of himself. Reggies not dumb, he’s oblivious and half the time I think he’s not as oblivious as we think he is. And he’s only oblivious when he thinks he can get away with it, like when he asks where Luke is going on his birthday as if he doesn’t know what happened. He also does something I found I used to do when I was lonely in a room full of people, and that’s ask dumb questions. Yes, he must know the answer but it’s puts a little attention on himself, and you can guess that he didn’t get a lot of that from his parents. Even if it’s at his expense, he’s willing to dell included in what they are talking about. He still has his serious moments though, which are usually right after he realizes that he can’t just play dumb to get out of the situation. You can also see that it hurts him a lot when he gets played off as being the dumb one, but it’s probably what he thinks of as his only way to get people to listen to him (everyone treating him like he’s an idiot also probably hurts his confidence leading to this too). Another thing I’ve noticed is his attachment to Ray. He knows how amazing of a father Ray is because of how much he loves Julie and Carlos. This is why he respects Ray so much, because even though he’s going through his own thing with his wife’s death, he never forgets to be their for his kids and that’s probably something Reggie never had.

Part 3 - Luke

Like is kinda special. I’ve seen characters similar to him but something about him sets him apart from everyone else I’ve seen. I’ve seen character that are cute and don’t take advantage of it but instead are super nice, I’ve seen that before but the difference is how he does it. In the first episode, right after Julie kicks the out, he’s not even mad or angry with her. Maybe he’s upset, but not at her. He’s upset because he just found out he died and then lost what he considers his second home. So, he explains that to her, but he doesn’t argue it he just wants to tell her his side of the story. And when she explains hers, he’s sorry and apologetic for her bad day and you can tell he’s being genuine. Before it’s obvious he likes her, he helps her get back into her music program because he knows how important it is. He gives her a song that he wrote and talks her up when she doubts herself. You can also tell that he never stopped loving his mom, no matter how many times they fought. He knows that she cared about him, which is why they fought in the first place. His only fear, the reason he never truly apologized, was he was scared he finally blew it. That he had officially messed up and she would want to hear from him, that he couldn’t fix what had happened. One more thing, I’ve never seen a character as passionate about something as him. I’m sure that character exists, no doubt, but personally I’ve never seen it. He doesn’t care about the money, yeah it’s a bonus but not the main focus. The main focus is putting a smile on people, making a difference to people, to not be alone. The entire reason he’s mad at Bobby for stealing is music without credit is that no one, including his mom, got to know his dream was worth it. He died and time erased him.

Part 4 - Julie

My love for Julie is astonishing. She’s a Hispanic girl, with gorgeous hair, and beautiful skin, and an amazing tooth gap. I almost fully expected it to be used as a thing she was bullied for, teased about, and made fun of for and when she fixes it, it shows that “she was always secretly beautiful/she could be beautiful all along” and all that junk. The fact that it’s not mentioned once is so wonderful because all people have flaws! People have tooth gaps, stretch marks, and different body types. No one is perfect and neither are their bodies. It also shows that Carrie, the “mean girl” of the show isn’t going to be like all the other mean girls in teen shows and it makes me appreciate her character more. It shows how they used to be friends and even thought Carrie can be mean, it’s never to the extent of making fun of what she looks like. One more thing with Carrie, Julie has never said a mean thing about her in the show. When Flynn makes the comment on the dance routine, she says “well it payed off” and she even complemented the song and choreography for All Eyes On Me. Not once has she said anything mean back and it shows how kind of a person she is. Even though Carrie humiliates her, she never has it in her to truly insult her back. Also, having a Hispanic girl as one of the main characters is wonderful! Representation is always heartwarming to see and this is no exception. They don’t try to shove it in your face in an unrealistic way, but it’s definitely in there consistently, it’s really nice. On top of all that, how she handles her mom‘s death is just as terrific. She’s right, playing music reminds her of her mom and that’s exactly why she should play music! It encourages others to know that it may hurt but it gets better. That there will come a point when smiles and joy filled where sadness and tears used to be when you think of those memories. She’s such a powerful person and it shows.

#jatp theory #julie and the phantoms #jatp songs #jatp #jatp analysis #jatp netflix #jatp alex #jatp reggie #jatp luke #jatp julie

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passionate-reply · 4 years

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This time on Great Albums, I talk about an album that actually isn’t older than I am for a change! Enter the spooky, haunted forest of The Knife with me, and find out why it was Pitchfork’s Album of the Year in 2006! Full transcript after the break.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be tackling an album that’s more recent than anything I’ve done on Great Albums before, but it’s still old enough to start being considered a classic: The Knife’s Silent Shout, released in 2006, and hence seeing its fifteenth birthday in 2021. Silent Shout is a bit special to me, insofar as it was an album I loved as a teenager, back when it was still pretty new, and it was probably the first album I really fell in love with that wasn’t significantly older than I was. I was quite surprised when I eventually learned just how beloved Silent Shout is among music aficionados. This album has been lauded in critical circles, recommended as a “patrician” essential, and even considered one of the greatest electronic albums of all time! So, what’s the fuss about?

Before Silent Shout, The Knife were significantly closer to a conventional electronic pop duo. Their biggest claim to fame was the track “Heartbeats,” which scored some exposure after a cover of it was featured in a TV ad.

Music: “Heartbeats”

I like to think that “Heartbeats” contains the seeds of what’s great about Silent Shout, with its grinding synth backing and vocalist Karin Dreijer’s affecting wail. But its indie-pop brightness is something distinctively absent from their follow-up. Contrary to what might’ve been expected from an up-and-coming pop act, the sibling duo hunkered down in the studio and set about making something stranger and more exotic. On the technical front, they stripped the production down to its bare essentials, using just digital rhythms and two synthesisers to achieve everything we hear on the album. Stylistically, they took their sound into moody, atmospheric territory, imbuing it with this eerie, claustrophobic ambiance. It’s the musical equivalent of Frankenstein emerging from Mary Shelley’s mind, while the dreary “Year Without a Summer” had poisoned the world around her.

Music: “Silent Shout”

The title track here is also the opener, and introduces us to the frightful world of Silent Shout without mercy. This track is dominated by a powerful contrast of sound: low, thrumming bass, and these quick, but delicate and meandering synth arpeggios, carrying a distinctively Scandinavian flair. This bewitching synthesis of musical ideas makes sense in light of the diverse influences of the two siblings who made up The Knife: Instrumentalist Olaf Dreijer was strongly influenced by dance styles like house, trance, and progressive techno, as well as ambient electronic music, whereas vocalist Karin Dreijer was interested in guitar-based popular music, as well as the distinctive folk traditions of their native Sweden. Not unlike the Pet Shop Boys, they’ve got a wide gap between their influences, but that only serves to intensify the uniqueness of their work, which strikes listeners in a way the constituent musical parts of its heritage never could. Perhaps the most significant sonic feature of the album, though, is the extreme electronic distortions of Karin Dreijer’s voice.

Music: “One Hit”

If raw and everymannish vocals make music feel more in line with our everyday reality, the shocking and monstrous ones on *Silent Shout* render it a truly otherworldly work of art. While many people are quick to decry the “fakeness” of electronically mediated vocals--despite the fact that all art is, of course, artificial--I think Silent Shout proves, more boldly than anything else, just how uniquely powerful this musical tool can be in the right hands. Once you get past the sheer sonic force of the vocals, and their peculiar, skin-crawling timbres, you’ll find that most of the lyrical subject matter is actually painfully quotidian. “One Hit,” for instance, is told from the perspective of an all-too-normal “monster”: a domestic abuser, extracting and enforcing femininity and domestic servitude through the force of violence, dealing in “one hit, one kiss.” Sex, gender, and exploitation based upon them are among the album’s most central themes, and expressed harrowingly on tracks like “Na Na Na”:

Music: “Na Na Na”

Perhaps moreso than any other track on the album, “Na Na Na” is rendered borderline incomprehensible by vocal treatment--a trait magnified by its obviously meaningless title and chorus. But “Na Na Na” does have real lyrics, which tell the story of a life mediated by reproductive anatomy, defined by the rhythm of menstruation, coming from within, and the constant fear of sexual violence from without. It’s a tale of hidden anxiety, and experiences that go unseen and unspoken despite how common they are, making the haze of inscrutability laid over them all the more poignant. It’s clear that these issues are of high importance to Karin Dreijer, who has publicly described themself as “genderqueer,” despite both members of the band being remarkably sparing with all personal details. In another of the most striking vocal performances on the album, “We Share Our Mother’s Health,” Dreijer even gets to sing a duet with themself, and embody two distinct characters at once.

Music: “We Share Our Mother’s Health”

“We Share Our Mother’s Health” can be read in the light of gender and sex dynamics, as well, particularly if you’re willing to read its twin narrators as representations of masculinity and femininity. Personally, though, I think that’s a bit too easy, and really, a bit too cisnormative. I think the album is more interesting if we embrace the fundamental uncertainty of identity, and the transgressive queerness of it all. That said, I prefer to think of “We Share Our Mother’s Health” as a piece about capitalism--the endless toiling and scrounging for more material comfort and security, and the emptiness left behind when that proves to be no pathway towards true happiness. Besides, it’s not like sexism and the class struggle don’t feed off of each other in the end. This track’s sense of cacophony, with voices nearly battling to drown each other out, shows its more strident, aggressive, and downright angry side, which it delivers as powerfully as it does those moody atmospheres.

Silent Shout is the perfect title for this album, given its emphasis on voicing internal and private laments that go unheard--and voicing them with this terrifying sense of primal scream catharsis. While I initially wasn’t overly fond of the album art, it’s grown on me a bit now that I’ve seen it blown up to a larger size. This central disc shape is certainly evocative of a record or a CD, and its industrial-looking lattice structure, with a mottled, grimey-looking texture, helps conjure the impression of machine-age ennui.

I think a lot of the enduring appeal of Silent Shout is its sense of mystery. A lot of that mystery is deliberately crafted iconoclasm, and part of the art--while promoting the album, The Knife were photographed wearing sinister, elaborate beaked “plague doctor” masks, and their live performances from this period shrouded the band in darkness to obfuscate their appearances. They’ve refused to accept awards for their music or attend award ceremonies, including one memorable incident in which they sent costumed representatives of feminist organisation Guerrilla Girls in their stead. After Silent Shout, the duo created an opera based on Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species in 2009, and released one more studio album in 2013: Shaking the Habitual.

Music: “A Tooth For an Eye”

Shaking the Habitual received mixed reviews, and so far, has proven to be the siblings’ final work together, though they remain active as musicians independently, with Karin Dreijer recording under the moniker “Fever Ray.” Part of the great myth of Silent Shout is the fact that nothing else in their discography really quite approaches its specific sound, and sharp precision of conceptual focus. It’s like the album is tailor made to stand perfectly alone, outside of context, perhaps even outside of genre.

For many of us, this great legend of lightning-in-a-bottle genius is infinitely alluring. But I’ve never really bought into it too thoroughly myself. I obviously adore Silent Shout, and I think it’s a Great Album. But, unlike many people who have showered it with praise, often claiming that they don’t enjoy “electronic music” overall, I’ve always been interested in a lot of heavy, angry, creepy synthesiser-based music, and so I never thought too much of listening to this and liking it. People praise Silent Shout for being unlike anything else, but I think it sounds like a lot of post-industrial dark wave, like Attrition or Chris & Cosey, and its themes of feminist rage feel like a strong parallel to that of more recent stars of noise music such as Pharmakon and Lingua Ignota. But that’s not to devalue what Silent Shout does achieve! I think it *is* a unique album...in the way that a bat is a unique animal. Much as bats are not the only creatures who fly, but stand out for having developed that ability despite their mammalian heritage, Silent Shout doesn’t actually take direct inspiration from the earlier music it sounds the most like. It ended up there through the aforementioned eldritch alchemy, combining trance and folk and Kate Bush to get something new. That’s still something worth celebrating! Silent Shout needn’t be a perfect enigma to be a stirring masterpiece of an album.

My overall top track on Silent Shout, which I bet will be a popular choice, is “Forest Families.” It’s equal parts bleak and strangely anthemic, defined by both the unease of adapting to a plainer and harsher existence, outside the bounds of society, as well as the release that music itself provides to so many of us as we seek comfort. Since music is so important to me, I’m a real sucker for music about the importance of music, and it feels particularly well-placed on an album that’s a cathartic listen in so many ways. That about wraps this one up; thank you for watching!

Music: “Forest Families”

#music #great albums #album review #album reviews #the knife #fever ray #silent shout

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painted-starlight · 5 years

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It's an interesting contrast how the recent princesses needed to be of royal origins while the first ever black princess needed to be poor. It's a tendedcy where some characters just need to get a short end somewhere while other favorables don't. Also I do kind of think Gothel would posses every trait of a strong competent heroine but we live in a bizarre world were a status like that is shifted on a meakly passive female characters. Also shows recently p.often exploit the anti-parentalism, they

(Continued)

need not be one for children to readily pin against their parents. Barbie Gothel was someone of a mentor I guess. And mother figures are never considered to be worthy in stories, any other mom was bland at best, or murdered for overdone selfless reasons. Also there was a part in Beauty and the beast where there's beautiful sweet Belle swings around in town wanting more in life whilethere is that brief scene of an exhausted pathetic mother carrying theirchildren. Don'tbe mom kids they kinda suck. and unattractive.

Warning: Long Post, Anti-T//angled, Anti-Frozen, Talking about sexism and racism in Disney Princess Movies

White Disney Princess Movie’s Don’t Have to Be Good. They Just Have to Be There

The discrepancy between the first black disney princess and the rest of the white princesses is that a lot of princesses of color tend to be representations of their culture, while white princesses often are not. Tiana’s movie tries to encompass the black experience, but it has a lot of problems mostly because of white filmmakers trying to not hold their white audiences accountable (I severely dislike Lottie and wish they focused on Tiana only instead of letting Lottie steal the show).

The next time we get a black disney princess might not be for a very, very long time. But Elsa and Anna and R//apunzel get to have spinoffs, their settings get to be vague, because they are allowed chance after chance to be good. Well, next time.

It wasn’t good the first time? Your white princess movie sucked mighty ass? Well, we’ll just give them a spinoff no one wanted. And a sequel to fix the problems of the first movie.

The Bar is Very Low For White Princesses

White Princesses and their movies t are often boring and uninteresting. The bar for their movies is actually very low. Movies like Frozen and T//angled don’t even have to be good. They just have to be there. They can be barely finished with the weakest writing possible. There to be projected upon, make cute toys, and to fill up space for princess merchandise. But they have to be there so white disney customers can feel superior for having even more princesses that look like them.

But princesses of color, despite being more compelling characters who interact with their culture, are exoticised, fetishized or rely on outdated stereotypes to fill in the gaps.

A majority of these movies are mostly made by white filmmakers. If Tiana’s movie was handled by a majority black staff, the movie would definitely be a much better representation of the black community.

However, Disney only allows movies through the perspective of white people looking in on a culture, and they often impose a lot of stereotypes in the process because of their unwillingness to give nonwhite staff a chance.

Mother Gothel’s Role in T//angled

As for Mother Gothel, her role in T*angled personally always came across as a shallow character, though that is my own interpretation and more a frustration with the filmmakers lack of introspection on her character’s real motivations. Why does she want to stay young? How is it beneficial for her? What makes youth so important that she resorts to abusing a child?

I haven’t seen Barbie’s Rapunzel other than a few previews (but knowing how much Disney liked to lifted from it’s aesthetic I definitely know they wanted in some way to compete with it) but maybe they did the main villain better? Maybe I should check it out.

Important answers about Mother Gothel cannot be guessed by her behavior like other disney villains and is unfortunately left up in the air. I can speculate Scar’s, Maleficent’s, and Ursula’s backstory without supplemental material because it is shown in their dialogue and character. But we know NOTHING about Mother Gothel’s story. When they did this, it robbed the audience of true tension in the main conflict.

But it’s important to note that this is only because of bad writing. The male filmmakers completely devote her characterization to her looks and condemen Gothel for aging while having the audacity to deliver a “don’t judge people by their looks” message.

Female Characters and the “Acceptable Female Protagonist”

It is true that female characters who possess ambition and confidence--such as Ursula-- are often placed in villainous roles as opposed to heroic ones. They are in direct contrast with the female main characters. The only exception I can really think of is Sleeping Beauty’s fairy caretakers, but even then they still have a degree of femininity that is considered socially acceptable (aesthetic wise).

This is mostly due to male filmmakers deciding which kind of women they consider “acceptable.” Passive, cute, fiesty but no too fiesty. I think in a twisted way, a lot of male filmmakers think mother characters are supposed to be self sacrificing and pretty because they cannot imagine mothers being anything else. Which is why they almost always end up being dead, have limited speaking roles, or off screen.

An interesting and somewhat disturbing fact about the creation of Rapunzel is that she was created as a means of “capturing” the idealized notion of physical femininity. :

Accessed from Wikipedia with link to interview:

“With Rapunzel I did an enormous amount of drawings and I wanted to keep a sense of asymmetry in her. I read a book about feminine beauty and it said the key to beauty is strangeness in a woman's face. There needs to be something slightly off, some element; it might be her nose, her lip, her tooth, or one eye higher than the other, but something. Even in Rapunzel's teeth, the way she talks, there's something a little bit wonky in the placement of her teeth, and things like that were designed so that she was more real, true and appealing.”

— Keane, on designing Rapunzel and the concept of "feminine beauty"

These “off” qualities of Rapunzel’s character design are all superficial in nature and barely noticeable. I feel like this is more to keep her from venturing into the uncanny valley.

For example, the computer does things perfectly symmetrical. Symmetry is easy, and typically the way you would design a CG character is that you would model half of it and duplicate it.

It's done and it's perfect, but what you've done is you've created create this robot and everyone goes, "Ew, something's weird." With Rapunzel I did an enormous amount of drawings and I wanted to keep a sense of asymmetry in her.

— Keane, on designing Rapunzel and the concept of "feminine beauty"

Now, this is just my interpretation, but it seems like they looked at Rapunzel’s design and went “ew” (like any normal person would) but instead of changing her design to be less uncanny, they seemed to blame the perfect symmatry of the computer rather than it being a design flaw. She’s still uncanny, but when working closely with her character model it becomes slightly less now with superficial adjustments.

Something that only someone looking incredibly closely would be able to know. And still, Glen Keane’s design of Rapunzel is still conventionally pretty and even infantilized. Rapunzel is meant to represent the “ideal” girl. With Mother Gothel and her aging being the direct contrast.

#anti tangled #tangled crit #anti frozen

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heelgripper · 3 years

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The Owl House S2 Ep. 6 Reaction

Spoilers, obviously.

-- The Owl House gang just keep hitting it out of the park with these episodes, each one is better than the last!

-- I am surprised people aren’t pointing out the similarities between Belos’ ‘beast form’ and Eda’s curse! He obviously doesn’t want to be in that form, he needs palisman juice to suppress it. Just like Eda needs her potions! We know Eda’s curse came from some super mysterious scroll Lillith found in the Night Market. Could it be that they have the same kind of curse?

-- Every time I think I know my favorite Owl House character, I switch to a new one. I frequently waffle between Luz, Hooty, Amity, Eda, and Lillith. Now I’m adding my guy Hunter to the list.

-- It took me a while to parse his design -- I thought he lost a tooth when he fell from the sky, lol -- and I think it’s really compelling! I’ve seen some troll on Twitter edit him to have no gap in his teeth, no scar, no under-eye circles, no notch in his ear, no bump on his nose, and like ... why would you DO that, he looks like a plastic doll of a 2000′s boy band member! I love the little touches that add character to him. He’s definitely Dana’s take on a YA pretty boy, but that’s not ALL he is. Also, his outfit RULES.

-- (It does bug me that his eyes are purple and they clash horribly with his bright red palisman... I think they should have committed and made his eyes red, but maybe that would have looked too menacing? Idk, maybe he’ll get an outfit update in a purple and red color scheme, that’d be something.)

-- As soon as that kid came onscreen I knew what the fandom reaction would be, and the ship war stuff makes me feel about a thousand years old. I had to deal with the Loki stuff so recently, too. To sum up: Luz is bi, Lumity’s gonna be canon, no one’s ‘taking representation away’, no they’re not siblings they spent like two hours hanging out, everybody calm down. It’s absolutely fine for fans to ship it. I’ve had to put up with TWO tidal waves of biphobia in as many weeks, I swear to God.

-- Loved the fights, loved Hunter’s fighting style. Nyoom nyoom.

#toh spoilers #the owl house #personal #I feel so old

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theteenagetrickster · 5 years

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D'Angelo's 'Witchcraft' Redefined What an R&B Album Can Be

A four-and-a-half-minute-long, NSFW video recording changed the whole program of D'Angelo's career.

"Untitled (Exactly How Performs It Feel)" begins accidently, panning coming from the vocalist's nice cornrows to his gap-toothed grin. Stripped-down and also susceptible, the normally smooth performer looks slightly uneasy. This pain is relatable; it is actually the sensation of undressing before somebody who has never ever observed you nude. With his look corrected below his midsection, you're left behind pondering what the heck is actually going on below the chance. In a job interview along with? uestlove, the vocalist would not assure or reject if he was actually obtaining dental sex, but his superficial breathing merely contributes to the implication. The magnetism of "Untitled," as well as it's exciting grandeur, makes it very easy to miss out on the Jesus crucifix pendant hanging coming from his back. The dichotomy of religion as well as sexuality has actually been the core pressure in the production of D'Angelo.

Even with the results of 1995's Brown Sugar, and also eventually Witchcraft-- which transforms twenty years outdated today-- the R&B vocalist stayed an enigma: He was actually evolving as D'Angelo, the sex symbolic representation, yet dealing with like heck to be actually Michael Archer, the choir young boy who grew in his father's Pentecostal religion. The measure of Dark quality is actually frequently assessed by just how remarkably our company may harmonize our double awareness: that we are actually versus who the world identifies our company to be. Honored as the second coming of Prince, D'Angelo's radiance plagued him, as well as his sophomore album will test just how much he was willing to compromise for self-preservation.

"As I started to hear what ended up being Voodoo, I swiftly started to recognize that this was actually not simply Brown Sugar part 2," excursion supervisor Alan Leeds said in the docudrama. "It was crystal clear to me that he went to the forefront of no matter where Dark popular music was visiting use the following 10 or twenty years."

Created in his bed room on a 4-track in Richmond, Brown Glucose pleases each of the detects. The "cherry in [his] chocolate-covered goals" remains on your lips on "Me and also Those Dreamin' Eyes of Mine," and you can easily see his blood-stained hands through the side of the bluesy "Crap, Damn, Motherfucker." D'Angelo's songwriting frequently mixes fragrant as well as scrumptious, as he carries out on the record's eponymous solitary. "I receive higher on your affection, do not recognize exactly how to behave," wasn't for dramatic impact; it was actually an ode to a forthright as balmy as the hooptie you hotboxed in college. Reprising 90s R&B in his picture, D'Angelo was actually identical parts Sly Rock and A People Referred To As Pursuit; this crash of soul and also road offered childbirth to a brand-new label of rhythm as well as blues that fit him like a handwear cover. "I was regularly choosing to make hip-hop without possessing to seem R&B," he informed? uestlove.

"After [Brown Sugar] was performed I enjoyed it, yet there were certain songs that I experienced it lost one thing in between the demonstration version plus all of the creation that went into it," he said in a 2014 meeting with Reddish Bull Popular Music Academy. After thinking that his debut came to be "a little homogenized," D'Angelo generated his consequence to test the mainstream. "Straight from the cow to the glass-- that's what Voodoo was actually," he pointed out.

As followers awaited an additional cd and also the second fifty percent of the 90s played out, life didn't seem to slow down. The O.J. Simpson murder trial split the country, along with the absolution of the previous expert football gamer astonishing The United States. Louis Farrakhan's attempt to industry the Thousand Man March as a symbol of unity didn't assist the Dark community's social anguish. Tupac and also Big deal's massacres were actually mindless, and also when the Nyc Cops Division shot 41 chance ats Amadou Diallo, a disarmed 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea, the target on the spines of Black men were amplified. As the many years wound down, Bill Clinton, who Toni Morrison the moment referred to as our "initial Dark president," was dealing with impeachment for an occasion with Monica Lewinsky, a White Property trainee.

Twenty years later, United States has finally seen 2 terms of its own actual first Black president, yet the country remains mistaken in myriad ways: possible impeachment is actually as soon as again on the perspective, appealing sporting activities heroes are actually still confined in massacre hearings, and also cops violence remains to dominate the titles. Voodoo's brilliant depends on D'Angelo's selection to make an album as incomplete as the amount of times.

The cd's title alone redeemed dark magic decades just before the expression "black (gal) miracle" became a symbol of empowerment. Glorifying the spiritual methods of the American South, Caribbean islands, as well as West Africa, Voodoo symbolized the marital relationship of the intricacies of Dark life and also faith affecting his sound. Somewhat than decrease Vodou to spells and ritual killings, the performer conjured the soul of the Haitians that birthed the faith on slavery farmsteads.

"I discovered that everything that exists, all music, stems from Africa," D'Angelo said to desire hampton in a 2000 problem of FEEL. "I began to find all the links of music aiming back to Africa, and I wished to show all those styles. Like what Sly was actually attempting to perform, like what Royal prince was actually attempting to carry out, as well as Jimi too."

D'Angelo taped Voodoo at Greenwich Town's Electric Girl Studios. Certainly there, summoning the power of Hendrix-- that developed the studio in the 70s-- as well as packing it with signboards of various other soul guys like Royal prince as well as The Isley Brothers, he made it a shrine to his heroes. As an adolescent in Richmond, a prospective mentorship with Ellis Marsalis Jr. dropped through, and now, he had actually located the positive side: training would possess created him also brightened, and also Witchcraft was the reverse of formal musicality. The recording of Voodoo was fully uncustomary. Envious a demo-like premium that was actually shed on Brownish Sweets, he videotaped most of the album in one take, determining what to keep after playback. Tunes appeared primarily out of jam treatments, along with tracks like "Greatdayndamornin'" and "The Origin" fastened all together through designer Russ Elevado.

What is actually most significant isn't just the means they recorded, yet exactly how they participated in." [Witchcraft] revolutionized how audio equipments and reside guitars could possibly sound," guitar player Jesse Johnson pointed out in Devil's Cake. "It was actually so anti-music market, I liked it since also the trendiest song, which was 'Untitled,' really did not possess a headline." Working with reduced zing drums as well as a regular 4-string bass guitar, Witchcraft was actually a snarling whisper compared to its contemporaries.? uest's drumming was modeled after J Dilla's trademark type, "bit [ping] to seamless gutter pail degrees," or even playing inaccurate, as he commonly explains it.

Certainly not only was the manufacturing highly textured, yet thus was actually the album's lyricism. The off-center drumming and distant vocals of "Hen Oil" developed a special combination for his analogies. Poultry, much like music, is ideal with the remainders of tastes the oil carries, as well as D'Angelo desired listeners to taste that spice. "Simmer to a sizzle like the day of outdated/ Yet I'll wait til I've learnt this, allow the others go initially," he vocalizes. This notion of frowning at brilliance, as well as the reparations it asks for, haunt him on various other tunes like "Free throw line": "I mentioned the tension is on/ Coming from every viewpoint, political to individual," he performs. "Will I dangle or even receive left behind hangin'?/ Will I diminish, or even is it bangin'?"

Despite his insecurities, Voodoo was a transformation. It was a middle finger to bureaucracy relating to the restrictions positioned on Dark popular music, but it was actually also a method of healing.

The only issue was, his setting as a recently produced sex symbolic representation was actually risking his principles, ultimately ending up being a disturbance coming from his songs.

Adhering to "Untitled," D'Angelo concerts ended up being a storm of demands to find him shirtless, regardless of the gravitation of the tunes on Voodoo. He 'd oblige, stripping down as rapidly as twenty mins in to his collection simply to keep his enthusiasts fulfilled. Carrying out became the form of chains he performed approximately on "Evil one's Pie," a monitor more hip-hop than R&B that was made through DJ Premier. "The spirit of the vocals is actually extra like a chain gang, or even area of servants, choosing whatever the fuck owner had our company picking, and also's what our experts 'd be actually vocal singing in the very hot fucking sunlight," he informed Red Upward. Prating off the strange traits folks do for amount of money as well as desire, he performs certainly not exclude himself. "Who am I to warrant/ All the misery in our eye/ When I myself feel the higher/ From everything I abhor?" he performs. D'Angelo devoted the following 14 years hunting for the response to that concern.

To be actually Dark as well as exceptional methods that you must be both in all times. There is actually seldom any sort of space for mistake, and also it's certainly not adequate to simply be actually dazzling-- you must be actually "twice as excellent." "Everything short of one's absolute best is a different off the upright and also slim put together for our team by whatever generation went through before our team-- as well as a dishonor to what we owe them," Steven Undergrowth composed for. The skills of Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Donny Hathaway, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, as well as D'Angelo's peer J Dilla were actually darkened through their fatalities. The idea that D'Angelo's destiny can represent those of his heroes paralyzed Michael Archer, and an individual.

Reborn in the time of Dark Lives Concern, D'Angelo's long-awaited Black Messiah gotten here in 2014 as a response to the massacre of Michael Brown, a disarmed teenager, due to the Ferguson Cops Department. Even with his 3rd album being actually near-complete for virtually two years, he possessed reservations concerning discharging it. "He yearned for one thing that was actually much more free-flowing, that more showed anarchy as well as seriousness as well as circle," Jocelyn Cooper, that signed the vocalist in the 90s, said to. Every thing he knew on his sophomore cd was happening cycle.

When Sorcery was actually complete, D'Angelo revealed that his mission was actually to boost the audios of his preferred artists, as opposed to example all of them.? uestlove talked to the singer, "Thus would certainly you point out that [the album] is actually that eyesight materialized?"

"Yeah ... but not entirely," D'Angelo pointed out. "I seem like it is actually the start of it. We refined it with Witchcraft."

Kristin Corry is a workers author for VICE.Additional picture through: Frank Micelotta/Getty Images

This content was originally published here.

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smokeybrandcompositions · 7 years

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She and Me

I was born in 1984. For all intents and purposes, that was the year where the first few of the Millennial generation were born. I am, quite literally, the top of the spear for what ails society, according to almost every generation before me. One could argue that Generation ME, Me, Me as Time so eloquently titled us back in 2013, started as early as 1981. Some say it started as late as 1989. All I know is my older brother and sister are Gen X-ers. And the end of them. I was born after so I consider myself a Gen Y or a goddamn Millennial. And it’s that margin od discrepancy that I want to address. I’ve had the distinct frustration of living with a 19 year old for half a year and, even though she is technically a Millennial, I can honestly say, there is a distinct difference between how I and she interact with the world.

Entitlement

Me: When I was young, my parents were frustrated with my Grandmother because they perceived her to be spoiling me. Now, to clarify, this was my Mother’s ma. I spent weekends over there and came back home with new toys almost every time. What my parents didn’t realize or want to admit, I that I was actually earning the funds to buys those toys. I spent weekends with my Grandma cleaning, gardening, and whatever else. She gave me a stipend for my efforts, never more than a 50 in month, and I used that to buy my things., In time, I learned monetary responsibility and the meaning of having to work honestly for your dime. Working for my other grandma, my dad’s dad, felt more akin to working at some stupid f*cking conglomerate. There was an expectation that I kill myself for her because I was her grandkid. I would do more work for her and received less compensation. She had that sense of entitlement to my man hours because her son was my father, similar to how jobs have that sense of entitlement because they sign my checks. By the time I was in the third grade, I understood nothing is given to you. I understood that receiving an honorable mention ribbon or participation trophy was f*cking nonsense. If you wanted something in life, you had to go earn it, which will lead me into my next point but first, let’s address what I saw out of the 20 year old.

Her: Man, this chick is a carton when it comes to entitlement. She feels like everything should be hers! Like, I would order food and she would just stare at me until I offered some. When she got comfortable with me, she’d ask, not just for a bit or some, but the majority of it! After a wh9ile, she had the expectation that, when I bought myself food, I would buy her food, too. She’s 20! This is some sh*t you do for your child, not another adult. My act of kindness, to her, was an obligation. There was a shallow thank you but, in her mind, it was my responsibility to make sure she got food. Even though she was an adult. Even though she had her own job. Speaking of jobs, she would throw active tantrums when no one gave her a ride to work! Like, throw herself on the ground and kick about. Like a 4 year old. This grown ass woman would act out like a toddler because no one wanted to make sure she got to work on time. Even though there were buses. Even though there’s uber. Even though she had legs and could walk. Chick would wait for me to get home, around 4, and spring on me at the last minute she needed to be at work by 5 and that she’s d be ate if I didn’t give her a ride. She was late a great deal, let me tell you that much!

Laziness

Me: When I was about 3 years old, my dad threw me out of bed and taught me how to clean the bathroom. A few months later, he taught me how to clean the kitchen. I learned to vacuum and wash windows. When I was in the 5th grade, I deduced how to wash clothes on my own. By the time I was 12 years old, I knew how to clean an entire house, among other things. I never received an allowance or stipend, this sh*t was just something you did because you lived in the house. I always thought it was chicken sh*t that I did all the cleaning and the adults in the house basically laid around all day but whatever. They fed me some stupid line about having to do it when they were kids and that’s the way it is, and I’ll get to that stupid sh*t later, but I paid my due. To this day, I hate cleaning, not because it’s arduous and unending but because I was made to keep up after grown mother*ckers who flat out didn’t give a sh*t how big of a mess they made. That nonsense made me exceptionally sensitive to cats not cleaning up after themselves or wasting things that need not be wasted. Sh*t like leaving toilet paper afloat in the can or not putting the top back on the tooth paste irk the f*ck out of me. Cooking at 2 am only to leave your crusted pots all over the kitchen counters make me furious. Not having the common decency to keep the common areas of your shared living space make me want to commit arson. Admittedly, I don’t clean as profusely as I once did. That’s because I work 10 to 12 hours days. I tend to come home and sleep until the weekend and, on Sunday, I clean as much as I can. Unless my house is destroyed which is more often than not now because the 20 year old I live with is filthy. I don’t clean up after adults anymore so my house is a disaster area. Because the Woman-child I lived with refuses to act like an adult and pick up after herself.

Her: As I cleaned the bathroom yesterday, i went to take out the garbage that was full of her used toilet tissues from removing her copious amounts of makeup (we’ll get to her narcissism next) and, as i picked up wad after wad off my bathroom floor, I ended up grabbing a used tampon. It was dry and scabby which means it had to have been there for a few days. Considering there was enough tissue to basically hide it from me, it had to have been there forever. You share this space with two other people. I understand that this is a bodily function but really? Like, you can even take out the garbage after this? Not only that, but instead of maybe flushing it, you just check it on the goddamn ground and walk off?? Really? This chick will cook food, eat half of it, and just walk away leaving her plate wherever she placed it. I’ve seen her chop potatoes, decide she didn’t want them, and just left those motherf*ckers on my counter. For months. For three months, to be precise. I counted. And it’s not just that. She leaves her makeup in my bathroom sink. Her clothes are strewn all over my house. What space I allotted to her in the closest doesn’t matter because she never closes the doors so her sh*t spills out in the hallways. Like, I listened to her complain about having no clean clothes to wear on a Monday, and then complain about the same sh*t on another Monday, two weeks later! You don’t have a job! You literally have all of the time in the world! How did you not wash your clothes??

Inclusiveness

Me: There is a wide berth between our mentalities. While I understand and accept that certain social stigmas are unjust and often times, outright cruel, I understand that there is work to be done on both sides to improve these situations. There has to be a dialogue. There has to be an equal exchange of ideas and scenarios, even if they aren’t the same as yours or the purveying accepted thesis. Yes, we should be more inclusive as a society. Yes, we have gotten better at being inclusive with our representation. No, the work is not done. We still have a long way to go .We still need a great deal more social empathy and we need to pick our battles wisely lest we set back the whole movement. BLM, the Kap Knees, and the 1 Percenter protests are all necessary and the right way to go about change. These are the things we needs to do, and cats my age, tend to do.

Her: this chick is am arm chair activist. She spends her time on Facebook posting racially charged memes and accusing anyone who doesn’t believe in what she believes to be an ignorant problem. The thing is, her outrage is superficial. Her perspective on life is colored by MTV and TMZ. Chick has no idea what actual society is like because she’ never attempted to enter it fully. Quite literally, at 20, she considers her 14 year old self “So Tumblr.” That’s only a 6 year difference! You’re telling me you’ve gained perspective in 6 years, even though you’ve never went to college, even though you still run with the same circle of friends, even though you have all of the same bad habits? Nah, your opinion have changed and your need for them to be heard has increased because you’re an “adult” but you still don’t know sh*t. What can you, a 20 year old who’s lived outside of your parents’ home for all of two years collectively, tell me, a 33 year old who’s been on his own since he was 20, anything about life? What can you contribute to the discussion about the gender wage gap, even though you’ve never worked a job earning more than minimum wage? What can you, an adorable mixed gender chick, tell me, a giant black man, about police discrimination? How can you berate a cop for profiling one minute, but then claim to think all white people with dreadlocks smell like garbage the next? Your Social Justice is a fad that you swap out like the sneakers you spend too much money on.

Impatience

Me: The purveying notion is that millennials are, for lack of a better term, impatience. We need instant gratification as opposed to playing the long con. That’s actually pretty true, even in my case. I hate waiting on other people to get me the resources I need in order to produce. I hate depending on other people to the things necessary so that I can do the things I need to do. I am crazy impatience when things aren’t going at the pace I need them to. I understand that, in life, you need to wait for things to happen. I understand that there is a system in the word where being put off somehow equates earned gratification. I do not buy into that nonsense. If I’m at a job, and I’m selling you my time, and I excel at the position, I expect to move upward at the same rate. Why am I busting my ass to show you how great I am as an employee, only to toil away on the vine because you refuse to recognize my shine? I want to be compensated for my ability, not placated and I am VERY impatient when it comes to that. So I try to diversify my expectations. While I might have that lack of fulfillment at my job, I have a blog that I write pretty regularly. I’m working on a novel. I tend to doodle throughout the day and create actual art on the weekends. My impatience with society is almost wholly subverted with my knowledge that I can control other aspects of my life. This is enough for me to cog my way through the professional world. For now.

Her: This chick throws tantrums when you don’t so the things she wants, exactly when she wants them done. Like, she’ll ask you for a favor and then get upset when you don’t from everything and commit to that favor immediately. She applied for a job, didn’t get the position she wanted by was offered two other ones, and promptly left the interview. She bad mouthed the boss when she got home because it made her feel better. She refused to accept that maybe the position she wanted wasn’t hers to take and that maybe she would have to alter her life plan to make up for it just a bit. This chick’s inflexibility is derivative of her lack of social patience. Being so young, she feels like everything she wants, needs to happen immediately and that’s just not how the world works. It never has. The difference between she and in this respect, is that I learned that lesson early in life. She refuses to even acknowledge it.

Rejection

Me: I don’t care about rejection. I don‘t care about losing. I could give you some nonsense about those situations being learning experiences but they’re not. If i fail at something, I tend to analyze why and adjust. I suppose that could be seen as learning but I don’t think it is. It feels more like an accumulation of new data to incise rather than “I’m gonna be a better person for my loss.” Even in passive social situations, if someone tells me “No”, it’s really whatever. If I’m denied something or a service, I move on, maybe finding an alternate route to what I needed. Rejection is a temporary inconvenience to me and I usually find a way to circumvent it with little to no hassle. You’re going to get a ton of “No” in life. It doesn’t make sense to dwell on them if you’re about your sh*t.

Her: man, my brother told her he was going to go hang out with his friends instead of staying in with her (he had spent literally the entire day with her) and she lost her sh*t! For 3 days! She went through her phone and called all of their mutual friends to complain about how much of an “ain’t sh*t n*gga” he was, after she threatened to jump off a goddamn bridge! All because he denied her more of the time she wanted with him. And it wasn’t like she wouldn’t see him ever again, they f*cking live together! They literally sleep in the same bed together! Chick punched a hole in my wall because she couldn’t have the last bread stick. These are extreme examples of her reactions to rejection but they’re a thing. Usually she just throws tantrums but, seriously, destroying sh*t or trying to ruin someone’s reputation because they deny you some semblance of personal gratification is both ridiculous and wildly childish.

Mental Health

Me: I’m a mess. Much like most millennials born in the 80s, I come from a broken home. My parents were emotionally divorced and never really interacted. My dad blamed me for that and viciously took his jealous anger out on me every chance he got. I suffered many an indignity. I was terrorized by one of the people who was charged with my growth and protection, while the other just turned a blind eye to it because she couldn’t fathom someone being so cruel to their own. I’ve experienced the very worst of people for a very long time and it’s left me pretty scarred. I have extreme difficulty with accepting affection and trusting people. I tend to be unreasonably introverted which, I imagine, leads to some form of depression. I often have panic attacks when I remember my childhood, I’ve had nightmares every night of my life since I was about 5 years old which has led to chronic insomnia. 5 hours a sleep is great for me. I was afraid of people for so long that it’s difficult for me to even relate to the smallest things in social situations. I’d say I have Asperger’s but I’m not autistic, just jaded. My intelligence is rather high, I as certified genius with an IQ of 154 when I was in the 3rd grade, so that further alienated me from my peers. I learned early on to be dumb in order to fit in but, as an adult, I tire of that game so I don’t play as often anymore. I have a severe lack of empathy and have next to no regard for life which kind of makes me a sociopath. I exhibit a lot of the qualities troops have after returning from war with PTSD. Therapists have told me I’m too much to treat with just counseling, that I needed drugs to be a person. That seems ridiculous so I just pretend. I wear my “person” suit to the best of my ability and just kind of retreat inward when I grow wary of other people. No, I’m not a serial killer or a criminal or a monster. Interestingly enough, because of the way I am, I would make a great politician, police officer, or spree killer. It’s funny how thin that line is. My point is, with all of my traumas and slights, I learned to cope. I learned to accept that I was damaged and found a way to move forward. I don’t use my issues as a crutch or excuse. I challenge them every day and, while I’ll never be okay, I can be better. I am better. And that’s the journey.

Her: I’m not someone who would belittle another person’s trauma or degrade their struggle. That’s not my place. Everyone goes through it and their journey is their own. She and I have spoken candidly about why she is the way she is. Why she’s depressed. Why she’s slow to trust. Why she is manic. Why she is the way she is or rather, why she believes herself to be. Her issues are strikingly similar to my own lady’s issues but the way the two of them have gone about remedying their respective shortcomings is vastly different. While my chick is in the same boat as me, dealing with her trauma day-to-day with the help of meds and counseling, the 20 year old does nothing. She weaponized her emotional and mental distress to use as a means to deflect and attack the things she doesn’t like. I refer you back to the example where she spazzed out for a weekend because my brother decided to hang out with his friends one night. She chalked that up to be “off her meds”. She comes home and tells me stories about hoe hurtful her mother is in how she’s peaks to her because “She knows I’m mentally fragile.” Again, harsh words send this girl into a fury. Rejection sends her into a spiral. It’s ridiculous. The thing is, though, she KNOWS it. She KNOWS that these things are issues that needs to be addressed and she flat pit refuses. How do I know? I asked her. She said to me it’s too hard working on herself so she’s not going to do it. She’s just going to kill herself when it gets too hard. She’s going to pull one of those “13 reasons why”, guilt-from-beyond-the-grave bullsh*t. Obviously, this is a cry for help, and I tried to do just that, but you have to WANT to get better in order TO get better. This chick has no intention of even ATTEMPTING to do that. It’s everyone else who’s at fault she’s sad. The world isn’t fair not her circumstances. He has no control over her emotions. It’s literally never her, always everyone else, even though it’s her life and she’s the common denominator.

I feel like if you actually took a poll of the older Millennials, the mid to later thirty-somethings, you’d see a sharp contrast to the accepted narrative of how Millennials are portrayed. True, we don’t buy into that “American Dream.’ None of us want the house with the white picket fence and 2.3 kids. The Cleavers were already played out by the time our parents came of age, what makes you think we’d want any part of that nonsense? True, we demand equal compensation for equal amounts of our time. We watched our parents toil away only to lose their jobs after giving companies 20 to 30 years of their lives. If I give you 40 hours of my life a week, I thoroughly expect to take 8 to 16 a month for myself. Who’s trying to work themselves into an early grave for a conglomerate that doesn’t give a sh*t about you? True, we feel like the State would fit the bill for education and healthcare because that seems like a system that breeds true happiness among the populace, or rather, I’d like to see a doctor and not have to sell a kidney to get my heart checked out. Maybe actually attend a university where my math book didn’t cost 700 f*cking dollars or have to graduate with a mortgage full of debt and only an unpaid internship lined up for this degree I worked so hard to get. True, we are the most diverse generation to date and yes, we demand that we ALL are represented both fairly and without judgement of the superficial but I kind of feel like that more a human decency thing rather than a generational divide. True, we don’t care about diamonds, Sears, Buffalo Wild Wings, or Harley Davidson. All them sh*t’s are relics from a bygone era where people were told what was important rather than feeling out what is important to them. Yes, we are the Me, Me, Me generation, not because we’re conceited, entitled, knobs, but because we watched the generations before us buy into that “all for one” rhetoric and get burned alive for it. Excuse us if we’d rather not end up as the same kind of kindling as our parents.

This chick I live with is legally an adult. She is legally looked upon the same way I am but the differences in how we exist and how we engage society are wildly different. I feel like the media hones in too much on the aspects of my generation that she represents, and not the aspects that I represent. Of course a 20 year old is going to be narcissistic, they’re 20. They don’t know any better. They were raised to be. Everyone gets a gold star and, if you try hard, your goals will be achieved! They’re 2 years removed from High School where that nonsense is spewed at them every day. These kids are vaulted into a world that doesn’t give a sh*t if they tried. The world wants results and she, like many of her twenty-something kindred, was not prepared for that in the slightest. Their parents failed them. The system failed them. Society failed them. But society failed me, too. I was 20 years old once. I was 20 with a job, an apartment, a significant other, and living two states away from my home. I learned, early on, that while I am unique and f*cking amazing, I’d have to either constantly prove that to other people or just learn to be okay with knowing how bright I shine, myself. Use that outstanding to fuel my dreams and that’s what I’ve been doing. The thing is, she’s not even trying to learn the tools necessary to engage because of her stupid f*cking entitlement! The fact that she refuses to learn who she is because it’s too hard, stifles her growth as a person , adult, and woman. Her sh*ttiness is then perceived to be the purveying tone of my entire generation and that’s f*cking bullsh*t!

I think a lot of why she’s so goddamn awful is her youth but, at the same time, I see a lot of the same sh*ttiness in my 40 year old sister. She’s not even a millennial! Maybe it’s not my generation at all! Maybe it’s no one’s generation. Maybe there are just asshole outliers that are so visible because they are out there on the fringe making the most noise. Maybe there are just sh*tty people that are extremely sh*tty. Ultimately, one could make the argument that ol’ girl is part of Gen-Z but, much like the beginning of my generation, the inception of those kids is highly debated. I think she’s closer to my circumstance; that tweener of two generations, torn between Y and Z. I thick she personally identifies as a Millennial so, I guess, that’s where we are going with that. I imagine that these hallmarks and grievances kind of grew over time. As younger and younger parent started having more and more kids, that whole “you can be whatever you want to be” aspect kind of took off. The placation and something of helicopter parents has bread a slew of children with no gauge for reality outside of their safe space bubble and instead of understanding their world is cold and hard, they want to make it warm and familiar, like it was when they were literal children. I personally never had a safe space. I was terrorized in home and out. Sure, it’s dope to fill your kids with dreams and hopes but that is no substitute for actual parenting. Telling your child they’re a snowflake doesn’t do them any good. Telling them that they are unique but will have to earn a place for that uniqueness in a world that is going to try and pound that out of you is a more realistic circumstance to prepare your child to engage. Because that’s the reality. I was born in 1984. I am at the beginning of the Millennial generation. I am at the end of Generation X. She was born in 1997. She is at the end of the Millennial generation. She is the beginning of The Facebook Generation. We are two ends of the same spectrum, and like that color wheel, there are many, many hues along the way but, the ends are wildly different. One red, one blue. We are all colors, sure, but we are definitely NOT the same. Trying to paint a portrait of what my generation looks like while using only that single color is both shortsighted and makes for a terrible painting.

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smokeybrand · 7 years

Text

She and Me

Entitlement

Laziness

Inclusiveness

Impatience

Rejection

Mental Health

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chimponpurpose · 8 years

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Gabriel Hall, Vancouver Mural Festival: How can we empower the people who live in this city to take charge of the culture and to feel like we can do totally awesome rad stuff here?

If you live in Vancouver, especially in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, you probably noticed an incredible change last summer. What once were blank walls on buildings throughout the area suddenly became canvases for giant-scale artworks. Bombastic colour, bold shapes and diverse subject matter became part of the cultural and physical landscape, free for everyone to enjoy. It was the result of the Vancouver Mural Festival, a multi-day arts and culture event that showcased the work of over fifty street artists from Vancouver and around the world. Thanks to Cofounder and Marketing Director Gabriel Hall, it’s going to be an annual event that literally leaves a mark on the city. We talked to Gabe about the idea, what success looks like, and the challenge of making something cool.

On genesis: The root of everything was this conversation that Dave and I were having on my deck one day. He was looking for something to do after SingItfwd. He was trying to figure out what his next project was going to be and we were talking about what we wanted to see in the city. We're two guys who grew up in Vancouver and want to affect it in a positive way and do something cool. What do we want to change? What do we want to try and make better? What do we want to try and help grow? We wanted to get rid of that whole weird attitude in Vancouver that you can't do really awesome cool things. I hate saying “No Fun City”.

On the city: Vancouver doesn't have any credibility on an international scale as far as arts and culture go. We've got some bands that come from here. We do a lot of film production here but people who grow up in a small town who really want to be an artist would never think, "I'm going to move to Vancouver." We were thinking, how can we empower the people who live in this city to take charge of the culture and to feel like we can do totally awesome rad stuff here? We don't have to move to Berlin. We don't have to go to New York or Montreal or wherever.

On street art: We’ve traveled a lot, and one of the lynch pins of most creative cities is there's almost always a crazy street art scene. How come we don't have a crazy street art scene in Vancouver? Well you're not allowed. The city won't let you. You can't just do art there. Then we started digging into that idea? How do we foster a street art scene in a city that doesn't have one and has what we thought at the time were a lot of rules that said you couldn't do that.

On change: It's about trying to empower arts and culture in this city as a whole. It's a great big party. It's a lot of public art on the walls that everybody can see and have access to but in a deeper sense, hopefully, it's a growth, a cultural change in Vancouver.

On the City of Vancouver: The City was actually one of our biggest pleasant surprises. We went in there thinking, "Oh man. This is going to be the biggest fight we're going to have to fight the whole time. We're for sure going to have to fight them tooth and nail on everything and we're not going to get to do what we want to do." That was the preconceived notion that we had. But when we got in there and we started talking to people, we realized that everybody thought that somebody else wasn't going to let us do it but nobody had a reason why we couldn't do it. Everybody thought it was an awesome idea. Everybody at the City was super on board. It wasn't about a big fight, it was about opening the door and wading through some bureaucracy and asking a lot of questions about why and how. How do we figure out why everybody thinks we can't do it when everybody thinks we should do it? It was the biggest surprise I think of the entire fest. They were our major funder.

On experiencing the festival: I had about a 20 minute gap where there was nothing coming in. My phone wasn't ringing. My walkie talkie wasn't blowing up and I got to just go for a walk down the street and had a moment where I got misty-eyed. I just started crying walking down the street. Partially it was exhaustion and panic I think but it was also amazing to be walking down Main Street and see all these people here for this thing that we all worked so hard on for a couple of years to put together and make it happen. It's insane man. It was a beautiful day.

On goals: We really intentionally tried to not be just another festival because we're aware of that as a thing. We've lived here. We've been to all those festivals. I don't want to knock anybody down but we had this sense of really wanting to stand head and shoulders above everything else that's going on.

On success: I think there were a number of factors. I think the fact that we brought a bunch of really big international artists into town was important. The fact that we were audacious in our goal setting and the size of our projects and the size of the walls that we wanted to do. One of the key things that our team at Transformation Projects did was create a lot of diversity and interesting little pockets in the festival. I think that was the main thing people felt was that everywhere they went there was something unique and interesting happening.

On community: We just said to everybody who wanted to get involved, "What do you want to do? Give us your idea. Tell us what you think is a cool thing that you can do." Then we just let them execute it. It wasn't Dave's brain or my brain or anybody's two or three brains coming up with everything that was going to happen. This festival is about everyone who pitched in because everyone who we touched and everyone we came across along the way was so stoked about it and wanted to help out in whatever way they could. We had tons of volunteers. We had tons of businesses. We had tons of people going out of their way and bending over backwards to make it happen.

On the murals: Everybody just assumed they would be up for a couple of months and then we'd have to paint them over and go back to boring walls again. They're permanent. That's the point of it.

On representation: One of our mantras that we came up with early in the process was “changing the way art is seen in Vancouver.” We wanted to change the way art is perceived in Vancouver but we also wanted to physically change the way that it's seen - we wanted to bring it into public space and make it accessible to everyone and make it a part of the fabric of the living and breathing city. This is our part that we can do but the whole point of us doing this is to empower other people to do other awesome stuff.

On support: Low Tide Properties, they're not huge developers, they really give a shit about improving the neighbourhoods that they own properties in and doing cool stuff. They really gave us a ton of support. The Mount Pleasant BIA also. They had a festival that they were doing called the Autumn Shift. It was going to be on that same weekend so when we approached them to talk about doing the mural festival after a little bit of back and forth they said, "Hey, why don't we just do them together?” Burrard Arts Foundation helped us out big time as well. They organized a really cool gallery show for us in the month leading up to the fest where they actually had a hung gallery of artwork by all the artists that were in the festival.

On the future: We're planning to do at least 10 years. Our focus is on Mount Pleasant and the neighbourhoods that we already started in, expanding and pushing boundaries. We're still pretty new at this and so we're just opening every door to see what's inside.

You can look at work from all of the artists here, and give directly to the next Vancouver Mural Festival here.

#murals #arts #culture #festival #vancouver mural festival #wearechimp #charity #community #street art #kashink

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