I fell in love with hip hop around 2013 when I listened to my first rap album, Drake’s Nothing Was the Same. To me, hip hop is an art of storytelling, rooted in struggle and triumph. It has its haters and it is not perfect, but it has also saved and changed countless lives.
In the tradition of the 1970s New York City DJs and MCs that founded the genre, the guardians of modern hip hop are innovative, creative and heartfelt. Anyone can pick up the mic and tell their stories. As fans, we just need to turn up the volume on game-changing artists.
Buddah Abusah is a Hamilton-born and raised creator spreading a message of peace and love. He began writing at the age of 11 and rapping seriously at the age of 16. Haviah Mighty is a Toronto-born, Brampton-raised musician who is also a member of the rap group The Sorority. She began rapping at the age of 12, combining her seven years of singing lessons with her newfound interest in hip hop.
I spoke separately to these two local rappers about their thoughts on hip hop. Both artists spoke about the importance of the genre not only because of the music, but because of the culture.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo7s8IlnRTJ/
Buddah Abusah: My inner city message is letting all artists know that no matter where you're from, [as] long as you put your mind to it, you can be successful in your way. [I want to] show people [that if you] put your mind to it and indulge yourself properly, you can get yourself to that gold, platinum status [that] Canadians are doing more often now. Also… the message I want to give out is that all my music is to peace, love and equality. No matter what goes down, just treat it with peace and love because at the end of the day that's what everybody needs.
Haviah Mighty: I definitely like to pull from the rawest, truest points of my life to try to create the most effective message possible, which is usually the things that are most important to me. The narrative will always change based on the shifting of the energies around us and things that are happening. But I would definitely say… just being a Black female, I am political in nature. The hair that I have, the skin tone that I have, the gender that I am and what I chose to do for a career are to some people very oxymoronic. I think naturally just my look and my delivery and my vibe is a little bit of an empowering, stepping out of your element, believing in your true self kind of message before even opening my mouth. I don't think that's something I can really escape or run from and I'm actually very happy to naturally represents that. I feel that people around me resonate with that.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt8_KYXAXM5/
BA: Best part is the growth. For me I love seeing individuals or an individual put their mind to something and watch it come into fruition. Right now I'm doing that with a couple people/groups. I've worked with some of them in the past and just watching them help the culture of [Hamilton] is the best part because I know this city will get there. Like everybody knows the city is growing. And it'll be interesting seeing Hamilton have their own culture and their own sound like how Toronto has their own sound. Hamilton is far enough where we see Toronto and we want to be like the [greater Toronto area] and be included like the GTA, but we still want our own.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BorVUiiHLRt/
HM: The best part of the hip hop community is the community. I think hip hop is very cultural and the community is very culture-based… [W]ithin hip hop in my experience, you can go to different venues and it's like these are people that you've grown up with because at the cultural level, you guys are so connected. It might be the same for punk music and rock and stuff [but] I'm not as embedded in those communities to know. I think for me it's the beautiful marriage between the sonic vibe of hip hop and then just like the community of hip hop and how different yet similar those two things are.
BA: I'm going to be releasing new material spring, summer time. I've just been working with other artists, doing some production, audio engineering. And other than that, I'm just taking my sweet, sweet time. I'm not trying to [give] you the exact same trap sound that you're always hearing on the radio or that your friends play. I'm here giving you something completely different. I'm giving you good vibes, I'm giving you vibes for strictly hippies… My goal with this is creating an entirety of a sound for the city.
HM: I have an album coming out. I'm hoping that this can really open up some interesting conversations. I'm really hoping that we can see some shifts in female hip hop and what we expect from being a female in hip hop and what we expect from I guess just the gender expectations. I would love to see some of those surpassed with some of the stuff I'm coming out with. But definitely just trying to contribute positively to the hip hop community and that hip hop culture and to tell good, impactful stories that can make some good change.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp-dJixASg6/
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
[adrotate banner="16"]
[feather_share show="twitter, google_plus, facebook, reddit, tumblr" hide="pinterest, linkedin, mail"]
By: Sebastian Johnston-Lindsay
You need to be careful of who is within earshot when you admit to being to being a country music fan. Common reactions range from a disheartened eye roll to wild shrieks of enthusiasm and (often vague) accounts of last year’s Boots and Hearts.
I do consider myself a country music fan, but I am perpetually ill at ease with the label. I think that it’s important to be able to trace differences between vintage country music and the country music of our time, which is largely characterized by pre-packaged formulaic production and blatant promotion of light beer consumption and truck-balls.
This article is for those people who think they might want to like country music but just don’t know what might constitute country, or indeed even where country music came from. I have selected artists that I feel represent the early formation of the sound we might call country.
The first major figure in the history of country music for our sake is Waylon Jennings. Jennings was an outlaw countryman by any stretch of the imagination who is characterized as much by his larger-than-life baritone voice and hard driving country originals as by his image: he often donned black leather vests and hats in performance.
He bridged the gap between the rock music of the 1950s and the discernable country sounds we recognize today. He got his start playing in Buddy Holly’s touring band until the Holly’s infamous death on Feb. 3, 1959 in a plane crash. Waylon avoided the accident by giving his seat up to a sick band mate and opting to take a bus to the next show. In the sixties Jennings continued to work as a solo artist releasing 11 albums between 1964-1969. His initial release Waylon at JD’s (1964) contains versions of Roy Orbison’s “Crying” and Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright.”
As his career progressed, he adopted a harder edge in his music. His 1976 album Are you Ready for the Country?, named after Neil Young’s song by the same name off the album Harvest (1972), typifies Jennings’ signature sound. It includes a cover of Young’s song with a straight forward mingling of twanging guitars and heavy drums with powerful hooks.
Jennings had a close working relationship with fellow well-known “outlaws” Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash. The four men formed The Highwaymen, a supergroup that recorded and toured from the mid-1980s through until Jennings’ death in 2002.
The individual discographies of these four artists in particular represent the foundation of the genre we now recognize as country from the 1970s onward. Their willingness toward collaboration and tendency to cover and adapt each other’s songs became an important aspect of the genre.
Kris Kristofferson, is an especially interesting figure, having written numerous songs that were later made famous by other artists. Examples include “Sunday Morning Coming Down” which became an integral part of Johnny Cash’s concert performances. In addition to this, his song “Me and Bobby McGee” was covered and made popular by Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead.
Finally we come to Townes Van Zandt. Born in Fort Worth Texas in 1944, his life was spotted with bouts of bipolar disorder aggravated by addictions to both alcohol and heroin for his entire adult life until his death at age 52. Despite this, his was prolific and vastly influential singer-songwriter. He came into the spotlight in the early 1970s along with fellow Texas singer Guy Clark, with whom he lived for a few drug-addled months in the early part of the decade.
While he is not as widely recognized as some of his peers, including those listed above, his influence on artists like Steve Earle and Bob Dylan is well documented. Throughout his life, he was notorious for shunning the spotlight and was uncomfortable with the idea of celebrity.
His debut album For the Sake of the Song (1968) contains the original recording of his most well known song “Waiting ‘Round to Die,” a burning chronicle of a life spent wandering and stealing, all the while looking for the next fix. The song ends with the revealing and prophetic lines: “I got me a friend at last, he don’t steal or cheat or drink or lie. His name’s codeine, he’s the nicest thing I’ve seen. Together we’re gonna wait around and die.”
Fans of Breaking Bad will recall Canadian folk-country band The Be Good Tanyas’ cover of “Waiting ‘Round to Die” in the episode “Bit By a Dead Bee” from the second season of the series, which brings this often covered classic to a new audience. Other key songs by Van Zandt include “Columbine” off of his self-titled 1969 album and the narrative tune “Pancho and Lefty” off The Late Great Townes Van Zandt (1972).
Townes Van Zandt is for music fans that appreciate high-poetics and simplistic production techniques. He is the Nick Drake of country music; his specter looms large in the underground folk and country scene.
I want to stress that if you find yourself in despair at the state of country music, having given the above artists a try, there is hope. Many manifestations of the original aesthetic have survived and are alive today. I urge every reader to seek out The Dinner Belles, a Hamilton outfit who released The River and the Willow this past year.
Country music is not a singular genre. It is a combination of many different styles of music that incorporate geographic, social and economic realities. This article represents nothing more than the jumping off point into a large pool of musical discovery, and maybe some Bud Light.
Header Photo Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
In-article Credits: Henry Diltz, GAB Archive/Redferns
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
