Ice Cube and Coors Light

This video is one of a series of Ice Cube vs. Coors Light (Cold Challenge) commercials. The premise of these commercials are to figure out who is colder Ice Cube or Coors Light. This commercial is very interesting to me because a person without knowledgeable of Ice Cube's body of work would have assumed that he was in this commercial because of his name. But I think that he got this part, not just because it fit Coors Light's theme but because Ice Cube's music could be labeled as figuratively cold. Cold as in unfriendly or the way I learned its other meaning, listening to rap music and cringing when I heard a deftly rhymed but dirty line. If you have ever heard Ice Cube's notorious NWA diss "No Vaseline", you would know what I mean. Now back to the topic. The most memorable part of these commercials is when Ice Cube says "you think you're colder than me?" right before the Coors Light bottle magically freezes Ice Cube or his acquaintance. This scene and the commercial as a whole tries to sell people on the idea that Coors Light's new and improved bottle tells the drinker when the beer is at its optimum level of cold. I'm a bit dubious but because I have no interest in the product, it doesn't really matter. But even without interest in the product, a person would still ponder at why Ice Cube thinks he was so "cold" when literally it doesn't make any sense but when it relates to hip-hop, Ice Cube was and still is the coldest.

Taco Bell Rap

This is a very old Taco Bell commercial using rap as a medium for ordering tacos. There is definitely a jingle to this song, and with most hip-hop advertisements, it tends to involve a short and catchy beat with lyrics that are easily remembered. For this commercial specifically, the two kids who are rapping and beat-boxing seem to only be doing it to be cool or funny, since they purposely mess up on the end to prove they don't really have any idea what they're doing.

The commercial definitely goes out to make the product look new, hip, cool, and most certainly improved. There has never been a Taco Bell commercial that has used this strange style of marketing, but surprisingly it works since everyone seems to remember the commercial. The reasons are simple: Anyone who has ever  been at a drive-thru can relate to this commercial and put themselves in the same position as the character, and it is absurdly funny and catchy that he would spontaneously rap his order rather than saying it normally as do sane people. There doesn't seem to be any good versus evil or naughty versus nice elements to it; only two kids pretending to be rappers to be funny while ordering at a drive-thru window. It doesn't bring any other companies down or try to prove itself to be better than others.

If I had to pick a premise for this commercial, it would be to show a younger audience that Taco Bell is still relevant and the food is amazing once you try it for yourself.

Ice Cube - Hood Mentality

After reading Denrick's essay this week, I was inspired to write about Hood Mentality by Ice Cube. This song goes way back but is still considered one of Ice Cube's best work.

In the song, Ice Cube analyzes the so-called "hood mentality" that most people go through when living in the lower income neighborhoods that he was familiar with growing up. He talks about how people in the hood are throwing their lives away going after cheap goals that would ultimately lead to jail or failure.

Since the song doesn't have a music video, I focused on the connection that the sound has to the overall message. It opens up with a very dark and grimacing tone of an old man saying "The hood is where I am from, but it is not who I am". The song then progresses into the actual beat, which is slow and upbeat and carries Ice Cube's dynamic flow perfectly. He sarcastically mocks the "hood" throughout the entire song, hoping to make the intended audience realize how foolish they really sound. The very first lyrics are "Fuck school, Imma' be a dope dealer", which powerfully introduces how Ice Cube would handle the topic through his song. The chorus of the sound really sends the message though as Ice Cube repeats, "If you don't wanna shake that hood mentality, how are we supposed to change our reality?" By the end of the video, Ice Cube obliterates the "hood mentality" through his style, and hopefully inspired many people to not make the same mistakes he is talking about in the song.

Stan

“Stan” is a story of an obsessive fan that is constantly writing letters to Eminem and with each passing scene Stan gets more deranged. The video conveys this message from the beginning, the first scene shows a hallowed window with the sounds of rain and thunder in the background. This shows how dark the message of the song is. The video has many scenes in Stan's basement with walls covered up with pictures of Eminem's picture and this shows Stan's deep obsession for Eminem's attention. During the last scenes of the video Stan is in his car driving furiously on a rain-riddled road. The pouring rain shows a sense of tension in the scene. Stan is driving his car not being able to see anything because of the rain and this gives the watcher a sense of not knowing what will happen next. The video as a whole gives of fa sense of sadness and anger with its darkness and its multiple flashbacks that also consist of a sort of darkness gives them deep importance to the song. When attention is drawn to Stan, his actions and facial expressions gives off an obsessive feel that is essentially the whole thesis of the song.

Comments

http://influenceinhiphop.blogspot.com/2012/10/i-used-to-love-her.html

I decided to comment on Denrick’s post on his song that we listened to last class. This is the type of hip-hop that needs to be emphasized if we are ever going to have a chance at getting the genre back to where it needs to be. Our blog largely deals with comparing all the different genres of hip-hop to mainstream, and seeing how the influence and development changed overtime and whether or not it is for the better or worse. Songs like this just prove why we have absolutely no idea what we’re doing anymore, and we seemed to have confused catchy dance music with hip-hop in our mainstream.

http://rapdungeon.blogspot.com/2009/10/more-ra-tracks.html

I visited this blog a month back when we were doing our research and it had a lot to do with what I was going to talk about in my essay. I compare underground music to mainstream and argue how underground music, despite generating substantially less profit, is ultimately more influential and meaningful if people would simply listen to it rather than mainstream rap. The author includes a list to several tracks of the artist “RA the Rugged Man” which are incredible songs, but most people can’t seem to find anymore. 

Comment

http://influenceinhiphop.blogspot.com/2012/11/1990s-and-now.html
I chose to comment on this blog post by Daniel because of how true it is. Hip-hop has turned into a place where people who want to be rappers that would not have made it in the 1990's goes to and makes millions of dollars rapping about drugs, money and woman on every record they make. A person with no knowledge of the genre would could listen to a Tupac record and right after listen to any mainstream rapper in this current generation and would probably think that the songs were from two totally different genres. Daniel neatly packaged an argument that hip-hop has turned into an uncreative genre getting worse with every record released.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cv0NCaKB7A
This is Hannity of Fox News interviewing hip hop legend KRS-ONE. Since this was broadcasted on Fox News and a rapper was being interviewed, the interviewer was probably going to go into delusional lengths at trying to make his or her guest look bad. Hannity made sure he distorted every KRS-ONE quote given to him just to make KRS look like a person who hates cops and America. But, KRS-ONE, being from the very intelligable glory days of rap music, made sure he countered every word Hannity said with what was really going on.

Free Post (underground)

Here we have another form of hip-hop music known as underground. Underground music is the stuff that is usually not played on the radio and has less media hype. Most underground rappers have their own style and they tend to rap about things that have meaning. This is where hip-hop becomes masked and unnoticed as the main stream projects a bad name and image while underground is the true roots of hip-hop for example Atmospheres- "Sunshine". The artist does not tell about drugs and gangs, but instead he takes a moment to praise life. Through the lyrics he uses a catchy rhythm and smooth transitions to express the idea that we should all cherish life and that it is a beautiful thing. This is quite the opposite of what rap now a days usually consists of. Although this is not considered "classic hip-hop" or "old school hip-hop" it shows ideas and influences from those early styles. Atmosphere does this by expressing topics such as the sunshine and an old bike he hasn't ridden in a while. He notices that the smaller things in life are what are important after a hard night of drinking. "Front of the toilet hands and knees trying to breath in between the dry heaves". He's trying to say that drinking and partying aren't the more important things in life and that those things cause us harm.

React

This is a song off of Upcoming hip-hop legend Kendrick Lamars album "Good Kidd M.a.a.d City", which tells a story about how he grew up in a city around gang violence and drugs and how it changed the way he is as a person. Many times drugs and violence are rapped about and promoted in todays hip-hop music, but Kendrick explains why he doesn't smoke because of what happened to him while living in Compton. He says "Imagine your first blunt had you foaming at the mouth"so he's asking his listeners if they would continue to smoke and do drugs if the first time they tried it, it was laced with another drug that gave him a seizure. Also Kendrick is portraying that the city where he comes from "Compton, Usa" Is a mad city where one must get away from all of the craziness to survive.The chorus of the song is makes the listener understand where this artist is coming from and what he encounters daily. The words "Where you from, nigga" dont mean what city, but what gang instead and then he says "This m.A.A.d city like run, my nigga" which is telling you that to survive you gotta run for your life in his "Maad City"

1990s and now

As a disclaimer, I do not offer any private art lessons despite my phenomenal skills being made apparent by this picture. Now when I was given the opportunity to parody an element of hip-hop, a flurry of ideas came into my mind. There were a number of different routes I could have taken here, but I feel this is the most appropriate one given the theme of the blog. On the left you will notice that we have an unaltered Tupac album taken straight from when it debuted in the 1990's. As you will notice, I have taken the liberty and added a few items on the right to make this album more relevant and distinguishable for kids today. After all, we don't seem to hear about anything else other than the standard influx of incoherent ramblings about women, drugs, money, swagger, more drugs, sex, violence, partying, more money, more women, and finally a monologue on how successful the artist is.

My point here is very simple: The mainstream rap of the 1990's isn't even close to identifiable with the mainstream rap of today. Please not that I am in no way saying that this is how Tupac would look if he were still alive today; what I am merely pointing out is that you will be more familiar and likely to hear something from the album on the right, than something as original and innovative as the album on the left. I could have easily linked an album that looks shockingly similar to the one I created, but for the sake of recreation I made my own that basically comes out and says, "This is exactly what you will be listening to today, sir".

Really the problem I have is with the lack of creativity with the songs I hear on the radio. You can argue all you want with me that if the songs were truly as bad as I make them out to be, then the artists wouldn't be making any money. Sadly, commercial music has taken its toll on the masses and sooner or later people will find themselves listening to artists reading Dr. Seuss behind enhanced elevator music and eat the newly released song up like the drone they are.

A talented producer is all that is needed to be famous today, and in a sense anyone can do what these new-age mainstream artists are doing; all you need to be able to do is establish a "cool" image, keep up with the beat that your producer has laid out for you, and make sure you sound as intolerable as possible to any person who cares about meaning behind their music.