Content. Often overlooked or should I say overheard or the last thing to be listened to or to register to the casual, in-the-car, listen to the radio, consumer. Yes, we've all heard and/or been in conversations like the one below:
Charlie the Challenger: Why do you like that song? It degrades women and promotes homophobia.
Compliant Chris: True, but the beat is dope. It be knockin' hard at the clubs.
While the melody and percussions of the song seems to be Compliant Chris's initial liking, what may happen more than often as the machine otherwise known as the industry continues monopolize Compliant Chris's air/sound space is that the content begins to saturate his sub-concious. What was initially just a nice beat to bob or dance to quickly evolves into something to sing along to. Not only does his mind become desensitized to the message in the music, but the message embeded in the song continues to be normalized into everyday society as its sentiments will often manifest in everyday interactions.
The point to made here is not so much about the ills of the industry but rather that content is key or should I say content contributes to culture. Therefore, the question to be asked is how is creation of artistic content being approached in different ways and by different artists? I will attempt to answer or at least provide a perspective in the way in which content is created. In attempt to provide clarity, I have outlined four categories or C's in which to place different approaches to an artist(s) musical content. The categories to be articulated are 1. Cliche 2. Careless, 3. Consumed with Caution, and 4. Critical Courage. As I hope you will see, intention or purpose is very much a key factor guiding an artist's content.
Cliche: Nothing new, nothing fresh, just business as usual. The cliche artist is often the uncritical artist. A compliant artist whose main intention is to satisfy the expectation of large labels or in the case of an unsigned artist, it is to court or attract major labels into signing him/her. Whether the cliche artist is at odds or in discomfort with the content of his/her music, the content produced more than often lacks critical consciousness. Instead, it maintains a consistency with the industry's formulaic perspective of success and a compliance to the status quo. Perhaps it is better understood in the form of a question, why would the music industry want to promote a song like Soulja Boy's "Crank That" as oppose to Dead Prez's "Police State"?
Careless: Creativity first. The careless artist is a creative one whose range of content is very wide. The careless artist is most concerned with artistic content that satisfies his/her feeling at the moment. While the content that the careless artist may produce can be interpreted as being concerned with addressing a community issue or problem, the content more than often lacks a critical analysis of the problem. Furthermore, the careless artist often cares less about the effects of his/her art nor would he/she place raising community consciousness over satisfying his/her creative desires. While Michael Jackson's "Black or White" has the intention of eliminating racism through promoting color blindness, the song lacks a critical understanding of color blindness and that subscribing to a color blind perspective promotes not only historical ignorance of race relations but also masks racism and its historical, economic, social, and cultural consequences as it exist today. While the intentions of a careless artist are first and foremost to satisfy his/her creative appetite, then occasionally followed by a distant second as it relates to the message of the song, what still remains absent is a critical understanding and awareness of how the song may affect the consumer.
Consumed with Caution: Fearful of criticism. The artist that is consumed with caution or the overly cautious artist can seen as the complete opposite of the careless artist. The overly cautious artists as I would put it, is very critical of his/her of the aesthetic or technical presentation of the art but more of how people will interpret the message of the art. The overly cautious artists can sometimes be so fearful of criticism as a result of potentially offending someone, that he/she rarely completes an artistic piece or in some cases never releases the art to be ever consumed. The overly cautious artist is critical and conscious of his/her art and its potential to influence but at the same time often falls into the trap of censoring his/herself.
There are also cases in which the overly cautious artist has been able to develop an artistic persona that is very positive in the eyes of a significant number of people so significant, he/she is fearful of producing anything outside of that persona. Thus, what is often the result is that the overly cautious artist censors his or her art by not producing anything outside of that persona and instead complies to this artistic persona (playing it safe to remain free from potentially offending the consumer) even though that may not reflect the artist as a constantly changing and evolving individual. What has been described here is that the artist has allowed his/her artistic content to be reduced or essentialized to what is acceptable to the artist's fan base.
Now, one thing to to be aware of is that while the overly cautious artist and the cliche artists may both grapple with external pressures, the major difference between the two is that because the overly cautious artist is critically conscious, he/she is uncompromising when it comes to submitting to the pressures of popular trends in order to obtain economic capital. Unlike the cliche artist whose intention is to please the majority even at the expense of contradicting his/her values and beliefs, the overly critical artist, firm in his/her values and beliefs, is concerned with positive change as long as the artistic content is consistent with views of a significant mass. While the artist consumed with caution may be conscious of the ills that exist in the world, he/she is limited when he/she submits to a formulaic, regimented, or limited, way to creating content in a constantly changing world.
Critical Courage: Constantly conscious and challenging. The critically courageous artist acknowledges that he/she is in a changing world and that his/her art must change accordingly to address the many complexities that arise. The critically courageous artist does not so much hold him/herself accountable to the expectations of a particular group of people or a label, rather he/she holds his/herself accountable to a philosophy rooted in eliminating oppression. The critically courageous artist is not only willing to take risks with his/her art by addressing issues that are rarely addressed and that are not typically within the artist's persona, but he/she understands that his/her art is not the end all be all, rather dialogue is a critical exchange that must occur as a result of his/her art.
The critically courageous artist does not exclude his/herself from dialogue, instead he/she wishes to engage in dialogue with those he/she shares his/her art with. By wanting to engage in dialogue and keeping an open mind, he/she is taking full responsibility of his/her art. The critically courageous artist views dialogue as an opportunity to unpack the complexities and details that the the artist's art was unable to explicitly address within its limits. The critically courageous artist approaches dialogue with humility and multiple lenses of critique from race, gender, class, sexuality, etc.. It by providing and hearing new perspective, the critically courageous artists is thus changed in a way that not only informs his/her art but moves the artists towards action consistent with eliminating oppression. While creating critically conscious music is an act in itself, the critically courageous artist seeks to move beyond just music, and instead seeks to embrace critical action as a lifestyle. It is by embracing such lifestyle that the artist is constantly being confronted with being courageous or cowardice, critical or complacent, challenging or compliant.
Conclusion. The C's described above are not to suggest that artists belong exclusively to a specific category, rather depending on the art and interpretation, the artists may belong to a specific category at a given time. Some questions to consider in as relates to artist are: What is the artist's intention? Does the art match the intention? What factors pushes the artists in a particular direction? and finally, What are the values and the philosophies that ground the artists?
-ARISTYLES
