November 2nd

Tonight we are going on a wild ride! We’re going to listen to some tracks with what I would definitely consider explicit content, some rap music, even some swearing, I’ll try to give you the heads up of what we are about to listen to, and the tools to be able to enjoy all of them.

I’ve got 4 pieces to share with you tonight, and I think you’re going to be surprised, I had an absolute blast putting this together, This is all music that I really love, and have been inspired by over the years. 

So, our first track, if I was going to write a Parental advisory for this I would say it has themes of violence, & suicide. Despite that, this piece of music has been recorded innumerable times, we’re going to listen to a version by a group that isn’t known for censoring their lyrical content, and can often come across as extremists.
What makes something appropriate? inappropriate? extreme? It’s often unfamiliarity, sometimes its a cultural clash, sometimes it’s the musical packaging.

So buckle up and here we go! 

This next track, which tells the story of a young musician from a low income family attempting to raise himself up out of poverty with his art is a masterpiece of poetry, it starts with an open mic event. It is 0.006 % questionable/explicit language and it’s actually really just 3 borderline words, and 2 uses of an expletive, 5 out of the 793 words used in the lyrics are enough that this has been labeled as E for Explicit Content. 

I’m going to post the lyrics in the chat box so you can follow along, because it goes by so quickly, and the rhymes are brilliant

Emimem - lose yourself released 2002
I was 12 when it came out, I listened to this so many times, 

​SO lets jump right into the next track!

A beautiful song about rape and murder by Gillian Welch
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And for an amazing example of what can happen when composers and creators are open to using influences from all over.

Hamilton.

A Musical (Technically I think you could actually call it an opera) that uses hiphop/rap to deliver a mesmerizing show.