Henrique: "The 'now' that stands before us will turn into the past even before we finish saying the "n" from the first syllable
The first second of the future yet to come is now.
Only by anticipating this second we will be present in the now.
I firmly decided to live the now.
Some days ago, ASTROWORLD by Travis Scott came out.
I am not a huge fan but I had heard of him,
I wasn't particularly waiting for this album
but the cover calls attention -
I hope that brings attention to this video as well -,
some people that I like were very excited about it
so I thought 'Okay, let's give it a try'.
The album's seventeen tracks didn't stop me -
my bus trip was very long.
Dude, it got me instantaneously.
At first, I wasn't understanding why the album was giving me such convicted feeling
but something felt grandiose.
It is because of its production but not just that.
It sounds...
futuristic.
Really.
Try using any of its tracks as a sci-fi movie soundtrack,
it will make a lot of sense.
It looks simple but is gets more complex
because, at the same time,
this album is an affirmative example of a genre of today's generation.
At the same time that it sounds very futuristic,
it is also very normal, mainstream.
But not in a pejorative way.
The album breaks through these aspects without trying to be subversive.
Despite the fact that, basically all these movies have white males as protagonists
and we are talking about a fundamental aspect of black culture.
What I mean by saying that the album is not subversive is
that it has some solid characteristics from Travis but he is not an eccentric.
So, it is not an album that is absolutely outside the curve,
actually, I mean the opposite.
It is on the curve.
At a very high point of it.
And the curve that we are talking here is trap music.
Trap is a movement happening inside the hip-hop genre
where songs are apparently more energetic and shallow
and with aggressive and vulgar lyrics, full of adlibs -
noises that sometimes make no sense -
to which people say, equivocally, that is a genre that has nothing to add.
I disagree and it would be more plausible to analyze the style and the language trademarks
than the actual subjective lyric content.
In general, calling it trap instead of rap is just saying that the bpm is higher -
beats per minute -
meaning that trap is faster.
Anything beyond that is very relative.
Such as the use of a deep bass sound or autotune.
Although these became very strong traits of the genre.
It bothers me how this has a pejorative undertone.
But, intellectual or not,
the fact is it has gained a lot of popularity in the last recent years,
because of the low cost production that embraced fondly and violently this new generation
that wants to express themselves so badly but are completely psychologically unbalanced
and has no communication skills
or because of autotune and people seeking innovation like Kanye West
that has his own communication problems but was a visionary,
saying, on the pinnacle of his ego, that he was a rock star.
The biggest one.
If had happened today, no one would find it weird.
It is not as hard to see the parallels between what was the rockstar and what is a trapstar
based on their popularity and lifestyle.
Some very important and recent music events happened within trap and its characteristics.
From Childish Gambino's "This is America"
to Jay-Z and Beyoncé' closing down the Louvre for "Apeshit"
both with Migos, one of the most popular groups.
A little time ago, it came out that hip-hop surpassed rock as the most listened genre in USA
and trap is responsible for that
which shows that it is more than just about numbers,
it is about recognition.
By the way, I saw some heated critics about "Apeshit"
and I believe that they liked "This is America" more
because The Carters put themselves in front of the art
while Donald Glover,
as I said in this video,
puts himself in the center, in his place.
We will get there.
The point is, even with projects perfectly executed like ASTROWORLD,
new things face rejection from the public
that hasn't accepted the genre relevance.
This is the most complicated aspect in my opinion.
Let's go in parts.
Chapter one: Autotune - It's not a crutch.
The first thing I want to demystify is
this outdated idea that autotune is just some sort of filter
for people with no vocal talent.
Autotune has a big potential and is technical and complex
in terms that I can't fully explain
so I called my buddy who is an expert.
(Laughs) I always wanted to say that.
Let's go, Dé.
Dé: A guy called Andy Hildebrand,
that worked with methods for interpreting seismic data,
one day had the idea of using sound waves to map the underground
where oil could possibly be found.
This guy also loved music,
actually he was a musician
and he decided to use his database from the underground mapping software
to recognize sound waves of recorded voices
and remodel them as he wanted.
Therefore, the Antares Auto-Tune was created,
the most popular one.
When lay people hear that robotic voice,
they tend to think it is to disguise the singer's lack of vocal talent.
A small percentage of them are right
since auto-tune can be used to detune
but to see it just as this is like looking at a steel wool
thinking that its only use is to polish
when it can be used in a lot of ways, if you are creative enough.
Firstly, if a clueless person tunes a voice in the software
chances are that the voice will not come out good and pitched
because some meticulous adjustments are needed.
And, the more out of tune is a voice, more work is needed.
Plus, the software doesn't work alone.
Some plugins are required to add dynamic and ambience to voices.
Those are used on each and every studio version of a track.
In any musical genre.
Here comes the question:
If those other tools are not considered crutches,
should autotune be considered as such?
I take a risk and affirm that among a lot of bold and edgy things,
Kanye's biggest accomplishment was because of autotune.
On his album "808 & Heartbreak",
he used a distortion effect similar to an electric guitar pedal.
His voice sounds like an electrical instrument on these occasions
and, well, it was extremely creative.
Despite the critics and hate at the time,
today, almost every pop song is a little bit based on that production.
Actually, no one denies the importance of this album for music in general.
In Travis' case,
the geniality is not just on the good use of autotune,
he kind of reinvented his style regarding the use of autotune
using reverb, delay, and other things that I couldn't identify by ear.
Still, it is not just production.
His vocal imposition, since his first album "Rodeo",
is innovative and has an unique identity.
The voice lines that he brings to the producer -
honestly, I don't know who is it, I will look it up -
are audacious.
Sometimes, things are done in a way that no one has done before,
independently of autotune.
Travis is not the only one with originality,
there are a lot of rappers, trappers using autotune in a original and different way,
independently of their voice tune.
Some say that T-Pain was the biggest responsible for popularizing the tool
and I like to exemplify that with two music videos of the same song.
The studio and live versions.
With autotune:
Without autotune:
With this example is clear that he really knows how to sing
but look at all the possibilities the software gives to him on the studio version.
There is where the magic comes from.
Seems like there are a lot of tuners and voice modelers out there.
As for me, I use the Reatune from the  REAPER software
but Auto-Tune was the name given to the first one from Antares
and it became the general name for all similar products,
just like what happens to some brands.
Travis has his own ad-libs that are sampled by many artists:
and the most famous one:
Those ad-libs need autotune to sound like that.
After all, doing an artificial voice is easy,
hard is to sound like Travis, a tuned artificial voice,
quotation marks.
(Laughs)
Henrique: That was definitely one of my favorite collaborations.
Go check Dé's work.
He is a musician, his videos are like ours, details in the description.
Next chapter.
Chapter two: Social relevance - Trap tears
There is a song by Raury that is super relevant to our topic.
It's called "Trap Tears"
and the first time I listened to it, it turned me upside down.
It is one of those things that makes us go like
"How have we never realized that?".
It's a very short song, a storytelling rap
that builds everything step-by-step up to a rapturous chorus.
The story is very generic but it is on purpose,
it talks about a disrupted family
where the mother is overwhelmed by her domestic duties,
struggling with rent,
and a son that starts getting involved with drug trafficking
until his father dies because of it.
The son doesn't cry.
He doesn't cry because men don't cry unless they're trapped tears, as Raury raps.
And then, the chorus:
"It ain't nothing but them tears in the trap".
Do you guys understand his point?
This is a generic story because it is not a commentary on just what he is singing,
it is also about what he is trying to say.
For Neil Gaiman, this is one of the things that defines art.
This is a commentary about the genre as a whole.
When he uses a generic narrative directed to a marginalized youth
from USA or any other place,
the same youth that is defining what is trap culture today,
he unravels a hidden layer behind these upbeat, violent
and apparently empty songs.
Take Panda, one of the biggest trap hits,
a very harsh sound,
and try to see what surrounds that ostentation and those shouts.
The song is not a tribute,
it is almost a response.
'Panda' can be a reference for a car or whatever
but watch the music video.
He is not just showing off that car,
that music video is far from glamour.
It depicts a violent, suffocating reality
and "it ain't nothing but them tears in the trap".
Still, it will play at parties and will get everyone going crazy.
I am not trying to delimit the genre in any way,
as if it could only exist because of these people suffering
but these songs are not politically alienated.
Trap rises within the context of gentrification,
where a low income group is removed from a place
to give space to a higher income group,
and same has happened to hip-hop in the Bronx
but, this time, in Atlanta -
a huge exponent of this genre.
Pay attention to what these guys are saying,
what motivates their posture and its effect.
It is a reply.
It is singing about a marginalized reality filled with crimes, drugs
and violence,
while seeking self-affirmation by singing about self-steem.
Honestly, not everyone can talk about self-steem with that same relevance
but many artists of this genre share some of these topics.
Based on that, ostentation doesn't look as empty.
As any other genre,
trap already has many branches
and it gets more and more complex
and less defined.
But it is always good to remember that
it didn't come from an alienated social context
neither is this alienation intrinsic to the genre.
It will have people emptying its meaning
at the same pace that people will expand it.
There will be people, as Slim Rimografia says,
"with talent to make hits but insist to fight for rights"
and also people that will just make hits.
And they are just as important.
All of this, you will find in Travis' album,
drugs, social context, brutal lyrics, self-affirmation,
even the objetification of women, throughout the album.
Basically, it is about a group of people who can flaunt about
having everything they always wanted now.
But this is a complex topic that requires particular attention.
Chapter three: Male chauvinism - machism, machism, machism
Some time ago, someone left a comment here saying like
"What a bore! Every single video talks about machism!"
and I just think "when did this inversion of values happen?"
The problem is not me complaining on every single video about it,
it is everything that I read, listen or watch reproducing machism at some level.
ASTROWORLD is not excluded from that.
The fact that I really like something
doesn't mean I agree with the machism within it.
And nothing is excluded from it.
Nothing.
Your masterpiece isn't excluded,
neither is your favorite genius artist,
not even me.
And it is crucial to point this here
because we are not talking about a work from another time
where this didn't look less outdated.
I am talking about recent times,
filled with innovations, creativity, that points forward.
It is frustrating to see such an outdated value so deeply rooted
in the artistic popular production of today,
that still sees women as an another object for ostentation.
Albeit, what period are we talking about?
Chapter four: The origin of trap - a product of our generation
I know that looks weird this to be the last chapter
but it will make sense.
Trap is recent stuff.
Its origins circa 1996
around that industrialization process that I mentioned before
and its rise is something from the 2000s,
from this generation.
Which means that we saw trap starting.
These are fast times,
and as something that emerges on the twenty-first century,
trap is a mirror for this generation.
Either because of its language, popularity,
or connectivity.
And, at the same time that it navigates through liquid times
it delivers solid things, like ASTROWORLD.
Trap is an innovation of hip-hop,
this music giant,
but with a new sense,
and the fact that it is so ready-to-go
but also so full of possibilities
really fascinates me.
The next big music innovation can come from trap
and can blow up at any moment.
(Scoffs) I can't prove that but taking into consideration
the sensibility towards the world and desire for transformation
shared within trap,
it doesn't seem absurd for me to say
that the next big thing is coming from here.
Probably from a girl but this is a subject for another video.
"The 'now' that stands before us
will turn into the past even before we finish saying
the "n" from the first syllable."
ASTROWORLD doesn't sound futuristic because it is detached from reality,
it is sort of current,
it doesn't forget about traditional instrumentation or artistic concepts
and asserts a genre that could not be more effervescent.
It is more like a feeling.
A lot of fucking awesome dudes and chicks influencing a lot of people,
producing real stuff,
mocking what is the real now or what will be real in the future.
I fear that because of this stereotype of
trap being an alienated culture, meaningless,
the future of music will come from it and no one is going to pay attention.
My name is Henrique
and, oh my god, what a laborious video
but rewarding at the same time.
Don't forget that is really hard to sustain this kind of content on YouTube
so, from the bottom of my heart, I ask you guys to take a look at our funding campaign,
it is what keeps the channel alive.
But liking, sharing and subscribing also helps.
See you!
