Final

            Out of all the musical genres, the most ambidextrous is hip hop. Anything with a pulse can be sampled underneath a rhyme, as rap is essentially poetry with a backbone. And as we move further more advanced in technology, we have been capable of even more extraneous production: sampling music from across the world, from any time period, and creating new, obscurely unique sub-hip-hop genres and exploring the many moods and emotions that come attached with each new additive. But this far push from hip hop’s roots may not be as easily introduced. Inching further away from the machismo that douses your standard booming bass and degrading lyrics by sampling piano keys and violins ultimately add a negative connotation to the genre: soft.

            The occasional hip hop ballad has been the rap artist's way to slam-dunk a one-hit wonder since 1990s slowjammer LL Cool J paved the way for hip hop/R&B artists to follow. However, the lines between romantic ballads and a deeper contextual version of what braggadocio hip hop used to be are becoming more and more blurred.

            Although rap artists have continually produced more melodic tunes with R&B choruses, artists such as Kanye West, Snoop Dogg and Nelly have gone as far as to not only sing the hooks themselves, but to sing entire songs and albums while still classifying themselves as hip hop artists. Additionally, almost across the board, rappers from T.I. to Drake create songs with female fans in mind, both by expressing their sensitive side and by boasting about their ability to satisfy women.

            This is where controversies rise and the war in hip hop draws between the classic standby and the frontier runners: what does it ultimately mean for hip hop to have feelings?

            Kanye West’s techno-motional “808s & Heartbreak,” Drake’s expressive rap/R&B “Take Care,” and Kid Cudi’s inspiring classic rock “WZRD” are three albums that prove an open imagination and creative ProTools work can push hip hop from “Hot in Hurr” to a well-respected, ever-evolving artistic genre.

Kanye West, “808s & Heartbreak” (Rock-A-Fella Records, 2008)

            Kanye West may never be satisfied. Grieving over his materialistic consumption in one moment then boasting about his wealth the next, he is driven by ego and plagued by doubt—contradicting the expected feigned composure of your standard pop star. He hides behind no pseudonyms or characters, and will not hold back from telling you how he truly feels about everything. West is also noted to have the most creative and competitive drive to recombine ideas, challenging hip hop’s standards, and making the only constant theme throughout all of his albums being the experience of Being Kayne West.

            In the year of 2008, however, West had nothing to brag about. He and his fiancée broke up, and his mother Donda West, who raised Kanye alone from the age of three, died from complications after cosmetic surgery. This whirlwind of sadness caused West to create the melancholic electronic album, “808s & Heartbreak,” where he sings us through the entire album. This introspective, minimal electro-pop record steeped in regret and pain contains even more self-examination than a typical Kanye West album, and is prime example of the many directions hip hop can go if we release it from its cage.  

At this point in time, the vocal synthesizer auto tune was relatively new on the hip hop scene. Used most famously by the lyrically shallowest rap artists such as T-Pain, auto tune wanes on the tacky side of hip hop traits. But in the context of West’s “808s & Heartbreak,” (aside from hiding behind it as a vocal crutch) it almost feels like an “if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em” approach to the technique. West, however, finds a new way to it better. He embraces the different ways the cyborg-soul software sounds to his advantage in this new genre of emo-electro-R&B, upping the pathos and embodying a cadenced cry.

            Through first collective listen, the album gives off a monotonic drone of the pitch-corrected technology, orchestral strings, and constant bass underlining erratic beep-boop-bops. But if each song is taken in separately, the album reveals folds and layers that shows West actually paid close attention to each production detail—it just needed a little selfless detangling. The record “Street Lights” has an invigoratingly-pattering drum pulse that beats through atmospheric vocals and piano scales underneath his vocodored cadence, “life’s just not fair” perfectly embodies West’s depressed stage.

The track “Coldest Winter,” dedicated to his late mother, also effortlessly translates West’s emotional outcry. Its haunting refrains that inhale and exhale in between bursts of static and chilly '80s synths display the complicated frustration and sadness that comes with losing someone.

“Heartless” and “Love Lockdown” are the album’s most car-stereo capable and glimpses of what this album could’ve looked like if West set his ego aside and was willing to do further editing. Between tribal drums thundering and vocal twitches, “Love Lockdown” successfully samples this new concoction without being too much. “Robocop” is disappointingly close to being another successful groove with hints of West’s trademark snarky lyrics and punchy violins, but sinks to a selfish jam session during the awkwardly endless bridge when West laments how he will “never be a ruh-roh-bot.”

West’s idea to invite 5-foot-nothing Top 40 jester Lil Wayne to this complex release was another obvious misstep. As proven later in 2010 with his failed rock attempt “Rebirth,” Wayne is really only successful at his staple version of rap: sex, drugs and yes, auto tune. Their duet on this album, “See You In My Knightmares,” is horribly one-note and edging on immature and dorky. “You think your shit don't stank, but you are Mrs. P-U” Wayne recites. The attempt for this song to be on any level of sophistication is immediately lost after his verse, as predicted when first seeing “Featuring Lil Wayne” tacked on the title.

            But otherwise if you’re willing to hear this thug-you-can-hug within this new context and are open to his less-than-American-Idol quality of singing, “808s & Heartbreak” fosters one of the most expressive and vulnerable releases from the egotistical genre.

Drake, “Take Care” (Young Money Entertainment and Cash Money Records 2011)

            As another one of hip hop’s most groundbreaking artists of today, Canadian actor-turned-rapper Aubrey “Drake” Graham is also one of the most controversial artists introduced on the scene. Loved by some, loathed by others, his arrival to success has sparked conversation on the contemporary convergence hip hop and R&B, making Drake the figurehead with his sweet singing and sensitive rhymes. But with as much attention comes criticism: Drake is easily labeled as incompetent. Lil’ Kim has stated he ‘just wasn’t built for this hood shit,’ and Common admitted his 2011 release “Sweet” was written about him. The suggestion has been made that Drake’s singing has made him less of an MC, and that he is perhaps too soft for contemporary hip hop.

            His nonexistent criminal record and privileged childhood have also forced Drake’s credibility as a rapper into disrepute. ‘His art isn’t hard enough to be considered real hip hop.’ But Drake has proved his worth, as his artistic talent and courage to go outside the norm has had equally massive success in not only mainstream audiences but underground fans as well.

Drake's 2011 release "Take Care" contains the most somber slow-jams out of his two major releases, simultaneously proving that hip hop and R&B can merge to a new undoubtedly successful genre that can generates support from snooty underground fans and hood rats alike.

"The Office," "Sexual Harassment," NBC 2005

 “There is no such thing as an appropriate joke, that’s why it’s a joke!” manager Michael Scott frustratedly exclaims during a sexual harassment lecture.

This episode of the scripted comedy series “The Office,” which chronicles the daily shortcomings of office workers at the Dunder Mifflin paper company, documents a day at work when Michael is forced to take a seminar on office harassment policies because of the dirty jokes he continually forwards to the employees’ emails.

Ironically, the show may have a lesson to learn in this subject as well.

Most other editions of this NBC series have more tasteful humor mixed throughout the show, give or take a few dirty jokes for shock value. In attempt to make the comedy in this episode about Michael’s inappropriate tribulations as manager, the script continually made jokes that crossed the line: one “that’s what she said!” punch line after another.

The endless dirty humor took away the show’s usual charm. Each character has a quirky and poignant personality, and as the show is set up to be mockumentary-like, they are each hilariously believable. But focusing strictly on Michael’s unbecoming sense of humor, this episode makes us audience members feel just as uncomfortable as office stuck-up snob Angela. For example, when Michael applauds employee Stanley for keeping a picture of a “centerfold schoolgirl” taped to his desk to keep himself “turned on,” and that seeing the photo himself is also the best part of his morning, Stanley gets offended and clarifies that it’s actually a photo of his daughter who goes to Catholic girl’s school.

What also lacks is the comedy’s natural pace. Each episode is effortless in moving along with the storyline of both each episode and the long-term storyline of the series as a whole. But when these 20 minutes come to a close, Michael talks to the camera about how he has learned his lesson while consequently making a crude comment about “hot” receptionist Pam. As comical as fans of the show may find this, the ending still proves that we have moved nowhere. Michael will always be immature, and coworkers will always be there to roll their eyes.

The offensive humor, however, may have you question whether you want to be there too.

John Baldessari “Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-Six Attempts),” 1973

Photography is full of shit. Most photos hung in a gallery by an experienced artist could have arguably been taken by anyone capable of clicking a button—five-year-olds and monkeys included. So what makes a photograph transcend above the rest? And when does a picture change from a frozen moment in time to a piece of art?

Being so effortless, it’s easy to force a photo to look arty and thoughtfully inspired. Close ups of flowers, photos of architecture, the Instagram app for iPhones etc., we’ve all seen them. Shooting with a sense of humor, and with a fun and succinct design, Californian conceptualist and photographer John Baldessari’s collection of photos titled “Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-Six Attempts)” is innovative yet beautiful as it playfully redefines this need for forced beauty in photography.

For the past 53 years Baldessari, now 81, has been poking his finger in the eye of the contemporary art world. He has challenged art’s unspoken rules by testing what would happen if these lines were more blurred, and exploring their reasons for existence. He is a genius at stripping things of their normality—their context, order of being experienced—and then seeing what comes of it. Always asking ‘why?’ is an important quality for artists to have while creating their art, but Baldessari looks at the entire scope of art as it is and asks this same question: why must we take photos of the beautiful things in order to make beautiful art? Why not find beauty in odd places? This gets the gears in your mind churning and gets you to look at simple things in a new way—a specific quality that takes art from lackluster to intelligently successful. And as a result, Baldessari has been able to experience the world in a way that is not preconceived and to see profound connections that others aren’t even looking for.

This idea of reconstructing normality is seen through Baldessari’s collection “Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-Six Attempts).” The artist’s series of work captures his attempts at throwing three balls in the air to make a straight line—an absurdist idea—looking at non-conventional forms of order, seeing what happens when he tries each new method. Thirty-six being the number of frames in a typical role of 35mm camera film, the collection shows 12 of the best in Baldessari’s trials.

 

Though the resultant images are merely a documentation of Baldessari’s ball game, they also border on abstract imagery and resemble his later paint and graphic design works, using circle shapes and pops of color.  Visually, the simplicity of the layout combined with the complimentary color combination in the subject, the blue sky and orange balls, is pleasing to the eye. And without feeling a need to make these photos more complicated to be successful, the photos stand strong with only the few elements in the space.

Through arbitrarily tossing balls in the air to express new out-of-the-box philosophies and finding art in the trial-and-error process, Baldessari achieves the near-impossible: showing us that photography can push boundaries, make you think, evoke emotion, strike a nerve, and actually be art.

 “Beauty is a by-product,” Baldessari explained in an interview with Seesaw Magazine, “Each time an artist does something, you get better and better at making beauty, so why work at it?  Why not something else?”