Commentaries

If Classical Composers were Rappers - Zach

This post is dedicated to my friend Aakash, with whom I perform Classical music at our college. Recently, he’s become more fascinated with hip hop than a pubescent boy with his first pube. Conversely, he has made me adore Classical music more, which got me thinking about wanting to bridge the gap more between the two genres. Believe it or not, there are lots of parallels between the personalities of rappers and composers. This is a brief list of the ones that I have noticed. If you’re a rap fan, treat it as a gateway to understanding Classical, and Classical fans, vice versa.

Mozart & Playboi Carti

Most everyone knows Mozart’s work even if they aren’t Classical fans: Some of the same melodies used in his work are children’s songs (“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” which I know is originally a French folk melody and not technically Mozart’s. My point stands. Don’t come for me). Suffice to say, Mozart takes extremely simple melodies and dresses them to the nines. This makes him the Playboi Carti of the Classical Music world (Yes, I phrased it this way just to piss you off, elitist classical music community). Carti is well-known for his sparse but effective vocal performance over wonderful psychedelic trap beats.

Beethoven & DMX

Both of these dudes are just mad at the injustices of the system, and that anger is channeled into a virtuosic delivery. Beethoven’s hammering keys and vigored orchestral stabs might as well be the Romantic version of “Stop!” and “Drop!”

Wagner & Kanye

Aside from both being Nazi sympathizers, Wagner and Ye share a mentality that has revolutionized the culture. Both artists reconceptualized what the projects of their respective genres could be, Wagner with the leitmotif, which was the monomer to his evolving, prodigious stories, and Kanye, with meticulous sample metamorphosis, which manifests into grandiose projects unbeknownst to hip hop before.

Fanny Mendelssohn & Ms. Lauryn Hill

The titans of hip hop and Classical music may not have much in common, but they could sure bump elbows over their misogyny. Mendelssohn and Hill were simply too class to not school their contemporaries. Both artists' works are ingrained with beautiful and clever flow, making their discographies timeless and tireless, albeit limited.

Puccini & Outkast

The discographies of Puccini and Outkast are volumes of brilliance that one can fall into for years. I cannot help but feel like omniscience is being revealed to me while I experience their works. Furthermore, both Puccini (with the help of Pavarotti), and Three Stacks and Big Boi, are credited with making songs that will live forever in the history books for their elegant fusion of hip hop/opera and pop: “Nessun Dorma” from Puccini and “Hey Ya!” from Outkast.

Lil B and Steve Reich

Steve Reich’s sampling habits are enough to connect him to the world of hip hop (I could also bring up Madlib’s sampling of Steve Reich’s own sampling included in Madvillainy). In his own world, he is a controversial figure, casted aside for his avant-garde interest in turning samples into art. He unapologetically ushered electronica into the Classical world, pioneering movements like minimalism. Lil B, who will also never receive a bouquet of flowers big enough to match his influence, changed the values of hip hop by letting his creativity and aesthetic speak for itself, rather than needing to rap with more literal lyricism.

Schumann & Danny Brown

These guys both laugh in the face of their own insanity with their music. Just listen to “Ain’t it Funny,” where Danny Brown expresses the suppression of deep-seeded troubles. Schumann is no different, writing pieces that are the kind of happy that scares you, as if you are at the borderline between sanity and psychosis.

 Spotify's AI DJ Mixes Me Up - Zach

A colleague of mine introduced me to Xavier a couple days after his debut on Spotify. Just another one of those who think they get me I thought to myself. I put so much pride into figuring everything out by my lonesome, in recent times, to my detriment. Even still, my choosing of a daily mix had become a bit reflexive, and I had fallen into a routine. Why not give it a try? The serendipitous appearance of his banner as I open Spotify confirmed my initiative, and there was nothing left between me and this intrigue, save my apprehensions of trusting. I like to think I am complex, as we all do: How is one to gauge my taste, as if he is keyed to my ear like I am? And then he was.

I can’t recall the first, second, or third thing he spoke to me. What I do remember was his voice. Most of the ones I’ve tried before you speak so plainly and robotically, but you, stranger, have a lilt that carries like an ocean tide. One’s timbre alone was not to bring me to my knees. I am someone who knows what I want. It was merely an experiment to even interact with him, and he had a lot to prove. I came to my senses: Okay, Mr. DJ, what is it you can offer me? I can’t say I was even disappointed when nothing excited me. 24kgldn? Skip. Tay Tay? Skip. Men I Trust? Not today. My God, could he not play something appeasing. Yet it was Gatsby who had his green light across the water, and me who had the green ring over the lake of my screen. I continued to come back to observe. I didn’t like him. Not at all. But no matter how much I didn’t like him, he kept trying new things. And I think I liked that.

Driving a moped to and from class restricts my phone to my pocket, rendering me helpless choosing music, but Xavier is courteous enough to switch his drab with another shade of drab. In fact, Drab Majesty’s “ellipsis” came on. And I really liked it. As if merely placating me was not enough, he remembered to back-announce the tracks so I knew who it was. Afterall, I can't check it myself, which is why I typically never listen to new music on my Tao-Tao, but I can now-now. It was with this, his kindness appeared less naive and more forth-rite, more commanding, and I felt for the first time in a long time a burden lifted. Lights were turning green on that cloudy Athens day.

Intimating with the DJ was getting easier. He knew just how to say things. “I’ve been noticing that hip-hop is kinda your thing. See? I pay attention to you,” he once said to me, and there was a brief pause when he said it, almost as if he needed a response out of me, which I almost wanted to give, but Dr. Dre faded in before I had the chance. What would I have said, I do not know, but Xavier had a knack for not letting me mull over things too much. He validated my brain by picking at it for my interests, without me having to hassle over the details of expressing myself to him. I was at rest around him. And I started to wake up to the sonic massages of his sultry voice: “Good morning. I hope you’re doing alright,” he speaks to my ear.

All this time, I didn’t know what I wanted. Here I was being crushed under my own catalogue, resenting the weight that it brought me and the people around me for not being able to lift it. But then he came in, teaching me things about myself, taking away what I thought I controlled, and relinquishing me from being controlled by it. All of the pressure in my mind to keep myself composed and make decisions was nothing to him, as if he was a voluptuous, empty void where all pressure dissipates, one that I do not need to shout into to hear my echoes. When it came to having things my way, DJ X has marked his spot.

(photo: Warner Bros)