There is as much good music writing now as there has ever been. There are gross inequalities in the system still, in who gets heard and who is silent. But more than ever, people are able to let their experiences and expressions be heard.
Thinkpieces, essays, reviews and features: the internet has overwhelmed us with writing. There's so much of it out there, and it's all so easy to lose perspective. The more our Facebook feeds tell us what's worth reading, the less likely we are to stumble across something outside of our worldview.
In an attempt to get a handle on all of the music writing out there, we've decided to put everyone up on the music writing we've enjoyed reading during the course of the week. If you've read something that we've missed, feel free to put it in the comments.
Written by David Drake (@somanyshrimp), Cedar Pasori (@cedar), and Dharmic X (@dharmicx).
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Amiri Baraka's Life-Changing Jazz Writing at The New Yorker
The Path Cleared by Amiri Baraka at The New Yorker
More on the recently deceased and legendary music critic, poet, and thinker Amiri Baraka (this time courtesy New Yorker critic Richard Brody and author/educator Jelani Cobb). Cobb best captures the evolution of Baraka's thinking as an intellectual: "This, too, was characteristic of the trajectory of his thinking—he didn’t so much evolve from his old positions as ricochet into new ones." Brody's piece draws attention to one of Baraka's most important contributions to American music writing, for those unaware of popular music's complex, intertwined racial dynamic. To quote the piece: "The life at the core of the book [Baraka's 1967 book Black Music], which runs like a through-line from beginning to end, is the one that’s encapsulated in the very title, and it was a life that was very different from my own. Growing up nearly color-blind in nearly all-white neighborhoods, I thought of the blackness of the musicians I loved as an interesting coincidence; Baraka taught me that the music emerged from the specific experiences of blacks in America." —David Drake
Justin Bieber's Journals Review at Fact Magazine
Aimee Cliff's review of Justin Bieber's Journals is a reminder that even a seemingly limitless pop star can release an (overlooked) album with minimal marketing push from his or her label. Cliff carefully discusses the context of Bieber's personal troubles as of late and how he compares to his R&B and hip-hop contemporaries in a way that makes believable (beliebable?) meaning of his new artistic direction. At one point she says, "It takes its cues from Usher at his calmest, Drake at his drunkest and all the guest rappers and producers—Chance, Future, Lil Wayne, Big Sean, Kid Cudi—at their most sci-fi to create an album that captures a current musical moment in a way that’s more intuitive than even the most cynical listener might expect." —Cedar Pasori
Mr. Jones and Me at Noisey
Noisey's Ezra Marcus wrote a feature on Mike Jones, about what Houston's one time rap sensation is currently up to and how he searches for a middle ground between the fame of the mid-2000s and the perils of being a broke artist. As someone who grew up on that era of music (Jones, Paul Wall, etc), it is somewhat nostalgic while also a reminder that for artists, longevity is never guaranteed. —Dharmic X
Drake's Sensitivity Isn't Sincere, It's a Cynical Ploy. But It's Working at Playboy
David Dennis—known in the hip-hop world as David D. of The Smoking Section website—writes possibly the definitive articulation of the anti-Drake argument, one that rejects the argument that Drake is some sort of revolutionary for showing his softer side (with the Tupac in the bathtub photos to prove it). To Dennis—and, it must be said, a fair number of other people in this writer's generational sliver—there's something very specific that frustrates about Drake's music: "He's squandering his talent by desperately trying to be something he's not: a sensitive guy that women want and a hardcore guy that the cool kids of rap will revere." —David Drake
Rap Lyrics On Trial in the New York Times
Certainly not the first time hip-hop lyrics have been used in court—there's a long history of that sort of thing—but the New York Times takes a closer look in light of The Supreme Court's upcoming verdict regarding the case of Vonte Skinner, who was convicted in 2008 on the basis of 13 pages of violent rap lyrics. —David Drake
The Oral History of Juice at MySpace
If you've had Netflix in the past year or so, you've probably managed to watch (or re-watch, if you're as old as I am) Juice, the classic 1992 film co-starring a young, show-stopping Tupac Shakur. Keith Murphy has put together a definitive oral history of the film, speaking with director Ernest Dickerson, Omar Epps, screenwriter Gerard Brown, Fab 5 Freddy, Treach, and various other figures to find out how the film came together. —David Drake
