Request Album Review: Childish Gambino - Camp

Childish Gambino - Camp (2011)

3/10

pop rap, west-coast hip-hop

In 1997, the music industry fundamentally unveiled a new face to hip-hop music, blending elaborate synth work, infectious percussion, and eclectic hybrids of electronic rhythms and quirky lyrics: Missy Elliot. From that moment in history, there has been an increased "artsy" movement in the hip-hop genre from such artists as Kanye West, Lil Wayne, The Weeknd, Kid Cudi, Drake and the like. Today, hip-hop artists/producers spend strenuous hours, days, even weeks perfecting and crafting the sonic beats and sound designs, which ultimately define a vital portion of their tracks. Songs no longer exclusively contain a kick, followed by a snare, followed by a kick, and so forth. The movement looks for something more; it synthesizes flavours from external music stylings and other forms of art, including a myriad of paintings and found-sound. The trick is, as the popularity grows, it must still be original and true.

Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, is better known as Troy in the popular TV comedy series, Community. However, as Childish Gambino, Glover enters a sonic tour of his psyche, replete vulgur thoughts, zingers directed at the superficial and judgmental, and even his lighthearted daily musings. However, the album, Camp, is near-pretentious, with clumsy unintelligible lyrics thrown on sensational instrumentals. Glover's voice is akin to distasteful typography on a beautifully designed concert poster.

Although Childish Gambino's beats are extremely close to Kanye West's style, they are still effective and interesting. I particularly love the arrangements in All the Shine and Backpackers. While All the Shine contains a poignant blend of punchy beats and somber strings, Backpackers brilliantly utilizes metallic-like percussion, mysterious distortion and sampling, providing a more gritty atmosphere. The lyrics, however, is another story. In rap music, lyrics are incredibly pivotal in driving the music; what you say and how you say it are important in terms of technical ability. Glover covers heavy topics like race, masculinity, relationships, street cred, and "real hip-hop" as props to construct a false outsider persona. As a result, he paints himself as a misunderstood victim of cultural preconceptions, and ignorantly contradicts himself and his relationship with "the hood". He isn't strictly a comedy rapper, but he flows like a comic actor: When he's trying to be playful, his voice obnoxiously represents a teenage squeak, and he tends to rap one punchline after another. His verses are mostly excuses for snappy pop-culture references and showboating puns, making himself seem bigger than he really is. There are plenty rappers today who are crafty and not from "the hood", yet do not show a grocery list of insecurities about it, but ignite much more emotional complexity than Childish Gambino.

Despite some nice instrumentals, Glover's exaggerated, immature, cartoony flow and overblown pop rap production are enough to make Camp one of the most unlikable rap albums of 2011. I just have to assume Glover has completely ignored the success of Kanye West, Sage Francis, Aesop Rock, EL-P, and Pharoahe Monch when he meekly moans, "Is there room in the game for a lame that rhymes/ And wears short shorts and tells jokes sometimes?" It's the perfect takeaway from Camp: preposterously self-absorbed, but not the least bit self-aware.

Bonfire by Childish Gambino

The Musical Photoshop

Quoted once by Pablo Picasso, "Good artists borrow, great artists steal." To me, this proverb is complex, but primarily illustrates the evident difference between aping and assimilating; copying and internalizing; being unoriginal and innovative. For better of for worse, every artist of every kind builds on what was done by his or her predecessors. It's only when these craftsmen take things to new heights, in new directions, when we see greatness emerge.

In music specifically, sampling is the act of extracting a portion of sound recording and reusing/remodeling it into another tune; sometimes for laziness, other times creativity and respect. The widespread use of this technique originated with the birth of dance, hip-hop and industrial music in the late 1970s to early 1980s. Why sample, you ask? It's more for the craft of bringing sounds, ideas and emotions together like a scrapbook or musical journal. From then, it has progressed into more songs and more genres than ever before. Despite harsher clearing/copyright laws today, sampling, when executed aesthetically well, is an integral part of modern music.

Back in the discotheque era, DJs continued to experiment with sampling in quite facile and basic manners. Repeating electronically generated lines (ie 303 baselines), to studio recordings or samples of live electric bassists, or simply filtered-down samples from classic funk recordings, made such DJs like DJ Francis a musical manipulator guru. Throughout the 80s and 90s, electronic music increased its sample library with sounds from jazz, blues, funk, soul and synth pop. The sole purpose of these samples were often to add the foundation of the drum beat and synth bass line. House music, more specifically, may also include disco and gospel vocals. These fusions made up the musical symbolic representation of freedom, diversity and love. It wasn't until dance music emerged in Britain when rap was sampled, evolving the use of sampling yet again.

Moving along in hip-hop terms, sampling is defined by something a lot more progressive, dynamic and clever. In this genre, sampling started out as splicing out or copying parts from other songs and rearranging or reworking these into a cohesive musical pattern, or better known as a loop. This was the root and main aspect of any hip-hop tune; it drives the rest of the music onward. The sounds ultimately melt into a single instrument and no longer heterogeneous. In 1986, then-Def Jam producer Rick Rubin used Black Sabbith and Led Zeppelin loops in creating the popular Beastie Boy's debut Licence to Ill. Funk and soul are also revisited here in providing breakbeats, especially from the great James Brown. Sometimes, samples are recognizable and other times they're not. The true craft of sampling in any genre is to convert it into another entity.

Some types of industrial music, or Electronic Body Music (EBM) rely heavily on sample use. Unlike electronic and hip-hop sampling, EBM includes heavy use of sampling, yet an absence of vocal modification.

Forwarding to the 2000s up until today, sampling has colossally evolved: despite greater copyright laws, even greater sample usage is implemented today than ever before. We will first delve into non-mainstream music. Electronic pioneers Herbert, Mum, Matmos and Bjork were the first artists to take found-sound sampling to an entirely new level. Herbert introduced this idea of microbeats; Matthew Herbert essentially recorded privatized, introspective sounds, such as teeth clatter, bees buzzing, and a zipper travelling up its spine into creatively passive beats. This began a creative revolution for electronic music. Mum, however, drove down a different route, meddling with cutlery, toys and static TV sets and manipulating them in IDM-fashion. The result brought on a cute and tastefully cluttered side to IDM music that's still considered unique today.

Artists have also been daring in the sampling business. Venetian Snares, for example, is a breakcore artist who has willingly sampled Dinah Washington, Danny Elfman, Billie Holliday and various film and television dialogue in his tracks. Dubstep artist Synkro has sampled Marvin Gaye, Ne-Yo and Aretha Franklin. Even Amon Tobin didn't go anywhere near sample clearance until recent years. There is a fundamental reason why artists like to play with fire like this. Artists remember a time when a great abstract artist once said "[...] great artists steal." And thus, these artists rebel for a chance of artistic freedom by literally dissecting songs, and that can be a powerful asset to work with. Additionally, as underground and with sparsely distributed releases, these artists are not likely to be discovered and attacked by the mainstream.

Now, the mainstream music industry samples as well, obviously with permission. But how much creative power is there? With the money circulating the mainstream industry, artists and producers alike can lazily and blindly take people's work to give their song a "boost". The first time I heard Beyonce's Who Run the World (Girls) I was absolutely shocked. The song is actually, in fact, Pon De Floor by Diplo's side project, Major Lazer, with Beyonce's vocals subbed over top. By not crediting such a large sample, listeners may misleadingly refer to the song as original. A very similar use is illustrated in Kanye West's Bigger Stronger Faster (Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger). Although the song was more artistically blended, it was still apparent that West used a Daft Punk classic. Is this called abuse? Unethical? Disrespectful? That's up for debate. What is known is that sampling has been saturated in mainstream to the point of losing its mystique.

Despite the fact that sampling is good and bad in different situations, it still shaped a great part of music today. I am personally a sucker for great sampling in any style of music. There is something powerful about someone who can successfully musically Photoshop, especially when the artist is under the radar. With limited wealth and fame, artists tend to be more clever and imaginative in creating infectious loops and jolting vox. Conversely, with wealth, artists enter a place where the egoism shadows creativity.

The Hip-Hop Evolution: For Better or for Worse

Hip-hop is the expression of cultural and societal issues through positive and meaningful messages of inclusion, activism, equity, justice, political consciousness, education and success—or at least it was in its early years. Thus, hip-hop was not just a genre of music, but rather a 1970s lifestyle stance starting in the Bronx. For over three decades, this lifestyle rapidly expanded from the streets of south-central Los Angeles and New York (east side and west side) and into the consciousness of listeners and performers alike. Today, hip-hop has evolved into consumer hip-hop—a colossal music industry with, for the most part, no to very little connection to its roots.

Just like rock and pop, hip-hop music reflects the changing lives and audiences it speaks through in the past decade. While hip-hop still talks of the griminess of the streets, those lyrics are countered by a manifesto of ‘the good life.’ Come 1990s, however, the culture of hip-hop began to remodel itself. Artists such as Buju Banton and Elephant Man have been criticized for their homophobic lyrics, promoting hate crime. Similar claims have been aimed toward Eminem and 50 Cent during their early stages of artist development. To this day, Canada has refrained from allowing Elephant Man to perform a show.

Overall, most rappers today have as much lyrical skill as emos have on epidermal pigment. Pimps, hoes, money and swearing for the sake of swearing seem to be common culprits in hip-hop music. Arbitrary rhyming without any fundamental meaning does not in any respect mean one is hip-hop. Refer to Kanye West’s Getting It In: Don't try to treat me like / I ain't famous / My apologies, are you into astrology / Cause I'm, I'm tryin to make it to Uranus; or perhaps Lil Wayne’s nonsense in Jump In the Air: Mijo, zero degreeyo, frio / Get into your soul like Neyo, weeyo / Oh I meant ohwee or is it oohwee. It’s humorous how anyone can take these and similar lyrics seriously. Compare these to legendary Nas in I Can: We were kings and queens, never porch monkeys / It was empires in Africa called Kush Timbuktu, where every race came to get books / To learn from black teachers who taught Greeks and Romans / Asian Arabs and gave them gold. There is, evidently then, a shift in content and context within hip-hop music. It seems what was once an art can be destroyed and rebuilt by just about anyone. Record labels create revenue by enforcing safe, generalized, omnirelatable music. Consequently, activism, equity, justice and political consciousness are deficient in mainstream hip-hop. It’s mainly a gimmick which blinds everyone, including myself at times, with sensational beats.

Sparked by rappers experimenting with a new art form, hip-hop fashion became an expression of the hip-hop culture demonstrating a particular stance. The fashion of hip-hop was chiefly influenced from Mafioso and breakdance references. Break-dancers (or B-boys) wore, and still wear, clothes that were functional for dancing, such as baggy jeans. Conversely, Mafioso established the classic gangster look. Beginning in the 1990s, the style was immensely exasperated with iced out jewelry, fully-loaded and pimped out vehicles and an overall commercialized, egotistical lifestyle. Just like any other pop artist transformation, hip-hoppers ultimately become the product of relations, instead of a product of the self.

Adolescents are, and have always been, the most impressionable people on this planet. Unfortunately, this rose as hip-hop was symbolizing guns, rape, violence, drugs, and female sexualization. At this time, rappers start to endorse a heartless cohort of ego driven thug soldiers. This is where the fine line is drawn between hip-hoppers and everyone else. I am not African-American, so I'm perhaps not ideal to critic such a dividing issue, however, being brown-skinned, I can look at racial stereotypes from an outside perspective – from a viewpoint that is neither black, nor white. So then, the debatable and omnipresent million-dollar question is: Does hip-hop—specifically its clothes—promote these negative stereotypes? Yes and no; it all depends on the outcast and the observer. However, one may believe it may be easier to avoid a hip-hopper to circumvent any trouble (I use trouble loosely here). Although, despite the negative stereotypes upon hip-hop clothing, the average hip-hopper wears baggy clothes, not to breakdance more efficiently, although that is of course plausible, but to challenge the negative societal perception against them.

Whether for good or evil, Auto-Tune processing has taken over modern hip-hop music. Audiences have been transfixed by the robotic vocal alterations Auto-Tune creates. Auto-Tune is impractical in two accounts: it was originally used to correct vocal pitches that were amiss, even by a hair, to ensure superhuman perfection at all times; it is now used as an esthetic property, which enforces the profound laziness of lyricists and producers alike. Therefore, music has become so "perfect" today that it has literally lost reality.

Either audible or not, this phase vocoder will consequently give off the illusion that the performer can actually sing, therefore not worrying too much about anything else in the production process. In fact, according to the Boston Herald, artists confessed to using Auto-Tune, suggesting it ensures a good performance. That made me sick to my stomach. Had it been used sparsely and more artistically, rather than a bombardment of cover-ups, Auto-Tune could have brought a new challenge to the music industry. Unfortunately, it’s currently doing the opposite. Think of Auto-Tune like steroids was to baseball—we seem to want to mimic everyone because it "seems" to work.

Browsing through this weeks Billboard Top 100, one can easily discover its rise in pop culture. There are at least 10-15 artists on the charts who are heavily over-using this musical “technique”, including Lady Gaga and Flo Rida. The effect reached to such popularity and irritating peak levels that Jay-Z expressed his own opinion on his amazing track, Death of Autotune.

Hip-hop will undoubtedly continue to grow, which is a great thing, but it must not forget the raw impact it once had. Hip-Hop was not only a pivotal point in music, but also culture. Hip-hop died when it became the very thing it was originally against. Of course, I don’t believe all hip-hop today is trivial. There are many sublime artists today who raise the bar to staggering heights. Sage Francis is the smartest, most profound rapper/lyricist I have come across. He does not depend on fame and auto-tune to create his image, rather speaks from the soul regarding a sociological, ideological and political culture that he is surrounded in. Other artists who bring something climatic to the table include: M.I.A., Lauryn Hill, Q-Tip, K’NAAN, El-P and RJD2. Whether through rhymes, graffiti, clothing, and the like, hip-hop is an art form and should remain as such. Anyone who takes shortcuts into hip-hop or uses it for fame and fortune is completely disrespectful to the entire culture and what it represents. Although I am aware there are other issues within the hip-hop lifestyle that more or less changed the world, I covered the most crucial shards. For now, however, we need to be critical listeners and decide what is appropriate for the human race.




© Ajay Patel