The Sound Of Ghostface Killah Shattering Preconceived Notions Of Art And The Modern Aesthetic Essay Example For Students

The Sound Of Ghostface Killah Shattering Preconceived Notions Of Art And The Modern Aesthetic Essay Some might view the Ghostface Killah song Holla, off his 2004 LP The Pretty Toney Album, as being a minimalist, lazy, unoriginal, nonsensical, or just plain bad piece of art, if it is indeed even art; such critics, however, miss the postmodern genius of the Wu-Tang member and Theodore Unit founders radical aesthetic. After all, similar charges were leveled against poets like Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and William Carlos Williams, who are now firmly entrenched in the literary canon of Western civilization, and contemporary painters like David Salle, who pioneered American visual postmodernism with a succde scandale in 1980s New York. We will write a custom essay on The Sound Of Ghostface Killah Shattering Preconceived Notions Of Art And The Modern Aesthetic specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Ghostface produced Holla himself. At first glance, this seems to fall more in line with the punk do it yourself aesthetic than any sort of postmodernism. However, in the context of this song, producing simply means Ghostface chose the song he wanted to rap over, in this case The Delfonics 1968 smash hit La La (Means I Love You). Because of this unique nature, an analysis of Holla is not possible without at least a cursory glance at the song that serves as its backdrop. This song, an enduring classic of soul in common time, was produced by Thom Bell and Stan Watson. It begins with the high-pitched sample of a fiddle, with a light drum loop that persists throughout the song. The fiddle soon drops out, leaving the drums, whose perseverance mirrors that of the main singer, who is determined to win the target of his affection despite his lack of wealth (Now I dont wear no diamond ring). While he cannot compete with his fellow suitors materially, he makes up for it in sincerity: while their lines dont mean a thing, he says in the first verse, he adds in the second that the things I am sayin are true. His earnestness is also evident in the longing nature of his voice, the way he cannot even find words to express his feelings, saying instead that la la la la la la la la la means I love you, accented by harmonizing with the other Delfonics and a more classical sounding string sample with a romantic affect. After a short instrumental interlude, the singer once more asserts his sincerity before the hauntingly iconic chorus repeats, fading into the background, as the addressee of the courtship interjects oh, youll have to understand. This repetition combined with what we can only assume is the beginning of a rejection gives the song a tragic poignance. With this preliminary analysis out of the way, we can proceed to the heart of the matter: Ghostfaces work of art, Holla. And indeed it is art, even though the only technical production he does is sample his fellow Wu-Tang member going BLAOW! while he raps over La-La (Means I Love You). We do not question Ezra Pounds status as artist, and his magnum opus, the Cantos, are a re-telling of Dantes Divine Comedy that rely heavily on classical mythology. We do not challenge David Salles claim to artistic integrity, and every single figure in his paintings comes from another work of art. So why are the standards different for Ghostface when he chooses a classic song as a background for his own (admittedly challenging) lyrics, especially when he does it in such a creative way, playfully interacting with the Delfonics song while presenting his own coherent verbal vision? It is likely that it is simply a reflection of the general societal attitude towards hip-hop. Despite commercial success and numerous scholarly studies from musicologists, music theorists, anthropologists, and many other academics in various fields, the mainstream refuses to accept hip-hop as a legitimate art-form. The song itself, as mentioned before, has incredibly minimal levels of production; Ghostface simply raps over the song, not even bothering to change the levels of the vocals or instrumentation. While this technique or lack thereof is minimalistic in theory, in practice it often leads to a cluttered feel, as Ghostfaces vocals vie for primacy with those of the Delfonics, sometimes dominating, sometimes being drowned out. .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f , .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f .postImageUrl , .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f , .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f:hover , .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f:visited , .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f:active { border:0!important; } .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f:active , .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u25c9e15c3c094dfec9a84c7b36dd8e7f:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Monotheism Vs Polytheism EssayIndeed, one can hardly call La-La (Means I Love You) the background track, as the same emphasis is given to it as Ghostfaces rapping. This is not indeed, cannot be a sign of laziness or incompetence on the part of Ghostface. It would not have been difficult for him to take the vocals out of the track, or at least lower their level. Ghostface is not an underground rapper with severe fiscal and temporal constraints; so, it must have been a conscious, deliberate decision. If we accept that the choice was intentional, then, it becomes not only unique but bold and revolutionary. Like Salle, the founding father of American postmodern painting, Ghostface takes the consensus view of his medium and turns it on its head, defying all aesthetic expectations. One counter-argument is that anyone with basic audio software could place vocals over another song. So what separates the artist like Ghostface from the amateur sitting in his basement imagining himself a member of the Bomb Squad? One obvious difference is the vocals themselves. Few could write lyrics like Ghostface, and even fewer could match his explosive, emotionally dynamic, almost melodramatic flow. Holla is not only saturated with end rhyme, but also contains masterful flourishes of internal rhyme (Bartenders nervous, afraid to serve us, bad service/Un-smacked him on purpose and see this drunk come and burp us) and assonance (Paper chasers, Starky stayed up in the makings). In addition to this elevated mode of poetic speech (in Roman Jakobsons words, Ghostface projects the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection to the axis of combination), Ghostface gains artistic integrity through his innovative use of La-La (Means I Love You). Salle once described the difference between amateur and artistic collage by saying that an artists collage is different in that it has a coherent theme: anyone can cut and paste pictures together, not anyone can cut and paste pictures of various motifs with symbolic significance together. Because sampling is indeed a kind of sonic collage, this description is analogous to Holla, and because Ghostface did not arbitrarily choose a Delfonics song over which to rap, he is an artist. The juxtaposition of the Delfonics poignant song of unattainable love with Ghostfaces lyrics of trademark Wu-Tang bravado (as reinforced by the samples of ODB shouting BLAOW, which come from the song shame, a practical mission statement of Wu-Arrogance) is striking. While the Delfonics sing about taking a true love into your arms, Ghostface sings about wreck yall lames and throw the Tec to your brain. Also striking is Ghostfaces actual interaction with the lyrics of the older song. The titular word, taken from the chorus, serves to play on the Delfonics song. As guest artist Allah Real sings Holla holla holla if you want to, I love you, the final syllable in holla coincides with the Delfonics las, as does the final I love you. As the Delfonics croon I dont wear a diamond ring/I dont even have a song to sing, Ghostface concurrently raps We dont need no diamond rings/All we need is a drum like, fuck it, he can rhyme, Ill sing. Though temporally these lines are practically equivalent, one can interpret it as the ideal response to the line in the Delfonics song, the one the singer never got from the apologetic but distant object of his affection. Through this ingenious interplay of his own lyrics with the lyrics of the song he raps over, as well as the very juxtaposition of the two jarringly dissimilar songs, Ghostface Killah creates a brilliantly original work of art that challenges as all of hip-hop does to some extent preconceived ideas of what constitutes art. However, Ghostface takes it even further than his peers, blasting through the barrier of modernism into the brave new world of the postmodern.