Author: jmccarthy

Posted on

Juicy

In the 1990’s, Chirstopher Wallace, known as The Notorious B.I.G or simply Biggie Smalls, was the definition of rap and street Hip Hop to East Coast audiences. Growing up in a single parent house in the middle of Bed-Stuy only to become one of the biggest names in the Rap industry, Biggie became an incredible source of hope for the working class as well as the black community as whole throughout New York City. And so, as a way to keep that hope and inspiration going, in 1994, Biggie released “Juicy”: a song detailing the events and motivation he had in his life that made him keep moving forward. The way in which Biggie Smalls writes his lyrics with such an inviting, understandable flow as well as creates a music video that so aptly portrays the moments he discusses in his life is the reason why I believe this to be one of the best songs and music videos made in the 1990’s. And so, without further a do, here is Notorious B.I.G’s Juicy

Looking at the first 30 seconds of the music video (which is predominantly the dedication of the rap), we as an audience can already see the three main facets of Biggie’s life that he is going to present: his early childhood as a crack dealer living with his mom, his life in prison, and his life now as a rapper. Biggie also perfectly syncs the aspects of his dedication with the actual subjects (i.e during the lyric “To all the people that lived above the buildings that I was hustlin’ in front of called the police on me when I was just tryin’ to make some money to feed my daughter” Biggie is being shown being arrested in an undercover drug bust and the following lyric “And to all my peoples in the struggle” he moves to a shot of a corner in Bed Stuy where a huge crowd of people are standing expressionless). Biggie then moves into the first verse:

It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up! magazine

Salt-n-Pepa and Heavy D up in the limousine

Hangin’ pictures on my wall

Every Saturday Rap Attack, Mr. Magic, Marley Marl

I let my tape rock ’til my tape popped

Smokin’ weed in Bambu, sippin’ on Private Stock

Way back, when I had the red and black lumberjack

With the hat to match

In this stanza, Biggie heavily relates to the young audience members listening to his music. Here he is as prolific rap idol having a childhood very similar to any other kid growing up in the 80’s. With this passage, Biggie can be seen in a prison cell (as he was for 8 months when he was 18) hanging cut pictures of people he got out of Word Up! Magazine; an activity which most normal people did in their childhood (minus the prison part!). With instances of drinking cheap malt liquor, shooting dice in the streets, and eating sardines from the can appearing in his lyrics and music video, Biggie is ultimately stating that he was just like everyone else growing up in Brooklyn in that he didn’t have any luxuries.

The chorus then directly addresses the audience with a message of determination and hope. It states that kids shouldn’t let anything “hold them back” and should “reach for the stars.” This is the moment in the music video where Biggie presents the payoff of reaching for the stars. He is seen at a beautiful house with a full pool and pool house partying with a huge amount of people having fun. Albeit a great well written chorus, this is actually one of my favorite Easter eggs in the song. The melody of this hook, as well as the beat, and backtrack are all sampled from the same song “Juicy Fruit” by Mtume, which is why the song is called “Juicy.”

As far as the rest of the verses, Biggie explains that while it may be hard to picture a living a lush life without being deep in low level crimes, it is certainly possible as long as you keep trying and flip from negative to positive thinking. He shows this lush life through the maids he has bringing him and his friends champagne as well as owning his own Sega Genesis (which Michael Che believes he very well could have afforded one even before he was a rapper). In short, Biggie Small’s “Juicy” promises a better future to people who are true to themselves and take advantage of the world around them.

As it seems, a lot of people have taken a liking to this message and Biggie Smalls has in recent times become somewhat of a pop culture icon. Reading through the comments of this official music video, I saw how much Biggie’s style and words meant to his listeners. One listener named Ricardo Zúñiga commented, “This song inspires me so much to push myself and make it big. It’s my anthem. I’m as broke as could be, but I’m putting myself through college… I’m fortunate to be able to live at my mom’s, but unfortunately, she can’t help much beyond that, since she works as a janitor earning minimum wage. And my father is equally as broke. But this song motivates me to keep pushing. I know I got what it takes to pull my family out of this poverty.” In my mind, the meaning of this song completely got through to this person, who is trying to live life to the fullest and achieve his goals. The majority of the other comments, like that of Charcoal Head, talked much more about his flow. They write, “This guy was a lyrical genius! His flows were smoother than water, and the beats Biggie sang over were raw.” Biggie was known as the king of flow with a style that couldn’t be matched by any other rapper at the time. Finally, an incredible number of commenters talked about the ways in which you could compare Biggie to rappers of today. This was usually to display that idea that 21stcentury rappers are much more fragile than older rap artists. For instance, Shady wrote comically, “Biggie and Tupac had beef because Tupac thought Biggie got him shot. Drake and Meek Mill are beefing because one tweeted about the other.” Although this comment was probably out of jest, it is a firmly held belief that modern day rappers like 6ix9ine and Drake don’t live up to the same intensity and strength as 90’s rappers like Tupac or Biggie. These were profound artists and, especially in Biggie’s case, constantly searched for progress in the people around them.

Posted on

The Variation and Impact of Ol’ Man River by Paul Robeson

Since its inception into American society, American popular music has, in some form, always been at the forefront of critiquing American politics. A plethora of songs have been written specifically to combat or call into view injustices shown in politics and a number of originals song have had their text or music changed to fit a message of political criticism. For instance, America’s national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” has had its fair share of rewrites in order to fit a certain issue or message. William Robin, in his article regarding Colin Kaepernick and the Radical Uses of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” quotes a temperance advocate’s text revision that peers into the reality of America’s drinking issue. The quote reads, “Oh! who has not seen by the dawn’s early light / Some poor bloated drunkard to his home weakly reeling.” Now, I absolutely love this method of using music to talk about politics; it grabs the listener in with a familiar tune with the intent of educating them on a real-world issue. As I’ve said before, there are a plethora of songs that have been rewritten to fit a cause, but none come close to the revision of “Ol’ Man River” that Paul Robeson wrote during the Civil Rights Movement. 

Full discloser: Paul Robeson is one of my favorite basses to listen to and one of my favorite people to learn about. He was born on April 9th, 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey to Rev. William Robeson, a former runaway slave, and Maria Lousia Bustill, a Quaker. Without going into too much detail about his life, I can say that he received a scholarship to play football at Rutgers College, where he graduated class valedictorian. He went to Columbia Law School and soon after landed a job at a law firm, only to leave almost immediately after a white secretary refused to take dictation from him due to his race. It was at this point that Robeson decided to quit law to dedicate his life to his true passion of singing. Throughout his illustrious music career, Robeson worked with the likes of Eugene O’Neill, W.E.B. Du Bois, and James Joyce. But none of his collaborations would be as pivotal as his work with Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II in their groundbreaking musical Showboat. Most people identify Showboat as the defining show for American musical theater because it was one of the first musicals to fully integrate the plot of the show into the songs, which created a whole new form of storytelling. Although working in this play essentially made Robeson a sensation among American audiences, he saw his character Joe, a black dockworker singing about his troubles to the Mississippi River, as well as the hit song “Ol’ Man River” a bit demeaning to his pursuit of highlighting African American progression. 

Paul Robeson in the movie version of Showboat

Understandably, Robeson didn’t appreciate the original lyrics that included the N-word to describe the type of workers working along the Mississippi nor did he appreciate the presentation of African Americans in this play as second class citizens. So, in an attempt to bring light to his feelings on the equal rights of black U.S. citizens, Robeson began in 1938 to rewrite the lyrics of this song in recitals. Similar to the pro tolerance writings put into the star-spangled banner, Robeson added text to “Ol’ Man River” that promoted African American freedom and strength. The famous line “There’s an old man called the Mississippi, that’s the old man that I’d like to be” was changed to “There’s an old man called the Mississippi, that’s the old man I don’t like to be” and the ending of the stanza “I get weary and sick of trying, I’m tired of living and scared of dying” was changed to “But I keep laughing instead of crying and I’ll keep fighting until I’m dying.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evwtK81KFrs

Through this decision to rewrite and perform this text, Robeson gained much prominence in the early stages of the civil rights movement, especially during the early part of the cold war. Unfortunately, Paul Robeson as well as many African American leaders of the Harlem Renaissance period saw the emphasis on racial equality in the Soviet Union as a model for the U.S. to look toward, which to many Americans marked them as Communist supporters. This labeling eventually got Paul Robeson blacklisted from Hollywood, thoroughly questioned and searched by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and unable to reach American audiences as he once was able to do. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLVqCGeK6JM
A recreation of Paul Robeson’s HUAC hearing by James Earl Jones

However, the effect Robeson was able to make on 20thcentury politics through his music was still a triumphant victory for African Americans searching for equality and a testament to the power of music against its environment. Music, as Robeson has shown, is a vital tool in sharing emotion and ideas which is why it has such a stronghold in the world of politics.

Posted on

Shure Unidyne Model 55: The Famous Microphone That No One Knows About

Imagine a young Elvis Presley, only 21 years old, in his home town of Tupelo, Mississippi. Finally coming home for the first time as a massive celebrity, Elvis decides to put on a homecoming concert for the town. Performing for tens of thousands of screaming fans, Elvis makes sure to pull all of the stops. He sings some of his most famous hits like “Hound Dog” and “Don’t Be Cruel,” dances in the sensual fashion that never made it into his “waist up” performance on the Ed Sullivan Show, and holds his hand out to a sea of people desperately wanting to touch him, all the while clutching a bulbous, chrome set microphone that would come to be playfully nicknamed the “Elvis Mic”: the Shure Unidyne Model 55.

Elvis Presley performing in Tupelo, Mississippi on September 29th, 1956.

This microphone, first developed in 1939 under the Unidyne Microphone Series of the Shure Company, has been in the presence of some of the most famous musicians and arguably the most recognizable events in American history. The Shure Unidyne Model 55 was the preferred microphone not only for Elvis Presley, but for the great jazz singer Billie Holiday, the “Queen of Swing” Mildred Bailey, and Frank Sinatra. It was in front of Martin Luther King Jr. in his famous “I Have A Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial, was quite noticeable in the “Dewey Defeats Truman” photo, and the iconic microphone that helped Michael Buffer utter the words, “Let’s get ready to RUMBLE!!!” 

Truman holding up a newspaper with the famous title “Dewey Defeats Truman.” The Shure Unidyne Model 55 is clearly visible on the podium.

However, even though the Model 55 has been around for 80 years and has been an integral part of America’s musical and social culture, not many people really know much about this mic and what made it the groundbreaking technology that it truly is. Well, I intend to right this incredible wrong of society and present to you a rundown of the Model 55’s history and its ingenious design that more that certainly led to its popularity.

1. It was the first of its kind to be a “single element dynamic cardiod” microphone

Image from giphy.com

Now I know what you’re thinking. “This is how you’re going to reel me in? Throwing together a bunch of engineering terms and hoping I think it sounds cool? You’ve lost me.” But wait! While they might sound a little dry, those four words (single element dynamic cardiod) are the basis for almost all modern recording technology and, in the context of the 1930’s, opened a new realm of possibilities for studio and live recordings. Here is a breakdown for those words. 

“Cardiod” refers to the specific directional pattern that the mic makes. Back in the 1930’s, most microphones either picked up sounds equally from all sides (an omnidirectional pattern) or equally from two sides (a bidirectional pattern) but the desired pattern for live performances was a unidirectional pattern that picked up sounds from only one side of the microphone. That way, only a performer’s sound would go in to the microphone without the ambient noise that could normally cause unwanted feedback. This unidirectional pattern often is in the shape of a heart, which is why it is specifically called a cardiod pattern. If you want to read more on directional patterns, click here. 

Basic forms of directional patterns for microphones. Image from https://ehomerecordingstudio.com/microphone-polar-patterns/

“Dynamic” refers to how the microphone turns the acoustic waves of the sound into electric waves. In a dynamic microphone, sound pushes against a diaphragm which is connected to a piece of wire coiled around a magnet. Whenever the diaphragm moves, the coil moves over the magnet, creating a small current that momentarily runs through the wire. There are many different ways in which sound can be changed to electric signal and if you want to learn more about these methods, click here. 

“Single element” is probably the most important term out of this group because it’s what made this microphone so successful as a product. In the 1930’s, to be able to create a cardiod directional pattern, recorders would have to use huge microphones that effectively had multiple omnidirectional and bidirectional mics within it that would sum or subtract their outputs. These “multiple element” mics were heavy and not always reliable, so Shure researched ways to modify the dynamic configuration of the mic so that only one element was needed. With the help of Benjamin Bauer, the head designer and inventor of the mic, the company found a way to alter how sound hits the diaphragm from the back and effectively nullified any sound that would come in that direction. This resulted in a mic that was extremely light weight and significantly more reliable than its competitors; features that many performers and announcers were attracted to.

2. It was extremely cost effective

Because of its single element design, Shure could sell these microphones at a reasonable price to broadcast groups. The Shure Unidyne Model 55 costed around $45 dollars, which for its reliability and weight, was a great deal for performers buying them.

3. People loved the outer design of the microphone

Without a doubt people were attracted to the futuristic look of the Model 55. According to the Shure company, the outer design of the mic was inspired by the grill of the 1937 Oldsmobile as well as the Art Deco movement of the 1920’s and 1930’s.

Grill of the 1937 Oldsmobile. Image from medium.com

All in all, the Shure Unidyne Model 55 was a feat of technological brilliance. It offered an efficient way to accurately record vocals without the fear of feedback or odd frequency response. The Shure Model 55 should be remembered as the father to all modern dynamic microphones because it truly was the first of its kind. So, whenever you see a picture of Elvis waving around the “Elvis Mic” or Sinatra crooning into the Model 55, just remember how groundbreaking that microphone was.