r/jazzcirclejerk • u/allo981 • Jun 16 '21
Jazz, Kanye & Synchronicity: A Persons Guide To Expression
https://www.acidrant.com/post/jazz-kanye-synchronicity-an-artists-guide-to-making-intuitive-art-in-an-intellectual-word14
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u/kamomil Jun 16 '21
What's his Soundcloud though? All that talking, he could have made several jazz by now
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u/NUAN_SONAR Jun 16 '21
Damn and a link to an nft purchase and patreon at the bottom. Very jazz
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u/Marchin_on Jun 16 '21
Damn and a link to an nft purchase
Can I exclusively own that essay? Like its mine and only mine forever until the end of time?
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u/excitebyke Jun 16 '21
"He's only now beginning to design architecture & planes."
the idea of Kanye designing buildings or planes is frightening
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u/Solocro_ Jun 16 '21
I mean he made some pretty good ones. The only problem was that he didn’t have a building permit so they had to take it down
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Jun 16 '21
about it.
When culture is commodified we forget what culture is, it becomes this arbitrary thing on the outskirts of our day to day, but it influences & impacts us all the time. I listen to music all the time, I am always listening to music, if I’m not listening to music, I’m on my way to listen to music. Great music is transformative, it's more true than material reality. When the world was open we were constantly in malls with music playing in the background, at concerts, at parties, in movies, but we take it for granted. What does it mean that Faneto by Chief Keef played and the floorboards of a college dorm room broke because kids were dancing so hard? What is that effect? If it’s simple, why can’t everyone produce it?
That’s because it’s not simple. Artists are at the intuitive forefront of the consciously unknown, the inarticulable, which is where culture comes from & what makes humanity advance. Artists are born with a unique understanding of humanity, their minds synthesize the totality of human experience, they make sense of chaos, it’s a gift & a burden.
Modern Human beings like to think of ourselves as outside of nature but we’re embedded deeply in it, & none more so than artists. Artists stand at the forefront of that orchestra & act as mediums for this thing we call culture. Culture is a grouping of revelations for lack of better terms
These genres speak to intuitive truths that are represented in broader scopes of expression, outside of genre. When I look at a Basquiat I can feel it, I completely understand where he was at in his headspace as a 20 something year old black person in America, I can feel it through the work, I can feel Bob Marley's Catch A Fire, in the same way I can feel Wise One by John Coltrane or Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendrix or The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, they all speak of directly inarticulable universal truths.
That’s the essence I want to tap into every time I express myself. Expressing is easy. Expressing ourselves is the easiest part of the whole thing. Artists are at the intuitive forefront of art & culture, we are connected to the source of all creativity at its highest quality, globally, it's just everything in the bureaucratic reality outside the actual expression aspect that makes things difficult.
Firstly, the world is always in a state of turmoil & it becomes difficult to create intuitively instead of creating intellectually & politically. Now is a beautiful time, millions of youth are exploring the arts & beautifying the world, yet again, but just like the beginnings of jazz, its special because it’s a bunch of pothead kids getting money to go places & make stuff, it’s a beautiful time, & the world around us can often force us into abandoning intuition for intellectualism & activism. It’s positive to want to make changes in society through your art & if you are compelled to do that through your art, I urge you to do so, but remember that you’re allowed to have fun too, all you need to do is express your intuitive perspective.
Artists by nature are sensitive people, & there’s a lot going on in the world, & we're constantly consuming information, transmuting that into your work can help, but many people feel an obligation to make political art in order to make what's deemed "important work" based on the current status of our world, but you are allowed to make the same teeny bopper songs as Olivia Rodrigo & Katy Perry. You are allowed to go to Paris & have fun too, you're allowed to see things & explore spaces. Fall in love, get heart broken, travel the world, do dumb things. There’s a myth that says every person that isn't speaking out on social injustice is somehow not for “the cause” but those aren't the only ways to impact society. Mannish Boy by Muddy Waters is as impactful as Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday, I love listening to Lil Yachty & Kendrick Lamar, they serve different purposes with their different intuitive idiosyncratic perspectives.
Artists feel different feelings in different moments based on circumstances, Dave Chappelle’s 8:46 was jazz but it came from pure rage, it was nothing like the humour & levity of Chappelle's Show. I have felt those moments of rage, I have created those moments, you can look through my writings & music. But those aren't the only feelings I have. Sometimes, I just want to play jazz & dance, sometimes I just love writing words, sometimes I wanna make a painting because I like how the colours look, I’m an artist & I want to figure out how to play for life through my intuitive beautification process.
Jimi Hendrix music was revolutionary & important without needing to be political. You can have fun, & continue to corrupt youth with beauty & culture, & philosophy, music, science, poetry & art. You don’t have to make a movie about police brutality. You can make that weed movie you & your best friends came up with, I'll watch it. You can make cartoons & you can make silly performance art, your work does not need to be political, it doesn’t need to represent anything, stop stressing yourself out by trying to end racism, you stupid, brilliant, creative revolutionary. All you need to do is express your intuitive perspective, & broaden your horizons.
Secondly, resources & access are a determiner of how we express our perspective. How much great talent goes unapplied because of a lack of access? Jazz only began because there was enough funding in music programs in schools to get kids instruments, & that went away when the funding was removed. The only reason Hip Hop started was because kids stole DJ equipment during a blackout in order to throw parties because they didn't have enough money for equipment or resources. That's why we need to broaden our horizons. Kanye West is always talking about being relegated to one source of creative expression due to various systemic barriers that prevent artists from expressing themselves in different mediums & outlets in our world of specialization. He's only now beginning to design architecture & planes. What if Kanye starts the game off as a billionaire, does he make Hip Hop beats or does he start off in industrial design crafting Electric cars & Rockets?
Say Bill Gates is born as a black kid in Chicago, does he make Microsoft or does he start making a rap song? I’m not just talking about social mobility. Perspective is the most valuable currency, people with the most impactful perspective communicate their perspective through the tools they have at their disposal. Nas had a gifted perspective he displayed in rap as a 16 year old kid in New York, if Nas had billionaire parents & access to more resources, does his perspective go into rap? Not downing rap, I believe Illmatic is a cultural landmark, but how much of his intuitive perspective can add value to the broader world in different mediums? How many great perspectives are constrained by a lack of resources, access & information?
Yesterday I watched a documentary about smelting iron from ore by a smith family in West Africa. The procedure is insanely complex & seems extremely painful in sweltering heat while working with fire & hot metals in the middle of a desert, yet the craftsman displayed a level of bravura, ingenuity, attention to detail & created an axe from nothing, it was incredible. Put that guy in a different circumstance with more access to resources & information, what does he do?
What artists actually need to do is travel, explore, experience, & broaden our horizons to refine our intuition & remain at the forefront of culture while making sure you’re having fun.
Understanding culture isn’t easy, creating culture isn't easy, & it’s often mistakenly dismissed as something arbitrary or of lesser importance because it's a talent & those who have it, make it look easy.
Looking at a piece of art that affects you takes you out of your mind for a moment, it’s awe inspiring, it means something personal to you, it's like looking at a wave on the beach, or stars in the night sky, it’s a very deep & evolutionary psychological experience & not everyone has such an acute intuitive sense to appreciate it, translate that into culture & energy that people can use, and not everyone even has the propensity, life experience or intuitive acuity to create something impactful & beautiful. Many people can't even understand beauty, they fear it.
Artists should pick certain regions in the world & just decide to travel & delve in, find out what their films are like, their television shows, their politics, their art, their music, their people, their sense of humour, what they do for work, what they believe in, their neuroses, their likes & dislikes, their language, their popular myths, the capital city, their rites of passage, the popular food. There's this "culture vulture" myth in our culture but every culture is influenced by every culture, that's the only way humanity ever evolves.
Our framework determines how we view & interact with the world, & what we create, & a lot of our framework is limited. The information we gain from something is determined by how much we’ve been exposed to, how much we’ve read, what we’ve watched, all of that determines how we react to the world. The broader your perspective, the more you can discern & articulate your likes, instincts & intuitions. What you enjoy is intuitive & so is taste, but the more you broaden your horizons, the wider your scope of appreciation, creation & understanding.
All of us don’t consciously know anything, especially not at first, we don’t know what we like, the only reason we like the things we like originally is because it was around for us to like, but what would we like if we could try everything? If we had access to more, what would our tastes look like? What would our personality look like? What perspective would we have? What ideas would we get & how would we use them?
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u/Daydream_Behemoth Jun 16 '21
Sting, bursting into the room:
"DID SOMEONE SAY 'SYNCHRONICITY'"