The anatomy of an artist.

In 2012 you do not have to have talent to be considered “it”. You can literally Maybeline, Photoshop, Jenny Craig, Nip tuck, and Auto Tune yourself a dream career as an entertainer. I listen to what is supposed to be music today and I question, “How on earth did we get here and where are we going”? Today, we have “entertainers” who are so talentless, I almost take it personally. Do we seriously label this garbage as good? Forreal people? All you have to be today is beautiful and ballin‘.

Today I hear more people saying that they want to be famous without having a talent or achievements worth mentioning. People want fame for the simple fact of being on a higher social hierarchy. Does everyone really need to know your name if you aren’t doing anything major? the 2000’s birthed a new wave of celebrity. You can literally become famous and have everyone obsessed with you for No reason at all. All you need is a sextape and maybe a nice inheritance. Fame has become a monster. It’s personified in the careers of Kim Khardashian and Paris Hilton, to name two. What did they do?

Popular music has lost that eclectic taste that everyone would savor. Everything sounds hollow and 1-dimensional. Commercial radio is no longer a place of refuge for recording artists. You have to either be paid already, politrickin’, or smashing a big whig to even get a piece of opportunity. America’s musical spice cabinet is deprived of flavoring because of greed, payola, shallowness, and great PR. There is so much greed and open hatred. Not to mention, the industry stopped building careers to last EON’S ago.  There are more record execs that seem to serve more as vultures. It seems as though today it’s more about  tearing artist down, undercutting their net worth and making a come up off of them. I wonder out of all these “beautiful people” how many are being exploited. I know business is business but, has it always been cut throat to this extent?

Today, image is everything, not your talent. Don’t believe me, I’ll prove it. Rihanna first appear on America’s popular music scene in 2005. Her song “Pon de Replay” was the first single that they were really pushing hard.  When Rihanna first came on the scene, she was not hott. She was supposed to be the exotic, island girl but that image just wasn’t working for her. It was boring and unbelievable. Her “talent” was… AHEM! She chopped off  her hair and  flipped her image and got The Dream to write her a hit pop song that wasn’t vocally challenging in the slightest bit. It was catchy. It worked. All of a sudden, she blew up overnight. The new Rihanna was cool but… SHE GOT HOTT OFF OF A HAIR CUT. People didn’t begin to mess with Rihanna hard until she got that cut and sexed it up.  BUT THAT HAIR CUT DID IT! She had the image of a good girl before hand. With that new hair cut, she became bad. She sold a ton of records. To me, she was the same, tone def chick from Pon de Replay. But with a new, dark do and tunes written by musical geniuses like The Dream, she is now “The shit”….

CHIIIIILLLLLLEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

For me personally as an independent artist, I get discouraged more often than encouraged. I am not arrogant by any means… I know my talent is greater than all of this auto tuned, oversexed crap that seems to serve as the industry standard. Is the industry against lyrical nourishment? What happened to healing with words, feeling mentally fed, and partying all in one song? My calling is in music and journalism. My grandmother used to tell me that all the time. In her words exactly, ” You’re going to make it doing Hippity Hoppity” and Journalism. She loved my mind and my style of writing. I didn’t look at journalism seriously until I lost her. Writing and recording music was one of the only ways I could keep from losing my mind. I honestly don’t care about too much of anything else. I refuse to be silenced because the industry is F’d up.

Music is supposed to heal. It’s supposed to be the universal language for love. I just don’t understand how it digressed like this. I don’t speak this statement about a particular genre or race. Music in general, is suffering all across the board. At least, commercially. I don’t understand how you can be a grammy award winning artist if you can’t sing live. I guess in 2012, this is the life…