Mylist (The Curator)

For my second Elective course of the year, Mixtapes, we learned about the humanities behind the music. What are solfege and pentatonic notes? Where is the "home" note in this particular song? Is this song on a major or minor scale? These are some questions we thought about while learning about the historical context of music. For our project, we were asked to create a playlist to become the curator for the Pitchfork festival. We must use 5 songs and connect them back to who we are as a person and how we see the world around us. This project was simply amazing, but really hard. Sorry in advance for all the vulgar language in the music.



Hi, my name is Sean, and this is my playlist for Pitchfork. I am a very different person, so I like my music the same way. I want my playlist to be unique and like something that people don’t hear often. I personally am a musician. I’m a Hip-Hop/R&B artist. I rap, sing (although I’m not that great at it), write, and have currently started producing music. As far as the world goes, music is so diverse and different. There’s anything from Rock/Rap collabs to Hip-Hop/R&B collabs. The possibilities are endless. The world around me is cruel but full of great opportunity. Every minute you’re alive, there’s opportunity. The world is so vast and vibrant. My playlist will reflect my morals in life. Some type of originality and creativity.

Grief
Progressive/Profane track:
This song mainly consists of hard bars. The lyrics are hard-hitting and the beat compliments the lyrics perfectly. However, the delivery is very peculiar, and uncomfortable. Almost makes you feel this kind of uneasiness. Hip-Hop/Rap is the closest genre to this sound, but it almost makes you feel like this should be a separate genre. I think this song tries to give off uneasy feelings. It sounds quiet and loud at the same time, with very little repetition, besides "good grief." The tempo is also a medium-slow. While listening closely to the lyrics, you will start to realize that Earl Sweatshirt is reminiscing about the current state of his career. He highlights his thoughts and he vents about obstacles that he faces. He also speaks a lot about how dear he holds his real friends to his heart. This song came out in 2015. 2015 is the same year that people were breaking the barrier of “depression rap.” Acts like Tyler, the Creator paved the way for artists such as Earl Sweatshirt, Isaiah Rashad, etc. I think that anyone that respects real conscious rap. People that like to self-reflect and go against the status quo would love this song. This song is vulgar, however, so this song could definitely not be played in churches or at schools. The way I like to say it is, “the song is too real.” This track kind of got me into conscious music. Self-reflecting music that moves the rap game in ways that no other type of music does, is just so powerful to me.

We Don't Care
Progressive/Profane track:
Isn’t Kanye just amazing? This song right here has the most replay value on my playlist. It simply speaks to my soul in a way that other Hip-Hop/Rap music doesn’t. There’s a children’s choir implemented to give away a more soulful feeling. Kanye is the definition of unique. He uses certain instruments to glorifies pitches when they raise and drop. He’s simply a genius. The song was relatively loud and had a lot of repetition. The tempo was actually upbeat and kind of fast.The message of this song is self-explanatory. “We Don’t Care” is a very powerful song that talks about a lot of social issues in the world; specifically targeting the things that Kanye sees. It seems like Kanye uses this song to bring light to a dark topic. This song came out in 2004 when George W. Bush was president. He wasn’t the best president by any means. This was a very rough time for black people. This song is for anyone to be honest. Anyone who loves music should respect this song. There’s a bit of vulgar language, but the message is excellent. This song came out in 2004. At the time, no one sounded like this. That’s how I’m trying to be as a musician. The world is full of creativity.

Favorite Colors
Progressive/Profane track:
This song is interesting. Taylor Bennett, three-time grammy winner Chance The Rapper’s brother, created this empowering, uplifting song and chose the PERFECT feature. The feature from Kyle sealed the deal. This song quickly became a song that topped my personal chart of creativity and uniqueness. This song tries and succeeds at giving off a good feeling. A “nothing can stop me” type of vibe! This song is something you play when you’re down or you just want to have fun or be happy. It successfully gives off happy vibes and that’s just really cool to me. There's a quiet sound to this song. The tempo is just right. It's slow, but not too slow. One of my favorite parts of the song is the repetition in Kyle's verse where he repeatedly says "Ramen." This song came out not too long ago, in 2017. Musically, 2017 has been pretty inactive from a Hip-Hop standpoint. Just recently has there been some activity with Drake’s release of “More Life.” Then Kendrick Lamar’s retaliation and release of the date when his next project releases on April 7th. This song, I feel like, even though it’s much smaller scale than Drake and Kendrick Lamar, the impact on the music was still large. I think it was important to music. The diversity in this song is crazy. From the instruments to the lyrics, to the delivery of Kyle’s verse. I would think there wouldn’t be many enemies of this song. Although, there are mentions of marijuana and other things. This song is important to me because it doesn’t sound unoriginal. The world should hear this song just so they know that there are no limitations in music.

Myself
Progressive Conservative/Profane track:

This song is important because it takes that resemblance to Hip-Hop and the artist changes it to his sound. That’s why I love this artist because his versatility and his ideas are serene to me. This song is highlighting how the artist has done it all by himself. From the money to the women to the fanbase. This song seems to be a “flex song,” where Nebu glorifies his accomplishments. This song is moderate sound, so not loud or quiet. There's a bunch of repetition which works with the fast tempo. This song came out in 2016, which was a great time for this type of music. “Bubble gum rap” or “alternative rock” are some classifications of this age of music. This song definitely has some vulgar language and there’s plenty of “enemies,” but the friends are artists like me who love to hear the new and cool music. This track is powerful to me, but it also sounds great to me. Also, Nebu Kiniza is a very important artist to me because he took a sound and made it his own. He’s the most unique mainstream rapper I can think of.

Glitter Glove
Progressive Conservative/Profane track:
REESE LAFLARE, a very underrated Hip-Hop artist is one of the coolest artists in the game if you ask me. His versatility and creativity will bring him a very long way in his career. You can even call this genre “alternative rock.” This music is just great to listen to. This song is just a very fun song. It’s literally about dancing and it’s just made for the listener to “turn up” and have fun. That explains the moderately fast tempo and the catchy repetition. This song was released in 2016, where people were just getting accustomed to this type of music, so this song was just magnificent at the time, and it still is now! This song still does have some vulgar language. Some enemies may be churches and some parents, or older adults. This song is simply amazingly creative in a way that I hear it and I don’t ever want to stop listening to it. Isn’t this what the world needs?

My Trip to SXSW

I'm an aspiring artist. I rap, sing, produce, and I'm trying to become more versatile with my work. I went to Austin, Texas for the South by South West (SXSW) Festival which was the opportunity of a lifetime, but I was forced to miss school for a couple of days which was quite unfortunate. I think the exchange was probably worth it, seeing as we made a few connections that will do nothing but substantially benefit us down the road. We just have to make sure we keep up our end of the bargain. Unfortunately, in today's hip-hop industry, success is less about skill and more about who you know. It's not really cool, but we have to pander to the status quo.

"ETP" JO. 18 Mar, 2017.

We left on Thursday, March 16th to arrive on Friday, March 17th. The ride was 16 hours so we stopped at a motel on the way there and back. The trip was nice and long. But like the reason we went, music was the main thing that kept us going. Music is so "comfortable." When I say "comfortable," I mean how all the different genres and sounds in music allow for ANYONE to be "comfortable." That's what is beautiful about it right? The possibilities are endless. We are still discovering new things, and music was founded around 500 BC. Is that not weird? Even in 2017, we are still finding ways to change and alter sound to create music. Not even to mention all the things that the human mouth can do. As our music does seem to get more and more repetitive, we probably thought "nothing could get better" a couple decades ago, but now our technology is smarter than us.

Music is important to young people. Without music, I wouldn't know a lot of my friends as much as I do. Music allowed us to develop these relationships. Our group wouldn't be a group without music. Music bring people together, like how it brought people to come see us perform at our venue.

The trip proved to be very important for the group. We had time to reflect on how we feel about one another, and we also did a bunch of networking. The most important thing is making sure we are proud of each other. If we ever have problems, we need to fix them like civilized adults. Otherwise, that would mean there's a little kid in ETP, and there's not!

Fable For Young People

For the third and last action project of my STEAM class, Systems & Models, we were asked to analyze a particular part of our school while having full creative control. The particular parts of the school have to relatively specific. I chose interpersonal relationships. This entails the relationships between students of different ages and cohorts within the school. I also had to interview 4 people from within the school to get a better perspective than just my own. We were asked to connect our findings to the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) chart. We were also asked to relate our findings to Maslow's Hierarchy and our research on I-O psychology. I had difficulties following the rubric while completing the project, but this project allowed me to write, which is one of my favorite things to do. I wrote a fable type of story for you all. It is about a teenage boy and his little sister. Enjoy!

"Bro & Sis" Web. 26 Feb, 2017.

This is my fable, “The Divide.” The story is represented in the quoted bold text and annotated in the regular text. I hope you enjoy reading it!

“There’s this beautiful thing called ‘divide.’ This is the same divide you have with your younger siblings. How beautiful is ‘divide?’ Or does divide have this negative connotation that everyone generally gives it? If you ask me, divide is a way to separate yourself, and sometimes you have to. The real question is, when does divide become a liability? This story about Jonathan and his sister Joanne will entail the story of ‘The Divide.’”

I chose to write a fable type of story as a creative way of depicting the social divide in my school’s cohorts. The underclassmen and upperclassmen don’t have much of an understanding. It seems as if the underclassmen want to have more fun, and the upperclassmen are used to the freedom that the underclassmen seem to be new to. I will be trying to depict this by the big brother Jonathan, being the upperclassman, and the little sister Joanne, being the underclassman.

“Jonathan was having a rough day. Honestly, it was just a regular day in the Harden household. Joanne is in her room, on the phone screaming irregularly. It would be ideal to check on someone screaming like that, but it was normal in the Harden household. Jonathan, at 17 years old wasn’t having it! He stormed into Joanne’s room with fire in his eyes! Before anything came out of his mouth, a pillow was thrown at his face as his 15 year old sister yelled, ‘get out!’ Jonathan responded, ‘I’ll get out if you please shut-up.’ Joanne teased, ‘I’m telling mom you told me to shut-up!’ ‘Whatever, just be quiet!’ Jonathan said while leaving Joanne’s room.

As you can see, there's room for improvement. Let's analyze the SWOT of this brother and sister's relationship. A strength that I see here is that they obviously have some type of connection or understanding which can be related to the relationship between the cohorts in my school. This is a nice transition to the weaknesses that we witnessed in their relationship. Like the cohorts in my school, these two seem to have different interests and wants/needs. I asked a senior at my school, VG, how he thought the general relationship between the upper and underclassmen was, he responded: "the larger the grade gap, the less friendliness displayed." I asked the same question to a freshman at my school, ZG, and he responded that the relationship between them was, "decent, but it could be better." He claimed "the freshmen are misguided and the seniors can help in certain ways." Although ZG is a freshman, he seems to not be a negative factor in the problem between the cohorts.

"Jonathan knew that Joanne was relatively tolerable some times. Maybe she wasn't too bad. It would be kind of boring without her around the house. He whispered playfully under his breath, 'I'll get her back. She wants to be annoying, I'll show her annoying!' Jonathan planned on playing his music louder than hers. He wanted to play his music so loud that Joanne couldn't even hear herself speaking on the phone."

There's obviously opportunity for their relationship strengthen. I asked a teacher, how she felt the upper and underclassmen's relationship was and she said she thought that "everyone gets along well." She said she thought that, "the freshmen as a group get scapegoated for a lot of stuff, but individually, I think everyone treats each other fairly for the most part." She has a point. The freshmen specifically are blamed for their energy which is commonly looked down upon because the seniors don't share the same energy. As the cohorts in my school do, Jonathan and Joanne need to find somethings mutual. How can they find a way to compromise; to look past age? It's all about systems thinking, and making all pieces of the puzzle come together. I asked the counselor in my school if she believed that there was a "divide" in the school she responded: "I don't know if I would call it a divide, maybe a bit of a misunderstanding between the age groups." This misunderstanding represents the gap in maturity and motive.

"What Jonathan didn't anticipate was, him playing one of Joanne's favorite songs. Jonathan had a maniacal look in his face. He was going to get his sister back! Twenty seconds had passed and Joanne bust through the door singing! 'DON'T YOU OPEN UP THAT WINDOW, DON'T YOU LET OUT THAT ANTIDOTE! Jon this is like my favorite song!' Jonathan's plans were soiled. He tried to find it in himself to be angry, but he realized that Joanne wasn't so bad. The hard part is finding something mutual between the two. Music is just one of the things that they have in common. Jon jokingly responded, 'Haha, I forgot. You know, sometimes you're not too terrible.' After briefly laughing, Joanne replied, 'Yea, you're not that horrible of a brother. I just hope we can keep the house to ourselves. It would be a catastrophe if I had to share my room if mom and dad had another child.' Jon's face showed some uncertainty. He responded, 'I'm leaving next year, so if that was to happen, you could just take my room.' Joanne smiled."

The threat in this case is a newborn child. Relating back to my school, the threat of this situation would be new students. Once the upper and underclassmen come to an understanding, these new students or newborn child will alter the relationship that was once formed. There doesn't have to be this idea of Six Sigma. There doesn't have to be a perfect relationship, but there does have to be a mutual relationship. They have to relate to each other. Within I-O Psychology, there's this idea that innovation drives our economy. I believe this to be true because innovation means interaction and collaboration. Interaction prospers through social skills. Social skills are needed in order for there to be order.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is important to understand in this situation. Esteem on the hierarchy is very important to both the seniors and underclassmen. They want to graduate, and the underclassmen want to be "cool." Seniors really only need water and food, but underclassmen need satisfaction of classmates. There's this sense of self-actualization, and how you want to be viewed. Maturity goes hand-in-hand with self-achievement. This is an interesting way to put it into perspective for you.

THE END

References:
ZG. Student, Interview.
VG. Student, Interview.
Sharon. Teacher, Interview.
Jessica. Teacher, Interview.

"SIOP" SIOP.org. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.

The First Woman Is Drafted To The NBA!

For the second and last action project of my Equality class, we were asked to think 100 years into the future and try to tackle one of the social issues we've been covering throughout the second unit. These social issues include gender and race inequality, and also social class. We were supposed to create an article or newspaper to represent how things have changed over 100 years. I chose the first woman to be drafted to the NBA. The NBA is a man's league. The WNBA was issued in 1996 to separate men and women who wanted to play ball. We were then asked to write a short letter to the editor of this created article/newspaper with a reaction. This project was pretty difficult and it really forced you to use your creative bones, and that's why I loved this project so much! I hope you enjoy my project!

Are You Racist? Don't Answer That Question!

For the second action project of my STEAM course, Systems & Models, we were asked to conduct a social experiment. As the first unit of this course talked about who "you" are. This unit talked about learning who the people are around you. This class is very amazing in building your social analyzation. I tried to really demonstrate this concern for "those around me," by conducting an experiment that would highlight the systematic racism in the environment I stay around. My idea was to grab one of my white friends and then we both asked for money outside the subway station. The results were quite interesting. This project was amazing and right up my alley as well. This project was difficult at the same time, as I did have to create a very detailed lab report. Thank you for viewing my social experiment and enjoy!

What Did the Emancipation Proclamation Solve Exactly?

The first action project for my Humanities course, Equality, consisted of creating a textbook. We were asked to choose a relatively broad topic. Our projects were essentially supposed to look something like a textbook; three educational devices, text, etc. Textbooks have to be accurate, though. We made sure that we had more than five sources for our information so that everything checks out well. This project was long and hard, but very important to me. This project, not only told me about myself but about what my people go through on a daily basis. I interviewed one of my younger peers and his answers really spoke to me. The project was especially difficult but necessary. I learned eventually that so many people are oblivious to the horrible systematic racism still present around the world. This project is my attempt of informing people that the oppression of black people will never be justified. Although the difficulty was very high, the project was enlightening.