Post 15, The Final One

As you already know, I love music.  I love any type of music and when we were talking about the lyrical essay all I could think about was how much it sounded like a sort of song.  I love lyrics when it comes to music and it seemed like a lyrical essay focuses a lot on word order and form and certain words that you choose.  It reminded me of a song that I know by the group Atmosphere called “Scape Goat”.  The song is basically just a list of different words and excuses that people use when things don’t go their way.  It is very poetic in the word order and Slug does an amazing job coming up with different ideas and topics that people like to blame things on.  In the chorus he goes “On and On and On and On, The list goes, On and On and On and On” and I think that is a cool way to show that people like to blame anything on someone else.  Here is the song:

After each verse Slug also says "It Ain't Me, Nawh it Ain't Me".  I just think this is an awesome way of using lyrics and words in a different way to get a point across and I think that is the major idea of a Lyrical Essay.  Word order and structure are such a key componant of what makes good writing great and I think Slug does a wonderful job at showing this.

Post 14

I was going to shy away from writing this post but I feel like it will make a good post.  I think Emily’s editorial she wrote called “Separation of Church and Hate” was brilliant.  I think she makes amazing points in it and it is true that people hold stereotypes on people or have beliefs that just shock me.  I consider myself a Christian.  I believe in a higher power and I believe that Jesus is my savior.  What I don’t believe in though is the fact that just because someone is gay means they are going to burn in hell for eternity.  I thought the whole idea of having a religion and faith was for hope.  Hope that when you die something good comes from it.  I didn’t realize that it was to scare people away from it.  I walk to class some days and I hear those dumb Bible pushers standing in front of the AF trying to scare people into believing and I feel like smacking them.   That’s not the way to do it.  It doesn’t work at all.  It is the reason why I think religion is becoming more nonexistent in America.  The way these Bible pushers try to throw a religion on people is horrible.  I’m not saying everyone needs to believe in Christianity or anything like that but I feel things get labels now that don’t apply to everyone.  Gays get the label of being horrible people and that they are demons and evil and all that other nonsense by “Christians” and the press labels all Christians as these hardcore, throw the bible at them and make them believe, types of people and neither are true.  I’m never one that enjoys talking about having faith and everything else like that because I feel people judge me just because of that then.  They think “Oh, he is gonna judge me because I don’t believe” or “Well I’m not going to talk to him because he is going to throw all this bible talk at me” and honestly I’m not like that at all and it frustrates me that labels like that have to be made.  It was refreshing to read Emily’s editorial because it was nice to read kind of the same idea but from the other side.  She felt the same way.  She hated the labeling that she felt for being a gay American.  She felt that when she tells people she is gay they judge her and don’t want to be around her and I think it is horrible to realize.  The one thing that makes America as great of a country as it is people can be who they are.  The country was founded on individualism and it seems like people want to make everyone like them instead of embracing individualism.  It just frustrates me to no point and I’m glad Emily wrote such a great and wonderful paper on how she feels.

Post 13

When talking about whether Creative Nonfiction is more Fiction or Journalism I still don’t know how I feel about it.  In the beginning of the class I was thinking it was more towards the Journalism side then the fiction side because of the idea that no matter what, you are going to be telling a story.  The story is also a true story so that’s why I would lean towards the Journalism side.  I felt the fiction side of it was more because of the idea that you are using heavy description to describe the moments and how they felt in a real story.  To me that sounds a lot like a journalist.  But then I forget now what was said in class that made me flip back to the fiction side but it got me thinking about the dialogue.  When you think about it you aren’t going to be able to get EXACT dialogue unless use a recorder.  And if you use a recorder it ends up being more journalism then anyway.  So if you create dialogue to make the story move smoother would that make it fiction? Even now writing this I’m flip flopping on where I think creative nonfiction stands.  I still think though that Creative Nonfiction falls about halfway between journalism and the half-way point.  I just feel the main idea is to get a story that you feel is important across to people who you feel need to hear what you have to say.  I can see why people would feel it could be more fiction then journalism but I just don’t feel as strong about it.   Even if someone takes parts of a story and puts them together to make it seem like they were there for the whole thing like the one story we read about the meth addict from Philly who found the money in a bag, still to me is considered more of a journalistic type of story.   It might not be AS journalistic as some of the other stories but it still has a journalistic feel to it by the way the author still had to do research and was imbedded in the situation like a journalist  would be.

Post 12

In one of the previous posts that I wrote I talked about how similar making a movie or even a music video in my TV Production class is to writing a creative nonfiction essay.  I remember when My friends and I were working on our 4500 competition video we had to write scenes, or at least have a basic idea of what we wanted to do.  When we finally pieced everything together it all made sense to us and my favorite part of the process was coming up with different shots to tell the same type of thing that a basic boring shot would do.  I think that is a huge component of what creating a creative nonfiction essay is.  When writing creative nonfiction it’s all about taking a boring story or something that has happened to you in your life and putting a different spin on it to make it seem more interesting or intriguing to your audience.  Just like how it was the hardest part of creating our videos, it is the hardest part of creating a creative nonfiction essay.  I figured with the background that I have with making movies and writing scenes I wouldn’t have as much trouble as I did with this class.  To me, it was much more difficult putting my thoughts and ideas down in a creative nonfiction story then it was in a script or storyboard.  I also talked to one of my friends about the same type of thing and she agreed with me.  She had a creative nonfiction class 2 years ago when she was a freshman and she thought it was the hardest type of writing she has ever had to do.  She was also in the TV Production class with me when I was a junior in high school and she was also part of the TV Club so she was just as involved in it as I was.  It made me feel better to know that I wasn’t the only one who struggled with this.  I know I have a lot more respect to people who do try to get into the writing business as a career.  It is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.  I am always critical of journalists and say “Oh, I could do such a better job of that” when in actuality I couldn’t.  It takes a lot to put your writing out for people to rip and critique and I know I don’t have whatever that is.

Post 11

I’ve gone through so many ideas on what to write about for my final creative nonfiction piece.  I knew I wanted to do baseball but I just didn’t know what.  I also knew I wanted to base it around my high school season and winning the state title, I just couldn’t think of a good enough story to tell.  I would have talked more about my homerun but I felt like that was too much navel gazing.  I was going to talk about how the relationship between my father and I grew because of the fact we both shared a huge love to baseball but I just couldn’t get a good enough focus around it.  I finally figured out what I wanted to talk about and it had to deal with our team manager Josh Rose.  Josh was always known as the kid who had messed up arms and legs and rode around on a wheel chair everywhere to class.  I’m glad I was able to meet Josh though.  Josh is one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.  I don’t know how I let him slip through when I was trying to come up with different ideas to write about.  I used to think the same exact things that everyone else did until I actually got to know Josh.  He is the true essence of a positive thinker.  No matter what obstacle he has been faced with he always has a good attitude about it and somehow or someway completes it.  He became a superstar after we won States.  One of the coolest moments I’ve ever been involved in was when we finally had a ceremony at half time of a basketball game to get our rings.  Everyone was called out one by one and Josh was the last one to be called.  He also got the biggest ovation.  Everyone stood and clapped for him as he huffed his way across the gym to receive his ring and the team started to chant “Hova! Hova!” as he walked across.  It’s funny how different moments in your life can still seem like they were just yesterday in your own mind.  That’s what makes writing them down so wonderful because every time you read what you wrote; it’s almost like reliving the moment.

post 10

Last class we wrote as our warm up a reflection of the class overall.  So I figured I’d add on from that and keep talking about the class.  I knew going into the class I wasn’t this spectacular writer to any sense of the word.  I am terrible at grammar, I’m horrible at spelling, and honestly, when I try to put my thoughts down on paper they come across very choppy.  Even I know that when I write.  So I was really nervous about the class.  The only reason I was taking the class was because I need it to become a teacher.  I’m stuck in the English area of teaching because what I really want to do is become a TV production teacher in high school but my advisor talked me into switching into English because I’ll have a better chance at landing a job.  So my expectations for the class weren’t very high to begin with.  The thing I enjoyed most about the class though was the fact that even though I’m not an award winning writer like I think some of the students in the class have a chance to become, I still felt like I could contribute and follow along in the class.  My grades aren’t exactly what I want them to be but I have to go with the flow.  I also think Dr. Morris is a wonderful professor and I’m not saying that just because you’ll be reading this.  I truly believe you wanted to help us become better writers, or at least better thinkers, and that is a lot more then I can say about some of the other professors I’ve had so far at Kutztown.  Anytime I needed help you were willing to help me out and you gave me good feedback on what I was writing.  I know I have a lot of work to do with my writing but I feel this was a step in the right direction.  I enjoyed making videos and things of that nature in my TV Production class in high school.  I liked trying to come up with the most creative shot that I could when filming something.  The more and more work that I do with creative nonfiction the more and more I see a similarity in the two.  The different styles of writing that we read throughout the year  and the way that they were told were a lot like the different ways I would try to show different scenes in a video.  I thought it was really cool to look at it that way and I’ve never really looked at writing that way.  It’s all about telling a story the best possible way.

Post 9

I was flipping through my Ipod the other day and I came across another song which I think is a wonderful situation of telling a creative nonfiction story through music.  The song so much doesn’t reflect this but the video really does.  One thing that I’ve really noticed and enjoyed the most about this class this semester is the different ways I look at storytelling and the different ways people tell these stories.  Whether it is through writing, music, or video people present and get across the same ideas and situations and I think that is pretty cool to look at.  But to get back to the video and the song, the song is called Good Enough by Prozak.  It has to deal with Prozak talking about he isn’t good enough whether it has to do with his love life, being a mainstream rapper, or just trying to support himself throughout life.  It is very dark but it is one of the things that makes it feel more real, at least to me.  In the video Prozak wrote, directed, and shot on his own it shows a ugly looking man who wants to become an actor on broadway.  He auditions but doesn’t have what it takes and isn’t Good Enough.  It also goes through showing how he has to deal with a lot because of the fact that he is different than other people.  Through the rest of the video though he is faced with tough decisions on whether to chase a dream he has or keep something of his that means a lot.  It really brings in a real situation that I’m sure many people have been faced with at some point of their life.  In an interview Prozak says that the video reflects how his career has gone to that point.  He said he could have been like everyone else and gotten a regular job and not chased a dream of his.  But instead he decided to chase the dream and he is now signed to Strange Music, creating his own movies and music, and has a good following with the Techn9tions and Juggalos.  The end of the video is wonderful and twisted at the same time but I won’t ruin it because I’m going to post it so everyone can see what I mean.

Post 8

The first op. editorial that I did, I ended up writing about underage drinking and how I felt it was BS we have to wait until we are 21 to be able to drink legally.  I wasn’t too happy having to write about it, but it was something to write about. Of course, about 2 days after the editorial was due the whole sex abuse scandal at PSU came out.  This is a horrible situation but it would have been perfect to write about because it seemed like all anyone cared about was Joe Paterno.  Well fortunately I was able to do the re-write and was able to express how I felt.  Now about a week or so ago things have come out from Syracuse that an assistant basketball coach named Bernie Fine sexually abused 3 of the ball boys in a Pittsburg hotel room.  You would think this has become an everyday situation with the way ESPN has been reporting this.  When things came out against Penn State and Jerry Sandusky with the name of Joe Paterno littered throughout the situation, every anchor on ESPN called for the head of Paterno.  They wanted answer and they wanted them right away.  Paterno’s only fault in the situation was not doing more to help those students when the pervert that is Sandusky was let off the hook in 2002.  I don’t support JoePa in his situation or the decisions that he made, but I do feel Paterno got a very raw and unfair deal.  Paterno was fired 3 days after the situation came forth.  Bernie Fine has been fired by Syracuse but the coverage they are providing for this situation is no different than a regular sports story.  It just adds to my point that Paterno was a scape goat for ESPN, Penn State, and the general public to point the finger at because he was a big name.  People who live across the country know who Joe Paterno is.  Who knows who Bernie Fine, or let alone the head coach Jim Boeheim, unless you are a hardcore College basketball follower or you live in the Syracuse area.  I don’t hear anyone asking for the firing of Boeheim like they did for JoePa.  The even more staggering thing is a tape of a recorded phone conversation between one of the victims and Fine’s wife was handed over to ESPN in 2005 and ESPN refused to bring the tape out to the public saying there still wasn’t “sufficient information.”  This has never stopped ESPN before from leaking things that weren’t supposed to be leaked or getting testimonies from certain players pointing other players out for things like steroids or drug use.  Why didn’t ESPN report what they had but yet when nothing more than JoePa not doing enough in the exact same situation gets him ridiculed in the media and people ask for his head?  It will be very interesting to see what else comes out now for both the PSU situation and the Syracuse situation.

It's not the best video but it really sends chills down your spine on the whole Sandusky situation and I think it is important for people to hear.  Here is also the video of Bob Costas talking to Jerry Sandusky ont he phone.  This is one of the most difficult things I've ever listend to and watched.

Post 7

It seems like in every class we always bring up James Frey and the infamous A Million Little Pieces book.  I read the book in high school and loved every part of it.  When I was reading it though I knew that it was basically a fake book.  My sister owned it and I needed something to read for an english class and asked her for some ideas.  I actually wanted to read one of her Stephen King books but she told me that she thought I would really enjoy A Million Little Pieces.  And to be completely honest I didnt even want to read it just because of the cover.  How would I look walking around the halls of a High School with a book in my hand that was a light blue color with a hand that was covered in rainbow sprinkles?  But I trusted her so I gave it a shot.  I was so glad I did too because it is a fantastic book. It just always baffles me how upset people got when they found out the book was a fake.  Aren't most books fake?  Yeah I guess it got under people's skin that Oprah endorsed it and he never came clean and when Oprah endorses something, even God reads it.  So that boosted his sales by a good amount.  But even if we knew it was a lie why can't people look at it as a fiction book.  A good story.  One about friendship, love, drug abuse, and the difficutlies of getting over that drug abuse.  I read it now also and it amazes me the amount of detail he can go into in describing the different situations he "went" through.  I wonder if he would have made the main character someone else if people would have flipped as much, but since he is the main character people find it to be a load of BS.  The other thing that amazes me is he came out with a second book then also called My Friend Leonard.  If you search for the book on Amazon and read some of the comments, the top comments are all from disapointed readers that found out the first one was fake so they won't read the second one.  To me that just sounds like people don't simpathize with him anymore, like there isn't someone who's life is worse then theirs.  I always think people are looking for that next rundown, Danny Bonaduce type of character that they can read about or watch about because it makes people feel better about their own lives.  I love A Million Little Peices and I am hoping to find enough money and time to buy My Friend Leonard and read it.

Post 6

Dear my one and only love,

            When I am blue, you cheer me up.  When I am mad, you cool me off.  What I would do without you I do not know nor do I want to think about that.  I am with you every day and most nights sleep with you by my side.  The way I look at you when I am lying in bed taking in everything you are telling me always makes me fall asleep fast.  “The only type of lying I would do to you is in a bed” Those words came from you.  “I’m mostly Angel, But sometimes me Fall, Living under God and I hope it’s listening when I say I love you All!”  I live by those words that you told me that one day.  “Awe Shit, Mother Fucker, Ima Kick your Fucking Ass!”  You scream those words at me every time I get to out of control and need something to take my mind off of things.  You know me to well.  You know how to stop whatever I am doing and can take me to a different place.  And that is what I love about you.  I remember that one time when I lost you once. I thought my life was over.  I was so depressed and angry at myself for being so selfish, so stupid, so uncaring to not know what had happened to you.  I’ve put you through so much and I don’t know how I could repay you for that.  The scratch that I put on you will always haunt me every time I look at you.  The fact that I was so careless and didn’t care about you to do that always eats at me.  I do though always make sure you have had a good rest, fully charged, and ready to take on the day with me every single day.  I take care of you to the best of my ability and even though it might not seem like much, it is all that I have.  I also make sure I am so careful when I stick my headphone cord into your tight jack.  I don’t mean to hurt you like I do and I hope that this letter can make up for any harm I may have caused to you in the past 3 years.  I love you Ipod.



With Love,

Aaron Price

Post 5

We were talking about Lyrical Essays and things like that in class the other day and I brought up Aesop Rock. When I was reading about a Lyrical Essay it reminded me a lot of Aes's writing style. Aesop Rock is really hard to get into and even sometimes I can't listen to him because his stuff is so complex and doesn’t flow like anything anyone else has heard. Sometimes all you really want to do is just sit back and relax and listen to something easy.  Something that you don’t need to look at every little word to understand what he is trying to rap about.  I feel that is how Lyrical Essays are too.  Sometimes it is just nicer to sit back with something that is easy to read and just enjoy yourself so if you are looking for something like that you wouldn’t want to read a piece that is written like a Lyrical Essay.  I can completely understand why people don’t like this style.  I know it took me forever to get into Aesop Rock but after you get used to it and you understand what is going on it becomes fun.  I’ve never tried to write in this style and I’m not sure I would want to.  It seems like such a difficult style to write that I just don’t think it would be any fun.  The Brown Study was one of those pieces though that you would have to read 2 or 3 times I feel to really understand what he is trying to get through too.  I know if anyone else was like me they would have read it once and gave up.  But if we would have read it 2 or 3 times maybe then it would have gotten through a little better and more people would have enjoyed it.  I have to do the same exact thing when I listen to Aesop Rock.  Another technique that Aes uses that a writer can’t use is Aes creates big beats with a big sound to catch a listener’s attention.  If he can catch the attention of a listener with the sound, then they will keep listening to it and go through and figure out what he is saying though his words.  And like I said before Aesop Rock is one of those artists that is fun to listen to every once in a while and I think if most people got more used to the idea of a Lyrical Essay, they too would enjoy reading them more every once in a while.

Here is an example of an Aesop Rock song.  The song is called Daylight.  It is one of Aes's bigger songs that he has come out with.  And when I say bigger I mean it is a song that is more popluar then a lot of his others.  An example of some good lines that Aesop spits comes around the middleish of the song when he says " Life's not a bitch! Life is a beautiful woman, You only call her a bitch because she won't let you get that pussy, Maybe she didn't feel y'all shared any similar interests, Or maybe you're just an asshole who couldn't sweet talk the princess." To me, that is a cool way of putting it becuase I know the new thing with mainstream artists right now, well at least it seems like every rapper comes up with their own version, is calling life a bitch and then coming up with some sort of funny or cocky statement to say about it.  I think Aesop Rock put's this in a very cool, interesting, different way.

Spoken Word, Post 4

When we watched that video on Spoken Word Poetry it reminded me a lot of Slam Poetry and how it has a Hip Hop kind of vibe to it.  Some of the hip hop artists that have been involved in the Slam Poetry scene are Kanye West, Mos Def, Common, who came to Kutztown last year and I got to meet, and Talib Kweli are just to name a few.  Here is an example of what I mean by Slam Poetry.

That verse that Kanye does comes from one of his songs called Bittersweet Poetry.  Whether people want to admit it or not, Hip Hop can be very intellectual.  When people hear the kind of stuff that does get played on the radio they always write hip hop off.  Not that I don't agree with them becasue the things that do get played on the radio I feel can really ruin some people and the way they think, but not everything that there is in hip hop is like that.  Kanye shows here that he can be intellectual, but as we know Kanye can be very stupid with the stuff that he does too.

There is also another connection I want to make with Spoke Word and Hip Hop.  This is more based off of Indie Hip Hop also.  There is a woman in the group called Doomtree named Dessa who actually was a Spoken Word Poet before she got into the Hip Hop scene.  She uses that to her advantage and has some of the best lyrics that I've ever listened to.  She gets deep with her things and really describes things well.  As far as I know Doomtree is still around but they haven't released anything for about a year now.  Some of the other artists have gone and done solo projects which is probably why but they all have a very Intellectual side to what they write and rap about.  To finish off this post I'll give an example of Doomtree and Dessa.

Here is the Doomtree song called Kid Gloves:

and here is the Dessa song called :

Number 3

After talking more about what creative nonfiction really is and how to write it I thought of a song that I know.  The artist’s name is Sage Francis and the song is called Little Houdini.  The song is based on a true story about a man named Christopher Daniel Gay.  He was in prison and broke out so he could be with his mother while she was on her death bed and say goodbye to her for one last time.  The thing that makes Sage unique with his writing style and lyricism is how he put his own thoughts into this while telling the story of this man.  The more writing classes I take in college the more amazed I am by the creativity and skill some of the hip hop artists I listen to actually have.  Whether Sage realizes it or not he was using creative nonfiction to tell this story.  He didn’t know anything about the man but did research on him and was able to tell the story about this guy like he knew him personally.  He gets into the mind of Christopher and tries to explain what he was thinking while he was stealing these things to race to Tennessee to see his mother before she died.  Sage talks about him stealing a Wal-Mart truck and almost sympathizes with him and tries to get the listener to look through the eyes of Christopher.  The fact Sage was able to put it in the perspective of Christopher really does change your thoughts on the whole situation.  Well at least it did with me.  I try to think of myself like Christopher and I know how important family is to me.  If I could have tried to do it I might have tried to break out too just to say goodbye to my mother before she died of cancer like Christopher’s mother did.  You will always have the people who will feel since he did something wrong he needed to do his time and if he really did care that much about his mother he wouldn’t have done what he did in the first place to be put in jail but people do make mistakes.  When Christopher was caught he wasn’t able to go to his mother’s funeral which also makes me question sometimes the ways of America.  Sage raises so many questions with this piece and states how he feels about so many different situations that I could probably write a 10 page paper on just this.  And this is why I love the style of Indie Hip Hop artists.

Here is the song also:

Second Post

I feel my writing ability is very average. I never feel like when I write something that it is something I want to share with other people. It's usually something that I'll just try to get it over with and get an average grade with.  But for some reason last class after we wrote the letters I really wanted to share that.  I never felt more proud about anything that I've ever written before.  While I was writing it I didn’t really realize I was writing. I just let my pen go and my thoughts flow.  It felt good writing all that stuff down and sharing it with the class.  I still feel like an asshole for losing it a little while reading it but it was something I honestly couldn’t help.  It's been a year since Martin passed away from drunk driving with a friend in a car.  It was a shock to the whole community and really hit everyone hard.  I've always used music to help me through with it but after writing that letter it really made me realize that even if there is no one to talk to at that moment, just write down how you feel and it really does help.  I’ve never been into the “soft” stuff like that before but surprisingly it really did help.  I felt like I could have written for hours.  It was such a different and weird feeling. I feel more confident in my writing ability since that class too.  I am actually excited to start writing other things.  I want to try to push myself this semester and become a better writer and I really think I can do it.  I feel like this song is very fitting too for my letter that I wrote.  This song, and basically the whole EP, helped me get through the death of Martin.  MURS knows how to hit a point in his lyrics.  It is like he was going through the same thing I was going through with this song. The EP was supposed to be written for a black teenager going through high school but it’s amazing how I was able to connect to it so well.  The song is called A Friends Blues by MURS. 

My first post

The last time we had class we had all of the introductions and I said that I was really into Indie Hip Hop. So I decided for my first post I want to explain more about that.  Such a small portion of what Hip Hop is is what is played on the radio.  When people listen to what is on the radio they hear things about guns, sex, and drugs.  With Indie Hip Hop though, it is a completely different scene.  One of the great things about the indie scene is the storytelling aspect to the music. A lot of the song's that you hear Indie Hip Hop artists write have to deal with telling a story and getting people to relate to what they are saying.  The reason why it isn't bigger and played on the radio is because they don't get the push that the major record labels can use to get their artists out to the public and make money.  Now I'm not saying ALL mainstream hip hop is bad because Lupe Fiasco, Kid Cudi, and Kanye West are just a few of the names that have some of the same aspects to their music as Indie Hip Hop artists have in theirs.  Their lyrics actually make sense and it isn't always about the same things.  But when I hear people like Lil Wayne and Gucci Mane on the radio it makes me sick because honestly I feel that anyone could do what they do.  There is nothing to their lyrics and all they do is talk over beats about nothing.  It also upsets me because I listen to the music of my dad's generation and there are great bands like The Doors, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and The Beatles.  Bob Dylan was an amazing story teller and that is what made him so good.  The story telling aspect to music I feel is gone.  People don’t look at music as an art form anymore.  They see it as a way to look ‘cool’ and fit in in high school.  Artists are more worried about selling their records then making something that might help someone or mean something or people 20 years from now will look at and be like ‘wow, that really describes that generation well.’  I look at my generation and what my kids might find if they go looking for the music dad listened to when he was young, they are going to find people like Lil Wayne.  I don't want to be labeled as that kind of generation.  It's why I try so hard to push the people that I listen to, to show that there ARE good musicians in my generation, there ARE artists that still do the same kind of things that were being done back in say the 60s or 70s.  You just have to look underground for them.  Some of my favorite Indie Hip Hop artists are Atmosphere, Cunninlynguists, MURS, Living Legends, and Cage.  They are some of the bigger names of the Indie Hip Hop scene.  There are also many different levels and genres to Indie hip hop but I won’t get into that. At least on this post.  To give you a sample of what I'm talking about and show you what I actually mean, I will post a more mainstream hip hop song that is big right now and I will post a song by one of my favorite Indie artists.


This song is called 6 foot 7 foot by Lil Wayne featuring Cory Gunz. It's off of his newest album called The Carter IV.

This song is called Just For Show by Atmosphere. It's off of their newest album called The Family Sign.

When you listen to these two songs try to look and listen to things like their lyrics, the style of the beats, the way they rhyme and annunciate their words, and what point they are trying to get across in the song.  Also, look at the videos and see what they are trying to tell you as well.