The Middle of Nowhere #9

Now that the year end recaps are in the rearview mirror, the grind continues. The beginning of the year has been predictably slow so I’m using this as an excuse to do a Q&A with all of you. Don’t worry, I’ve got some cool ideas swirling up here, just a matter of planning. Middle of Nowhere interviews soon. But for now, let’s shoot the shit.

What motivates you as a writer? Why do people lack media literacy?- Pedro (@definetly_pedro)

Seeing pure love for the craft energizes me more than anything. When I watch Heat — a heist movie, sure but means so much more when dissecting the commitment in Pacino’s and De Niro’s characters — I feel moved to love and critique the art I love. When I watch interviews or read passages from the late Kobe Bryant, it sparks the mamba mentality he preached. The hardest thing is maintaining the motivation; my mind goes to so many places so quickly, I often wander to Twitter or go on a YouTube binge. That’s probably why I scroll so much on Twitter. A thousand thoughts shuffle through my head and it’s very easy to compact them in chunks.

People lack media literacy because the degree to which people love an art form is considerably lesser. When people started calling pieces of media ‘content,’ it’s like lightning struck. There was no better description. Art and media exists as snack-sized snapshots of things that recall familiarity and some vague comfort. It is all disposable, even if it shouldn’t be. If all people are fed is junk, they will react to everything as if it’s the junk they know and love. There’s no need for questions by that point.

Do you think the world would be a better place if RMR came out today?- Cam (@From804WithLove)

Maybe. I worry a lot of the same label mismanagement would take place, where suits attempt to cover several bases for a shapeless artist. His project Drug Dealing is a Lost Art showcases his stellar Rascal Flatts cover, a more overt but not nearly as catchy Timbaland/country mashup, a Westside Gunn feature, a Future and Lil Baby collab, and a Fleet Foxes type record. None of it makes sense together nor does it expand what made RMR an engaging figure upon virality. Attempting to cobble up an identity for someone who much preferred anonymity doomed RMR to a fruitless career.

I’d like to think Tik Tok would cobble up a variety of parodies to buy RMR more time and help establish whatever branding necessary. I fear if he came out today, he’d probably lean further into novelty ala country ballad Yung Gravy and wind up on the same road he is now: pedaling unmemorable hooks for Shy Glizzy types.

What was the last surprising album you heard, good or bad?- Shaun (@insidesglow)

Due to the Apple Music feature that lets you see what people are listening to, I’ve found so much fascinating music. My guy Mano Sundaresan (he runs No Bells, please support the best blog doing it) is almost always listening to something interesting, even if I don’t dig it. Recently, this South Korean artist Parannoul and their album After the Magic has captured my imagination. The textures signal so much of the past but is so digitized and compressed, it feels like a world we’ve never seen. For instance, the guitars on “Polaris” are basically the ending music to an episode of Scrubs but then the walls just cave in and the song shifts into something more mechanical. The album reminds me of what being an elementary schooler with a Nintendo DS felt like. It’s familiar but the future feels like it’s at your fingertips.

Similarly, the music scene in Milwaukee is especially jarring to me right now. I hesitate to even call it good or bad, moreso it’s just so strangely but purposefully crafted. At the very least, it’s fucking hilarious because the mixing and the bass teeters between hard and comical. Slowly but surely, I will develop a serious opinion on Certified Trapper.

Where is the appeal/market for rock/alt rock? I feel like I have to dig and dig to find shit now. — (@newabi)

It truly depends on where you dig and what you’re looking for out of the genre. Barring some unforeseen genre shift or, more likely, a brief trend change, rock is a dead entity in its prominent form. The modern appeal for rock and alternative music is meant for branding purposes. Portugal. The Man exist to brand Vitamin Water. Imagine Dragons can soundtrack some Netflix animated show, no one would bat an eye. Modern rock favors the faceless for seamless advertising. Might I suggest diving into emo, where you can slouch into the self loathing and feel right at home. Something about white guys singing about hating life and random shit over killer guitar grooves and deafening drums is deeply satisfying. Check out Gwuak!, Turnover’s album Peripheral Vision, Title Fight, and Current Joys’ album Wild Heart for emo and rock within the past decade.

Why’d you get into writing?- Terrence (@terrence_sage)

I don’t think I’ve ever officially wrote about this before. I didn’t even want to write initially. 14–15 year old me was only concerned about fuckin’ women and ballin’ out in gym. During the frequent free time I would have in class, I’d devour Complex news videos and interviews. Brandon ‘Jinx’ Jenkins, Sean Evans, Emily Oberg, Tamara Dhia, Speedy Morman, Frazier Tharpe, those guys shaped a part of music coverage I hadn’t even considered. My whole life, all I knew was 106 & Park and seeing all the music on TV or in the magazines I’d read at Walmart. Making a career out of music on the Internet was unfathomable. I watched what Jinx did in particular and studied his skills and quirks as a conversationalist. I told myself, “Yeah I wanna do that. I think I can do that.”

Time flew by, I didn’t have any setup to achieve what I consumed on a daily basis. But the idea of talking to my favorite artists and asking about all of the music nerd details I’d gathered from their albums, I knew I could do it. I continued to study interviewers, what they were good and bad at, and how I could channel that into my own perspective. By senior year of high school, I needed to finish community service hours in order to graduate. My English teacher Mrs. Bishop gathered my love for music and recommended I spend my time at the local radio station. The head lady in charge Kathleen Gustafsson started me out in local sports recap but quickly realized my passion was in music and granted me my own pre-recorded show that would air at 11pm on Fridays. I remember watching Jinx interview Kobe Bryant and Kendrick Lamar, scheming up a way how I could do interview artists independently. A few months later, I aired my first interview with Millz Davis, a rapper/producer/music video director from South Carolina, took the recording and published it on YouTube and SoundCloud.

This continued up until July 2018, after I graduated and I was moving away from the base that helped jumpstart my passion. I fruitlessly searched for studios where I could continue my very early career in radio and interviewing. For a while, it looked bleak. All I did was work my measly fast food job, go home, scroll my phone, rinse and repeat. February 2019, I injured my ankle and sidelined me for 6–7 months. It left me feeling useless and directionless. Then I started reading DJBooth articles. Yoh Phillips, Donna Claire-Chesman, Dylan Green, anything that came out with an artist or a topic I cared about, I’d read countless times. I read Shea Serrano books. I told myself once again, “I can do this.” The way Shea wrote mirrored how casually I’d speak about music and movies with my friends at school. If he could do it, why couldn’t I?

At this time, I have a very minor online presence on Twitter, Instagram got boring once my class graduated and no one on there was trying to read anything anyway. I didn’t have an outlet so I’d write about things on my Google Doc and throw the final result on Twitter. It wasn’t feasible. I’d wrote for this one guy and I thought I had my foot in the door. That’s a story for a different day but it essentially took 7 months to release one article he split into two parts. I had became very disenchanted with the process. Was it really going to take this long to publish stuff on platforms? I had gone back to the Google Docs process but I grew depressed.

The turning point was writing for NCViews, writer Matt Ritchie’s blog at the time. I asked him on a whim if I could write something for him. I was desperate for any place to post my writing. To my surprise, he edited and posted what I wrote in like 3 days. I was still skeptical but my drive was revitalized. I paid for my own laptop so I wouldn’t borrow my dad’s janky computer he never used. The last week of 2019, I learned about Medium and how I could post my writing at my own pace. It was everything I was searching for. 2020, I posted about 80+ articles and grew my audience. Not all of them are great, I’ll admit. But it was essential in developing my voice and my love for the craft. It gave me power when all I wanted to do was talk about the music I loved.

This writing shit is one of the only things I’m kind of decent at and it allows me to talk about the art I would die for. It can be excruciating but I’ve grown to fall in love with it all over again. I’m truly grateful to write and to interview artists about their craft.

Who are some of the most unexpected artists you’ve ended up liking recently? (@lilyssante)

I’ve been on this crazy Frank Sinatra kick. Sure, he usually projects this staggering elegance, this richness too overbearing for a commoner. But so much of his DNA crosses over into hip-hop. Come Fly With Me has a rapper’s luxury all over it; Rick Ross has a keen eye for detail the same way Frank would recall intimate evenings in Paris or cozy afternoons during Autumn in New York. It’s impressive how he skirts the edge of hollow excess with these carefully plotted observations.

But it’s not just living lavish, there’s a crushing loneliness in Sinatra’s music. His 1955 album In The Wee Small Hours is a cigarette drag and an exasperated sigh spread across 50 minutes. He sinks into his couch on “I Get Along Without You Very Well,” desperately trying to protect his macho until he recalls times when “soft rains fall and drip from leaves” and how he’d lay snug and secure in his woman’s arms. Future is his truest comparison, boasting “fuck it, we ball” until the agony of loneliness sets in. Future Sinatra album on the way.

Which rapper from the 90s would you put on a Plugg beat? (@_pkrent)

I want to hear Juvenile on a Plugg beat NOW. It’s fascinating how he navigated these alien synth blurts and gravelly drums on records like “Ha” or “Flossin Season.” The ingredients for a plugg record are on “Rodeo,” rather than submerging in this collard greens country twang, sub it out for a pink Cashcache soundscape. Honestly, this could be said for a ton of southern rappers, what does B.G. sound like if he played Kirby on GameCube and wanted Mannie Fresh to put his drums on it? Do people show Silkk The Shocker more love if he’s on less jagged production? Pimp C would probably sound great even if I think he’d probably say it’s too soft. The south got it.

Which NBA players listen to Yeat? -Sam (@midibassluvr)

It’s a little too easy to dump this onto white basketball players. Dudes like Tyler Herro likely consider themselves too suave do engage in ragers or mental health plunges. Similarly, athletes want that Rise & Grind™ music. I could tell you 50 basketball players that are Dreamville heads because they all make the same mildly energetic music you hear during warmups. What ball player is muttering “I just be leaving the earth, I mix the bean with the perc?” So I think that disqualifies 99% of NBA vets. Melo is not pullin up in a Tonka. This leaves the youngins’. The Grizzlies are NBA Youngboy exclusive. Trae Young strikes me as a devout Lil Baby follower. You know who plays Yeat? Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. I saw them big ass moon boots, you get a feel for his style, Yeat absolutely plays at one of those streetwear ass shows. In that thread, I would not be surprised if Russell Westbrook got Yeat in his IG stories. His music mirrors a lot of Russ’ turmoil with the media and his career. I really wanna see LeBron act like he knows the words to “Sorry Bout That.”

Why do fans always expect the future of a genre to come from the current or past generation, rather than look for something new?- Leevante (@CrazyEightsLV)

I touched on this with Pedro’s question about how art is consumed solely through a passive lens. Whether it’s world weariness or general laziness, the urge for something new is increasingly smaller. People hardly wanted something even mildly different from Drake on Honestly, Nevermind. That wasn’t even a drastic departure from his usual shtick. It’s an aqua infused R&B album with tinges of Jersey Club and House music. His aquarium sex jams should be normal by this point but fans have conditioned themselves to accept it as a contrast from his limp mafioso posturing and colorless brags. If people don’t want progression from Drake, why would they search for more from someone they’ve never heard before?

I’ll close with a conversation I had with my pops. Recently, he asked if I was interested in seeing the new Ant-Man movie in theaters. Now I’ve grown increasingly disillusioned with seeing the newest product from The Mouse™ and the crop of superhero flicks. It’s certainly not about the modern blockbuster, Top Gun: Maverick was my second favorite film of 2022. It’s not about the genre either, I’ve watched The Batman at least 4 times now, I adore flicks like Into The Spider-Verse and The Winter Soldier. It’s quite simple. Most of these movies are boring. On pure visual terms, they’re often hideous to observe. These studios don’t even have the consideration to make them look like they weren’t monstrously patched together in a warehouse somewhere. More importantly, these flicks lack stakes. There’s never any real sense of danger or consequence for these characters. It’s all about the quips and mowing down the faceless adversaries.

Anyways, I clearly say no, I’m not going to watch Paul Rudd and co. get in their suits and save the world (that said, happy to see Jonathan Majors get some wins out here, he’s the one). Pops jokingly questions, “Is it because it’s too woke?!?” That’s not it, though I don’t love the way these studios pander for smiles and pats on the back for doing little to nothing. He then asks what I am interested in seeing in theaters, quickly following up with “is it one of those movies you gotta THINK about?”

So lies the difference between me and my pops. The degree to which he loves the arts and I do are drastically different. He has told me plain as day, “I don’t go to the movies to think too hard about what I’m watching.” This isn’t to dismiss him or to insinuate that the way he consumes art is invalid. The art is in my blood and in my spirit. I would die for it because it has given me everything, from my memories to the reasons I stay here today. It’s deserving of critique and adoration alike because I love it. But pops just wants to see good shit, even if some of the things he dislikes are fucking insane. He thinks Baby Boy and Miami Vice are dumb but he loves Heat and Captain America. I’ve sat with him on the highest rated IMDb and heard him call beloved classics wack and overrated. It can be confusing and even a little maddening but the lens in which he consumes differs. So to more directly answer this question, I will retort with a sentiment I’ve heard all too often: Why look for something new? It’s fine the way it is.

A (relatively) brief installment for The Cut today. Not only is music pretty sparse right now but I don’t intend to exhaust y’all if you read up to this point. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming in the next column.

The Cut

• Fall Out Boy is making good music again. I’m as shocked as you are. I discussed the steep decline in quality in rock in the last decade and change, I can only hope this acts as a changing of the tide. “Love From The Other Side” is some truly epic camp. Meels put this surprising record the best, “How nice, imagine working a job where you get to suck total shit for a full decade and then suddenly decide one day, you wanna be good again.”
• I know people are/were out on Daniel Caesar after he bizarrely defended a faintly popular white woman and dropped a dud of a sophomore album. But guys, his singles right now are fantastic. In terms of popular R&B artists, he’s one of the only ones pumping out real shit. “Please Do Not Lean” is remarkable.
• I don’t think I’ve properly addressed the Ice Spice phenomenon. She’s actually quite good. Seeing her occupy prominent placements on year end lists was a little funny because I don’t think it’s like amazing. But she’s got a ton of talent. She’s naturally funny, probably because she doesn’t actively seek out jokes for her songs. Her dismissiveness and rugged indifference of men is deeply amusing, compelling and insanely catchy. It’s probably going to be a mistake when a label inevitably tries to micromanage and package what she does well in a Debut Album form, the same strategy that leaves me cold on Glorilla after some outstanding singles. She’s on a stellar run right now though.
• Popstar Benny dusting off Gorillaz “Feel Good Inc.” and flipping it into something intergalactical for Moh Baretta is astonishing. I really enjoy the whole University! album too, a sample platter of what could be the next in-demand producer down south. Fascinated to see if his vision reimagines what popular music in Atlanta can sound like.
• YouTube helped me discover one of the most gorgeous soul records I’ve ever heard. “Heaven is Only One Step Away” by The Controllers is breathtaking, particularly the notes the lead singer hits at the end of each verse when he drops to his knees and begs “I just want to give you my all!” Absolutely stunning music and tied with Rich Boy’s “Throw Some D’s” for the best song to ever come out of Alabama. Begging y’all to listen in awe with me. Every listen is like the first time.

That’s another installment of The Middle of Nowhere. If you want to support the column, follow me on Twitter @calebcat23 and Instagram @itsthemiddleofnowhere for updates.