Ya know, I fkn love music. Music (and humour) has been with me through the best and worst times of my life. Most other things i pickup and put down, but music is always there. Hey, your life's gotta have a soundtrack, right?

Now for most my crazy ride of a life the soundtrack has been strictly hip-hop, but over the last few years I slowly started to expand my musical horizons. Very slowly mind you, but it has been happening. I think it started around 2022 or so when i got handed down my dads old turntable, a Technics SL-D2 that just needed a stylus. Also, around that time i happened to get an MPC in a trade. It wasn't something i was particularly looking for, but being a hip hop head I knew damn well what it was and had respect for the gear. I ended up getting it for like maybe 130 USD worth of some chronic. I was stoked. I dont know why i was, since i had no aspirations of making music and didnt have the faintest idea how to use it, but i guess i just thought it was cool af and wanted to play around on it. I rememeber getting home, setting it up, installing all the content and registering the device, loading some sample packs into it and immediately realizing i had no idea what to do. I made a few simple drum patterns out of the stock sounds and maybe looped a few things and fairly quickly packed it away as life was p busy at the time. But, in the back of my head, I would think about it from time to time, watch a few youtube videos about production, imagine myself able to do shit like that, wtv.

I remember searching up how specific producers I liked sampled, how they put together certain tracks and whatnot, and one in particular I believe led to me starting to branch out more. That specific track was Aruarian Dance by Nujabes, who was a dope-ass producer that's not as well known as i think he should be. Here's a link to a cool non-official video using his song as the music: POV: you're mastering your mindset you can listen to the full song too (but you can also search that yourself you lazy fucks). I dunno, just something about that song grabbed me, and after watching some breakdown videos on the different samples he used, and how he chopped and flipped them, I realized that the some of the producers i most respected must have a very wide range of music they listen too. I believe Nujabes must have really liked certain latin music, based upon some of his sample choices. Nujabes also owned a record stone in Japan, so of course coming across new music would have been quite easy for him. All this led to me starting to explore different genres from different parts of the world.

Fast forward to present time. Now i'm still first and foremost a hip hop head, I doubt that'll ever change, but i've gained an appreciation for different genres of music too. I was going through my records last week and noticed that maybe 1/3 of my (small) collection of albums is not hip hop. My most recent purchase was an Aaliyah record, which is admittedly hip hop adjacent, but something I wouldn't have spent any money on in the 2010's. Something interesting that i've learned about myself is that I can enjoy music of almost any genre, in any language. What I think matters most to me is the vibes or how it makes me feel, and i'm not sure I could really nail it down any more specifically at this time. Some of my most exotic likes right now are Japanese music such as Hako Yamasaki, Maki Asakawa, Tatsuro Yamashita, Kimiko Kasai and POiSON GiRL FRiEND. Now, I dont listen to this stuff all the time, but for each one of those artists I have gained an appreciation and have been enjoying exploring their discographies. Also, with the exception of POiSON GiRL FRiEND, I own at least one record from each of those artists. And believe me, if PGF's Melting Moment EP was cheaper i'd have a fkn copy of it already, that shit is p dope. PGF is also a one-girl show, which really makes her projects impressive.

Life has been wild for me over the last few years, with many struggles and changes both within my personal life and in general with the economy and whatnot. I changed careers, taking a steady job with a regular paycheck. I still do some shit on the side, but not much. I make less money now, but I have more time to spend with the people i care about and more time to do the things i wanna do. Needless to say i've played a fair bit of video games lately... Silent Hill f and the FF7 remake are sick btw. But i also have been thinking about pulling out the mpc and trying to engage in music production as a hobby. Since I love music, and I have been enjoying expanding my musical horizons, it just seems like it would be a good fit to my life. Something I can do without having to spend any additional money. I'm not sure what will happen, I do flake on a lot of shit i plan to do. But either way, i'm having fun right now.

Time to spin some wax... Peace.

The robots that is. You see, like a great many men, i use youtube for not only video-centric content, but also music-centric content.. Like, well, music..

Lately i'd been exploring some new genres of music, mostly electronic type stuff. It jives well with the work i do to eek out a meagre living, helping to supress the painful lethargy brought on by the soul-crushing monotony of the workdays. While cruising the 'tube, letting the algorithm guide me to new and exiciting music selections, i would up discovering some pretty sick channels based around sub-genres such as cybercore; breakcore; synthwave; vapourwave; etc.. A couple channels in particular became my go-to's, with me subscribing to them and listening to them each day. I would even comment from time to time, knowing how that can help creators boost their channel, dropping comments such as "sick mix bro", or "wicked channel, im subbed up!".

After a while (probably when i was about to leave a comment like "another banger of a mix bro, keep up the hard work!") i happened to notice a comment another person had left requesting the artist names for the tracks, it had some replies hidden so i clicked it to reveal them. At the top of the replies was one that shook me, "This is AI generated content, there are no artists". I couldn't believe it. For weeks i'd been listening to, subscribing to, and even commenting on this shit. I almost felt sick over this revelation, they had gotten me. The fkin computers, the robots, had gotten me. I'd been fucking complimenting the AI's artistry, caring about these channels, wanting to comment to help the algorithm for them.. I'd been fooled.

Now, in retrospect there were some things i'd noticed along the way that should have been red-flags.. Like all the music, kinda sounded the same.. I dont know how to describe it, like, ALOT of real artists have a 'sound', a certain signature of sorts. But this was different. I couldn't put my finger on it, even after some reflecting, i can't find the words to describe it, but it just sounded all the same.

Now when i tell most people this, they usually chuckle, and i don't blame them, it is funny. But it's also kinda sad in a way, at least for me, because for me this has shown me that i'm either too old, or the robots are too smart, to be able to tell the difference between whats real and what isn't. How long until even the free image generators can get human anotomy right? How long until the majority of what i come across online is AI generated, and indistuingishable from human generated content. How do YOU know i'm not an AI complaining about AI bullshit?.. (You dont, fuckwad).

I wonder what kinda of turning point we're at right now? We can all look back at the commercialisation of the internet around the late 2000's as a turning point that changed how we used the internet, as well as how the internet intended to use us. The internet went from a place full of INDIVIDUALS expressing themselves through html code, to a place saturated with massive corporations trying to trick us into uploading our hard earned dinero to them. We have already been the product for long time, but i feel like this is going to bring things to a new level, one i cannot yet imagine or conceptualize.

I'll end this rant with one final quote for you to take home: "Fuck The Robots"