Walking the Streets of Underground rap

This unit in Journalism, the Senior class focused on the sound aspect of telling a story. We learned that sound is as important as the visuals of a story, for an FE a sound engineer named Luke came in to teach us what sound is and about the music theory. The purpose of this Action Project is to pick someone who has impacted people through their voice and develop a story from there in the form of a podcast. I chose to focus on Daniel Dumile(MF DOOM) an underground rap artist that started in the early 90's. I wanted to focus on MF DOOM while also exploring the idea of hip-hop and underground rap. I started my podcast with a story of how I began listening to MF DOOM, then I dive deeper into how hip hop has changed and with that change came (MF DOOM).The message I wanted the viewer to understand is that some artist will stay underground others will go on to become mainstream and just because an artist decides to make music for their specific audience that comes from the heart doesn't mean that they aren't as good as the next artist. This AP was a challenging one for me, I had never done a podcast and I don't consider myself to have a voice for the podcast. Despite these flaws, I created a story that I felt passionate about and wanted to give 110% to this AP.

Below is my podcast:

WHEN	WHO/HOW	WHAT
0:00 0: 10 0: 33 1:02 1:03 1: 42 2:03 2:18 2:25 2:26 2: 35 2:38 2:40 2:41 2:43 2:47 2:48 2:50 2:57 3:04 3:46 3:48 3:56 3:59 4:22 4:27 4:45 4:53 5:33 5:34 5:35 5:37	Laylah cue Dooms Day Fades out Laylah Laylah Laylah Laylah Laylah Alex Laylah Alex Laylah Alex Laylah Alex Laylah Alex Laylah Alex Laylah Manny Laylah Manny Laylah Manny Laylah Manny Laylah Manny Laylah Laylah	LWhen I was younger my dad drove my siblings and I to school every day. He would always go to Pandora and play a certain radio station, the usual would either be some 80’s funky music or some old school rap. I remember one early morning, my dad turned on his phone, hooked it to the aux cord and began playing one of my favorite rappers today. I was captivated by the sample of Sade’s song, Kiss of Life and then even more intrigued by the beautiful flow of poetic words. Later that day,  I searched for the song, typing in every keyword I could remember, and finally, I found my hidden gem, MF DOOM. Daniel Dumile aka Mf DOOM, Metal Face, Madvillain, Dangerdoom or Jj Doom is an England native that birthed his underground rap career in New York City during the 90’s. In 1988, he formed a group called KMD with his younger brother Subroc and was shortly then signed by Elektra Records. After their debut in 1993, Subroc was murdered and KMD was shortly dropped from Elektra Records.  Subsequently, after the death of Dumile’s brother, Dumile retreated from the rap scene, but in 1994 after 2 years of sleeping on the benches of Manhattan  Dumile re-emerged himself in the scene and started his lifelong passion for comic books and sci-fi through rap. Dumile began freestyling at open-mic events in Manhattan anonymously while wearing a mask that was similar to Marvel Comics supervillain, Doctor Doom. This created his new identity alias: MF Doom, Ever since then, MF DOOM has never shown his face in interviews or shows without his mask. In 1999, MF DOOM released his first full and most famous album Operation: Doomsday. I have been listening to MF DOOM Madvillain, Danger Doom and Viktor Vaughn for years after my discovery, but have never heard his music on mainstream radio. Personally, I thought that Dumile was a great artist whose lyrics deserved to touch the hearts of many, but I guess others thought differently. I decided to go around my school and ask few of my classmates whether they listen to MF DOOM or not. Here's what they said. Hi, can you state your name, age, and Occupation? My name is Alexandria, I'm 17 and I'm a high school student. Ok, and do you listen to MF DOOM? No Do you know who he is? He’s a rapper..? Yes, do you often listen to underground rap artist? Yes, I guess you could say so. If so, who? Xxx Tentacion… I listen to Trippie Red, those people basically. Do you prefer your underground rap artist to become more mainstream, if so why or why not? I wouldn't just because I feel when you do become more mainstream your work as far as an artist becomes worse and you try to, I guess peer pressure yourself into doing what other artist are doing. Like talk about girls and crap and like big a****. Like basic stuff like you see all the rappers do. Like  DJ Khaled or whatever, he’s not even a rapper, roast…. ahahaha. He’s not a rapper but he has videos or whatever with like girls and stuff like that. What’s your name, age, and occupation? I’m Manny, I'm 17 and I'm a musician I guess you could say. Do you listen to MF DOOM? Uh, yeah,a lot actually. I mean, I used to listen to him a lot more, I listened to him a lot when I was a kid and I was really really studying rap, trying to figure it out, I guess… I don’t know. He’s always been one of the most influential people in my eyes and when it comes to the rap genre. So, do you consider MF DOOM to be an underground rap artist? Uh,  I feel like the term underground is kind of irrelevant now that the internet exists, because it’s kind of hard to be underground. I mean, compared to mainstream, like really mainstream artist, yeah he’s defiantly an underground guy because he doesn’t like the spotlight. Mhm, do you prefer artist to be considered, “ underground”  or mainstream and why? Uh, I honestly, when if I really like an artist, I prefer they don't get too big because you can’t get really big without changing your original sound. The mainstream has a certain pattern and mainstream artist fit into it, I guess,  and it’s hard to say that, but at the same time, it’s not because you can change the mainstream. But what you do has been something that completely appeals to everybody to be able to change the mainstream. MF DOOM doesn’t have something that will appeal to everybody. He has something that appeals to people that really like lyrics and really like the essence of what hip-hop is. Thank you! You’re welcome. Bye! I can’t help but wonder if MF Doom were to be signed to a or become more famous if his music sound would change and become mainstream. As much as I”d like for my favorite artist to become more famous, staying an underground artist is what keeps them unique.

Living In The Matrix

This unit in Journalism, we learned about the power of the media. The stories we hear on the news and online effect how we view a group of people or an idea. In class, we looked at how 2 different people were portrayed in the news. Both people were affected by Hurricane Katrina and were trying to scavenge food. The white lady in the photo was portrayed as finding the food while the black man supposedly looted a grocery store. For an FE, a lady that our teacher, Sharon, knew came in to talk to us about photography. We got to take pictures of our classmates while trying to convey an emotion or story connected to the photo. This helped in my AP, it made me think about angles, purpose, and colors. The purpose of this Action project was to tell a story with 2 images. I decided to focus on technology and social media because everyone has felt connected as well as disconnected with technology.

Below is my story: Living In The Matrix

I was on the train heading towards Harold Washington College to attend my Art Appreciation class. It was a day like any other, except today I had left my phone charger at home. The night before I had been up all night on my phone scrolling through my Instagram and Snapchat feed...tap, scroll, tap scroll… I usually do this every night until my phone runs out of battery. After my phone dies the rest of the night is a blur, my eyes usually start to feel heavy and I fall into the black abyss of slumber. Heading to Harold Washington, I was left without a phone to distract me from my boredom and lonesome. I began to look around, studying everyone in the train cart. I realized that almost every person had a device in their hands or headphones in their ears. It reminded me of that movie, The Matrix, the one where everyone is living in a computer simulation. The whole world is being controlled and enslaved by the artificial intelligence. I had been able to unplug myself from the stimulation that I had been enslaved for almost all my teen years. I became free from the Matrix, I became The One. I was able to unplug myself from the artificial facade of social media, I snapped back into reality. It allowed me to notice the small things in life like the clouds, flowers, and the different ways people walked that I’d been missing out on by looking down at my phone.

I wanted to explore the how technology(mostly social media) has affected our perception of life. To dive deeper into this topic, I borrowed Harold Washington’s camera to capture moments of people being plugged. I stopped and interviewed a few people to get into the minds of a technology slave. The first person I interviewed was a woman who preferred to stay anonymous. She was an older woman that had lots to say about this subject. She sparked my interest. When I had walked out of a 7/11 after getting a cold beverage the way the sun was hitting her dark skin captured my eye. The anonymous lady didn’t have any device out which made her a bit more approachable. When talking to her she said,” Teens put anything out on Snapshot and Instagram now, they don’t know that people are constantly watching them. You know the saying what stays in Vegas stays in Vegas, well it doesn’t apply to being online or posting videos and photos. A stripper went in for a job interview, she used to post all that stuff online and when she went in for the job they told her no because she would post all that stuff. I try to tell my son to stay away from all that crap.” She describes social media as being some sort of dark rabbit hole, If you aren’t cautious of what you are showing the world, it can cause you lots of trouble in the long run.

Unknown, LD,2017

When I finished talking to the anonymous older woman, I spotted a grey-haired lady waiting for the signal to change to stop from the walk, her name was Emily. Emily’s grey hair and monochrome black outfit made me want to talk to her, we began talking about the truth of social media. “Social media has allowed for people to create a fake image of themselves that reflects their personality in the real world. My perception has changed by realizing that people put on an act for social media.” When Emily said this I began to think about the images I put out into the artificial world we call the social network. Subconsciously, I upload photos and videos that I want others to see so that they develop an artificial opinion about who I am.

Emily, LD,2017

The beauty of living in a world similar to The Matrix is that you have a choice; you can either stay plugged or unplug yourself from the cycle. Unplugging yourself from social media is taking the red pill, allowing yourself to see reality as it is. Choosing to stay plugged is downing the blue pill and being happy in the artificial world coded in technology.

Choose wisely.