Hey Subbies,
I've been debating to either create a blog solely on basis of K-pop or POPular music genre that has been my fancy instead of overflowing my feed with k-pop. Let me know if this is a good idea. I know haven't put much content on my own out lately due to the shock of not have worry about going to class has me shook. On top of that, I've been trying figure my next steps in life or life after college. Right now, I have my part-time job and my design internship, so most of my creativity has gone towards that, so at end of the day I'm exhausted with people keep asking me what is going to do next. Like Chill! everything happens in own time...I wanted to travel to possible Jamaica to finally see it since k-pop keeps giving me island vibes.
I realized and the reason for this post is because I have for quite a while know that music industry is classist for example, your American folk music has been mostly subjugated to White/Caucasian (apparently Caucasian is negative term for white people these days but most White-Europeans ancestry is from these mountain regions of Russian called the Caucuses) and for African-Americans it's Blues later Rhythm & Blues or today R&B to be more inclusive. Both genres talk about struggles of poor working Americans during the beginning of the 20th century from dealing with socioeconomic issues of classism, racism, and etc. As a kid, I'm always reminded of the struggles seen through biopics of movies about famous musical groups/artists that broke up from this period to the mid-century due to washing of their content or artist to fit the target audience a.k.a marketing. Well, music is supposed to bring people together right.
This brings me to K-Pop today that is heavily marketing EDM music. On my YouTube channel, I try to document the popularity of music coming from America to South Korea with a playlist that beginning K- and end with a genre like Rock, Trap, EDM, Deep House and even
Reggae that I did a post on
here; these genres should not be confused with this term called Tropical House because EDM has very messy past of mislabeling. Anyway, EDM's Trap music that I've talked about in a past post become very popular in K-hip-hop and especially in its Pop side with girl and boy groups for their dance breaks or Rapper's break or throughout the song with overuse of 808s and hi-hats over an
EDM beat. House and EDM follow a similar formula called a
4onthefloor or use
Triads in many cases that can found in jazz, hip-hop, and traditional popular Jamaican music to get people to get up and dance.
I came upon this channel called
Nerdwriter1, who I think is a Vox producer. (I have to say is their editing is what I aspire to be if I ever take my motion graphics skills seriously.) Vox is kind of a media group made of different content creators that focus on news and politics (some may deem them too liberal) to things you never knew about like the science behind eclipses. Anyways, right after watching the video on
Work, I searched for it up on Vox's channel for Tropical House since had watched it about a year ago but the video was gone.However, I had mistaken the term for another.
The basic premise of the video on the
Rihanna song Work [Rihanna's 'Work' Is Not Tropical House] ft. wannabe
Caribbean Drake lol. He stood it up against Justin Beiber's
Purpose album that is considering this new jokingly term thanks to DJ Kygo called "Tropical House" music that he himself is so over it, and Rolling Stones went ahead and used it to describe the Rihanna's Work is of a metaphorical "Tropical Flavor" variety.
However, the
dance style in Bieber's
Sorry M/V and
Work (explicit) is what the Caribbean likes to call it "Waste-line Music" that is used has Afro-Caribbean influences of
Riding the Riddim like the Wine, Footworking, Acrobatics, Twerking, and Grinding. But thanks to Rihanna's use of "Caribbean English" (Patios) it was subjugated to Dancehall and the use of a popular Dancehall track that has been recycled in most imported Dancehall tracks in the 90s to the 2000s.
The video is a great retrospective on the term/genre because Tropical House has its roots in the popular genre Dancehall.
He mentioned artists like
Skrillex and Diplo's
Major Lazer. However, on Wikipedia Tropical House has its own page now and it states "Tropical House" has influence from Deep House with no mention of Dancehall or Dub or Ska or Dem Bow influences except for this sentence:
"It usually includes tropical instruments such as steel drums (Trinidad Tobago), marimba (African), guitar, saxophone or even pan flute, like Dancehall."
I'm guessing the dances are "like Dancehall" too.
Now, let's look at
House Music /
1 / and it's sub-genre
Deep House /
1 /that have that influential signature 80s sound.
"Early house music was generally characterized by repetitive 4/4 beats, rhythms mainly provided by drum machines, off-beat hi-hat cymbals, and synthesized basslines. While house displayed several characteristics similar to disco music, it was more electronic and minimalistic, and the repetitive rhythm of house was more important than the song itself.
Deep house is known for tempos typically from 100bpm-120bpm, spacious use of percussion elements, muted basslines, soft keyboard sounds (pads), use of advanced chord structures, ambient mixes, and soulful vocals (if any). Lyrics usually focus on positive/uplifting or forlorn modern blues lyrics."
I rather people say they hear the EDM and Caribbean or Dancehall influences or call it EDH (Electric Dancehall) than the infamously coined term Tropical House. And just like Kygo, I'm over the term Tropical House that is just a digital update for something that already exists and that is Dancehall. Hopefully, Rihanna or anyone willing can put Dancehall back into American mouths and hearts again.
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