Birth of Music from Worlds Apart
A few months ago, I was in search of new music and was wandering across the internet. I did some Google searching, hopped around YouTube from one suggested video to the next, drifted around social media, and ended up at this article about Grimes, which mentioned her collaboration with a female rapper from Taiwan named Aristophanes.
The article caught my eye because it was such an interesting blend of different worlds, so as I dug more into Grimes I found that I really liked her music. It was a bit off kilter, but incredibly refreshing, plus she came across as very genuine and not plastic like much of popular music today. I eventually came across a great documentary about Grimes, which included a segment on her collaboration with Aristophanes (starts at 2:45).
A few things struck me about the segment. Grimes connected with Aristophanes via the internet. Almost all of their interaction was through video chat, Grimes in New York and Aristophanes in Taiwan. Aristophanes is a school teacher by day and a rapper by night.
It’s pretty amazing to see how this all happened naturally, they both grew up in a world where connecting and communicating this way was normal and happened on a regular basis for everyday people. It was not a foreign concept or something only seen in science fiction novels, but no different from reading a book or talking on the phone. The physical distance really didn’t matter and the technology was good enough that it didn’t get in the way of their creativity.
Then just today, I came across this movie trailer for a documentary about a musical collaboration between Princess Shaw and Kutiman.
Princess Shaw lives in New Orleans. By day she is Samantha Montgomery, a woman who cares for the elderly in one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods. By night she writes and sings her own songs on her confessional YouTube channel. Kutiman lives in Israel. He is a composer, a musician, and a pioneering video artist.
And through the power of the internet, they somehow meet each other, then find a strong enough connection to want to collaborate to write a piece of music. They also communicate via video chat and again in this case from thousands of miles apart.
New York to Taiwan. New Orleans to Israel. These distances, which seemed like a long plane trip apart in the not too distant past, now feel like being in the same room at no additional cost beyond what you pay for your internet connection. And the technology is intimate enough that you are able to write music together.
It’s not computer geeks sharing code and checking in their work into GitHub. It’s not just communication or distribution of media. It’s the spontaneous act of creation between people who are not only physically separated by a great distance but also culturally separated from each other. And they somehow find common ground and make something beautiful.
I really find it incredibly inspiring when things like this happen with technology, especially to everyday people. I would love to see more of these types of interactions happen on a regular basis and hopefully stories like these will inspire others to do the same. It’s what I think technology is meant to do in the long-term, not just crunch numbers or buy stuff online.
Now with all these references to cool hip music, I feel like I need some kind of cool hip sign off like “peace out” or “major 🔑”. But I am not that hip or cool, so I’ll just say I love this kind of stuff and hope I keep finding more everyday.
