Category Archives: Rants

The History of Swedish Hip-Hop | Svensk Musik

Posted on by
Reply

How Swedish hip-hop went from a subculture on the periphery to a multi-faceted, cutting-edge music genre.

- The History of Swedish Hip-Hop | Svensk Musik (click to read the original article)

Well, there we have it.. our “awesome” hip-hop scene. Lots of talk about electro-rap (as usual). I’ll say it again, it’s not electro, it’s called house, electro is something else (yes, it’s a pet peeve of mine, get it right).

They say Swedish hip-hop is flourishing. I guess that depends on what you call hip-hop and what standards you have. I can still count on my fingers how many Swedish MC’s I think are decent. Most just say stuff you can scribble down in a couple of minutes without a shred of flow. As for producers, I wouldn’t necessarily call many of them hip-hop producers, although a lot of them are very good at what they do.

They say we’re starting to influence the states instead of the other way around. I say not really. Most of these people sound like the pop-hop equivalents from the US, well, lighter versions anyways. I’ll agree that the American pop-hop people have been influenced by 90s European euro-disco, but that can’t really be compared to the French house & baile funk these ghetto-tech, house-hop outfits here get down to.

Most of it is just watered down pop/club music devoid of much soul. And I think it’s a shame. They say Swedish hip-hop is evolving into a muti-faceted, cutting-edge music genre. Really? I say it’s devolving into soulless dance music without much relevance off the dancefloor. Although there is still a hip-hop subculture alive and kicking in the periphery; dive in and check that out instead.

Even though I don’t agree with a lot of the article authors personal thoughts/deductions, it’s a decent, albeit short, write-up of Swedish hip-hop history. So if you’re interested in that, give it a read. Although I have to say that I was very surprised not to see a single mention of Looptroop in there…

magOwl

Beat Jackers

Posted on by
Reply

So I’ve been seeing this link/song pop up lately (apparently it’s been around for a couple of months), it’s a song by some cat from the Netherlands who calls himself Kingsize, the song is called Jong Rijk, and the label he’s on is called Wilde Western Records.

I just want to make this exceptionally clear for everyone..

I do not know these people, I have never talked to them. I do not endorse this song, they jacked this beat, which is called Odd School, from me (and even had the audacity to edit it),  all while still crediting me for the production.

I didn’t really want to write their names as they don’t deserve any more publicity, but this shit’s been getting me irritated. I emailed these guys and asked what the deal was, wrote on the vids on youtube aso, but I have yet to get a response (besides getting spam flagged on youtube that is), so they sort of forced my hand.

Here’s the deal.. None, and I mean none, of my beats/instrumentals are free for use for anyone. No exceptions. If you want to use one of my beats you can contact me here or on one of the many other sites I’m on and we’ll work something out. If I see you jacking one of my beats, that’s it, you will have no chance of even buying a beat from me, ever. Clear enough..?

Let me finish off with saying that I’m a reasonable guy when it comes to collaborations and whatnot and a nice dude in general. Just get in touch with me if you wanna use a beat or do a collaboration or something… it’s not rocket science :)

Peace,

magOwl

Remixing: Read The Rules

Posted on by

As the title says, when you’re thinking about entering a remix competition, read the contest rules. If you don’t there might be some nasty surprises down the road for you. Of course you’ll probably have to signread the rules some form of contract at some point, so you can always opt-out then, unless stated otherwise. So read through them carefully! And as they’re usually full of legal mumbo-jumbo, you could well read it twice, or more, without feeling bad about yourself.

So why am I talking about this, well I stumbled over a remix competition today that I though could be fun. But after reading through the rules I wouldn’t even poke it with a stick. Too bad. Nothing I can do about that, but at least it annoyed me enough to write this.

Continue reading →

Over compressing/limiting your songs

Posted on by

Whatup people, there’s this thing that’s been bothering me for a while now. I twittered about it a couple of days ago, but I thought it deserves a mention on here as well.

Over compressing/limiting your songs. What is up with that? Really!

I was listening to this new hiphop album the other day, and there it was.. again. I had to stop listening, because I couldn’t stand it… Everything just sounded like a complete mess, all squashed together, no definition at all, it was even disting in places.compression 2 I’ve heard it a lot last couple of years, specially in the hiphop genre, and I’m just wondering if cats actually think it sounds good? If you do, please explain to me why, because I certainly don’t get it.

I know it’s all about boosting that volume up and maximizing that loudness, when mixing/mastering these days, but I think it sucks. It leaves almost no room for the individual sounds to breathe, and it makes everything sound bland and boring, makes nothing stand out. If done right by a serious pro you can get away with it, but I still don’t like it, and I still don’t think it sounds as good as it could have. Let me ask you this.. What is wrong with turning up the volume on your stereo/computer/iPod? Do we need it turned up at maximum velocity for us already, sacrificing the music in the process? No we don’t! Seriously… Let the sounds have a little breathing room and turn that volume up yourself if you need to.
compression 1
As a musician I constantly battle with this issue, say I submit a remix for a competition for instance, I know that if I don’t boost the volume up enough, my song, when played side by side with most other entries, will dip in volume and sound bad, or at least make a bad impression on the listener. And in this instant gratification society we now live in, most people will skip ahead rather then actually turn their volume up, which is bad for me, and bad for  music in general.

Say I have a very low bass sound in a beat, it will take up space and make the song louder then it actually sounds, which in return means I can’t boost the volume/loudness up a whole lot without destroying the dynamics of the beat. I personally use the whole spectrum from low to hi, sure I cut-off the frequencies we cant actually hear (unless I’m making a dubstep tune, in which I sometimes use very low freqs, so I have to cut it a bit lower), but I’m pretty sure I more often then not use a bigger frequency spectrum then most, at least on a per instrument basis. I spend a lot of time mixing my songs, to find that balance between all the individual sounds, I don’t always get it right, but I do put in the time to at least try and make it sound good.

On a side-note, I use a lot more channels then you might think and most of the tunes I do are not straight loops, even if it sounds simple it usually isn’t, I just try to make it sound that way.

So in conclusion, if you’re listening to one of my songs (in good quality), turn that volume up! And if you’re a musician, go easy on the compressors/limiters/maximizers… use them, but listen to what you’re doing and how it sounds. Feel free to correct me if you think I’m wrong, or if you disagree with me, let me know. This is just my personal opinion, and I am not a trained audio engineer by any means, I’ve just made music for almost 15 years.

And check the pics, maybe you can figure out which one I like and which I don’t.

Keep making that good music folks.. Stay up!