Along with the rumbling salute, colorful ribbons floated down, and the crowd around the square was like the waves of fountain water, with colorful banners and banners surging one after another.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of the Gotham Music Festival was held in the Central Square. Before the official opening ceremony in the afternoon, the parade of floats drove out of the Central Square and marched along Central Avenue. In the East and South districts, which have the most tourists, more than 70 floats started and ended.
Connected, there will be a 4-hour performance between 8:00 and 12:00 in the morning.
The floats are divided into five themes, music and art, architecture and cities, humanities and history, sports and dance, and life and nature.
Needless to say, the theme of music naturally fits the Gotham Music Festival, which focuses on East Coast rap.
East Coast rap in the 1990s was in a period of sluggishness, a period of entanglement between artistic exploration and commercialization. Although there were some godfather figures like Puff Daddy who never gave up and insisted on discovering new talents, to this day, the vast majority of rap artists
The fans' headphones are filled with those albums that are popular on the West Coast.
Fortunately, in 1994, a miracle album saved the East Coast. The well-known "Ready To Die" quickly became popular all over the United States, drawing people's attention to rap back to the East Coast.
The Notorious BIG is also a biggie who is still sought after and cherished by countless rap lovers. Like a god descending, one album destroyed the charts of that year.
Although his achievements are quite dazzling, Biggie is actually in some troubles now. Some rap fans who were active in that era may know about his feud with the famous West Coast rapper Tupac.
To put it simply, the two of them used to be good friends and could be called heroes who cherish each other. But unfortunately, one day in 1994, Tupac was attacked while recording an album in New York.
He believed that the scene described in the lyrics of the album that Biggie was recording at the time was very similar to the scene where he was attacked at that time, and speculated that this might be a dishonorable means of competition by the other party.
Based on this, a vigorous war began between the east and west coasts. In addition to the singers bouncing off each other's heads, the fans' scolding wars never stopped. Many of them even turned into offline threats, as if they would never stop fighting.
Posture.
But just after this matter fermented for a whole year, an album from Gotham came out - "The King of Gotham", from a singer who calls himself Gotham Kid, just three days after its release
Within, it caused a shock in the rap circles on the east and west coasts.
Some people may think that if Gotham’s gang culture is so developed, why hasn’t it made any achievements in the rap industry before?
You must know that the gangs in Gotham are still traditional Italian gangs, which are completely different from the modern gangs in Chicago and Miami. They still pay attention to family honor and respectability. It is almost impossible to breed a rebellious spirit in this kind of soil.
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Well, in addition to the high-level gangs, of course there are also low-level gang members, but unfortunately it is difficult to survive in an environment like Gotham, let alone engage in music and art.
But facts have proven that after the gang's order gradually collapsed and the social environment gradually improved, the genius and imagination of Gotham people were no less than any other city.
And because of the extremely unique atmosphere of this city, the art it can cultivate is also unique and shocking.
The issues of personal style prominence and commercialization that East Coast singers and record companies have been struggling with have been perfectly unified in the album "King of Gotham".
The emphasis on narrative in East Coast rap actually means that the fluency of the tunes is not rigorous enough. A good commercial album should not only focus on the aggressiveness of the lyrics, but rhythm and musicality are also very important.
However, the music genre of rap itself is limited to the cultural and artistic level of the musician. In short, the vast majority of rappers do not have the ability to create a more popular piece of music that can be accepted by the public.
Composing music is actually very difficult. First of all, you need to have a solid knowledge of music theory, you also need to be familiar with the current public's aesthetic tendencies towards music, and you even need to understand some auditory and sensory knowledge.
But rhythm is more difficult than composing music, and composing music is well-founded. Rhythm basically depends on talent. Throughout the ages, there is no outstanding pop composer who does not have his own unique rhythm style.
The lyrics of East Coast rappers are indeed good, but the tunes are not catchy and the rhythm is not popular, and no one buys them. The album "Ready To Die" became an instant hit because it was actually the commercial success of Biggie and Puff Daddy.
Instead of compromising, he used lively, lively and catchy samples such as Juicy and Big Poppa to complete the last piece of the puzzle for Biggie's graphic rap style.
Although it is considered a classic now, no one knew at that time whether such an attempt would be successful. Maybe the public would be tired of it after the second try, and maybe if it continues like this, it will lose its unique style.
Biggie, who only had one album at that time, couldn't help but be confused. In addition, he was involved in a scolding war with his former friend. Everyone was looking forward to what kind of excellent album he would produce in response. This pressure fell on this superstar.
It's also very big.
The album "King of Gotham" perfectly solves the dilemma of East Coast rap. Gotham Boy uses a very unique style in the album's title song, the song "King of Gotham" of the same name.
With a strong sense of tragedy, fans call it Gotham punk.
This does draw on some elements of punk music, but more of it is the musicality condensed from the contradictory dark history of Gotham, a city that is dark, but not just dark.
The title of the album "King of Gotham" makes people think that it may be another arrogant teenager who thinks he is the king of a certain city and writes about people who drive luxury cars, live in mansions, and have good relationships with their good buddies.
The story of fighting for hegemony in the city and defeating all the enemies.
But in fact, it is completely opposite. The lyrics of this song use the method of alternating fiction and reality. It tells the story of an old low-level gangster who worked for his boss for the last time and was shot by the enemy. He fell to the ground.
Waiting for death in a pool of blood, and imagining a series of scenes before dying.
The so-called King of Gotham actually only exists in this old man's fantasy. From the perspective of this old man, Gotham Boy used an extremely angry tone and exposed the bloodiest darkness at the bottom of Gotham like a machine gun.
When you are a gangster, your son will definitely be the same, and your grandson will be too, but this is not even because the gang threatens you. You even have to be grateful that your relatives can beg for food from the gang, because
There are many things out there on the streets that are a thousand times worse than gangsters.
It seems to be just a Gotham boy using fictional characters to criticize the bad situation in Gotham passionately, but it can bring the greatest shock to rappers from the east and west coasts, because most of them are from gangs, and they still don’t know what gangsters are.
Sex?
If even gangs are orderly things in Gotham, then besides gangs, what are they fighting against?
What follows is the fantasy of this unlucky old man. This paragraph can even be called magical realism, because the most interesting thing is that the old man’s fantasy of a do-over in his life is not at all about being born into a wealthy family.
Go to a prestigious school, join a company and become a senior executive, reach the pinnacle of life, and other dreams that most people have.
It’s not even the gang that most rappers think of, where they eventually rule an area, drive luxury cars and live in mansions, and can concentrate on making music with their friends.
What he was thinking was that he had become a magician, using his magic to kill everyone in the city step by step, annihilating the entire Gotham, and then broke into the empty Wayne Tower, where
From the rooftop overlooking the city littered with corpses, he was crowned and became the real King of Gotham.
Of course, I haven’t forgotten to step on Batman here. The biggest enemy the old man encountered in this fantasy is Batman. The Gotham boy used this old man’s mouth to call Batman a transvestite dreamer. He said that Batman also
He must have entered this fantasy world before he died, because he would never succeed and would definitely die in the end.
At this point in the narrative, the picture still reveals deep despair. The real world part reveals various details of life at the bottom, which makes it difficult not to empathize with it. The fantasy part is too bizarre and violent, giving it a sense of insanity.
The beauty makes people's heads buzz when they listen to it.
The second half of the song breaks the rules and starts a flashback, telling how the old man fell here - he worked hard for his boss for the last time, and it wasn't until the penultimate paragraph of the song that people heard the old man calling him.
The eldest is "my dear little Shaq".
It is mentioned in the first half of the song that when the old man was young, his nickname was Big Shaq, which means big shark. This shows that the boss of the gang he is now in is most likely his biological son.
This unexpected reversal made the audience start to wonder, why can't they enjoy their old age when they have a gang boss as their son? Judging from the lyrics, the relationship between them should be good, so how did they end up like this?
Then the lyrics began to switch quickly, telling the old man's glory in his youth, from attending the Godfather's dinner, to witnessing the bright lights of Gray Street, to being framed and living on the street, getting married and having children with his wife, who was also from the bottom of the family, and his wife died.
The son grew up.
There are indispensable sentences complaining about his son's lack of learning and skills, and more pointedly pointing out the most fatal shortcomings of gangs in this era, full of tragic perspectives that the order is about to collapse.
But suddenly the style of the painting changed. The Gotham boy began to use the perspective of the old people of the previous era to express novelty and dark humor about the new things that appeared in Gotham. He said that the last ones to experience the ice age were dinosaurs. The gang bosses suddenly
He has become a mole who digs holes everywhere to build cold storage. The equipment of the Gotham Police Department looks like it is going to bring down Australia. If he had a daughter, he would never let them scream at Batman on the roof.
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It wasn't until the end that he finally revealed who he was fighting - a gang had taken over the land of his grandson's new school, kidnapped and killed his grandson's classmates, and they were now planning to take back the land.
The last sentence of the song is quite darkly humorous, saying that he actually has a grandson, his grandson actually has a school, and a man who has lived on this land for more than 60 years actually has a chance to take back his land.
The final scene of the song's narration shows more and more blood pouring out, becoming like a small puddle. The mirror-like surface of the blood reflects the first ray of sunlight that fell after the dark clouds broke and the shock of the old man before his death.
