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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-08-31
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELeUv-PyXBE
college ten years ago when I learned rap sensation little Wayne was performing at the target center in Minneapolis I bag my friends to suck up to seventy eight dollar ticket price but one and everybody turned me down decision was simple it's just mean weighing after all so much my childhood was just mean wing when the bells in my high school ring I I press play in
my idol imagination wait why you thanks to the wizard of hip hop the metaphor magician at the target center what he's saying wonder why I stressed I am the best because even bobble heads tell me yes our entire sea of fifteen thousand fans replied with his irresistible left pack Wayne's rhymes with candy for that year's tasty yet toxic misogyny violence hypersexuality materialism sometimes blatant insensitivity where
the high fructose corn syrup of his music this sugar fat societies cravings between nineteen ninety seven and two thousand twelve the fifteen years right age from ten to twenty four Wayne was everywhere on the radio atop Billboard charts where he eclipsed Elvis's record for most hot one hundred hits YouTube television advertisements the average team listens to four hours of music daily if during those fifteen years
I wasn't doing just two hours daily that's roughly eleven thousand hours about two years worth if you subtract sleep double that for time on TV YouTube reciting lyrics one soundtrack shaping my young mind now I knew popular music or contemporary hits radio was influential I witnessed tipoff for example grow from an American genre tool global genre and culture I'm also a songwriter and artist manager who's
worked in the music business for years and I even research music's impact on identity during my doctoral studies at Harvard but until I began studying hit song specifically I had no idea how big a role the radio played in our psyche I learned there is more than a method to wings madness but a mathematical formula in his songs and in other hit songs that the song
share a common algorithm combining the cadence harmony melody rhythm dozens more characteristics in a way that beckons our brains to binge on beats to recite in repeat as lyrics sneak into our sub conscious and shape our very being third a field of a hit song science and a inside peek at the music business we witness a phenomena that has major implications for us all his song
science was coined by Mike McCredie inventor of music xray all software capable of predicting the songs mainstream success I'll paraphrase a story about McCredie told by Malcolm Gladwell the years two thousand two but pretty walks into a record store bus thirty random albums just released back in office he xrays them with the press of a button has software analyzes dozens of song characteristics like it did
for millions of songs from Beethoven to the Beatles that generated a mathematical signature for each scored its potential then pointed me created to the heads a curious news reporter calls a shock Macready explains that this software went nuts over one album called come away with me from some unknown named Norah Jones predicting nine out of fourteen songs had major hit potential twenty million album sales in
eight Grammys later Norah Jones was a pop sensation hex course have been around decades but the birth of hate song science as a field of study as recent as new technology has enabled us to prove that heads are a unique beast through advanced MRI is we can now track the blood flow in our brain in one scholar notes that hits because our brain to release dopamine
at rates comparable to sex or drugs we now know are bringing loves all in anticipation in the song or distinct changes in speed and off beat phrasing the film is also busted myths like sex sells actually human connection souls when you when connections done right in a song sex doesn't even help with sales and while language already shapes our thoughts mixing language with music is like
baking soda Mitch good mix vinegar the relative impact is volcanic my point is from melody to message hits are masterful creations with a massive influence that's why a big artist in front of a song and the big budget behind it fells nine out of ten times without true hitmakers behind the scenes I'm talking about expert lyricists militarists someone take Max Martin leading hit maker of the
twenty first century trivia what a Britney spears the weekend Backstreet boys Ariana Grande Katy Perry maroon five insync pink and Taylor swift to name a few have in common that's right Max Martin master minding their hits Taylor swift death wasn't talked about Max was she saying we are never ever ever getting back together because they've gotten that together for four hit sense that one including three
number ones only John Lennon and Paul McCartney have more hits than this dude but the bizarre thing is that to be Max Martin right there and we wouldn't know thankfully more into pop songs aren't sold toxic but meanwhile most of music's mainstream is the new opium of the masses tranquilizing toxic feeling of healing as it doesn't harm and we're blank to it see during my years
as a wing fan truly believed Wayne was just a positive influence in my life fun inspiring what he said things like money over bitches and money over everything I rejected those messages I was raised to respect women and I was always mission over money this just entertainment but I grew to realize popular musicians were shaping me and self destructive ways excessive smoking hypersexuality materialism numbness to
social inequality this realization her and it came in three waves wave one happen as an English major in college my coursework in hip hop help me learn that VOA reveals hip hop was mainstream it was the minority because in communities nationwide were struggle breeds creativity positive hip hop abounds in a way to I taught eleventh graders in Clarksdale Mississippi and realized positive hip hop may abound
in urban areas but rural America rarely benefits from such diversity so for many of my students toxic musicians were mere entertainers but real role models that they followed and as I watched that Amir reflected back I saw a hypocrite singing along to verses we committed to heart yet finding my heart reversing its commitments anyway if three I got serious about my music thanks to toxic inspiration
high was a song reading Shakespeare on those topics but my pen which includes for positivity I turn to those rare positive hits for help like Royals by lord who spoke for masses of fans what she's saying jet planes islands Tigers on the gold leash that kinda locks just think for us I crave a different kind of bus or happy by her own with a billion you
to please and even more in renditions the whole world was like clap aloneness the truth because I'm happy there was undeniable the whole world felt more loved more connected more happy it's like these helped me realize that the toxic music I fight to was actually killing my vibe and I had to let it all go at first I had withdrawals but my mind cleared and I
began finding myself in the very place I once neglected like the old school from Sam Cooke to Stevie Wonder and the new school I discovered amazing artist making positive music that was just as appeasing to the ear for awhile though I resented Wayne and my soul for once being a fan but I was torn how can I blame wing born into an oppressive maze a community
plagued by poverty racism poor schooling trauma he escapes this maze and then I I criticize him for his escape route but where do you draw the line he knows how he does a harmful this is how can you be so selfish for years this was by unresolved stance it's All I visited a bookstore in Seattle this past February where I rekindled my wing flame for the
first time in years this time it wasn't as music but his book gone till November a diary he kept while incarcerated in one entry he reflects on a letter he received from a church criticizing him for not using his platform more positively here's a snippet if I was wrapping for the lord I would literally change the whole world it would be way bigger than ever in
a million kids saying shit like blame blame I would have truly have the power of having pop culture turn to god men I really got lost no stops listening Lauren hill and dozed off and that's when god spoke to me in my sleep it's only to stop Trippin that's not my calling yet that is because if it was those thoughts will be popping into my head
instead of I will Merck you and I'm going to F. that bitch it was a cool thought though but it was just a thought in that moment a burden lifted I forgave wing and myself because I realize that even powerful music mines under estimate the power of music on the mind I'm an artist too working in Hollywood hating with hitmakers I don't realize it either that
just because a hit makers know how to shape hits doesn't mean they know how hits shape us Wayne believes god inspires us toxic music but in reality the music decisions we each make daily dictate whether we receive divine inspiration or a distraction from his song science is proof enough songs putting and the proof of possibility we can create heads that shape wasn't the kind and loving
beings committed to serving one another so artists don't believe the lie but you gotta dance with the devil to do gods work if you master the science and business of hits your positivity will circle the planet parents educators policing your children's media as a short term losing strategy the winning strategy is helping them understand and learn that what they let in years matters a lot in
her Pulitzer Prize winning book the nurture assumption Judith Paris shows us it's not nature or parenting really but peers that shape our children's identity the most and what shapes our peers media specially music so finally music fans your mind is so sensitive give it light and join me as I team with hitmakers worldwide trump the toxic and transform the world one hit at a time thank
