The Turntable, written by Carles Mudede

Response:

I enjoyed this creative essay on hiphop's depth in musical remixing. A song without an instrument (guitar, piano, violin) playing artist can be made by replaying previously recorded music, which makes it difficult for the audience to understand just how this meta-music is created. I agree with Mudede's analysis of the "Wild Thing" music video, in which an actor plays a guitar/turntable instrument prop, that this is a "useless contraption" and perhaps hiphop can be portrayed in a more respectable light.

"Meta-music [is] music made out of and about other music." Yet I don't quite agree that "hiphop is less 'music', per se, and more 'about music'". I believe it's quite equally both. The main function, purpose, is to create an enjoyable and interesting audio experience, just like non-meta-music. Plus, hiphop songs follow the same song length format, distribution method, and lyric writing techniques. But I do get Mudede's point, that the instruments used are more abstract than ones of the past, building on the depths of the past with new technology. First the turntable is used as a mixing device, "looping a break from scratch", then came the "sampler" which put different sections into a "master mix", and DJs began to "abandon the real turntables for the mixing-board". It's an interested view on the history of hiphop music creation. That the true artists keep progressing with the newest technology to make something new, and yet they still reach into past works for the guts of a song.