Check out this great interview with AD Rock from The Beastie Boys with Sway from last month. If you’re in a hurry you can jump to around the 5:40 to hear AD’s take on why he doesn’t listen to new music and whether or not that makes Hip Hop Culture vulnerable to being disposable.
I wrestle with the notion of being the old man in the club. We wrestle with that notion here at GFM and often work to resist being OFM (Old Folks Music). It’s tough because as it has been well-documented we all need new memories instead of just relying on music from 1999 backwards. However, as much as I like “All Day” by Kanye West that music is not made for me. Hip Hop is definitely a young person’s game. I’m not saying at a certain age us old heads need to head out to pasture but, er uh yeah I’m not trying to be that dude either. You know that dude.
I wasn’t that dude in my early-mid twenties, you know the guy who’s still at the college parties after graduation? Well after graduation. So there’s no way in heckdom that I at (well past my early-mid twenties) will be on the scene at any Turn-Up Tuesday event. Do I enjoy and embrace the sentiment of a turn-up? Of course. Life is to be lived to the fullest. I just have a need to have the majority of my soundtrack reflect my station in life.
That’s the rub for me. I don’t like old sounding new music and the flip side I don’t like a lot of new sounding new music because it sounds and is young. The aforementioned oldies are safe and comfortable, familiar a security blanket if you will. But you have to change that blanket up or it will get cruddy from over use. So I’ll continue to look for some good new music and maybe it doesn’t necessarily have to be new-new just new to me. I can engage in those activities at home or at a gathering of my peers where I fit in and don’t stick out, where perhaps I can be considered cool as opposed to invading a space that’s not for me.
Ivan Orr is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, performer, and writer. A native of Charlottesville, Virginia Ivan was involved with the forming and nascent days of The Music Resource Center as its first Program Director. A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Music, Ivan currently resides in Richmond, VA where he maintains an active performance and production schedule while serving as the Music Editor for Grown Folks Music, a position he has held since 2010.
