The Jimi Kendrix Experience
Walking up to a seedy project in the midst of New York’s Lower East side was the first step of the journey to meeting the man they call Jimi Kendrix. As an under and over ground producer, music enthusiast, and pure creative mind Jimi is not what you would expect. Strangely articulate and very animated, there is still a side to him that is easier felt through the beat than described. Without knowing anything about him or previous endeavors (which are vast and multi-platinum) he has a force that makes you want to orbit him. “Jesus loves you,” he would say in some of his most exasperated moments, letting you peek inside his pure imaginative power. Being a very spiritual man, that is not just a little catch phrase he likes to say, but what he truly stands behind. Still, put “Jimi Kendrix Says Jesus Loves You,” on a t-shirt and you wouldn’t be able to hold on to them fast enough. That is the type of draw he has, he makes you want to be around him, not because he is famous or talented but because he is genuine. He does not bounce unless he feels it, so to speak.
There is a more fundamental question to be asked here, what is Hip-Hop music? Although it cannot really be summed up in one sentence, “it is not what you say, but how you say it,” is probably the closest and most authentic you can get. To the world, hip hop is something new, something misunderstood, but in that apartment at that moment, I understood. I understood why music, hip hop music, was so important. Powerful yet racy it is at the forefront of everything nowadays. Rewind to the early 2000’s, hip hop began to sink into places it had never been before, the rich white suburbs, the European house and techno arena, and even in the fields of charity (by the actual individual). At that time it began to really take off, in good ways, and in bad. Chalk it up to the great white hype and his silly scandalous sounds, or just the exhaustion of all other types of music available. It does not matter how or why, because finally hip hop had found its niche, the entire world. No longer about black, white, yellow, orange, tall, skinny, fat or income, it was about the feeling that makes your heart pound, the curses that turned into poetry, and those beats, ah those beats.
While the recording session was going on I got to see and talk to Jimi in his greatest form. Working with a new up and coming artist, Shore Shot hailing from the Jersey Shore, the bass bumped and the scratchy sound of violins added to the sonic boom. He reiterated the fact that hard work, skill, and imagination were not bound to race or color. Yet still he was seamless, using terms like “riding the wave,” and “versatile,” to describe Shore Shot’s flow. A High School teacher at heart, he took the time to describe specifically what goes into a recording session for a producer. Listening to Shore Shot acapello while imagining the beat in his mind, paying attention to the separation of each bar (measurement of musical time), and seeing where he can add exclamation to give a song that little extra “umph.” Does his rapping style have a rhythm to it, Can I add at “Yea, or What,” here, or do I really need eight bars here or can I do it in four? Such are some of the tools Jimi uses, and he was more than capable of describing it without losing focus, as if the music is always there with him, just waiting to be tapped into it.
Creativity is creativity no matter where it comes from. Many rappers or artist may not know this but one of the first “rapper of words,” was not only a white woman, but a supposed lesbian, Emily Dickinson. She used a type poetry called “slant rhyme,” which in other words basically means; using two or more consonants in short succession on the final consonants to make two or more words rhyme that do not. For instance take the word flame, and the word deranged and put the emphasis on the last part of the word and say them consecutively five times in a row. Another example would be making one word rhyme with two (e.g. “ninja,” and “skin ya.”) Can you hear it? They begin to mold to each other and sound similar. Well, this is a method a lot of rapper’s use. It could be explained numerous different ways, one being the free style form of rap. This would require fast thinking and sometimes the words had to rhyme, even if they really did not. At that quick moment in time, which could be just a split second, for the artist it could mean life or death in the industry.
Philip K. Dick once said that, “the basic tool for manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.” Hip Hop is the 21st century’s manipulation of words. Artists are not just rappers anymore; they are poets getting their message out one bar at a time. Jimi Kendrix is not just a producer; he is the epitome of what makes music great. Full of pure life, creativity, and imagination he is an absolute pleasure to spend even a moment with. As a writer you are bound by inspiration, sometimes all it takes is one event, one person, or just one experience to spark your pen to paper. Without that, all the words in the world could not make your writing exciting and the same goes for musicians. Jimi is not just a personality; he is an inspiration to the world of music. His career, his life, and his morals are all in sync, which today, in this new world, are few and fleeting. So take a moment and remember that “Jesus Loves You.”