Technology

The Tupac Hologram and How We Treat Dead Stars 4

by Langston • Events, Industry, Technology

The internet has been buzzing over a video a hologram Tupac performing a couple of his greatest hits at the 2012 Coachella Music Festival. The hologram was created by Digital Domain Media, a company co-founded by James Cameron and responsible for the effects in films such as Titanic, Transformers, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In case you havent’ seen it:

 

Reaction has been “mixed.” Some are genuinly happy to see one of the most popular rappers on the 1990s, hell of all time, rocking a stage again. Others are intrigued from a technological standpoint. A third group wavers between confused and disgusted by the entire endeavor. I’m not sure how I feel. While I marvel at the technology, the actual hologram makes me uncomfortable. It has a air of corniness and cheesiness that has never been associated with Tupac. Even though it shouted out Dre and danced with Snoop, it’s an avatar. Because it lacks a human essence, it seems like a cartoon- a high-tech, life-sized cartoon – but a cartoon nonetheless. I have no idea what to do with it.

The emergence of this hologram isn’t too surprising. It’s the most recent in long line of posthumous Tupac releases. In the immediate wake of his death, the Death Row released The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, the album Tupac planned to releases before his 1996 death. The first Makaveli album been followed by 6 official “studio” albums, the most recent being released in 2006, ten years after his death. Aside from these, there have been 16 Makaveli bootleggs, plus several remix, greatest hits, and tribute albums.  There have been books of poetry, biographies, and documentaries including Tupac Ressurrection (2003), which was narrated by ‘Pac himself.

After Tupac Resurrection, I stopped collecting Tupac material. Why? Because I was tired of consuming Tupac material that was shaped and mediated by others. One thing that made Tupac endearing was his ability to seem honest and genuine. Even if the image projected in the music didn’t accord with who he was as a man, it was an image he controlled. It was how he wanted to represent himself. In these releases, Tupac the artists gets lost. Sure, he wrote and recorded the verses, but the end product is the work of other individuals who have a variety of motives. For me, Tupac becomes source material, rather than author, of these posthumous releases. Hologram Tupac is merely character informed by Tupac the artist and man, but created by others.

I really wish the legacies of our deceased artists were treated with more care and caution. While I understand the importance of keeping dead artists relevant, it should never be at the expense of artistic integrity. I’m sure that I wasn’t the only disgusted by Michael Jackson’s Michael (2010) which was full of tracks MJ did not intend on releasing. Michael Jackson was a craftsman, a perfectionist and would have never released such unfinished and underwhelming material. Executives shouldn’t be so quick to release any and all material they have of a deceased artists even if the public is clamoring for it. A true fan should want a deceased artists’ legacy to grow stronger with time and not become diluted by lazy, gimmicky, or cheesy releases.  In short, we should have greater respect for the contributions made by our fallen stars. Let’s cease the exploitation, and works towards presenting their art in a manner in tune with who they were as living artists and human beings.

INTERVIEW: Ron Harrison of Blazetrak 8

by Fredara Mareva • Entrepreneurship, Interviews, Technology • Tags: , , , , ,

Panel at South by Southwest Interactive with (L-R) Mazy Kazerooni of Tracks.by; Korey Coleman of Spill.com; and Ron A. Harrison of Blazetrak

I went to SXSW Interactive with an eye on what people were saying about music apps and technology. I had already heard of Blazetrak, but while there I had the opportunity catch Blazetrak co-founder, Ron Harrison (@ron_a_harrison) on a panel. I was intrigued with their idea of making Blazetrak a portal for aspiring musicians, singers, and performers to directly connect with established producers and industry professionals.

Founded in November 2009, Blazetrak used the last two years as a beta period in which they shored up their proprietary technology and relationships with industry talent. To date they’ve received over 10,000 submissions from aspiring artists who pay to receive direct video responses from Blazetrak clients such as T.I., Andre Harrell, Bryan Michael Cox, and Matthew Knowles.

Blazetrak just launched its new site last week and is now open for all. In the midst of the relaunch, Ron Harrison took some time to talk with me about where Blazetrak is and where it is headed.

What is the story of Blazetrak?

My co-founder was working with a small label in Atlanta where they were receiving lots of demos. He would complain about the amount of stuff they were getting in. As a deterrent they would charge a fee in order to submit a demo to them [the label] in exchange for having someone from the label give that person a call to talk about whatever the person had submitted. What happened was that they started getting more submissions and demos than they did when it was free. So a light bulb went off that showed that us that people are willing to pay because they know that they’re going to get some type of feedback. So we can up with an idea, “What if we set it up where we had really highly successful people in the industry offer that feedback.” So my brother, Rich Harrison, has had a pretty successful career producing for artists like Beyonce, Usher and others, and I saw how difficult it was for him to reach that level of success. But once he made it, I saw the huge amount of aspiring artists trying to reach out to him. So we combined those two experiences and thought, “If we can build these connections between new artists and successful producers like Rich, Rodney Jerkins, Bryan Michael Cox, and other highly successful people in the industry, will this work?” That’s basically how Blazetrak was born.

How do you see Blazetrak fitting in with current changes in the industry?

I think that Blazetrak has the ability to become the new portal for access. Everyone is talking about the industry and that it is all about who you know. People say that, “You have to know the right people and be in the right circles in order to get stuff done.” Blazetrak is completely trying to change that and make it so that it has nothing to do with who you know and where you live, it is all about your talent. If you have talent and have access to people who can help you cultivate that talent, then why shouldn’t you be given a chance. That’s where Blazetrak comes into play – because we allow you to have that access with all these highly successful people in music. And it also works for the producers because now they have access to talent from around the world. You can log into your Blazetrak account and you’ll have submissions from all over the world. Some of the first submissions that we got are international.

There are other platforms that aspiring artists use to try to get attention of industry executives – most notably youtube – how does Blazetrak differentiate itself from other platforms like those?

Right. There are plenty of platforms like that. youtube is great. You upload your stuff and the world has access to it. That doesn’t mean that the person that you need to see your youtube video is actually going to see it. There are probably several hundred million videos on youtube and you put your stuff out there just hoping that the right person is going to see it. On Blazetrak, you decide who you want to see your videos. So right now we have about 400 professionals, but you decide who you want to see it. We take all kinds of submissions, videos, audio, and pictures.

You’re a tech company –without technology it’s impossible for a site like Blazetrak to exist. I’m sure there’s a whole lot of complicated back end technology that is going on to facilitate this connection between aspiring artists and professionals. So it’s like hardcore tech stuff, but at the same time its music stuff. There aren’t a lot of African American companies in that space.

You hit nail right on the head. That’s why it was so important for Blazetrak to be at SXSW for both the tech side and the music side is important to make sure that we’re up to speed on all the new technologies and be more efficient and see what things we can do differently that will help our customer base. In the future we’re looking to get into offline activities like maybe concerts and events. But right now we’re focused on making our digital presence as successful as possible.        

Learn more about Blazetrak at: http://www.blazetrak.com/

My Apps Got Apps! Spotify Announces Flurry of New Apps 0

by Fredara Mareva • Technology • Tags: , , , , ,

I’m a fan of music streaming service Spotify. I’m a paying subscriber who loves that I can seamlessly sync my Spotify playlists across computers, phones, and gadgets without having to worry about hard drive space. I think it’s a great idea for offering convenient on-demand music for consumers. My biggest Spotify concern isn’t about the app at all, but it’s about if it, and other music streaming services like it, are useful or hurtful for indie artists looking for exposure….but that’s another post for a soon coming day.

Today, Spotify announced 12 new “next generation” apps aimed at taking the user experience to the next level. The apps range in functionality from Digster which is designed to match your Spotify recommendations with music that you’ve liked or posted on Facebook to several others record label-affiliated apps from Warner Music, Def Jam, and Matador, that are designed to help fans better connect with their catalog. Spotify founder, Daniel Ek, has been clear in his plan to make Spotify “the OS” for music consumption on the net.

We’ll see. Will you be using these news apps?

Read more….

 

 

BMI Live: Get Paid for Your Performances 2

by Langston • Industry, Technology • Tags:

BMI Live is an initiative by BMI that allows performing songwriters to get paid for the live performance of their registered songs. Its a fairly easy to use subsection of the BMI Website. Here’s a video on how it works:

It looks pretty easy to use. The really cool thing about this program is that you get paid regardless of venue or crowd size. If you need extra motivation to get your songs registered, this may be it.

Learn more about the program at the BMI Live Website.

Itunes Reigns Supreme 3

by Langston • Technology • Tags: , ,

Digital music aggregate CD Baby recently released a chart breaking down the revenue pulled in from digital music services in 2011. I wasn’t surprised to see that Itunes still brings in the most revenue, but I did not expect it to be so dominant. It is also pretty interesting that Spotify accounted for only 2.0% of revenue, slightly less than fellow streaming service Rhapsody at 2.1%. This does lend some credence to my suggestion that indie artists should see Spotify more as a marketing tool rather than a revenue source. – via Digital Music News.