Masego’s music ran chills up my spine the first time I had listened to it. It experimented with melodies and emotions, fusing various genres to create an entirely new one. Each song is unique, each performance improvised. Masego has changed the way we look at music, paving the way for a new genre he refers to as ‘Trap House Jazz.’
Micah Davis, known popularly as Masego, is a multi talented musician, deejay, and comedian. Born to two pastor parents, he grew up playing drums and singing in his local church where he developed his love for performing. His family moved around often, so Masego grew up in an ever-changing environment surrounded by all walks of life. By the time he reached college, he taught himself to beatbox and play the saxophone and keyboard. With his prior musical experience from performing in church, Masego was able to pick up these new instruments with ease. He began deejaying various parties for friends and gained traction with his immense talent in improvising beats. Soon he reached millions of hits on Youtube and was even featured in Vogue magazine.
These on-the-spot creations knew no boundaries as Masego implemented elements of various genres he listened to growing up. Thus he created ‘Trap House Jazz,’ a genre that fused soul, R&B, dance music, and hip-hop. At the parties he deejayed, he met many people he considered ‘rough around the edges,’ and wanted to create music that represented the beauty in the grunge. He wanted the drums to strike a nerve but the chords and melody to soothe. Masego was inspired by those around him, namely the women that crossed his path. He mentioned a substitute teacher he wanted to impress with his music, and was so driven by infatuation that he perfected his skill. He frequently asked random people like Uber drivers and coffee shop clerks what their opinions were on life and love. Fascinated by the deep answers from seemingly ordinary people, he aimed to create music that excluded no one.
Using looper pedal technology, Masego creates all his live beats from scratch. He implements beatboxing, several instruments, harmonies, echoes, and raps to recreate his album songs such that no performance is the same. He does not seem to know where he is going, but always finds it along the way. With a general idea of the music’s tone and message, he lets his creativity guide the creation. The driving force is something unspoken and inexplicable, but he uses the inspiration he gathers from those around him from their various sounds and souls.
Masego plays with analogy in his creative process. He compiles elements from known genres of music to describe Trap House Jazz. While his music is reminiscent of R&B, soul, and hip-hop, no singular categorization perfectly fits his creation; it is simultaneously all and none. The analogy between pre-existing genres and Trap House Jazz allows the listener to identify with the music and be overwhelmed by its layers. Furthermore, his music is an analogy for the layers in people with a message that, like his improvised performances, the path you choose should have no constraints, no rules, and no guidelines.
“In 'Lady Lady,' Masego Puts 'Trap House Jazz' On Display.” NPR, NPR, 21 Oct. 2018, www.npr.org/2018/10/21/659347161/in-lady-lady-masego-puts-trap-house-jazz-on-display.
You said his music represents beauty in grunge. I think art that has a duality to it is on a whole different level. It's more complex, and urges listeners or viewers of the art to contemplate what the duality means, or why it's there. It also might take them on a wild ride—one moment you're hearing one thing, and the other is a completely different style. It's exciting. His ideas about having no constraints, rules, or guidelines are reflected in the hodgepodge-like style of his music, and in the theme of duality. I'll have to add his music to my Spotify queue :)
ReplyDeleteIf this isn't fruitful asynchrony then I don't know what is. I think Jazz has moved past it's experimental/doing something different phase and has become solidified as a genre. Then there's Trap House Jazz, which seems to put Jazz back in its place as a field of music famous for going outside its bounds. I also think this is cool because the techniques Masego uses are really prevalent in mainstream music as well, like laying over tracks and combining different genres together. My brother is really into hip hop and rap music and he's obsessed with sampling, when an artist uses another song at the beginning as a quasi-intro into their song.
ReplyDeleteI see a lot of memory and collection process going on in Masego's development of new songs. He draws on what he has learned from performing in church and playing multiple instrument to further develop his musical talent. However, he still takes in inspiration and doesn't shy away from new things, so he is always learning and collecting more. I also notice a lot of collaboration going on, since he draws inspiration from so many different things and people. He collaborates with others by drawing inspiration from them. I guess these kind of memory, collection, and collaboration processes are reflective of the essence of jazz; passionate creativity and constant change.
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