Songs That Shape a Life: YorkeDaddy Gets Personal

YorkeDaddy · 11-14-2014, 08:27 AM

Hi!

The past couple months have been absolutely dominated by a certain artist that I am going to be talking about now. I've made several small posts throughout the general music board in threads like "albums you're digging" but I'm going to be far more thorough here.

A few months ago I was in an anime phase, binge-watching my way through whatever looked interesting on Netflix. After blazing through Death Note and Attack on Titan I moved to Samurai Champloo, the theme music of which I found quite striking.

I loved this song and naturally decided to explore the artist further. What subsequently happened is I've been spending so much of my time listening to that artist that I never even got around to finishing Samurai Champloo, so that's kind of funny.

So I found out a lot of the show's soundtrack was done by this man, Nujabes, a Japanese jazz/hiphop producer who died in 2010. Okay, sounds unique, so I went ahead and got myself a discography and slipped on my headphones. The first track I played blew my mind.

I absolutely loved the mixture of jazz and hip-hop. I recognized it as relatively repetitive but that just contributed to how soothing and pleasant it all was. Additionally, and this is something that will continue to show in his music, Nujabes was a master at identifying rappers that could really effectively mesh with his beats. Substantial, Pase Rock, Cise Starr, Five Deez, and Shing02 are all fantastic rappers with great flow and lyricism and they make repeat appearances throughout Nujabes' discography. However, while there are some tracks with absolutely incredible lyrics that I'll get to later, the star of the show is always Nujabes with his absolutely luscious beats. I mean this is absolutely hypnotically beautiful stuff. As I moved through his first album for the first time I loved the hip-hop tracks, but there were certain tracks that touched my soul even deeper.

Even if you're not a huge fan of hip-hop, I just don't see how you couldn't feel completely uplifted by tracks like these. It doesn't get much better than kicking back and just floating along with the essence of these songs. I probably sound like a hippie or something here but that's how Nujabes makes me feel, like he transports me to a different, care-free dimension. And what makes him so great is that he's no two-trick pony. You have smooth, catchy tracks like "Blessing It" (and dozens of others), you have gorgeous instrumentals, and you have mind-shattering masterpieces like what I'm about to go to Youtube and find.

This one has become one of my favorite songs of all-time, it's definitely in the top 10 at least. The lyrics are absolutely masterful:

It's funny how the music put times in perspective
Add a soundtrack to your life and perfect it
Whenever you are feeling blue keep walking and we can get far
Wherever you are

we can take it all back to the register
and start all over from the canister
let's break it all down into pieces of bright
moments that pass by like a meteorite
throw on your favorite reel that's good to go
on the analog player watch the people glow
sit back to the breeze let the memories flow
comedy tragedy all the highs and lows

This stuff just really speaks to me, and Shing02 delivers it as perfectly as anyone could have. I won't dwell on meaning or anything like that because I'm sure you can figure it out if you want to, but what makes Nujabes so great is that his music can mean whatever you want it to mean. It's pretty clear that he was a spiritual guy, and his music translates that. Whatever you get or don't get out of it is completely fine, but for me it really summons deep feelings in me that no other artist has ever summoned.

I guess you could say I feel an even deeper connection to Nujabes because he's no longer with us. It's similar to my relationship with Elliott Smith's music; all I want is to make sure nobody ever forgets them. Every Nujabes fan I make means his music will live on in one more person, and that's really important to me. So even if you don't find his music as incredible as I do, that's okay. Just giving it a listen is good enough. Have a great day, everyone.