Now you no doubt have heard of rapper turned singer T-Pain over the last couple years. Since his debut in 2005, this Tallahassee singer-songwriter has produced such hits as "Buy You A Drank," "Bartender," and most recently "Cant Believe It." I'm not trying to put down all that he has accomplished up to this point, but there is just one problem: he can't sing. For his entire career, T-Pain has been continually criticized for using the infamous vocoder. This device can enhance the sound quality of the user's voice and, when used correctly, gives the illusion that the user is very talented. T-Pain was the first artist to make this "instrument" popular and other artists were quick to follow in his footsteps. Platinum recording artists like Lil' Wayne and Kanye West have jumped the bandwagon and have made use of the device as well. As a matter of fact, every song I've heard from Kanye West's upcoming album, "8O8s and Heartbreaks," he has been guilty of using the dreaded vocoder.
Now I say "dreaded vocoder" because the machine has tampered with hip hop's life support system. Rappers are now relying on the vocoder to improve their music. Instead of taking the time out to rhyme about contemporary topics, they've resorted to only appealing to a female audience by focusing on the chorus of a song. The chorus, of course, is the repeated part of a song and the part that everybody remembers the most. The chorus in rap songs is usually sung by a R&B singer, but their services are no longer necessary thanks to the handy dandy vocoder. Rappers take it upon themselves to sing the chorus. Which brings me to my number one issue with the vocoder: it makes the artist's voice all distorted. T-Pain has mastered the art of "vocodering" and the distortion in his voice is very minimal. This is not the case for others however. I'm anxious to see and hear how T-Pain and other vocoder artists perform their songs on stage. Are they really singing? How do they hide the vocoder component from audience members? These and other questions will be going through my head, if I ever do stoop low enough to attend one of T-Pain's concert. The vocoder has and will have nothing but detrimental effects to the rap game if it continues to be implemented in every other song that is released.
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SATs Really Aren't That Bad
17 years ago
3 comments:
Whoever uses vocoders to produce their songs do not deserve credit for them. Not only do they not take any talent to use, they rob the people WITH talent from their well-deserved recognition.
You know I'm glad that someone actually brought this to attention. Every year millions of artists try to make it on their own with what they have got, their voice. Now, every artist and their mother is using the vocoder such as aformentioned T-Pain, Kanye West,and the Dream. It pisses me off when people say how talented and deserved these people are because in reality I can sound the same as them. I mean T-pain has based his entire career on this technology and its not even his real voice. What do these guys get paid for?
Guys like T Pain and the dream have essentially based their entire career on this vocoder technology. They get paid huggeeee amounts of money to do their thing on stage while we know it isn't even really their voice. I wonder what would happen if one day T Pain's vocoder broke while on stage. I couldn't imagine how shocked all thepeople would be if they realize that thir prized T Pain sounds like Jo Shmo. This vocoder technology is taking away from the beauty and art of music.
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