Blog Seven -- deBourgoing and Miller

First off, I was very thrilled to read a web article for hip-hop for this class since the type of music is one of my favorites. Second of all, while reading through de Bourgoing's weblog of "Hip Hop Goes Transmedia: Seven Laws" I came across a couple of key arguments that she brings up.  She starts off right away by pointing out how digital media has helped up and coming artists put there work out there more effectively and efficiently than in years past, especially in L.A. where they are having a sort of "L.A. Renaissance" as she calls it. These new digital avenues for expression have allowed the genre of hip-hop to expand across multiple platforms of media and evolve to fit the current generation's way of receiving that media like the Internet and Twitter.
Another argument that de Bourgoing bring up is the sense of "keeping it real". She also emphasizes that we have to be careful about how real we go because the market is not accepting of everything, even if the artist is being one hundred percent truthful. Apart from the lyrics of an artist, what he or she wears is judged just as much to the public eye. Eminem is known for he wife beater for example while Jay-Z is known for his all black attire. It is encouraged to be unique to stand out but keep in mind that if an artist comes out to the stage with no pants, he or she will get some raised eyebrows.
Finally, the last argument that I will bring up relating to de Bourgoing's article is the concept of collaboration. Although hip-hop is known for its individual masterminds, collaboration is often encouraged to produce a mix of rap styles. Personally, many of my favorite tracks by artists are often done by more than one. For example, Eminem and Lil' Wayne's title "No Love" spoke out to me because they combined two styles of music that appeal to me. Apart from artists collaborating, the DJ is the third element that can get involved. De Bourgoing states that collaboration can be used to reach a common goal and make the final product more seamless.

I see a couple connections between deBourgoing's article and the material we have touched on the first half of class. First of all her concept of collaboration and crowdsourcing are very similar with each other. Crowdsourcing uses multiple counts of information and combines them to form an overall piece while collaboration is working together for a common goal. Both are really similar in style.

When I was finished reading the first portion of Miller's book I was left thinking to myself, what does it all mean? He touches on various forms of technical media and how it has evolved throughout time but what does he imply about all of it? I'm going out on a whim here but I think that his first portion is all about using media to preserve our ideas and thoughts for tomorrow. For example, he talked about the phonograph which is one of the first devices to play sound recordings. This is still relevant today because it is easy to see how technology has kept on the phonographic paths of making a memory of our thoughts for us to go back to later. Facebook and Twitter are common examples of how the phonograph has evolved. 

Connections between deBourgoing's article and Miller's book can be clearly seen. In a section of Miller's book he relates the phonograph to today's media to preserving language and text to refer to in the future. Miller also touches on the fact of collaboration and how it has been used to create an end product, very similar to deBourgoing's law number four which was collaboration. Another connection that I found was that they both related media to evolving to multi platforms like the Internet and Torrents.