What Maistream Musicians can learn from Liberian Street Rappers

Music has a great influence on people's lives especially on youngsters who listen to the most hours of music played each day. They see these musicians as role models and hence their songs have a profound impact on the views and actions of these young minds. So, lets take a look at what some of the most popular artists are singing about.

Here are the lyrics of a few songs by some popular artists - Lil Wayne, Taylor Swift, Akon.

I'm not a human being - Lil Wayne
I am not a human being Uhh,
p-ssy for lunch
pop all the balloons and spit in the punch, yeah,
kush in the blunts
I ride through your block see a foot in the trunk
I don't know why they keep playin
they better re-plan im giving them the blues Bobby "Blue" Bland (blues singer)
together we stand and fall on y'all
ballin' with my bloods, call it b-ball
these days aint sh-t Young Money is
I got mars bars three musketeers
come through coupe same colour as veneers
and you know I'm riding with the toast, cheers!
yeah, now I'm back on my grizz
and y'all's a bunch a squares like a muthaf-cking grid
sh-t f-ck with me and get hit
I finger f-ck the nina make the b-tch have kids
just do it my n-gga I just did
name a muthaf-cker deeper than me b-tch dig
ya dig, this here is big biz and I scream f-ck it whoever it is

Read more: Lil Wayne - I'm Not A Human Being Lyrics | MetroLyrics

22 - Taylor Swift

It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters
And make fun of our ex's, uh uh, uh uh.
It feels like a perfect night for breakfast at midnight
To fall in love with strangers, uh uh, uh uh.

Yeah,
We're happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time
It's miserable and magical.
Oh, yeah
Tonight's the night when we forget about the deadlines
It's time

Uh oh!
I don't know about you
But I'm feeling 22
Everything will be alright
If you keep me next to you
You don't know about me
But I'll bet you want to
Everything will be alright
If we just keep dancing like we're
22, ooh-ooh
22, ooh-ooh

Read more: Taylor Swift - 22 Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Sexy Bitch - Akon

Yes, I can see her
'Cause every girl in here wanna be her
Oh, she's a diva
I feel the same, and I wanna meet her

They say she low down
It's just a rumor, and I don't believe 'em
They say she needs to slow down
The baddest thing around town

She's nothing like a girl you've ever seen before
Nothing you can compare to your neighborhood hoe
I'm tryna find the words to describe this girl
Without being disrespectful

The way that booty movin', I can't take no more
Have to stop what I'm doin' so I can pull up close
I'm tryna find the words to describe this girl
Without being disrespectful

Damn, girl
Damn, you're a sexy bitch, a sexy bitch
Damn, you're a sexy bitch, damn, girl
Damn, you're a sexy bitch, a sexy bitch
Damn, you're a sexy bitch, damn, girl

Read more: David Guetta - Sexy Bitch Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Well, the themes of these songs are pretty clear - sex, profanity, relationships, violence, objectification and more of the same. These 3 songs are representative of a large section of music that is out there reaching millions of people each day.

Now, lets see what street rappers in Liberia are singing about. For those of you who are geographically challenged, Liberia is an African country marred by civil wars and violence ever since it came into being. Liberia has one of the most unstable and disorganized governments found anywhere in the world. You can find the following piece in the video VICE's guide to Liberia at 14:13. It will be good however if you could watch about half the documentary from the beginning to gain an understanding of Liberia.

AIDS getting busy
Drinkin' blood from the body
Same as the first, death is a lie,
believe it or not, AIDS is out to attack,
Every woman needs a man
Every hand is on the shoulder
Mothers did loving, whats the point Liberians
she never had money so she started ******* ****
A pretty young woman is another man's slave
Mother did loving and now the pharaoh got AIDS in her face
Which type of sickness killing boys? - AIDS!
Which type of sickness killing girls? - AIDS!
Which type of sickness killing neighbors? - AIDS!
Which type of sickness killing everybody? - AIDS!

Wow! They are writing songs about ACTUAL PROBLEMS plaguing their society and in doing so keep the fire alive in the people to fight them. Shouldn't mainstream musicians around the world write songs on similar lines - reflecting problems in their society. No country is perfect or completely without problems. In the US - a large part of the population can't make ends meet and has to rely on state funds for their livelihood. In India - there's poverty, education is a sham and corruption is omnipresent. So why aren't mainstream musicians paying attention to these issues? Do they underestimate their own reach and influence or do they simply not care about these issues or could it be that they themselves are trying to escape from these harsh realities by engulfing themselves in a cocoon of self-centered music?

This isn't saying that musicians have never tried this out. Artists like Michael Jackson, Tupac Shakur and Miley Cyrus(Oh God! I can't believe that I just used Miley Cyrus in the same sentence as Michael Jackson and Tupac Shakur, please forgive me) have delivered smash hits by going doing so but then why haven't many others follow suit? Clearly there is scope here, I hope pop sensations like Jennifer Lopez, Black Eyed Peas etc in the US and lyricists here in India and the rest of the world can at least come up with one song aimed at REAL SOCIAL PROBLEMS relevant in their respective contexts. I see a huge potential here, these musicians can be champions of change, real heroes that everyone can look up to and I hope to live to see that day.

Modeling Time: Part Zero - Motivation

What IS Time? Why is it so mysterious?
Is it real or is it an illusion?
Do the words fate, destiny, inevitability and beating the odds have anything to do with it?
Why do some people say "It's fate" when they fail and some say "It's destiny" when they succeed and why are some people celebrated as "The ones who beat the odds"? What is beating the odds anyway?
What IS fate and what does "beating the odds" mean?

What is Time Travel? Is it really possible?
If so what are the conditions in the time model that make it possible? Is it always possible?
If not, then when is it possible and what will be its consequences?
Can we feel these consequences? If so, then how and if not then why not?

Finally why is understanding time important to us? What do we gain from this knowledge?
Will this understanding give us better control over it?

These are some of the questions that creep up everyday but we have got used to ignoring them. Think of all the times you have thought "What if....", "No way!....", "If only....". You were trying to understand Time to have better control over your future but in vain, we have asked ourselves these questions so often and failed to find an answer that we forgot that we were trying to do. But no more....this is where we take control....this is the moment to be stubborn and crack this nut called Time.

Modeling Time: Part One - Of Fate and Odds
Coming Soon.....

Teaching and Research - The Divide

Teachers. They are the 3rd biggest influence in our lives. From what I've experienced, the best teacher is one who follows the "No man is left behind" rule, that is the subject is taught in such a manner that everyone in the class understands the essence and unfortunately, this kind of teachers have become a rarity and surprisingly in universities(at least in the part of the world where I'm from) the number is even worse. I've been lucky to have known a handful of such teachers since my childhood and I owe them a lot of what I am today.

So now we ask ourselves why is it becoming increasingly difficult to find such teachers in universities. Let us take a look at some of the qualities that a teacher following the "No man is left behind" rule displays.
1. Mastery of the subject
2. Drawing analogies in everyday life to explain the subject matter
3. Good communication skills
4. A love for teaching

While anyone with mastery in the subject can't be a good teacher, a good teacher is always one who has mastery over his/her subject and the other 3 qualities on the list seem to be what differentiates a teacher who inspires his/her students from someone who make the students feel like they want to jump off a cliff! These qualities enable the teacher to teach the subject in a manner such that it is engraved into their students.

Now, lets see what universities(some of the best in my country - India) look for when they hire faculty.
1. Mastery of the Subject
2. Previous research done
3. Promise of future research activities

The evidence can't be any clearer, it happens most of the time that even though the research credentials of the hired faculty are top notch, they don't possess the necessary skill set to inspire their students and make them understand the subject at a deeper level. Now, neither these teachers nor the university takes any steps to bridge this divide but leave no stone unturned when complaining that the smartest students of the country are not interested in what there is to be taught and don't want to pursue research.

An MIT professor once said that if a student isn't feeling interested in the subject, then it is the teacher's fault. The basic trait that is lacking here is the ability to care about how much the students are able to take in, until this is taken care of one can't change in the faculty's style of teaching. But once such a feeling creeps up, it creates an immeasurable drive to refine his/her teaching style and present the material in a manner which seems natural and makes the students feel like it is almost intuitive.

The Verdict: Teaching needs to be given just as much importance as Research because only then will we be able to direct the best minds in the country towards research which would definitely empower the nation in a grand way.

Capitalism vs Socialism: What's best for the present world - A Technology Perspective

About me:
I'm a big fan of inter-disciplinary studies, I take observations made in one field and try to explain phenomena in other fields based on those observations.

Main:
Recently, I have had the honor of speaking to Dr. Jonathan Grudin. For those of you who don't know about him (which is probably you if you're not from The Tech Industry), he is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, a pioneer in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. You can read more about him in the following links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Grudin
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/jgrudin/

Dr. Grudin emphasized how important it is to keep up with technology and went on to give a lot of examples where dominant companies were brought to their knees because they couldn't keep up with disruptive technologies. Now, this sounds like a fairly well-known lesson in the Tech Industry, agreed but do you know what else we talked about? Acting ahead of the curve can be just as dangerous as being left behind. Doesn't it sound strange? As entrepreneurs, aren't we all encouraged to be futuristic? Then what's wrong with it? We don't quite see the catch until we look at a few examples.

1. There was a stage when early researchers in the field of Computer Graphics split into two - factions, one faction began researching on and developing Graphics based on Realism while the other favored work on Graphics based on Interaction. Realism based graphics is very computation intensive and the technology was not quite there yet with respect to the required computational power when the factions were created, as a result the faction which worked on Interaction based graphics made more money and fame and when the technology did arrive, many were quick to incorporate realism into their graphics and so the original team of visionary researchers who first dwell into this specialized field were not the big winners, one could even go on to say that they have been forgotten.

2. Steve Jobs was fired in 1985 because The Macintosh I was a failure(If you're shocked, then you're not from the Tech Industry). Now, the main reason the Mac I was a failure was that it didn't have enough memory to run anything useful on the machine(remember, memory was quite costly at that time). In other words, the Macintosh I was ahead of its time, they committed themselves to a product which required technological advances that weren't there yet. Luckily for Apple they were only off by a bit and with the success of The Macintosh II, they survived and as for Steve, tough luck.

3. Did you know that Bill Gates at Microsoft built the first Tablet PC? Did you know that companies like Lenovo and Fujitsu made Tablet PCs long before Apple? You probably didn't. Another example when being futuristic was of no use and Apple became the market leader in the tablet space.

So what do we learn from this? The key takeaway is that for an innovation to be successful, the timing of the release has to be perfect. Commit too early to the innovation and the result is failure, be too late to recognize and seize the opportunity - failure again, so we are left with a very narrow time frame to make our innovations successful, this is something a lot of entrepreneurs miss, we are taught that early adopters always have the upper hand when the disruption kicks in, but its not always true as we have seen here. So now, I hope I have convinced you that Acting ahead of the curve can be just as dangerous as being left behind.

Now, we come to the topic of discussion, Capitalism vs Socialism and which is better for the world today. Now, lets try to apply what we have just discussed. Think of "Human Nature" as the technology. Capitalism is more self-serving while Socialism is more about cooperation for mutual benefit backed by a strong notion of equality. Capitalism is about maximizing individual profits whereas Socialism is about collective well-being. Now, think of Capitalism and Socialism as two products built with technology "Human Nature". At this stage in our evolution, is The Human Nature is more closer to Capitalism or Socialism? Well, I have to say it is more closer to Capitalism. Think about it, everyday we see people putting themselves before everyone else, they help only as long as it is the best possible or one of the best possible scenarios to be in. At this point if you're thinking "That is not true!!" then I'm sorry to burst your bubble but you're the exception and most people around you are the rule. So Socialism is a product which is ahead of its time, the technology is not quite there yet, that is humanity has ways to go before we all can put a larger entity of which we're a part of ahead of ourselves and until that day Socialism will continue to struggle because simply the world is not ready for it yet. So at least for now, Capitalism is the way to go! If you're a fan of Socialism, the time is near and every big mistake which is a consequence of Capitalism brings the world ever closer to Socialism.