Same Drugs

I’ve been a fan of Chance the Rapper since he released his first mixtape, 2012’s 10 Day, which he recorded during a ten-day high school suspension for smoking pot. I was even more impressed by his second album, Acid Rap, which layered together a larger array of samples, live instruments, and voices, creating a constantly-shifting texture under Chance’s thoughtfully penned lines.

Though Kanye and Jay-Z took Chance under their wing, and though he toured as opener for Childish Gambino, he never signed with a label, and has repeatedly committed to releasing his music for free online.  So while Chance’s first two mix tapes were heavily listened to online, they never qualified for Grammy consideration, as the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences only recognizes music “commercially released in general distribution in the United States, i.e. sales by label to a branch or recognized independent distributor, via the Internet, or mail order/retail sales for a nationally marketed product.”

As a result, Chance’s free releases didn’t make the cut.  Which led to some serious grumbling in the music press; by broad consensus, Acid Rap was certainly good enough to warrant nomination.

Earlier this year, Chance released his third mixtape, Coloring Book. And this time, he put it up initially as an exclusive on Apple Music (though it’s now also online, per usual, for free).  This, too, probably falls short of the official Grammy requirements, though after a broadly-circulated online petition supporting streaming music’s inclusion hit 35,000 signatures, the NARAS is apparently reviewing an update to the language of the rules, which would push Chance (and a slew of other new, worthy contenders) into the mix.

Here’s a quick taste of Coloring Book, “Same Drugs”:

Chance sings on this one, rather than just rapping, with layers of gospel and electronica weaving their way through the background.  The song is about change over time, about how Chance has drifted away from ‘Wendy,’ who could be either (or both) his daughter’s mother or the city of Chicago (with Wendy a play on ‘windy’).

Throughout, Chance riffs off the Wendy name, weaving in elegiac references to Peter Pan:

When did you change?
Wendy, you’ve aged
I thought you’d never grow up
I thought you’d never…
Window closed, Wendy got old
I was too late, I was too late
A shadow of what I once was

or

Don’t forget the happy thoughts
All you need is happy thoughts
The past tense, past bed time
Way back then when everything we read was real
And everything we said rhymed
Wide eyed kids being kids
Why did you stop?
What did you do to your hair?
Where did you go to end up right back here?
When did you start to forget how to fly?

It’s a great song.  And the whole album is certainly worth the listen.  But, more broadly, let’s hope the Grammys catch up to 2016, and start allowing streaming music in for contention.  It would be wonderful to see the best up-and-coming artists (rather than just the same major label acts, year-in and year-out) get the recognition they deserve.

June 13, 2016

Rappin’ to the Beat

For my senior thesis at Yale, I wrote about the neurobiology of music, exploring the question of what makes music sound good.

The paper dove into a slew of topics, from how the physics of musical sound waves aligns with the structure of our cochlea (the spiral structure of our inner ear), to how melodic phrases seem to hijack the portion of our cortical brain used to parse sentence structure.

One thing that stuck with me from my research is the way in which our enjoyment of a song depends on its balance of novelty and familiarity.

Consider a melody that repeats a phrase three times: ba-da-dum, ba-da-dum, ba-da-dum.

Now, what does the melody do next? It could honor the repetition of the phrase (ba-da-dum again), or it could move to something new (ba-da-doo-doo-da-dee-da).

And, basically, we like music best when it does what we expect it to do roughly half of the time, and then does something unexpected the other half of the time. In other words, we like music best when it balances familiarity and novelty in equal amount.

That, in turn, leads to some other fascinating ideas. For example, how much we know about a certain style of music can change how well we can predict what happens next in that kind of music, which in turn determines how much we enjoy it.

Think about jazz, improvisational music built around a complex set of rules. If you understand the structure of those rules, your expectations of what ‘should’ happen next is different than if you don’t know the underlying structure.

That helps explain why regular jazz listeners gradually develop a preference for increasingly complex styles (which they slowly build the ability to understand, and therefore predict), yet that just sounds like unpleasurably random noise (all novelty, no familiarity) to a novice set of ears.

I’ve seen the same thing in hip hop, which over time has developed increasingly complicated structure. Serious devotees find the best new MCs to be unbelievably skilled poets, writing dense, interlaced, and self-referential rhyme schemes that would make Shakespeare blush. Whereas more casual listeners basically just hear somebody talking quickly over a beat.

To that end, I’d highly recommend this great explainer video from Vox, which traces the evolution of rapping over the last three decades. It’s a fun, short watch, full of very clear explanation, that I think will give anyone a much deeper appreciation for what makes great hip hop so very impressive:

May 20, 2016

Re-Reading

Five years ago, I recommended Paul and Shou-Ching Jaminet’s The Perfect Health Diet.

This week, as part of piecing together the nutrition component of Composite’s coaching, I finished it for the second time.

And, indeed, it holds up, remaining the very best diet book I’ve ever read.

While most diet authors ostensibly appeal to science in supporting their recommendations, their books tend to be long on discourse and short on citation, extrapolating broad claims from a small base of underlying research. Perfect Health Diet, by contrast, is literally 25% footnotes. The number of supporting studies the Jaminets bring to bear is impressively overwhelming.

I finished the book, as I did the first time, not only intellectually convinced that their recommendations were right, but emotionally compelled to tighten up my own eating (as I’d since drifted to sort of an 80/20 implementation of their approach).

Whether you’d like to lose some weight, maximize athletic performance or stave off disease and improve longevity, it’s worth checking out.

April 21, 2016

Hinkie Pinkie

Last week, Sam Hinkie, the controversial GM of the Philadelphia 76ers, resigned.

On his way out, he sent an investor letter to the owners of the team, in the vein of Warren Buffett’s annual letter for Berkshire Hathaway.

A few pages in, Hinkie concisely lays out the difficulties of his job:

Step away from basketball and imagine for a moment this is investment management, and your job is to take your client’s money and make it grow. It’s January 1, 2015 and the S&P 500 is $171.60, exactly the same price it has been since January 1, 1985. No fluctuation up or down. Flat every single day. And your job for every day of the past 30 years is to make money for your clients by investing. What would you do?

In the NBA, that’s wins. The same 82 games are up for grabs every year for every team. Just like in 1985 (or before). To get more wins, you’re going to have to take them from someone else. Wins are a zero- growth industry (how many of you regularly choose to invest in those?), and the only way up is to steal share from your competitors. You will have to do something different. You will have to be contrarian.

The rest of the letter covers Hinkie’s approach to thinking through that problem, drawing ideas (and great quotes) from people like Charlie Munger, Elon Musk, Steven Johnson, Jeff Bezos and more.

Even if you, like me, don’t care much about basketball, it’s worth a read.

April 14, 2016

Accumulate / Disperse

Recently, I’ve been reading The Book of Life, an online philosophy textbook by The School of Life. In short, the book is about “developing emotional intelligence through the help of culture.” As they put it:

We address such issues as how to find fulfilling work, how to master the art of relationships, how to understand one’s past, how to achieve calm and how better to understand, and where necessary change, the world. You will never be cornered by dogma, but we will direct you towards a variety of ideas from the humanities – from philosophy to literature, psychology to the visual arts – ideas that will exercise, stimulate and expand your mind.

Some of their content is stronger than other parts. But, if nothing else, it’s given me considerable food for thought.

This weekend, I read their article on “What Good Business Should Be.” It argues, among other points, that we should do good through accumulation, rather than just through dispersal:

The standard trajectory of philanthropy is: acquire a fortune by rigorous means and then disperse it to good causes. Plutocrats like Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick or Andrew Mellon made money in so-called ‘low’ areas of the economy like coal mining, railways, abattoirs, and packing factories – areas where you squeeze costs as tightly as you can and are always looking to reduce benefits as much as possible. However, once the money is in the bank, these rich people wholeheartedly turn their attention to ‘higher’ causes – among which art (and all that it celebrates, like kindness, beauty and tenderness) looms especially large.

It’s not ideal to ignore the higher needs of mankind for many decades while pulling together an astonishing fortune and then, later in life, suddenly to rediscover these higher needs via an act of immense generosity towards some localised little shrine of art (an opera house or a museum). Would it not be better and truer to the values underlying many works of art, to strive throughout the course of one’s life, especially within the money-generating day-job, to make kindness, tenderness, sympathy and beauty more alive and real in the world?

Tantalisingly and tragically, the difference between beauty and ugliness, goodness and cruelty is in most enterprises a few percentage points of profit. Therefore, for the sake of just a tiny bit of surplus wealth, wealth that isn’t strictly even needed, human life is daily being degraded and sacrificed.

It would be more humane if rich business people agreed to sacrifice a little of their surplus wealth in their main area of activity and in the most vigorous period of their lives, in order to render the workplace more noble and humane – and then bothered less with dazzling displays of artistic philanthropy in their later decades?

What we’re asking for is enlightened investment where a lower return is sought on capital in the name of Kindness and Goodness. There would be less fancy art at the end of it, but the values within works of art would be far more widely spread across the earth. The true test is how much goodness is done in the process of accumulation.

In the real world, the most effective philanthropists seem to embody the accumulate-then-disperse model. Consider Bill Gates, who in his Microsoft days was a step away from Monty Burns, yet who now runs arguably the most impactful nonprofit in history. And, on the other side, companies like Tom’s. Sure, they donate a pair of shoes for each pair they sell. But I often suspect that the net result is a large marketing boost, but only a very small external positive impact. It’s good through accumulation, sure, but a rather limited good.

Still, business good by accumulation is a different thing when it permeates every aspect of operations, rather than being simply bolted on the side of each purchase. Companies whose products or services themselves actually make consumers’ lives better, while also providing a livable wage to the employees – domestically and abroad – throughout their business and supply-chain.

For that kind of good business, the real driver remains in the hands of consumers. You can buy ethically-raised, locally-sourced beef, for example, that’s far healthier than factory-farmed steaks, and supports a sustainable nearby farm business, rather than a global food-manufacturing consortium. But most of us would rather save a few dollars at the register, even if we know the cheaper beef hurts us and our world more than the pricier farm-raised option. So, as The School of Life argues, there’s real need for education, for making consumers think more about their choices. Which, at some level, is what the Book of Life is about itself.

As I said, I don’t agree with everything I’ve read thus far. But I don’t begrudge the time spent reading any of it. Consider checking it out.

March 7, 2016

Rocking

On the chance that you missed the Oscars (and odds are pretty good you did, as this was the lowest-viewed Oscar telecast in quite a while), it’s still worth taking a moment to read Chris Rock’s scathing opening monologue.

Consider this no-punches-pulled excerpt:

“It’s the 88th Academy Awards. It’s the 88th Academy Awards, which means this whole no black nominees thing has happened at least 71 other times. O.K.?

You gotta figure that it happened in the 50s, in the 60s — you know, in the 60s, one of those years Sidney didn’t put out a movie. I’m sure there were no black nominees some of those years. Say ‘62 or ‘63, and black people did not protest.

Why? Because we had real things to protest at the time, you know? We had real things to protest; you know, we’re too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won best cinematographer.

You know, when your grandmother’s swinging from a tree, it’s really hard to care about best documentary foreign short.”

At a later point, Rock asks, “Is Hollywood racist? You’re damn right Hollywood is racist. But it ain’t that racist that you’ve grown accustomed to. Hollywood is sorority racist. It’s like, ‘We like you Rhonda, but you’re not a Kappa.'”

Which, based on my time in that world, rings totally true.

Interestingly, the tech world, which has it’s own issues with lack of diversity, often seems to be racist in the same way. Quietly racist: ‘but it’s a level playing field – it’s a meritocracy; and, look, I have black friends!’ Which, in a world of shootings and #blacklivesmatter, is far easier to ignore.

So, as a really, really white dude (though, look, I have black friends!), I applaud Rock for sticking his neck out last night. It pissed off a slew of people. But it’s a conversation this country badly needs to play out.

February 29, 2016

Hippos on Holiday

Each year, with the Oscars upon us, I miss working in film. But, really, it’s watching movies that I most enjoy, that feeling of being sucked for a short time into a different world. And regardless of where I am, of what I’m working on, I can still relish that pleasure. A movie ticket is a remarkably inexpensive luxury. And I can call entire libraries of them up to my home TV screen just by clicking play.

“Hippos on Holiday”
by Billy Collins

is not really the title of a movie
but if it were I would be sure to see it.
I love their short legs and big heads,
the whole hippo look.
Hundreds of them would frolic
in the mud of a wide, slow-moving river,
and I would eat my popcorn
in the dark of a neighborhood theatre.
When they opened their enormous mouths
lined with big stubby teeth
I would drink my enormous Coke.

I would be both in my seat
and in the water playing with the hippos,
which is the way it is
with a truly great movie.
Only a mean-spirited reviewer
would ask on holiday from what?

February 26, 2016

Entrepreneurial Time Management, Redux

About six months ago, I wrote about Dan Sullivan’s Entrepreneurial Time Management System. Since then, I’ve drifted away from the approach a handful of times. And, each time, like noticing attention drifting away from the breath while meditating and then refocusing on it, I’ve noted a drop in my work output, switched back to Sullivan’s approach, and been pleasantly surprised anew at both how much more I get done, and how much less stressed I feel.

Since the prior post, My only real change is a reorganization of when the different types of days fall in my average week. Instead of using Buffer days on Tuesday and Thursday to break up Monday, Wednesday and Friday Focus days, I now make Monday and Friday the Buffers, and do Focus work Tuesday-Thursday.

That uninterrupted stretch of really getting down to it seems to help hugely in terms of work output. And it dovetails well with a slew of additional suggestions from my friend Cal Newport’s great new book Deep Work, which is also worth a read.

As this is a Focus day, back to work!

February 25, 2016

Florence

With Oscar season well underway, studios are already starting to roll out potential contenders for next year’s awards. Which is how I found a trailer this morning for the inimitable Stephen Frears’ next film, Florence Foster Jenkins:

I am wildly excited about this film, in large part due to having just discovered Jenkins (the person) myself. A socialite and aspiring operatic soprano, she became famous for, according to one biographer, “her complete lack of rhythm, pitch, tone, and overall singing ability.”

In case you’re not already familiar with her ‘work,’ I’d highly recommend this stirring rendition of something vaguely resembling Mozart’s “Der Holle Rache:”

Zoinks.

February 22, 2016