Many of our first experiences with the infamous and ever-popular "Auto Tune" came from hearing things like Daft Punk's "One More Time." In other words, many of us came to associate Auto Tune fringe electronica with purposefully non-human voices singing very simple, but very vague lyrics.
The thing about this song when it came out in early 2001 is that it fit neatly into a genre of music which is based entirely on its total dependence on the computers and machines necessary to create it. Sure, some of the music you hear in "One More Time" came from samples of people playing real instruments (probably), but the song itself is in no way a primary source of human-created art. All of the primary source material (the raw human voice vocals, the original samples, etc) are filtered through an electronic medium, and we therefore experience the materials as secondary sources.
BET Awards Rap Up:
Usher started it out with a solid set of Love In This Club (check out this cover) that was disappointing only because of no cameo appearances.
Kanye wins Best Hip Hop artist over Lil Wayne, and then brings Wayne up on stage with him, praises Wayne, and leaves without saying Thank You to anybody.
T-Pain has a carnival circus performance that is all that is both good and bad about rap. Seriously I thought it was hilarious. Rick Ross is a joke. T-Pain is a joke. DJ Khaled is a joke. But damn it I love the I'm So Hood Remix.
Alicia Keys performs without a piano and then does a best of girl groups and brings out En Vogue... that took me back.
Somewhere in there there was this ridiculous spoof on Angelina Jolie and Madonna for adopting black children from Third World Countries where a black female adopted three white kids and challenged all the rappers in the audience to adopt white kids because it will help improve their credit rating.
It was ignorant as hell, but it was also pretty funny.
Then T-Pain and Kanye won an award and that was just coonage. Tpain approaches the stage in slow motion, while Kanye rants about how great T-Pain is and then adds insult to injury by reminding us that he is the King of this game and so we have to listen to him because his opinion counts. Once slow walking T-Pain (who is seriously going to be the next Flavor Flav) approached the stage he talked about how he couldn't get into this show two years ago.
I don't know it was a lowlight for me, very two years ago in fact.
But the Al Green tribute section was a real treat. Jill Scott, Anthony Hamilton, and Maxwell all sang covers and then the man himself took the stage and just really put on a show. It might have been a lifetime achievement award but Al Green put most of the young current performers to shame!
In a weird twist Weezy F Baby accepted the viewer's choice award with a passionate tribute to God. And he brought up his entire family. Did I mention the passionate tribute to God. Bizarre.
The only thing good about Lil Wayne's performance was the last verse of Milli. Seriously T-Pain ruined it. I think I would have rather have seen Kanye - say what you want but Kanye is going to give his 110% every time he steps on the stage - tonight Wayne seemed like he was still warming up.
Overall the BET Awards was really good this year. I never thought I would say this but BET is redeeming my faith in black people.
Oh, and I want to marry Alicia Keys.
