Album Review: Take Care (Drake)

Artist: Drake

Album: Take Care [Deluxe Edition]

Genre: Hip-Hop/R&B

Release Date: November 15, 2011

Truly, I could never say I was a "fan" of Drake before Take Care. The so-called Young Money protege behind Lil Wayne and Birdman, just never seemed to impress me and always strayed far behind any artist who combined hip-hop and R&B. Take Care, shed a new light on my perception of Drake. Although it isn't my album of the year, it is a refreshing breath on something I thought we've seen the full potential of.

The album starts off with what I thought was a typical hip-hop album introduction of this decade (good sample, deepest lyricism of the album...Really if you wanted to know more I could refer you to at least 10 other albums that followed this same pattern) but actually became my favorite track on the album. Over My Dead Body features Chantal Kreviazuk (Thank you for passing on Nicki Minaj) and sets the mood of the whole album, when I say that I mean that Drake really had some "I guess you win some, lose some," moments on this album.

Promptly followed by Over My Dead Body, Drake shows more of his emotional side through his song Shot For Me, which really exemplifies his previous relationships and how they've affected his connections with his closest ones. As an emotional song, Drake stays mostly to his singing and more of an R&B feel to get his point across, which works well with the objective song. Picking up after Shot For Me, the album picks up in intensity with the first single of the album Headlines where Drake keeps strictly to his rapping and even takes a few shot at his "haters" by stating "I might be too strung on compliments, overdosed on confidence," well you get the point...


As the very mood-dependent roller-coaster known as Take Care continues, the album slows back down to fit for the song Crew Love, which features R&B artist The Weeknd and is the slowest track on the album. Picking back up the intensity of the roller-coaster, Take Care which features Rhianna brings Drake back to one of the deepest lyricism of his rapping on the album.


The albums slows back up again with Marvins Room/Buried Alive Interlude, which is a very experimental form of Drakes mixture of styles, but works well through his experimentation. The album picks back up for the next few tracks as Drake uses his rapping on the songs Underground Kings and We'll Be Fine. 


Drakes second single off Take Care, Make Me Proud which features Nicki Minaj is one of the catchiest tracks on the album, that had the hook stuck in my head for a week after the release and also had one of the best rap instrumentals of the album. Continuing on the upbeat run of the album, Lord Knows, the best hip-hop instrumental on the album features Rick Ross and the producing styling of Roc-A-Fella records producer, Just Blaze. Both Drake and Rick Ross work well on the track, and really use the instrumental to its full potential. 


What is a Young Money records production without a song that reps "the team"? Cameras/ Good Ones Go Interlude, is a track where Drake reps his "team" (Young Money, Cash Money Records) with the repetitive lyrics of "how you mean, how you mean, what you know about the team?" 


The album takes a more slow approach on the next three tracks, Doing It Wrong, The Real Her, and Look What You've Done but show Drakes best R&B feel of the album with those three tracks. The Real Her features Lil Wayne and Andre 3000, Outkast's true hip-hop gentleman as rare of a feature as this is (Andre 3000 only does about 5-6 features a year, but always delivers on every feature) and really shows a strong R&B mixture on this track.


The album picks back up and continues to at a more upbeat pace with the next three tracks HYFR, Practice, and The Ride. Practice was one of the most creative tracks on the album, the instrumental is a slower paced version of Southern rapper Juvenille's 1998 popular track Back That Azz Up and Drake mixes his singing and rapping on this song, by taking some parts of the original song and adding a lot of his own to make it a brilliant refreshing version of the original (sorry Juve, but you can't compete with Drake's singing).


Overall, the album was in my opinion, Drakes best work of art thus far. Regardless the album competes for dominance between his R&B singing and his hip-hop rapping, the album found a way to make it work in a brilliant way. The album features a lot of well-known artists including Andre 3000, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, The Weeknd, and Rihanna. Even though there was those "I guess you win some, lose some,"* moments the overall "outcome is income."*


*(Reference to Over My Dead Body)

My Rating:

Decemeber Preview

I did a November preview, that really never did pan out the way I wanted it to. I did mention the "f-word" in my November preview, otherwise known as Finals. Due to Finals, we were asked to stop blogging (since this blog is for my AP Lang class). So, a majority of what I wanted to write  in November was pushed back and I'll try and get that this month. So now, where do we start...

December is a great month in my opinion. Once you get past the blistering cold, the days of rainy slush, and the endless wind chills you definitely learn to love the month of December. It truly is a festive month with Christmas right around the corner, every store and house in town is decorated with their Christmas lights [queue All of the Lights by Kanye West] and fun and festive sweaters are worn without a care in the world. I definitely will try and be blogging about December and the great festivities of the month. Expect that later in the month.

Along with the holidays and the festive month of December, one of the things I'll be blogging about are some of the popular gift ideas of the winter months, especially the video games that are most prominent in the winter months. This year has been home to some great video games, a lot of sequels as well.

On the topic of entertainment, music has been a prominent part of this blog and you couldn't expect me to forget about that. Expect a few album reviews including Drake's Take Care, The Roots's Undun, and The Black Keys's Camino. Those are three key albums I plan on reviewing through the month of December. 

Music is not one of the only things that has been a prominent part of my blog under the category of entertainment and what better than my favorite thing of sports. December will be the home of the start of the NBA season after painfully sitting through the lockout since July 1st, and we thank you for finally ending it. Expect to see some coverage over the NBA in these winter months.

Last but not least, I'll be continuing the Lessons in the Newsroom series. I've been quite lax on these, since I've kind of wanted to think them out more before I put them out. I'm going to try and reconstruct them a little bit, make them more entertaining and get some more social, digital media usage of these posts (such as pictures and videos). Be on the lookout for a few of these as I reconstruct them and try and make them the best they can be.

Be on the lookout for all the new content, thank you for reading, and have a great December month. 

Fantasy Football Fanatic

I love sports, I really do. A majority of my time is spent playing them, watching them, or following them. Every year, there comes a time where I am following the game almost constantly on the weekend and that is generated by one thing, fantasy football. I am a fantasy football fanatic, it seems strange that pointless statistics of non-popular players could be the thing that makes or breaks your week, but its all for the love of the game and I love the NFL and fantasy football.


Before about 2008, I was always skeptical about fantasy sports. Back then, I was really into NBA basketball, since it has always been my favorite sport. That was the first year I had any experience with fantasy sports. I was invited to a Yahoo fantasy basketball league by my brother and it was a rather lame league and I neglected my team pretty much all that year. When it came to any other sports, basketball always came first, and everything else seem like a distant second.

It was 2009-2010 season where I played fantasy football for the first time. I had a condescending attitude of hesitation when I joined that league, but what I didn't know is that it would change my perspective of sports for a long time to come. I started the league and was in it with a few friends from school, I really didn't know much about the NFL, expect what I needed to know to watch it every Sunday. I knew a few players, I knew that I loved the Chicago Bears, and I knew that basketball would always be my favorite sport to follow no matter what.

I finished that season 2-14, I didn't follow it like most the other people, but something about that year changed my perspective on fantasy sports and sports in general. I became more open and unbiased to my love of sports, I simply loved fantasy football, I loved football, and basketball still was my favorite to watch. Even though my record didn't quite show it that year, I still loved following it every Sunday, watching each player on my team with every chance I got and having my mood depend on pointless statistics that when I got to school Tuesday morning after the football games for the week, meant absolutely nothing.

Last year, I joined two fantasy football leagues, I got a little more serious with fantasy football and quickly put my love of the NBA second to my love of the NFL. I joined one $25 dollar league with a bunch of friends and two of my brothers, which ultimately became the league I was most applicable of having a chance to win. I also joined another league as a co-owner with my sister, which was a keeper auction league, it was a $75 dollar league and now that I joined these leagues there was money on the line.

The keeper auction league quickly became my favorite, there was so much strategy behind it, it just made me want to research more players and keep playing, it distracted me from school and I just kept on searching for more ways to win. I finished that league 4-12, and was not much better than the year before, but it still kept me going. I finished 9-7 in the other league and still wasn't enough to be in the top 3.

This year, I stepped up my fantasy football managing and also became a commissioner of my own league. It's been a pretty decent year for me. The auction keeper league I started out 3-0, but went on a 5 game losing streak due to the fact I lost 4 of my top players (Jamaal Charles, Kenny Britt, Tim Hightower, and Jahvid Best). I'm currently 12/14 in that league with a 3-5 record, but still follow it closely. The league I'm commissioner of I've had better luck I drafted the top running back and top wide receiver (Adrian Peterson and Calvin Johnson). I'm currently 5-3 in that league and in 5th place.

To you, this is pointless statistics, to me this is research and what will be able to make or break my week.

Fantasy football changed my perspective on sports. I feel that because of it I've became more open to other sports. I was incredibly biased towards the NBA and as basketball will remain my favorite sport and the sport that is always there for me, the NFL has become my favorite sport to follow, simply because it is the most interactive experience in football. I never thought before that I'd know who Kregg Lumpkin is, or that Calvin Johnson scored two touchdowns every game in the first four weeks of the league this year. It's those pointless statistics that keep my sane in each coming week, the ones that can make or break my week, and the ones that just occupy some of my time and make my further my love of the game and when the NBA is out of the lockout, I'll be there waiting to participate in fantasy basketball, waiting to watch game one by one, and loving every minute of the playoffs, but for now the NFL has dominated my weekends and changed my perspective of sports. I love sports, and fantasy sports are a great measure of that.

Lesson 4: A little fun in the newsroom never hurts.

"I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun."- Thomas A. Edison


Sometimes the quote above is how we always feel while we produce the magazine. We work hard, and we play hard as well. While working on the magazine most people outside of class and staff think of it as strictly a class where we write all day, do interviews, take pictures, and quietly obey a teacher like most classes at school. It is the complete opposite of that. We've always said that Torch is a family and as cliche as that sounds, we sometimes act like one big family. By the end of the day, as much work has went into it, how many occasional "damps" and "ships" (No Swear November censorship) directed at the computer, and just any speed bumps in the road, we always find a way to have fun.

I believe that we do a lot of work and really it can be quite stressful sometimes, especially with five/six other classes, it piles up. One thing we've really learned to do though, is make it work, make the best of it and have fun with it. Most of our staff this year is an editor and on top of that a reporter as well. Being a reporter is always a fun part of the job but is quite intimidating at first, especially if you get a story you really want to cover. It's funny to think that three years ago, I was scared to talk to anybody about an interview when I was a beginning journalist, but now I love it. An interview isn't just a way to get a source, it's a productive way to have a conversation with somebody about your topic. I was taught in that beginning journalism class, that an interview isn't an interview, it's a conversation, it's a way to get to know somebody, and meet new people. Simply by making it work, you can take one of the scariest parts of journalism and make it fun.

All the time, I get asked by people... "What exactly do you do?" and I usually reply somewhere along the lines of "stories, pages, hangout, and have fun," because really we aren't tied down to doing stories and pages. Of course, we take them seriously and we try and make them the best we can, but we have fun while doing it. One of the parts of staff that is usually really fun for editors, is work session. Work sessions are where the editors get together and create the pages that will be seen in the final production. Instead of constantly working, we usually play loud music, have raves (strobe light+ a bunch of teenagers cooped up in school long past regular hours= awesome dancing), eat, give back massages, a lot of hugs, and did I mention eat? It's not that we are just focused on it at all times, and I believe that is one common misconception that we get. Of course this probably isn't seen on a wider scale, such as the New York Times or ESPN. I doubt you'll ever see Michael Wilbon of ESPN raving around with Tony Kornheiser (wouldn't we all like to see that?) but still journalism is fun and with a good support cast, we tend to make it work by having fun.

Every time I get the question of what we do, I always feel that people have a perception of just another boring Language Arts class. As a news-magazine, I believe that we are far from a boring Language Arts class, I believe that there is so much to us than just work. Everybody is always so accustomed to each other on our staff and I think sometimes we just have a little too much fun, but is there anything as too much fun if you truly think about it? Journalism is fun, is the one form of work that your today is different from your tomorrow, there is so many twists, turns, and bumps along the road, but once you get the final piece out there it's such an accomplishment. Being apart of the news-magazine staff especially in high school is definitely a great experience and you will run across some problems, but like I've said, make it work and have fun and everything will seem better by the day it's published.

November Preview

I've been stressed, tired, overexerted, and quite frankly unmotivated lately. My theory behind this is school. The fun of October swiftly blows away as the weather changes and November becomes cold and disastrous, especially in school. As a student, I've always loved school, but have always been fed up with the way teachers act when it gets closer and closer to the "f-word"....Finals. In my opinion, we need to just step back and chill, since November is such a festive and great month. Two posts you should see in November are my ones pertaining to how great of a November month is through tradition and festivities as well as how that is ruined (by school and finals). We shouldn't have to stress about teachers laziness (not all teachers, some work very hard and I appreciate that) but really some are just starting to piss me off...Wait a second is piss considered a swear word anymore? I'm also participating in a self-made month where I give up swearing, I'll blog about that as well.

After final test exams, our paper and majority of our staff will be going to the JEA National Convention in Minneapolis. Definitely expect coverage of that on my blog, I'll definitely be putting up a lot of photos (whether or not they are pertaining to journalism and the convention or not), maybe a video, and after the convention a nice little blurb about the experience of it. The convention is one of our favorite times of the year and last year we pretty much left our mark on the Kansas City convention (getting an indirect mention about having a little too much fun in the revolving doors, oops).

This leads us right up to the end of the month and Thanksgiving, one of my favorite Holidays. I expect that I'll blog about Thanksgiving and all the festivities I love. One of the festivities that comes with fall, is football, and with football comes fantasy football, expect to know further into the life of fantasy alter-ego (who is crazy). Last but not least, expect a few lessons in the newsroom as well. I've been kind of slow to churn those out and the ones I did weren't the direction I wanted, but expect to see more in November and in the coming months. It's really hard to blog about one topic, and I chose journalism because there is such a broad spectrum of things to talk about, but once I got down to the lessons I was stumped, and that is why you have seen a lot of different sides of my blog now: music, sports, viral sensations, and anything else.

Thank you to anybody who has read my blog thus far, regardless I've been kind of lacking on them as the requirement for the class, I plan on catching up and using my blog more, especially having the one week break will be a really good time to get some blogs out there. That is what you can expect for November, hopefully you will enjoy!

Viral Sensation: Take This Lollipop

Being the Facebook nut I am, I stumbled upon a strange link that a friend posted to my wall. I saw that it was an interactive Facebook video, which I have loved in previous videos like it (Arcade's Fire Wilderness Downtown and Office Max's Elf Yourself). I didn't know what to expect, I clicked on it and was in for a rather interesting surprise.


I clicked to accept the Facebook permission module that allows different applications and websites to access your Facebook profile, something loaded and I was prompted to "Take the Lollipop". Then the video popped up and I was in a strange hallway, watching a man on a computer. He went to Facebook, typed in his password, and suddenly he was on my Facebook profile.


I don't want to ruin the rest, but if you haven't tried it, I definitely would (especially if you are feeling the Halloween spirit). I was actually quite scared by it for a minute, but then laughed and continued. Since it was so interactive it felt real. After that I quickly deleted all application data from my Facebook and shared it with a few friends.


I'm not really the type of person that is into horror films, but around Halloween time, a little hi-jinx and horror can be appealing. After watching Take the Lollipop, I quickly began thinking, is this the future for films and horror films? Of course, it is only a two minute short, but with technology always changing it makes me wonder if interactive movies and shorts like this will become more prominent in the future. 


As unrealistic as it seems, I doubt that horror films would ever take too big of a turn other than the cliche films that have been re-made thirteen times in the past decade but with new interactive videos like this, it really makes me think, will entertainment become more interactive? Its already evident that it will continue to rise and become more popular. 


Overall, this website is just another example of how technology is on the rise. It really made me question that interactive videos like this will probably become more prominent, especially with the realism of the access of the Facebook account. If you haven't checked it out, be sure to do so, especially if you're a horror fan. Just don't be too scared.

Since I have only 20 minutes to live, I thought I'd cut this
blog post short and enjoy the last 20 minutes of my life. 

Behind the scenes: Podcast

This year we jumped into the world of social media, like I have mentioned in Lesson #3: Change. One of the things that we started doing differently this was getting more into the world of video journalism. I had thought about doing this my Sophomore year, especially since we had a great video editor in class that really loved the idea, but with so much going on we never really followed through with the idea until this year. This year we got two additions to staff that hadn't taken the prerequisite journalism class, and were really looking for a way to occupy themselves, we decided to do the podcast. 


Thus far the podcast has been a lot of work, but has been a lot of fun and is one of the most exciting things that we've created lately. It has received a lot of criticism but has gained a large fan base and more compliments then criticism which is exactly what we like to see.


Much like my How the Paper Works behind the scenes, I will give a quick run down of how the podcast works.


Step 1: We decide what to cover. Much like how we decide with our magazine we usually pick exciting things going on around the school (that are timely to the video) and just show an exclusive behind it and show video coverage of it.


Step 2: Choosing the outfits. On our podcast we try and look as great as we can (not like we already don't) so when deciding to do the podcast we have to look our best! 


Step 3: Recording the coverage. We usually cover clubs, sports, and activities that are going on, so we have to get there in time and record us being active with whatever it is.


Step 4: Recording in the studio. We then have to record us talking and get the video of us with the green screen behind us. This is usually the hardest part because we have a lot of fun doing it, and when we mess-up it usually generates a lot of laughs. 


Step 5: Editing. The editing process can be interesting. Putting the chroma keyer (green screen generator) to work can be questionable because there is a lot of technical stuff that is really hard to iron out. Then we put it all together and render the final video.


Step 6: Posting to the web. We did the first two installments on Friday, but then switched to Monday to give us more time to get everything put together well, then we post to the web. We also show it through to the school through our announcement system.


Then we re-do the process on a weekly basis.


With the new podcast, we had to get a lot of new equipment. We have two Sony Bloggie video cameras that were recently provided by a parent of a student who graduated from the school last year (which was incredibly generous, and we thank you). We use Sony Vegas 10 Pro and iMovie 11 as software to edit our videos. 


Overall the podcast has been an exciting edition to the journalism program at our school. We have fun while doing it, people like it, and it really is a fun process. 

Usually I'm not self-endorsed but please view our first installment of the video above and check out our video work through that Youtube channel.


Thank you!

Lesson #3: Change.

"Change is such hard work."-Billy Crystal 

Change. It's apart of the newsroom, and this year it seemed like most of our production changed. As I mentioned times before, our newspaper was switched to a magazine, we have a new leadership along with a new adviser, and we've leaped our production forward with a whole new world of social media. The change that we've overall decided for seems like it has put us in a completely different setting then we've been previously accustomed to. Even though much has changed and our workloads have increase, the change does payoff.


One of the largest changes this year was announcing that our newspaper would be changed to a magazine. At first, I was skeptical of this change, since I had been so used to the newspaper and it had been in place for the past 25 years. This month we had released our first issue, I was rather excited to see how the new format would look. My skepticism was easily cut with the first slice of the box that held the papers on distribution day, I loved the new format. The magazine was loved by the school and especially our staff and now there is no more question behind the format. The change took plenty of hard work when it came to changing the format, we had to learn to make the paper more visual and more like a magazine and we had to set up more pages, which overall took longer.


Another change came this year with our new adviser and new student leadership. The paper is partially overlooked by students (usually senior students, so you do see your fair share of different leadership from freshman year to senior year). It seemed weird at first not to have our old adviser since he had been the face of the paper for so long, but after some work in the summer and with a lot of help in the first few weeks of school we all quickly adjusted. Along with the new adviser, we got our fair share of top dog editors which always takes some adjusting but by the third or forth issue you are well accustomed to them.


The biggest change in my opinion came this year when we decided to jump into the world of social media. Social media is media in the form of online that really allows for people to be apart of the news rather than it being a one time production. We used to have a rather popular publication website that won 3rd in the state two years back, but we took an off year and jumped back in. We set up a new website that is being worked on a lot, we started a twitter (which has been a huge hit with the students in the school) and we also started a podcast of four people apart of the staff (yours truly included). With this huge change comes a lot of work. The website is taking countless hours of two editors that have been working incredibly hard, the twitter has been rather effortless but just a fun way to get more people involved, and the podcast has taken a lot of work to get perfect (especially with the fact that we release it every week). All the hard work will pay off once we truly get all the social media in play, but it is a change that is taking a lot of adjusting and a lot of work, but hopefully will pay off big.


Overall, change is a large part of any publication. With technology always changing, the possibilities are becoming endless which leads to this being a rather large trend journalistically or rather in any profession. It takes hard work for something to change, and change takes hard work, but can really be worth it in the long run.

Motown Sports Revival

As a Detroit Tigers fan, I've always had a soft spot for Detroit and Michigan teams. The first MLB game I ever attended was a Detroit Tigers game and it was actually one of the funnest experiences in professional sports, my first NBA game was a Detroit Pistons game and it was as exciting as watching a game 7 playoff game, regardless it was the Christmas day game. Regardless I've grown up a fan of the San Antonio Spurs rather than the Detroit Pistons or a Chicago Bears fan rather than a Detroit Lions fan, I've always liked to watch any Detroit team. It is maybe for the fact that I do have family in Detroit which makes it lean that way, but I believe overall that Detroit sports are just fun to watch. 


This year, in my opinion marked a pivotal point in Michigan sports. Lately they've had a rather strange reputation in the sporting world and I feel that this year, they have all turned it around and as a fan of Detroit the city overall, I hope that the sports teams have some effect on the city and it helps rejuvenate the city in a better state. As of May 2011, the city of Detroit has a 20% unemployment rate, which is leader in the United States. It is truly sad to see one of the cities that used to be of such an opulent city of the United States being destroyed as it is. It does seem strange that one of the most prominent cities of the twentieth century, has been reduced to what it now is. The video below truly shows that a such a cultural city when Henry Ford reigned the world of economics, has been destroyed in the past few decades.

I still believe that the city of Detroit can be resurrected, I believe it will take time and good leadership of the city [which is arguably one of the hardest things to find anywhere in government today] but I believe that it starts somewhere, maybe in the sporting world, but this year has truly marked a pivotal point in the Michigan sports world so I believe that we should celebrate that.

Detroit Lions (5-1)

Who saw this coming? The Detroit Lions starting the season out 5-0 for the first time since 1956, but recently got their first lost to the San Francisco 49ers. As odd as it seems that in the 07-08 season they finished the year of 0-16 and were the bearer of all bad NFL jokes. The Detroit Lions never really had a good reputation before their 0-16 season either, which only fueled the Lions being one of the worst NFL teams. After a few changes and after gradually getting a few wins each season. The Lions completely turned it around this season and are on pace for a playoff season tied atop the NFC North with the Green Bay Packers. 

Detroit Tigers (95-67, Lost in ALCS)

I'll admit, as a Detroit Tigers fan this is a little too early to be talking about them losing in the ALCS, but I'm a proud fan and they made a great run, one of the best we've seen them since 2006. This year they were phenomenal, they had the triple crown winner with Justin Verlander and they had five players in the all-star game including: Alex Avila, Miguel Cabrera, Jose Valverde, Jhonny Peralta, as well as Justin Verlander. This was great year for the Tigers and nobody in the MLB expected them to make this great of a run. Making it that deep into the playoffs, having so many singular player honors, and overall just having an amazing season makes Tigers fans proud to be fans.

Michigan Wolverines Football (5-1)

I had to include this little tidbit. The Michigan Wolverines started out 5-0, playing out of Ann Arbor they are one of the most popular teams in the Michigan area and even in Detroit. Michigan has started atop the Big 10, and have had their best looking season in years. They lost to rival Michigan State, who has also started of well.

As for the Detroit Red Wings, they've started off their season well at 4-0 atop the Central division of the NHL. It's too early in the season to judge their season, but thus far they're looking good. As for the Detroit Pistons, everything is a toss-up due to the unnecessary NBA lockout, as for now the season seems as it will be cancelled.

This pivotal point seems peculiar for all their teams to have started off [in the Tigers case ended] really well. If they do somehow have a Detroit dynasty [such as the Boston dynasty that recently had all five of it's professional teams win a championship in six different years] I believe that Detroit, the city, could follow the lead. Hopefully now that attendance rates are skyrocketing [Tiger's 2010 season home attendance: 2,461,237. Tiger's 2011 season home attendance: 2,642,045] it'll allow for some more jobs to be circulated at stadiums such as Ford Field or Comerica Park. It's sad to see the city of Detroit being destroyed from such a cultural hub of the early 1900's, hopefully one day in the future that turns around just as the sports teams of Detroit are currently doing.

Soul music has been resurrected.

The last time I heard a soul album that had interested me was probably Ray Charles's My World album or Stevie Wonder's A Time to Love. I had always been a fan of soul music, whether it'd be listening to my Pandora radio station of Billy Stewart (never heard? Listen right now) or listening to the soul records I had bought from garage sales for 25 cents a piece on my turntables. Especially with my generation of people, who listen to dull mainstream music that has been milked to the point which every song sounds the same but the artist is the only difference, it seems apparent that soul music is dead. I had this notion for a while, until I was presented with an missed opportunity like no other.


A friend had asked me if I was going to the Mayer Hawthorne and the Country concert about a week ago. I had heard the name and knew they were playing at a venue near by for cheap, but never knew who exactly this band was. I had thought it was some rock band that seemed unappealing due to their name (never judge a book by a cover, or never judge a band by it's name is something that should always be used before determining whether you like them or not). This week, I had heard about the concert from the same friend and I was appalled by the way they had described it, I quickly acted as if I knew what they were talking about closed my Facebook chat window, and switched to one of my favorite websites, Wikipedia.

I looked up Mayer Hawthorne, and quickly found myself looking at a rather stylish Caucasian man with a few people with guitars and other instruments backing him. My preconceived notion that he it was a rock band was true, until I had looked at the genre and saw: soul.

I read a description of him and was surprised, he was a cool looking guy out of one of my favorite cities of Ann Arbor, Michigan. I saw it and couldn't believe it, a soul artist out of Michigan who is making soul music in this day and age, I had to check out his music. I quickly went to another favorite website of mine: YouTube, and did a search of his name. I started listening to his song: How Do you Know. I loved it, and pretty much listened to about 10-15 of his songs. The thing that drew me in the most is that hes a 32 year old guy who had this soulful voice that I haven't heard in any music in the past decade or so.


I listened to his album Strange Arrangements, and bought the album on iTunes (I try not to buy my music digitally, so that was a big enough deal already). Mayer Hawthorne and the Country, blew me away. I love soul music, it's just something that always really seemed interest me, and when I found Mayer Hawthorne I was excited. He has a new album being released in two days, hopefully I can post a review of the album.


Overall, if you're a fan of soul or want to get into a modern version of soul (which sounds much like older soul) I'd recommend listening to Mayer Hawthorne. There is an overall lesson in this post and I guess it's definitely the "Don't judge a book by it's cover" because you might just end up loving it. Mayer Hawthorne gives me hope for a dying genre music, and I thank you for that.

Behind the scenes: How the Paper works

I do realize I should've probably made this one of my first posts, but better now than later.

Step one: Pre-production. There is about a week, where we really try and get solid stories and work through them. We start out by having a discussion about the best stories and then we keep on narrowing it down. Once we decide which stories we want in the paper, we give the writers the story assignments and they decide what to do with the stories.

Step two: Production. We start producing the stories, working on page layout skeletons (setting up the pages on paper, to transfer what you want to pages) and making our paper what it is. This is the time where we actually have to get stuff done and work the hardest. Most of the advertisements we are going to use come in during this "step" (we actually don't have steps, I'm just simplifying it for the sake of this post).


Step three: Production, part 2. This is where we finalize the paper and get it ready. This is where we really start to edit our stories and finalize them (copy edit them, make sure all the style rules are in place and all grammatical errors are ironed out, regardless there tends to be a few that slip through every issue). We finish our page layouts and spend hours at work session getting it together. Then we send it in for our final production.


Step four: Post-Production. This is where we handle all the things that lead us up to distribution week. We send out things to our advertisers, talk about how the issue went, and work on anything else that needs to be done.


Step five: Distribution. A week where we wait so long for Friday to come. Distribution comes to play on Friday, where we get boxes of our fresh magazines, and we're all happy because our work finally goes on display to the whole world (regardless I doubt many of them even leave our town). We go to each class in the school and give out the magazines and then we read over our work again. Distribution is one of the funnest parts of being on a production staff, because everyone gets to see what you've worked so hard for.

Rating Scale for Album Reviews

 0/10: Very unlikely to ever happen, but has no music elements at all. No  reason at all to why I' m reviewing.

 1/10: Has zero good qualities, possibly a good song, very inconsistent and a mockery of music itself.

 2/10: Overall an inconsistent, boring, or copied album that really has no music elements, but still has some a track or two that might be a debatable listen.

3/10:  Bland or boring album, has some strong points but not many. Listenable not as a whole, but may have some tracks that could be a good listen. 

4/10: Not too exceptionally bad, but does still have some questionable work. May be listenable as a whole, but slightly under average. 

5/10: Average album. Has some strong points and is quite listenable, but may overuse some elements, may be inconsistent, or just have too much generic elements of the album. 

6/10: Above average. Starting to be an album worth listening to that is consistent enough that it is a good-listen. Works well together, but still may have a few questionable elements but a small enough amount that it doesn't distract from the album as a whole.

7/10: Good album. It works well and is a good listen. Nothing is too bad, a good listen a few times through. Is an album that can be enjoyed by many tastes of music.

8/10: Great album. More listenable and more of a pleasant listening experience than a seven, you can listen a few times through and it is an album that can be enjoyed by many.

9/10: Near-classic status. It works well, has almost no flaws, and may be considered perfect to some people. 

10/10: Classic album. Enough said. Perfect.

Album Review: Cole World: The Sideline Story

Apart of what I do on the newspaper staff is write review stories [mostly music] and as I said in the About Me post, I'd try to incorporate some other tastes aside journalistic analysist as a side dish of my blog. Since I'm known as the "music guy" in my publication, I thought that it'd be fitting that I added in reviews of albums that I want to review.


This album is an album that I've looked forward to since I heard of the artist J. Cole. It was recently released and we were in the middle of a publication cycle, so to fit this into the newspaper would've been hard. Since I was unable to write this for my newspaper, I really wanted to review it and give it a home [we don't really do much with reviews on our online publication outlet] and decided to review it for my blog. I'm also limited to words through the publication and so this gives me a chance to thoroughly review the album.

Artist: J. Cole

Album: Cole World: The Sideline Story

Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap

Release Date: September 27th, 2011

With the common notion in today's music world that "hip-hop is dead" J. Cole's album proves that there is still hope for this so-called breed of dead music. Cole World: Sideline Story was everything that it should have been and more and is one of the most intriguing debuts of a rapper since Kanye West's The College Dropout (2004).

Mentored by one of the greats of hip-hop Jay-Z, J. Cole made noise on the street and quickly became one of the most anticipated rap artists to be release music in a long time. When J. Cole started out with his debut Mixtape The Come Up, he never thought that he would've been signed to Rocafella records and would've never thought he had a chance to be a protege of Jay-Z.

After J. Cole had announced his album via Twitter he was quick to give the fans what they wanted. Even though the album was released later than originally slated, he made up for it by giving his fans special attention by his series of Any Given Sunday posts on his blog Dream Villain which gave his fans extra songs and videos for free.

Cole World: Sideline Story starts out with an introduction track which J. Cole has become famous for, he gives a simple rap on a 1 minute 22 second track, which captured the whole album perfectly. The Intro was followed by Dollar and Dream III, which had been a series of tracks he had also included on his mixtapes, which really followed his deep lyricism with very orchestrated and slow instrumentals.

Followed by Dollar and Dream III, J. Cole follows up with two up-tempo songs [which were both released prior to the album, one on a mixtape and one as a single] with the tracks Lights Please and Can't Get Enough, which were both deep with lyricism but lightened up the song with up-tempo instrumentals. 

The Interlude was followed by Can't Get Enough, where J. Cole tells a story of how he was arrested the day he got signed to Rocafella records, which is is an enlightening tale of the album and adds a laugh in between the album. Sideline Story quickly puts the album back into the same feel with a well orchestrated instrumental and deep lyricism. 

The most anticipated track of the album Mr. Nice Watch which features Jay-Z (which is why it is the most anticipated track, we've been awaiting a duo between these two since The Come Up) the song seems to be a different feel for both of them, but worked well. It was a different lyrical feel for J. Cole, but the instrumental was one that definitely draws in the listener. Even though it was the most anticipated track on the song, it feels different from the overall feel of the album.

The albums follows up with Cole World, which is a track that seems to follow Mr. Nice Watch well because its rather an up-tempo track. In the Morning was a track that was released prior to the album and features popular hip-hop artist Drake. The song has a less lyrical feel and a slower instrumental than than most of the album, which gives the feel of an R&B song.

The rest of the album follows the lyrical path with deep instrumentals and include the tracks: Lost Ones, Never Told, Rise and Shine, God's Gift, and Breakdown. All these tracks show the consistency of the album. The two remaining tracks Nobody's Perfect and Work Out [first single of the album], follow a different style from the album, but are two very solid parts of the album.

Overall the album is a solid and consistent album. The lyrical craftsmanship shows the prominence of J. Cole in the hip-hop world. The instrumentals were consistent and drew the listener in on almost every track. The album competes for one of the top hip-hop albums of the year, and a well anticipated album delivers as one of the best of the year. This album is a great listen for any hip-hop fan, as it truly does deliver as a wonderfully crafted album.

My Rating: 9/10 Stars

Lesson #2: Get it done, procrastination is always lingering.

"Procrastination is opportunity's assassin."  -Victor Kiam

Procrastination is a typical part of any work place or pretty much anywhere where you're expected to do work. In a news production, production isn't the only thing that is going on. Even though it seems copaectic that a little procrastination would happen, it will usually end up coming back to guilt you with burden when you least expect it, will completely kill an oppurtunity, or in some manner surprisingly workout for the best.


This past week we had our work session, which consist of two days during the week where we stay after school after an already long day of school which feels like an eternity, and work on the layouts of the paper which usually give us a 14-15 hour day at school. We were all in for a surprise of how much we had underestimated the amount of work we had, simply in all because we all kind of procrastinated. It's typical that most people would procrastinate, it seems as almost as if it's embedded into human nature now due to technology being such a distraction and our attentions spans completely being obliterated by this so-called age of access (slight exaggeration). Since we had switched to the new format were completely blinded to the amount of work we had. This was the form of procrastination in the newsroom that tends to come back to bite back.


With procrastination comes lost opportunities. Sometimes we procrastinate on a story and find out we lost a good source, or we procrastinate on making an advertisement call and find out that they don't want to advertise, this is the type of procrastination that completely kills an opportunity. This happens a lot less in a smaller publication like ours, but I definitely could probably guess that this is a much bigger problem in bigger publications. The reason why this one seems most important is typically because we could have completely avoided it if we had thought it through which usually just puts a damper on the day anyway and we have to go back to the drawing board. 


The last type of procrastination is one of the luckiest things that happens in the newsroom but it somehow always works out in a funny way. Whenever procrastination works out for the best, it always happens on something that was going to be cut or with a little discussion could easily be cut if you truly wanted it to. Of course this would never happen for a giant feature story or a bigger assignment, but it still always somehow works out for the best.


Overall, procrastination is a big part of the newsroom. Then again, it's a big part of human nature as well, we tend to put things of for the last minute. The fact of the matter is, if you get your work done ahead of time, you'll easily be rewarded in the long run. This is true with anything in life since procrastination is opportunities assassin.

Lesson #1: Rivalry is apart of the newsroom.

"The rivalry is with ourself."- Luciano Pavarotti

Rivalry is a large part of the newsroom, you honestly wouldn't think by the look of things but if you dug deep enough and joined us you'd know that it is a larger part of the newsroom than you think.There are the simple rivalries over stories, pages, and photos between writers, editors, and photographers and there are more rivalries that develop due to stories and just rivalries because you've managed to piss us off. Over the past three years that I've been apart of the staff, we've developed some strange rivalries that have progressed over time.

 The rivalries between us staff members seem to dissipate depending on the day while our other rivalries seem to linger throughout the year unresolved. When we have rivalries in our newspaper, it's over little graphic things or over story and its usually resolved quite easy since most of us are pretty good friends. The biggest disputes always arise when somebody goes a little too far and starts to take action of what they want and really start to annoy some people or the largest thing is when a writer lies to an editor. The biggest no-no in our newspaper is not to lie to your editor about deadlines, or else it gets ugly. Overall, most of our little pity problems have no affect on us and at the end of the day we're all friends again, while some of our out of staff rivalries still live on.

One of our largest rivarlies is with another production in the school [not going to mention names] but it has went on since the day I've joined until this day.

We all have theories of why we're considered rivals, but the biggest reason is that we share rooms and labs. The fact that we share the Mac lab, seems to really keep us arguing and fighting over little things. For example, in the lab we have a "wall of shame" and a "wall of fame" which we created to put stuff we did and didn't like, and last year we had quite a problem with that once they started putting stuff on there [and after one of our editors put the front cover of one of their publications on the wall of shame]. The rivalry between us just seems to stay lingering around throughout the year over small little things.

The rivalry between the two publications just seems as if it should happen. At the end of the day, all of us respect our publications and the work that go into it and I think that we both lose track of that when we actually think about it. The rivalry does tend to be within ourselves since most the time we're too blind to realize that together, we're just the journalism kids and that either way we still put tons of work into something that we're both fans of.

Pre-lesson: Background

Any journalist would tell you that background is one of the most important steps of being apart of any journalistic creation. Even in my case, I could tell you that background information is prominent to creation of pretty much anything. You might have just read that last sentence and wondered, "what is his case?" well, I'm an editor apart of my school newspaper. Even though, it isn't the New York Times, and the most serious punishment I've gotten for anything bad is being yelled at by somebody who I consider one of my great friends (editor-in-chiefs) I could still tell you that background is important. 

This previous year, our newspaper took a total 180 degree change in terms of production. Our ex-adviser, who had crafted The Torch (which is the publication) from nothing had retired last year. We quickly got a new adviser, who has been great, and was even a student of our old adviser. With this new change, which was pretty much shock to all of us, we changed our format to a news-magazine. As well as that we created a Twitter account, a brand new website (after the admin of our old website, pretty much graduated and left us without a website) and pretty much did anything else to really amp our publication up.

As excited we were to start the year off together again, the year has started with a lot of stress as we're trying to perfect our art. As I write this blog post, we're in the middle of our production cycle and we're all pretty stressed out with the production (the stress comes natural with being atop the class). Our production cycle includes coming up with story ideas, creating which stories will be apart of the print addition, creating page layouts, actually writing and laying out the stories, and dealing with any obstacles along the way.

Apart of my personal profile, as I mentioned briefly in the ""About Lessons in the Newsroom Page" I'm the sports editor of the Torch, and I work along side a Sophomore, who I teach the ropes of being an editor along the way. Freshman year, I started the class as writer and made an impression on that years editors (I was surprised) and became the second-string sports editor alongside who is now one of the editors-in-chief. This year, it wasn't much of a surprise that I'd be taking part of the sports section again, since the switch from Sophomore to Junior year is usually a smooth transition at the same position. I also write and take photos. Apart of the class, you're expected to write stories regardless what your position is. I usually write in the sports and arts & entertainment section, and throughout my blog you'll see the music and sports influence. 

Like I mentioned earlier, background is an important part of anything. You don't get an assignment from a teacher without a syllabus or expectations (some teachers you do, but that's a story for a different day) or you aren't to told to do something without expecting the outcome. The same goes for a publication, you don't conduct an interview without knowing who you're going to interview and you don't write a story about something you have no idea about.

In this post, I hope I provided enough information to allow you to read the various blog posts that I will post to. I'm hoping that each lesson will inform you more about the journalistic world (even if it is the perspective of a high schooler) as well as give you a humorous entailment of each lesson. Hopefully the lessons will be relatable to your own life, and I hope that you enjoy the blog furthermore.

Now, let's get onto the lessons.