Blog Post #3

Interview (Fictional) of Shawn Corey Carter or Jay-Z

Jay-Z is a famous American Rapper, writer, producer record and one of the most successful artists and rapper of all time. He has sold more than 75 million records global, and received 19 Grammy Awards for his works. The three albums, The Blueprint, The Black album and Reasonable Doubt, are in the top 500 greatest hits album of all time from Rolling Stone’s list. 
Now we have the interview of Jay-Z which will show how he responses to our question about his career.

Question 1; How did you become an artist, what made you start your career?

Jay-Z: The environment in my community is the most obvious reason that I started my career. I used music and rap to escape from drug, violence, and poverty that surrounded my environment when I was young. My family also influenced my because my father left me when I was only eleven years old, therefore; I was raised by my mother only in drug- infested area. It made me wanted to escape from these environment, and it’s why I turned into rap.

Question 2; does your music reflect on your experienced that you have faced?

Jay-Z: Yes it does, almost all of my songs were written about the events that happened in my life. I used music as a way to express my experiences I faced within my community and personal life. For example; “Moment of Clarity” rap about the cruel circumstances of my father and uncle’s life and death. In this song, I rap about my life that I grew up in a family that was broken by the drug abuse violence that spread over the community. These violence and drugs caused me to dabble in drug, and formed a barrier between me and my father. This problem made my father to leave my family. However in this song, I rap about the way I found to accept the failure of my father. I gained the enough clarity to accept my father’s failure. “Lost One” is another song I wrote about the pain in my life. It was about the death of my nephew that drove the car I bought for him. I felt that it was by responsibility of his death. Hence I wrote the song in order to express my pain and feeling through it.

Question 3; what is your theme or style you use when writing you songs? Does it have anything specific?

Jay-Z: No it doesn’t, but most of the song I made relates to the experiences I faced throughout my life. Almost all the songs include the reflection and the felling I had of events; some of it includes violence, drug and the losses of my own family member and friends. There were many bad events occurred to my family such as the death of my nephew, the violent that my family had faced and the death of my cousin. These things made me to write song about them expressing my feeling and pain. I was once singing a song regarding to the politic too because I’m also a good friend with Obama who are the same black American as me.

Question 4; do you think that your songs have impact on the society and audience?

Jay-Z: Yes, I think that my songs do impact the audience in many ways, such as the uses of rhyme and my language skill in writing the song. I use rhyme as a common thing in my music which easily influenced the audience into the meaning of the song. I also use the language of my culture, American English, to define who I am and where I am from which attract the Black audience. The songs that I wrote also change some image of pop song to be more hardcore in lyrics which some artist follows my step. My music works also impact the perspective of society in looking themselves too. I express some my pain biography through music, stating that to be successful is tough, which affect the audiences in the society to think that ‘in order to be successful, you need to work hard’. I can say that my songs itself impact society and audience.

Last Question; do you think that the way you’ve written your song provides you authenticity?

Jay-Z: Yes, I think that how I’ve written my song define who I am. It shows my ability to rhyme, express my feeling and idea through fluent language and vocabulary, and the meaning of the song I wrote. Meanwhile, the way that I wrote my song still has the felling of Black American language within it which defines me. However, I cannot say that the only language in song itself really provides me an authenticity. The root of who I am and where I am from also provide me the authenticity. My surrounded community makes me who I am today, it create the motion to be an artist, expressing idea and feeling through music. 

Blog Post #2

Class Discusssion : Mother Tongue Essay by Amy Tan

There were many good points in class discussion, but I would like to talk about 'the importance of home language' in this blog. Regarding to the story that Amy Tan's mother had mixed her dialect with English. It was defined as "broken English" resulting that she sometimes was ignored by people in community. Although if we were ignored when accidently mixing our dialect with English, how important of home language is? We know that most of the countries in our world have their own dialect, and having English as second official language. As an international student, I have my dialect that I use when speaking with my family, and English that I use at school. I can say that my dialect is very important because it was initially how I communicate with people. I used my dialect to gather new knowlegdes before I knew English. Dialect can define my identity and remind me who I am showing the value of my culture and history. When native language is not maintained by the speakers themself, links between family, community members can be lost. Heritage culture and long aged history of native speakers will also be lost if the speakers do not maintain their foundation. It is the connection between international native speakers and native speaker within country. We mostly think using our dialect because we will get more understanding in complicated topic. I can say that dialect lives in our soul expressing through our emotion. I know depth meaning of specific words in my dialect that I want to talk expressing to other people. Meanwhile, if I want to talk in same topic in English, i will absolutely not be able to express because in some specific word has its root, meaning in culture and emotion that can express through native speaker only. It is how we use language that touches our deep emotion when expressing sensitive story. Dialect is how I used to study english through. It is the way that non-native English speakers use to get better understanding in English because we did not cultivate English when we were at young age. By using dialect to learning English, we will understand English easier because some dialect structure and words is familiar to English. Some skill in dialect can be transferred to English or other languages. We will get more intellectual consequences in complicate topic when using dialect. Not only academic opportunity we get, but also more opportunities in international community. Most of employments are looking for employee who is able to speak more than one language. It is the way company contact and make relation overseas through employee. Knowing more than one language is a door to various alternative choices in jobs. At the same time, the perspective view for people that speak more than one language will be very wide because they will be able to gain information from many cultures, traditions and notions through language which they can share in community using home language. Hence, home language or dialect is very important to maintain because it is the way we were raised. It is the part of our culture, way of knowing our history and root. Home language is also a door to worldwide connection, also local community. It was the first thing that everyone in every cultures used to communicate, share ideas and absorb their beautiful culture. 

Blog Post #1

......Hi everyone, my name is Suriyarattana Rod-On (Ink). I am from Thailand, the land of smile. I am sixteen years old. This is my second year living in Abu Dhabi also studying in Raha International School. It is my first time studying abroad which gives me opportunity to meet new friends from many countries. I am interested in cars, nature and economic. I love being in a car travelling to new places with my family. Meanwhile, my intention is to achieve IB diploma leading to the next step of my life, diplomat. I want to be diplomat so that I will get an opportunity to communicate with people from many countries and cultures. It is my only dream.

          Role of Language in My Life

Language is a system that humans use to communicate for their survival. Humans need language to tranfer ideas with others in order to live in the world. We all have ability to communicate since we were born, and so do I. It is a natural instinct. Language has been an important part of my life expressed in many ways. It is a tool that I used to communicate with family and people. I used body language to communicate when I was young. I told my mother what I wanted using my hands and face. When the ability to speak came, it was the time that I fully used and learned language. I used language to inform what I feel, want and desire. Meanwhile, I used language to question what I did not understand in order to get better understanding from the people around me. Language influenced me the most when I am in school. It is the only way that I can gather information and knowledge through studying. Language was used to communicate in order to make the most efficient project when getting group work. The knowledge that teachers teach was given through language which is the only way that I can gather. Language is the way that I used to develop my skills with others by sharing ideas. It removed barriers that cut me to be connected with others. Language was also another tool that I used to share what I believed. It was the way that I used to judge what was right or wrong. At the same time ,writing is another role of language that I used. It is very important that everyone knows how to write. Writing was an initial way of recording ideas or theories before electronic devices came. I was initially recorded my ideas or knowledge from teachers by writing. It was the only way that I could use to communicate my understanding with teachers. Teachers gave their advices through writing as well. It was how I study in past. Another way apart from using language in studying was to increase relationship between people. I used language to greet people that I wanted to know. I used language to impress people around me. Hence, I can say that language is the most important thing in my life that I have to know. It is the beginning of everything. If language did not exist, there would not be new ideas, development, philosophy and humans would be meaningless.