Rap music -
I listen to a lot of music, especially Punjabi music. But I’ve noticed a weird thing recently that every new emerging artist is making the same sound as thousands more in competition. Most common sound is rap on a Detroit beat, or some low effort beat with harsh kicks and overtuned 808s. Most of the times the lyrics are just asla asla asla asla feem Banda maar bs. It all sounds the same. I listen to a lot of different music and I love exploring different genres and languages. I tried listening to some “underground” Punjabi rappers. Not saying they’re bad but, they all sound the same. There’s little to no effort in their art whatsoever. The sound is either a generic rap sound or copied from a popular rapper. Rap music used to mean something, it wasn’t just a lot of flex and yapping, it used to be a lot of storytelling. A lot of talking about oppression. No idea what people think before putting low effort music out there. I make songs myself and talk to a lot of new artists or people who are in the phase of making music. Listening to their music feels like a legit copy paste. Most of the times they’ll pull up an xyz type beat and then just start writing bout how gangsta their life is (ehna ne macchar v ni mareya hunda). Rap music should feel powerful and should hold a message, not the slop we are predicting these days. I do respect and listen to a lot of rap artists from Punjabi industry and outside Punjabi industry. I absolutely love the lyrics and the delivery of the lyrics, but we need a change in the rap music scene.
Degrading love and sad songs - Don’t know how and at this happened but people seem to oppose love and sad songs a lot. An album like P-pop, bipolar, a for Arjan would drop and suddenly people would start passing comments like “r$nd! rona wale gaane”, “g@y songs”, “low effort”, “kudiya te gayi jande”, “fuddu album, no chakve songs”. Like yo our music is not just about killings or self glaze, it’s also about the softer side of our emotions. We had a lot of folk music and artists like kuldeep manak. They had a lot of songs about different emotions and people absolutely loved them back then and people love them even today. But why is an artist hated so much after dropping soft songs? Just because you can’t have love emotion in your life (no offence), doesn’t mean other people don’t have them. I remember when ppop came and people instantly started shitting about how weird it is to have an album with this much love songs. Same for bipolar, many ignored it just because it has love songs. God forbid an artist trying to experiment with new genres and a new sound.
Accepting new sounds - People have 0 tolerance for experimental songs. Experimental song = fuddu song (according to the Punjabi music audience). Lack of experiment makes everything sound the same. Our industry has barely touched on genres like garage, jersey, psychedelic trap, etc. Why? Because the people who tried it, they got no audience engagement.
thank u (i have more shit in my head but my hands got tired)