Jay-Z on Why Auto-Tune is the Hair-Metal of Hip Hop ‘It’s Losing the Emotion’
Speaking to the Vulture Blog for a DJ Hero launch event, Jay-Z commented on the idea behind D.O.A
Jay, who has been doing very big things for Hip Hop lately, spoke about how Auto-Tune was homogenizing the Hip Hop industry by making everyone chase a similar sound.
Jay claims you can’t hear the emotion behind an Auto-Tuned voice, but tell that to Kanye West, whose 808s & Heartbreak was nothing if not emotive. However, Jay does have a point that the emotion has indeed been removed from much of mainstream Hip Hop because everyone is busy chasing the next ringtone hit featuring a lame catchphrase and a blazing beat:
On killing Auto-Tune with “D.O.A.”:
“I really just wanted to send a message to rap; I didn’t know it’d be a cultural dispute. I really wanted to have the conversation, like “are we just going to sound like each other? Everyone’s going to sound the same? That’s what we’re gonna do? Don’t ya’ll know this is dangerous? And this is just how rock and roll got pushed from the forefront?” We did this to rock and roll. Everyone was doing the hair-band thing on MTV with the tight pants. They all had the big hair, just different colored tights. It just became about more of a look and a sound than the emotion of the music. And that’s what hip-hop’s becoming. It’s losing the emotion — you can’t have emotion in the robotic voice. I can’t feel anything! And then everyone sounds the same. I really wanted to have the conversation amongst us. And it went outside the culture.”
Jay-Z on DJ Hero, ‘D.O.A.,’ and His Future Career As a Bar Mitzvah Performer [Vulture]