Generation Y, our generation, is consistently being understood by the intellectuals of Hip-Hop; this week our honorary speaker is Nico Segal. With the most recent release of his EP, Illasoul: shades of blue, Nico has gifted us with a project that companions our journey, or should I say trip. This intoxicated reputation that our generation are the blame for is a sign of our redefinition of life. Shades of blue, a revisit to the music of J. Dilla, is Nico’s first-hand account of the mental travels of Generation Y. httpv://vimeo.com/38334522

 

The EP is an incredible project, which deserves praise for its musicality, substance, and literary skills. However, to go into detail about Shades of blue’s companionship, or homie-hood, a segment of it is specifically interesting. On the song, “Struggles” featuring Coldhard, is a melodic processing of “life”. “Struggles” is a rightful tantrum expressing the pain of time. It’s not the typical dilemma of humyns fearing death. Instead, Nico questions the conscience of the shortage of time, which our parents are the products of.

Yes just as Nico has, we have struggles, but only in the context of feeling the need to do something productive. The fights we have with our parents, and the people we mess around with, ultimately have to justify time. We fight over what we do when we waste time; my mother always preferred that we stay in and clean, rather than go out to chill. Labor, or needing to make something useful out of time, is more important in our lives. However Nico—representing the strivings of Generation Y—wants to be free from guilt.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrcbxuTclsE

 

Freedom from guilt is the meaning of his stunt devil metaphor for the life of labor. He needs a “stunt devil/maybe a couple” because he “bust [his] shit jumping through obstacles”. Often “getting it rocking” with Kids These Days, Nico understands how time can make you “twitch and pinch the one to you on the train like Hey!” (“Struggles” 0:27 – 0:28). That jerk of the body—when you realize time has been spent too much—is a shock of guilt.

Generation Y rebels against the current conscience of time, which makes us devalue the minutes we spend indulging. Nico and the rest of us have the capacity to forget about the end of time, because we are so immersed in creativity. Creating things, which at the same time satisfies us and makes us happy, is a drastic change to the way our ancestors relate to the “life”. Since we have a AD-HD tendency lose focus on labor, we end up focusing on making things sound good (like our child prodigies playing trumpet) or look good (like our mobbing hipsters). Our parents have contrasting relationships with life, they focus too much on labor and feel too guilty about spending time “unproductively”.