Assignment 1A

Who Influences Me as A Creative Person

I believe that I am a creative person...but I don't want to pigeon hole myself into one type of creativity. You'll see why when you read my final influence, but I have two more before that one so... 

1. My biggest comedic influence would have to be Daniel Tosh. Before I first heard Tosh's first half-hour Comedy Central Presents TV special, I liked stand up comedy, but never considered doing it. After watching Tosh perform, I started writing down some of the jokes and funny situations that I had thought up/experienced. My style of stand up comedy is heavily influenced by him because of this. We both do a lot of what I like to call "stream of consciousness" jokes, by which I mean we both take one joke and then our minds take us to random places that are somewhat connected.

Of the terms we went over, I think Tension and Release fits the best with Tosh. He loves to start his jokes off with mass appeal (a relatable subject), and then take it to a place where nobody knows what he's talking about, and then take the audience back to a comfort zone for the next joke. Here's a few examples from his first hour-long special.

2. My second influence is Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, better known as the rapper Lupe Fiasco. In my opinion, Lupe is the best rapper of all time bar none. He is one of the most lyrical rappers in the game today and possesses  uncanny storytelling ability. Although my style is different, Lupe was the person who made me want to rap again. I started rapping for kids in 4th grade, but stopped when I got to high school because I was intimidated by my black friends to whom rap was a lifestyle and not just a genre of music. This lifestyle involves guns, money, and promiscuous women, but Lupe opened the door to other subjects (like skateboarding and robots). 

The term that fits with Lupe Fiasco is Text/Subtext. As I said, Lupe is a great storyteller and incredibly lyrical. This allows him to have some ridiculous subtext in his raps. The following song is a great example.

3. My number 1 biggest influence on my creativity, as well as on my personality, would have to be Donald Glover. Donald Glover (for those of you who aren't cool) is a stand up comedian, one of the stars of NBC's Community, one of the members of the sketch comedy group "DERRICK Comedy", which has made one of the funniest indie movies ever (Mystery Team), and the rapper Childish Gambino, who has released 2 mixtapes and 3 albums, with another on the way. Needless to say, he's a busy man. He's also one of the most creative people in all of entertainment. I go to his website, iamdonald.com a lot and I found this quote from him that I think sums up both of us. He says: "Who knows what they are all the time?  I’m different stuff every second of every day.  I don’t know why people confine themselves.  I know it be easier if I just did funny stuff, or just music, or just writing, but I’m more than that. That’s not me.  That’s not anyone.  Everyone is everything, if they let themselves." When I read this, it felt like reading my own thoughts, if my thoughts were really well written.

I think the binary terms that best fit with him are Contrast and Affinity. If you look closely at his career, you will see that he contrasts with the industry by having his hand in so many fields, but he shows affinity with each individual field by embracing it and fitting in there. Here's one of his songs where he has a great line about how people compare him to other rappers.

The lyrics I alluded to are:

"Here I go again talkin' money, women, and clothes, and cars, right?

You could switch all of my words out with Plies's, right?
People sayin' we're the same, please, come from under me
We are just some rappers, got no luxury of subtlety
No subtext when we're rappin', we say it like we hear it"