TITLE: STOP Making Content Part 2! Why Beyoncé and Jerry Seinfeld Never Get Ignored (context)
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWzWk3-j01U

Have you ever thought my work is good but nobody's paying attention? Well, this is why. [music] This is context part two. Don't just make content. Focus on context. You can't truly understand anything without context. >> Battlecat taught me that, you know, he used to do beats. I'd be like, "Man, what what he was like, I was thinking about if maybe if uh if Nas bought some chicken on Cawn Slawson and hung out with James Brown, but then they all went to Paul McCartney house." That's what that would sound like. Battlecat would say these things and I'll be like, but he would build these things and while he was doing it, he'd be like, "See that low end?" He'd be like, "Yeah, see that? That's like a James Jameson walked in with no shoes." So, I learned even from him to just build a thing cuz I can't say, "Wait a minute. This ain't my vibe. I can't create my shit." and miss that bread at that time when I had no place to live. But I'm at Snoops doing beats. I'm say, "Where's the vibe?" No, I'm just going to cl the situation the best way I can. Humans don't judge what something is. They judge where it lives, what's it associated with, and the timing of it. You know, they did an experiment with the artist Joshua Bell. He is a violinist, and he plays violins that are super duper expensive. This is a Guiner Delju and I also have a Stratavarius. This I'm just trying out this $10 million violin. Um, no one has been able to improve on this design which is amazing. I mean, >> is it truly a $10 million violin? It's >> that's what they're asking for it. So, it's I mean there's these are priceless. There's also it's tech and it's also a piece of art. >> When was it made? >> This was made in 1743 and my Stratavarius I also have which is made in 1713. That's mine which I own and that's something very special. >> He plays in front of thousands of people. They did an experiment where they had him play the same music in the subway station and the people in the subway station ignored him. The only thing that changed was context. The wrong context can make something brilliant feel disposable. Virgil, the clothing designer, he used context a lot. Also, you take something really general and you repurpose it in a way where it makes people look for different meaning, >> things that exist and then putting them in a different context. So, the diagonal lines of off-white, for example, universal language, it's everywhere already. It's almost like unbrandable. There's like un you can't take ownership of something that that's universal. But in a way, you can. And that's what I've used is sort of my presiding sort of pattern. But the evolution, the 2.0 You know that is is my a my new affinity for obviously Helvetica but also the quotes. >> Putting quotes on shoes on t-shirts the t-shirt becomes the context. Jenny Holtzer is the energy behind Virgil's idea to use text >> content that they drive around is helpful to people somehow. you know, this material is an alert. At least some of the projections. Again, I don't know that they need to be titled as art for the person who comes across them. I'm glad that they found a home in the art world, but mostly they're for people who are walking down the street at night and find them. um instead of just writing and putting her text in a book tackling social issues, she took her text out of a book and projected it on buildings and things like that. It had a much bigger impact. You could be driving down the street and see what Jenny has to say. Sometimes context is created by rejecting the normal conventions in the industry. There's a particular scene in Top Five, the movie with Chris Rock, where you see Jerry Seinfeld in the strip club. If you take that same scene and you put a rapper in the strip club, it don't have the same impact. Everything you are in other people's minds that comes with you through the scene. You You have a history with Jerry Seinfeld, and you just don't imagine him in a strip club. >> She's sticking it to me that she makes more money than me. I'm sure she was just being nice, buying you the coffee. No, not nice. She's sticking it to me. You're crazy. >> Sticking it to me, Jerry. >> George. >> Being in a strip club is a context that was created by that film. [bell] >> When I think of context, a lot of times I think of Wu Tang. This is something my brother made, so I just want to show it off. In order to have a cult-like movement, you have to create your own world, >> you know, and like in and and call us the Wuang clan. It would be like we get the [music] whole Staten Island. Call it Sh. >> That [ __ ] sounds like he was putting Avengers together. >> That's what he said. [laughter] He told me that's he wasn't with it, you know. Or Noah, he's like, "Hey guys, I'm going to build a ark in the middle of the desert cuz it's going to rain for 40 days and 40 nights." People like this it never rains more than two days here, bro. >> Yeah. >> You know, it it it ain't pragmatic. >> It was for you to see. >> Yeah. It's for you to see >> and you try to get others to see it. >> Dizza created this world with a mixture of things. A little bit of kung fu, a little bit of comic books, a little bit of the culture of New York. It was visually different. It wasn't targeting the radio. You have to almost accept or enter their world to be a part of and really understand >> that word free jazz avenguard and even contemporary is just a way of trying to say now we must hope that the music always has the quality of nowness and there certain music I mean like you can say there's folk there's classic and there's devotional music but there's certain musicians that we've in our lifetime such as John Cold Train where that their music had all three qualities. >> Someone has to have a vision. At least in this instance, Farel has the vision. You can see Farel in the studio explaining to Jay-Z the context of the song, the world that the song has to live in. >> Your career right now, this is the end of Caro's way. You just trying to get one more last job in before you get out. But I'm trying to tell you that I have the song that I have the beat that describes that moment accurately. >> You might think talent is everything, but talent without context gets ignored. If you were ever to come to Atlanta, you would have the opportunity to go to Martin Luther King's house, like the house he was born in, the house he was raised in. Of course, you can listen to his sermons anywhere, but it feels different to sit on a pew in a church where the people actually sat and listen to him. And in those four walls create a context that give you a an emotion that you can't get from listening on TV or, you know, on YouTube. Beyonce becoming Sasha Fierce is a change of context. Many years ago, I named my alter ego Sasha, and it's something that stuck. So, when I [music] was trying to to decide the title of my album, I realized it had two different sounds. One represented who I really am, and one sounded like my alter ego. So, I decided to split it into two. >> Beyonce has a certain image, a certain way we look at her. She couldn't just make Sasha Fierce and not change anything about herself or the way we look at her. Sasha Fierce as a piece of content will be judged differently because Beyonce changed the context of it by naming herself Sasha Fierce as a character. If she didn't change the context and become a character, it would have been judged very differently. It might have turned some fans off because they had a certain expectation of her. Context doesn't decorate content. It creates meaning. You know, graffiti is interesting. >> What What's the difference of doing it on trains and doing it on canvas? >> Um, you can't do graffiti on canvas unless you're doing it in an illegal context. Graffiti is is illegal. It's a crime. throw the word graffiti around because of course it's it sounds like, you know, illegal Robin Hood or whatever, but it's not about that for us. You know, >> you can ride on trains and it takes it to places that you might not be able to go. So, you make your train your gallery. If you bring what you do on the train into a gallery, it might not have the same effect. >> Well, basically what I'm doing with this show is uh it's uh what I call still life in space, you know. basically paintings that I wanted to make for a long time but didn't have time to make them. >> Context can change the meaning and change the value of something or how a person even internalizes it. Virgil says that you can completely change the perception of something without changing the structure. And that's not designing that's context engineering. The brain notices difference not abundance. What's most present is least seen. But you need context to see content. Before you make better work, change the place your work lives in. If this is clicking with you, follow, subscribe, and implement context to your work. This is Brian from the King's Hand. Peace. >> Be appointed hand of the king. [music] [music]