Street Soldiers: The future of music

Fox 5 and Hot 97 present Street Soldiers with Lisa Evers. I'm so glad you're joining us for this episode of Street Soldiers on the future of music. I'm your host, Lisa Evers. We hear music every day in so many places, from streaming platforms, radio, social media, and commercials, to TV and movie soundtracks. Sometimes people say it's all starting to sound the same, but some key music industry insiders believe the creative future has never looked brighter. By the grace of God, I made it out of housing, but I'm still Coney Al-Stalin. Torey began his music career as a hip-hop artist and rapper from Brooklyn. He now exemplifies one of the most unique and diverse success stories in music, writing hit songs for R&B artists and other genres like K-pop. He hosts flagship music shows on Sirius XM and in 2024 was named a national trustee of the Recording Academy, the prestigious organization behind the Grammys. His perspective on music spans from the streets to the suites. The future of music is endless because I don't believe that there are really genres anymore. I think everybody kind of lends and borrows. is influenced by everything else and so we see those worlds blending a whole lot more. Emerging R&B artist Makayla says she values authenticity and so do her fans. She's not afraid to share her wins and setbacks with them as she grows her career and pursues her dreams. She wants her fans and followers to be inspired and believes that the hard work and hard times pay off like they are for her. When people see those imperfections that they can relate Two, they tend to gravitate towards you a little bit more, and I think that's the angle that I'm leaning towards now, just letting people know that this is not easy by any means, but you can do it. DJ Mike Medium is a Hot 97 heavy-hitter DJ and on-air personality. He also DJs at clubs and major venues in New York and internationally, including Japan and Europe. He gets pitched more than 100 songs every day from artists trying to make his playlists. Only a very few meet his criteria. The presentation, the first impression is very important to me. Once we get past that, then the music comes together. I wanna know if there's a great melody. I wanna know if there's a story behind it. I wanna know if there's a hook. Let's take this to our amazing panel right now and get their take. I'm very excited to introduce Makayla. She is an R&B singer and songwriter from Brooklyn, making her Street Soldiers debut. Michaela, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Great to have you. Also with us is Mike Medium. He's a hot 97 heavy hitter DJ. You can hear him Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. And he's a longtime Street Soldier. He's been with me through community activities, through Street Soldiers, on the streets, always outside. And now you see him at big venues like... Like the Barclays Center, Mike, great to have you on. Yeah, thank you so much again for the opportunity. No, it was fantastic. Also, this is Torrey, longtime Street Soldier Authority. He's a SiriusXM host and songwriter. I'm also an artist in his own right. And he's a national trustee with the Recording Academy. Why do you care about that? He's one of these people that votes on the Grammys. Torrey, thank you so much for making time for us. We appreciate it. Thank you, Lisa. Always my pleasure. Anytime we get the chance to connect. I love it. Torrey, I want to start with you on this. When you talk about where music is today, some people are saying hip-hop kind of lost its steam, or is it just that things are evolving in new directions? What do you see from all these vantage points that you have? We're in such a unique time musically, because I feel like right now we have the most music that we've ever been able to consume. Um, in the history of music where people just being able to record at home, upload at home, do it right from their mobile phone. So I do feel like the, the, the highway, if you will, is very, very crowded with, with a lot of, um, just content out there, but also I think it gives it people an opportunity to really be daring and create and do some things outside of the box. Which also pushes the music and the culture forward. So, you know, it really depends on what side you want to look at it from. Because it's a great time for artists. You don't have to go through the gatekeeping. Now you can just create your music and get right to your audience. But with that said, you really got to rifle through to find some of the good stuff. Mikayla, tell us about your journey of becoming an artist. It's been a long one and I'm still going. I've always sang growing up. I started singing when I was in kindergarten. I jumped into being a professional artist around 2018, 2019. So a rough time to, you know, kind of get my bearings and then COVID. And we were all kind of just, you know, shut down for some time and in a little bit of a limbo. But that was a period where people were home and just creating and learning themselves. And I think that kind of also was a turn in the music industry as well. Getting my start then really kind of gave me some time to figure out who I am and I'm still growing as an artist and as a woman but we're here oh my god I can't believe it's six years later after COVID and I am you know recording working on a new project right now just released a single so really just excited to see where the journey takes me. I'm DJ Mike Medium, Hot 97 heavy hitter DJ Mike Medium. We've seen you just grow and grow and grow. What do you see as where we're at, especially with hip hop? Yeah, speaking of what Tori was talking about, I feel like right now we're in a very experimental um era right now and hip-hop right now. AI has been introduced like heavy you know you've seen Drake use AI we're seeing Phoenix Flexin and all these other people and you know we can compare that to you know how T-Pain used to use like auto-tune and whatnot but I think that's gonna slowly evolve and fine-tune um whether it's you know with the writing whether it's with music and Um, outside of that, there's so many artists, like my email is flooded. Every Sunday I go through my email and I have maybe like a hundred artists, you know, that'll go through my email and like, Hey Mike, can you listen to this? Can you listen to this? Most of them sound the same. And right now, like kind of fighting through that, you know, and you could, and Mikayla can speak to that as well too, fighting through that. It's all about consistency, finding your sound, fine tuning it. And the artists that I'm hearing that are breaking through are artists that are doing multiple things. They're, you know, on TikTok, they're doing podcasts and whatnot. And that's what you have to do right now to kind of break through. And for somebody like me, like a DJ, for you to be able to get to my ear, hey, music has to be really, really good. But also, you know, the people got to connect with it. Stay with us. There's more to come. Mikayla, in terms of the sound, do you think there's more respect for lyricism now as opposed to these very intricate and sophisticated productions? Absolutely. I have been an advocate for lyricism and people will, I guess, classify like old school music back to the basics of like R&B and hip hop. For as long as I can remember, I'm a 90s, 80s, even 70s R&B lover. So I think that it's amazing that we're getting back to people really wanting to write for themselves and, you know, have that passion, that personal passion behind their lyrics and really, really mean it. We have A.I., which is I don't want to be anti-A.I. because I know we got to get with the times. But, you know. We have that outlet to write for us, but it just doesn't give us the passion. It doesn't give us the real true feeling. I personally. I write myself. Of course, I have a team of people. But, you know, through drill and sexy drill and everything like that, I was kind of just waiting for it. Because just like clothing, music, I believe, just goes in cycles, you know. And I just think we're getting back to the cycle right now of, like, love and passion and just real lyricism. So right, what about that? How do you look at the role of technology right now? Technology is the never-stopping train. You could try to get out of the way of it, or you could try to jump on it and ride the wave. But either way, it's going to happen. It's going to come. You look at where we were some years ago, before we even get into the streaming era, you can take it back to the people that used to play in clubs. When they started to record music, the people that played sessions and played in clubs were like, our career is over because now people don't need to come here to hear us. They can play us in their home. evolved into 8-tracks and 8-tracks into cassettes and cassettes into CDs and CDs into streaming. We've seen this time and time again. What you've got to do is utilize the technology to your advantage. When T-Pain was using autotune, there'd been plenty of singers that had used autotune prior to that just to kind of tweak their vocals, whereas T-Pain made it part of his rollout, part of his thing and what he was known for. Really, really letting the teeth, the auto-tune sound of it all kind of stay in the music. Where we are with AI, you know, a song like you hit Phoenix Flex and that definitely sounds almost computer generated. But to utilize AI to your best advantage is to utilize the information and the tool and let it add in to your human input and your actual natural creative and just build along with it. So it's just another form of technology. That we've got to understand is here. How is the Academy looking at this whole situation with AI? Because there's going to be a day where like, somebody like a Tyga, he just dropped the project that had... Well, there's even AI artists. There's even AI artists right now. Yeah, Torrey, what about that? One thing I'll say is that the Recording Academy is in no shape, form, or fashion ever going to award anything other than a human being for their creative, you know, for their talent. So if it's a, if it's a songwriting award, we want to make sure that human beings wrote the songs. If it's a performance award, we want to make sure that human being talent artists are being awarded in those ways. Um, obviously we understand that the technology is there and we're looking at ways to make sure that we don't get confused or duped, you know, you know, there's a part of the honor system that needs to be in play, but also, you know, we understand that the The technology is there, and so we're just looking at ways to make sure that... The Academy evolved and evolves with where we are in the world, but also understand that our main goal is to award human beings for their creations. DJ Mike Medium, though, when you're listening, when you're getting those hundreds and hundreds of submissions, do you listen to them? And you said a lot of them sound alike. How do you know if it's a legit thing? A hundred percent. So like, so for me, there's, there's things that sounds really polished. You can see when somebody has a job resume and they use AI or use M dashes and whatnot, like it doesn't feel tangible, right? Same thing with writing a song. There's a feeling there where, uh, you know, like a Barry Gordy or Jermaine Dupri or whoever, when they're writing a song, it touches you. And there's a feeling there with, with Phoenix flexing with the, with the rubbers. And I'm so sorry. We keep bringing Phoenix flexing up, but it's, it's the most like prominent thing, but. You could tell there was something wrong, and he kept denying it, and the feeling wasn't there, but the song sounded really good, so you could play it in a club, but in my opinion, you'll probably hear this term a lot, AI slap or whatever, but it's just something that, it's like microwavable, right? In a club, when I'm playing these songs, they're like a minute long, so you're going from one song to another song, and everybody's attention span is so short, and when I'm listening to these submissions and whatnot, everyone is... Trying to copy each other's sound. Michaela, in terms of your creative process, tell us about that. I fully believe in utilizing AI when it comes to marketing and research. You know, there's a lot of things that AI can find that is helpful for me as an artist. When it comes to getting into the studio and that process and, you know, gathering like minds, you know, writers, producers, engineers, and, you know, people propose a lot of songs to me, I tend to not like. If they bring me references that are already drafted with AI vocals, like Tori said, that there's like an imperfection, even when you have someone who just, you know, you know, tracks the record for you before, like another songwriter and they sing it, you hear that passion and like personal touch to the song that you can't get. Through an AI recording, it's almost too perfect and I can spot an AI recording almost immediately. The runs are immaculate. There are no flaws. There is no breath. It's just, you just don't hear, even like when I listen to my music, when it's mixed and mastered, to this day on platforms, there are things that I hear that I'm like, it bothers me because I hear like, oh, I could have, but it almost, it makes the record what it is because I was in that, that space, that emotion. So I encourage AI for certain things. But when it comes to the creative process, I still fully believe in just writing from scratch, you know, singing in the studio. It's just about me and four other singers just going back and forth, like, do this run this way or no, no, I want it this way. Or think about a time where you have to deal with this. Think about this. You can't get that with AI. In terms of trends, is everything kind of like up in the air right now? Is there... All this genre blending, what do you see with the trends? I think that, you know, we see everything come in cycles and that goes from fashion to, you know, things that are happening in the media, in the world, television and in music especially. And I feel like, you know, people are now in a place where we want to hear and feel something real again, you know, especially with so much music, especially with AI. I think that the general public being aware that there's a lot of AI music coming out there is kind of making them want to clamor. more for something real, something authentic, something passionate, something that a computer can't create. And so I think it's a great time for artists that are creating from those real personal and vulnerable spaces. And lyricism, you know, lyricism is back. I mean, a catchy hook is always going to win. You know, a great beat is always going to be something that you could dance to. But I feel like across the board, people are just more intertwined. into trying to hear something that resonates with them somehow. Are there certain generations though? Because Hot 97 has a very young demographic too. Yeah. Are the teens into this? Are they into lyricism too? What are they listening to? As far as the younger crowd, so like when I DJ, I DJ for people that are like 24 and younger, right? So they're listening, they do want to hear like the 90s and 2000s, but there's the streaming era right now, right? So EDG just dropped a project. I forgot the title of it, but it was a whole project where he streamed his recording process with all the artists and whatnot. That was something that I believe Tory Lanez did prior to that, and probably Soulja Boy invented it. I don't know. Soulja Boy invented everything, Mike. He shat them all. It's coming down. Oh, my God. That's Soulja Boy, man. But he, so stuff like that. Soulja Boy, tell him. Soulja Boy, tell him. Remember? Soulja Boy, tell him. Um, but that, I think I'm guarantee you right now. And, and, and if I, if I could put this on a cow sheet, I will bet on it, but I guarantee right now that will be the new wave. Michaela's probably going to do this as well, where you're going to be streaming your whole entire recording process from start to finish, because everyone wants a story. It's very interesting because everything is content right now, right? Everything is content. Artists are not just, that's the trend right now. Artists are not just artists, right? Right now, again, like I was saying before, they're content creators, they're producers, they're vocal producers, they're their own PR people right now, just to start off. But that will be the new wave. Let's talk about the future. Mikayla, what do you see for your future as an artist? I kind of want to be everywhere. I don't say no too much. I'm definitely an artist that's down for progress in music and television, sync opportunities. I'm not afraid to open for anyone right now. I can sing to two people in the crowd. So that is what the future for me is looking like, kind of just being everywhere and trying to do as much as I can. I am an advocate for artist development. I think that's something that with the rise of technology, we've kind of strayed from, and that's why people kind of blow up and they don't really know how to handle everything that comes with being an artist and a superstar. I kind of want to do the groundwork. I hope to hear myself on the background of your favorite shows, at least just a little bit, maybe. I'm open to acting and just all the things that come with entertainment in general. So that's kind of... What I'm what I'm leading towards also right now, working on my my second EP, so excited for people to just hear how I've grown and as a woman in music and bring back like bridges and just the passion in R&B. Mike Medium, what about the global global picture? You were one of the one of the first people at Hot 97 to really bring on Afrobeats when we first really became aware of that a number of years ago. What about the global picture? Do you see anything that... Is being adapted by, you know, by American artists from other places? Absolutely. So I've been to Japan. I've DJed over there. I've DJed in Italy, all over the place. You know, what I'm seeing now, like, especially like in the U.S. and I hear like Drake and whatnot, everybody's like fusing their music together. Right. You're hearing a little bit of Jersey Club. You might hear a little bit of Bali funk. You might hear anything that's going to get the crowd bumping and jumping. They're going to infuse it altogether, even drill, you know, saying like everybody is kind of infusing it. all together. And I'm seeing that in the clubs as well too. Especially and also on TikTok as well, like where everybody wants that sound, that new edge. Even UK artists as well too, like they're also creeping in as well in the clubs and like their sound is starting to get more and more infectious. We're at a point in hip hop where we're just kind of melting together and that's And that's what's kind of bringing people. And, and making them stick with the, with the music right now. Tori, I'm going to give you a final, final word on that. In terms of the health, the health of the music. For sure. I, um, I mean, I got a... Placement or one of the biggest K-pop groups as a hip hop kid that grew up in Coney Island, Brooklyn, you know, as a rap writer. But I think lyric and melody is lyric and melody across the board. And so, you know, finding your way into those pockets, into those flows, I think those things are always going to resonate and generate through and kind of push through. So, you know, yeah, me working with like Blackpink was not on my bingo card per se, but. They needed what they needed on it, and we were able to get in there and make it happen. And so, you know me, of course, I'm a hip-hop, R&B guy, but, you know, K-pop is huge, and they pull a lot of their influences from those hip-hop and R&B worlds, so it makes sense. Even if it doesn't make sense on paper, it makes sense that sonically you get in the studio and those things kind of come to fruition. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Street Soldiers on the future of music. You can watch it again and share it on our Fox 5NY YouTube page and on the free Fox Local app. Remember, use your mind. It's your best weapon. I'm Lisa Evers. Let's push for peace, love and justice for all.