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Plagiarism

pla·gia·rism- noun- 1.The practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.

                A truly plagiarized piece of music is the most identifiable beat in Queen’s song “Under Pressure”. It was taken, without credit to Queen, by Vanilla Ice, and it is believed that this beat is what generated the sales for his hit “Ice, Ice, Baby”. Popularity of a songs sales are usually directly correlated to the catchiness and memorability of the main riff. The case was never brought to court, but an out of court agreement between Queen management and Vanilla Ice was believed to occur, since Queen’s re-mastered CD features a caption for the song “Under Pressure” where it is stated that the beat was used in Vanilla Ice's single.

"David Bowie, Queen and Vanilla Ice." Vanilla Ice and Queen. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.

"Famous Copyright Infringement Plagiarism Cases in Music." Famous Copyright Infringement Plagiarism Cases in Music. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2014.

"Vanilla Ice Ice Ice Baby." WhoSampled. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.

                An allegedly plagiarized song is the Red Hot Chili Peppers Hit, “Dani California”, which holds striking similarities in sound to the Tom Petty classic, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance. There was rumor that the similarities would result in a large-scale law suit. Tom Petty was interviewed for a Rolling Stone magazine segment in which he was asked about the theft. He explains that in rock and roll there are many similar sounding songs, and that he doesn’t find the similarities malicious, and that he doesn’t mind. Whether or not the similarities were completely intentional remains, to this day, unknown.

"Petty Turns Blind Eye To Chili Peppers 'Plagiarism'" Contactmusic.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.

"Red Hot Chili Peppers Accused Of Plagiarism." Blogcritics. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.

"Tom Petty Doubts Chili Peppers Similarity Had "Negative Intent"" Rolling Stone. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.

Album Review

 Curren$y's new album, The Stoned Immaculate, is both a story of his past and an icon of his success. With song titles like "Chasin' Paper" and "No Squares", this album is representative of the slightly arrogant yet respectable view point that Currensy reflects upon his success. The theme throughout the album is, of course, chasing that paper, or making money. Songs range from bragging about his restored  Cadillacs and Lincolns to the beautiful girls in the back seat. Currensy makes is clear how none of this would have been possible without his unmatched lyricism and flow, and the money that results from these. Each and every song alludes to the last and foreshadows the next, and you gain a sense of the album being a work as a whole and as proof that success will come from "never looking in the rear view".

Representing success in the economics involved in life within the rap game in his song “Chasin' Papers”, Curren$y uses fluent rhyme, covert personification, and rapid assonance to explain how he found the “Big bucks...down on the road less travelled”.

Curren$y is renowned for his ability to use rhyme not only as a tool for making his bars sounds clean, but to create a sense of word play within the lyrics. Ending lines with phrases like “pedaling my bike... Car into a trike” institute a common sense of youth, something Curren$y boasts about. He claims that since he was a little kid, he knew he wanted the money. He enforces this again with the simple rhyme “ I know what its like to want it all, I was born to ball”. The way these words are similar draw the words ball and all together. This gives the listener the idea that through balling, he got it all.

The underlaying personification found in Curren$y's lines give money the identity of a living being that will try its best to evade the ballers and remain free and unclaimed. He does this first by stating the “Big Bucks lay down the roads less traveled”, giving us the idea that the money is in fact hiding in the place least likely to be found, and that Curren$y is that much more of a baller for uncovering the cash. He also masks his motivation for getting the money with the personification involved in him physically “chasing that paper like it stole something of [his]” and later explaining it was for the death of his friends.

Curren$y likes to boast about money, but not until he is sure his audience knows the struggle he has been through first. To give us an idea of the hectic and dangerous life he lived, he fits the assonance in “murdering, bur glaring..dashing, cashing,...madness” within two lines, to represent the violent and fast paced nature of his previous life, as the assonance gives us multiple images in short succession. This device is used to create contrast between the poverty in his past to the success he enjoys now.

Curen$y is a rapper that remains unique in the way that he uses common literary devices to add complexity to his verses. Hidden within the rhyme, personification, and assonance are the innuendos and pieces of irony that set Curren$y out from the rest. He uses these devices to tell the story of his life, and to display the polarity of the past and present, poverty and wealth.