Bringing the livestream back is important to the Chillhop team, but it’s not the be-all-end-all of the business, Leeuwen said. The company is trying to build a stronger community around the artists whose tracks are featured in the livestreams by organizing Q&A’s on Discord and supporting a loyal fanbase. Livestreams on YouTube are a dime a dozen, and when one is hit with a copyright strike, people very quickly move on to another channel, Leeuwen said.
As the years go by, a phenomenon that is beautiful to watch is how a particular generation ushers in a prolific DIY music movement that eventually becomes a staple. The 1960s and 70s saw the genesis of Garage Rock and Punk respectively, then came the upsurge of Indie and House in the 80s. My point with this is that lofi hip hop may potentially be the contemporary DIY musical movement alongside genres like vaporwave and bedroom pop. Even if all the makers of the genre remain press averse, there doesn’t appear to be any end in sight for lo-fi hip-hop’s growth. Hour-long mixes on the platform have racked up millions of plays within a year, while 24/7 live streams continue to attract thousands of listeners who simply need some type of noise behind their homework or household chores. Lo-fi hip-hop can keep trending upward, so long as the genre works hand-in-hand with YouTube’s technology to deliver laid-back vibes to the modern masses.
Like In Love With A Ghost, City Girl relies on a basic premise and then allows listeners to add meaning or sense to their tracks from there. In the shadow of the lo-fi hip-hop backlash, a number of artists are trying to bring shape and story back to downtempo music. After the lo-fi hip-hop boom, a group of artists is looking to bring meaning and narrative back to the genre. Read more about buy TikTok Followers here. Once you have a bass line that fits with the chords, blend the volume to allow it to sit nicely. It doesn’t have to be perfectly mixed for now, but just enough so it compliments nicely. Now we will make a bassline based on our original chord progression, using chord tones.
Samples from a good pack will sound quite authentic from the get go. The kicks will be heavy hitting and the snares will be already layered with vinyl crackle or have that old school boom bap vibe about them. It might be up for debate whether you should use premade drum loops or program the drum patterns yourself, but there is absolutely no doubt that a good sample library of one-shot drums is a must-have for any producer. The first time I ever experienced Lo-fi hip hop was during a beat battle in LA in 2017. This beat battle was at a very small, dingy venue in Downtown LA. You could call it a dive bar.
The plugin will do its magic and affect the high frequencies in a way that will make the track sound and feel a lot more muffled. A popular plugin in the lofi producer community is iZotope Vinyl. As the name suggests the plugin will make the loops sound like they were lifted directly from a vinyl record.
But by the easy half-lids through which she views her work, her casually slouched posture, her chin resting in an indifferent anime hand, we are assured that she passes through her virtual existence with a carefully managed ennui. If you scroll through the extensive list of lofi study beats playlists and radios, the ubiquitous presence of anime is borderline excessive compared to cartoons or retro videos. There’s a general consensus that Anime best captures the essence of these laid-back yet visceral beats. Arguably, part of that reason is owed to Nujabes and director Shinichiro Watanabe. In the early 2000s an Anime called Samurai Shamploo was created by Shinichiro Watanabe and it went on to be an absolute classic. Coincidently, this show was scored by genre pioneer Nujabes, along with another renowned anime by Mr Watanabe, Cowboy Bepop.
In-between random jokes, people were helping each other with insomnia tips or talking about homework problems they were facing. In a moment of true social distancing, having a place to go to listen to music, be productive, and find a community is a little bit of solace, according to Stafford. Social distancing has made it so “more people were turning to digital platforms than ever,” Pritchard said, which he saw as an opportunity.
“It wasn’t until early 2017 when I saw that YouTube Live streaming had come a long way that I decided to jump in and try again,” he said. As new sonic standards takeover traditional music business rules, Celsius adds, new waves of artists and gatekeepers will come about. A more diverse creative space will actively flip the industry and provide new monetization opportunities and growth initiatives for most players.
