GRAFITI Magazine by Ibrahim Alfaraidy

GRAFITi ISSUE 01 SEPTEMBER

ALBUM REVIEWS

Contents

Music mad men. A guide to ad agency synch supervisors.

A green Enviroment for new and the future.

Dave East Signs to Def Jam, Reveals Nas Will Executive Produce His Major Label Debt.

Ty Dolla $ign, Usher, Moor Mother and Flock of Dimes.

By The NUMBERs

Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S Letter 20

Is bad mood contagious?

Q&A Kendrick lamar.

Editor's letter. lasa ezieni

By The Numbers

MUSICâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S MAD MEN

MUSIC’S MAD MEN P

ay a visit to New York City’s Museum of the Moving Image to see its blockbuster show Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men, and toward the end of the exhibit you will find a lonely kiosk. It’s easy to overlook by the time you’ve waded through the throngs of museumgoers, and snaked your way through the lovingly preserved costumes and meticulously recreated sets of Don Draper’s office and Betty Draper’s kitchen, this standee with a screen and two sets of dangling headphones feels like an afterthought. This modest display commemorates the music of Mad Men — touch the screen and pick a song. Show creator Matthew Weiner will tell you why Mr.Acker Bilk’s “Stranger on the Shore,” a strangely sultry instrumental by a British clarinetist that happened to be Billboard’s No. 1 song of 1962, appeared on the show. Twice. Given how much brica-brac is packed into the MOMI exhibit, it’s understandable that they couldn’t devote more space to Mad Men’s music — but really, this forlorn kiosk should be a surround-sound amphitheater. The music that Weiner has employed over seven seasons of his acclaimed AMC advertising-industry melodrama, which began its final half-season of episodes Sunday night, has been every bit as integral to the show’s thesis about 1960s America as its actors, costumes and production design. Especially if you’re a pop-chart nerd like me, the music of Mad Men has felt smart, iconoclastic and (mostly) right on.In telling the story of the fictional ad agency Sterling Cooper, Weiner has strived to capture the 1960s as they were lived, not the decade many selectively

to the songs. selectively remember — the hagiographic “Sixties” from countless documentaries and public-TV pledge drives — and that extends to the songs. Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’” hasn’t appeared once, nor has his “Blowin’ in the Wind.” There’s been no “For What It’s Worth” by the Buffalo Springfield, no “A Change Is Gonna Come” from Sam Cooke, nor even the Kingsmen’s “Louie, Louie.” The Beatles made a (very expensive) appearance in one episode, but it had nothing to do with Sgt. Pepper or the Summer of Love; another time, when the Fabs’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was featured, it was only briefly whistled by lead character Don Draper. You’d think the Lovin’ asince the show is set in the dirty streets of pre–fiscal crisis New York, but nope. Avoiding these great but overused songs would just be contrarianism by Weiner if he weren’t so exacting about the songs he does include. Though they are unlikely to pop up on oldies radio today, many of Mad Men’s songs were megasmashes in their day. The fact is, on the radio and the charts, the ‘60s was generally a pretty schmaltzy decade, not the nonstop Boomer-rock paradise of repute. (Yes, even the late ‘60s.) Pick up any Billboard book commemorating the Hot 100 hits of yesteryear, and as you leaf through the ‘60s you’ll be presented less with classics by Jimi Hendrix or The Who than by curios like the Singing Nun, The Tornados, Kyu Sakamoto, Paul Mauriat and Jeannie C. Riley. All of these one-hit-wonder acts have been showcased on Mad Men, alongside a handful of undeniable classics by the Stones, The Beach Boys and Frank Sinatra.

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astutely notes this week in Slate, “Weiner has a genius for making scenes that are stagey and mannered yet nonetheless emotionally affecting, by capturing the small moments.” Indeed, the music of Mad Men is often the stagiest thing about the show, and yet these small musical moments, many under a minute long, consistently pay off with delight and satisfaction even when the song is as obvious as “Satisfaction.” It would be nuts for Weiner to avoid totemic ‘60s artists fully. Generally, when he has decided to invoke the decade’s folkie bards and pop eminences, he makes his song choices count — at least half the time, he chooses non-hits, invoking everyone from Roy Orbison to The Zombies without the accompanying duhmoment.

The show’s fans have noticed, and appreciated, Weiner’s attention to musical minutiae — they have crowdsourced lists of every detectable song in every episode. One time, just before the show’s fifth-season premiere, some attentive critics even got Weiner to swap a Dusty Springfield song that was anachronistic to the season’s 1966 timeline by just a few months; he changed it just before the episode aired, thanking the critics and attesting to his “deep appreciation for details.” (You don’t say, Matt.) Below, I’ve collected a bunch of the show’s cleverest song choices since its 2007 premiere and, where applicable, run down some Billboard chart stats. I’ve stuck to original recordings (so there’s no Megan Draper cooing “Zou Bisou Bisou”here, captivating as that is) and grouped them by theme, to help try to answer to question of why the music in this show is so rewarding. ous as “Satisfaction.” As critic Hanna Rosin

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Peter, Paul and Mary’s 1962 debut album was a huge seller, but Mad Men avoids its campfire hits (“If I Had a Hammer,” “Lemon Tree”) for the more definitive opener “Early in the Morning.” Speaking of PPM, they had the hit with “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” not Dylan, but it’s Bob’s version that closes the show’s first season, very memorably. Hall of Fame producer Phil Spector is represented not by the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” or the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” but rather the controversial, radio-banned and brutally ironic Crystals single “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss). ” The Beach Boys and the Monkees, each band a prolific hitmaker, are represented by two of their trippiest non-hits. And since “You Only Live Twice” was actually one of Nancy Sinatra’s smaller ‘60s hits, the song may now be more associated with Don Draper — how great was that season five finale montage? Peter, Paul and Mary’s 1962 debut album was a huge seller, but Mad Men avoids its campfire hits (“If I Had a Hammer,” “Lemon Tree”) for the more definitive

Sure, the ‘60s had Motown, British Invasion, psychedelia — but the pop instrumental was a greater chart presence than many remember. Billboard’s No. 1 song of 1960 was Percy Faith’s “Theme from A Summer Place,” and the aforementioned “Stranger on the Shore” was tops for 1962; both have appeared on Mad Men. Trumpeter Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass also make a brief appearance — they were the second-biggest album-chart act of the ‘60s, after the Beatles. So while most of Mad Men’s orchestral soundtrack is provided by the show’s longtime composer David Carbonara, Weiner has also seeded the show with instrumentals that were the aural wallpaper of their day.

Even as the show enters the politically charged late ‘60s, soothing instrumental hits keep on coming — Weiner juxtaposes heavy events with frilly mass culture to depict how America’s Silent Majority pacified itself. In the season five finale, as Draper visits a local movie palace, Alpert’s suave “Casino Royale” plays over the opening credits of the 1967 James Bond spoof of the same name; its appearance is incidental but also plays wittily off of Draper’s status as the show’s fauxBond and serial bachelor. By 1968 — the year of fiery protest, national tragedy and blues-rock — French orchestra leader Paul Mauriat was atop the charts with his baroque harpsichord jam “Love Is Blue.”

In 1962 alone, three instrumentals topped Billboard’s Hot 100 — the most ever in a single year — and in season two, set in ‘62, two of these songs make appearances: Bilk’s “Stranger on the Shore,” and the short-lived British band the Tornados, with their space-age ode to a communications satellite “Telstar.” (Oddly, the only ‘62 instrumental chart-topper left untouched by Weiner is David Rose’s bawdy “The Stripper.”) “Telstar” is a particularly clever Easter egg, playing at the end of an episode in which adman Don Draper strong-arms his way into a West Coast aerospace conference.

It’s the closing song of the episodedealing with the Martin Luther King Jr., assassination, the same episode that finds Don back at the movies with his son, taking in Planet of the Apes. Powers questioned Weiner’s use of the song, and whether it would ever have alienated a savvy ad man like Don. But let’s pause and admire Weiner’s chutzpah one more time: You have one quarter-million-dollar budget to devote to licensing one Beatles song — the very act is guaranteed media attention Here’s the other half of the “totemic” category all over again. Peggy, Mad Men’s ultimate liminal

Central to the premise of Mad Men is that it is told through the eyes of pre–Baby Boomers, for whom the 1960s’ folkways and cultural uprisings come less as shocks than as irritants. The character of Don Draper was born in the 1920s, Roger Sterling in the 1910s; even young copywriter Peggy Olson’s birthdate precedes America’s entry into World War II. While some of the show’s sharpest moments find Draper, at the cusp of his forties, confronted by rock (we’ll get to that Beatles moment in a minute), point, oldies.

and you choose one of their thorniest and least radio-friendly (albeit one of their greatest)? Talk about meta: Weiner’s “Tomorrow Never Knows” scene was his own tobacco letter, an advertisement for its own daring that became more about the show’s influence than about the show’s content. If it wasn’t one of Mad Men’s best musical moments, it was perhaps the show’s most savvy — Don Draper himself could have dreamed it up. all over again. Peggy, Mad Men’s ultimate liminal character

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all over again. Peggy, Mad Men’s ultimate liminal character, is a one-woman representation of both audiences, twisting her arrival into self-assured adulthood. No wonder the petty, controlling Pete doesn’t want to dance with her. “The Twist” is a rare early–Mad Men example of a signpost hit. Most of these expensive-to-license smashes appeared after season four, suggesting Weiner was more hamstrung by his fledgling show’s budget early on than by any deliberate artistic choice. But even over the last few seasons, Weiner has spent his newfound clout on coveted songs.

Rosin asFor me, though, none of these moments tops the most moving use of music inMad Men’s history, the finale of season six. Don has just been released by Sterling Cooper for self-immolating during a Hershey pitch, picking the worst possible moment to reveal his unhappy childhood and fraudulent biography to a key client. It’s Thanksgiving Day 1968, and Don picks up his kids — but before driving them to dinner, the confessional and newly unfettered Don brings them to a derelict, abandoned Victorian house now surrounded by projects: the seedy brothel from his childhood.

enough to make their appearance feel indelible rather than inevitable. If you’ve watched the show devotedly, I barely need to detail these killer scenes: Don “Summer Man” Draper roaming the streetsto the Stones’ “Satisfaction”; Peggy ditching Sterling Cooper with a sassy smirk to the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me”; Pete toking up to the liberating yowl of Janis’s “Piece of My Heart”; Megan picking up Don at LAX in a convertible as Steve Winwood bleats Spencer Davis’s “I’m a Man”; Don and Peggy slow-dancing to Frank’s definitive “My Way.”

“This,” Don tells the kids, “is where I grew up” — and up pops Judy Collins’s achingly beautiful cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” its lyrics a dreamy fantasia pierced with self-lacerating regret (a Mitchell trademark). It’s the dialogue in Don’s head, in song. One final detail: The week before by the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” or the Righteous Brothers’ “ Thanksgiving 1968, Collins’s “Both Sides Now”leapt into the Top 20 on the Hot 100, on its way to a Top 10 peak just before Christmas. Teenage Sally Draper — or better yet, pubescent Bobby Draper.

Most of these songs are not used diegetically — “My Way” is playing on an on-screen radio, but otherwise it’s debatable whether, say, Peggy is thinking about the Kinks at her moment of freedom. But the fact that these songs were all big hits is essential to these scenes — they define the background of the characters’ lives. If Sunday’s first episode of season 7.2 is any indication, Weiner plans to keep deploying iconic tunes on his way to the exit. Peggy Lee’s immortal late-1969 single “Is That All There Is?” bookended the episode, an inevitable, none-too-subtle evocation of the exhaustion of the ‘60s and the protagonists’ emotional voids, even after getting everything they thought they wanted. Weiner has spent his newfound clout on coveted.

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WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;LL GET TO THAT BEATLES MOMENT IN A MINUTE. The Music Of

THIS CHANGES

EVERYTHING

Dave East Signs to Def Jam,Reveals Nas Will Executive Produce His Major Label Debut

ave East has officially joined the Def Jam roster. The Harlem rapper, best known for being Nas’ prodigy and signee on Mass Appeal Records, announced his new deal on Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club on Thursday morning (Sept. 29). “Mass Appeal is still the family, but I actually just did a joint venture with Def Jam,” he said. “I am very excited about it.” He added of the deal, “It wasn’t just the average [deal of] me signing to a major—I’m actually partners with [Def Jam]. It was just a step forward for me. I was with Mass Appeal solely for almost two years.” East went on to explain the role his mentor, who he says will still executive produce his first album for Def Jam, played in his new deal: “Nas really introduced the world and a lot of people to me—that was ideal as far as me first coming in. It’s at a time now where a machine really helps what I’m trying to do, especially being from New York and not trying to just stay in New York. I’m not trying to be underground or classified as a certain type of dude, so I feel like this was a good move to really try and get my brand, my movement across the world.” Hip-hop executive Steve “Steve-O” Carless helmed East’s Def Jam deal, a “multi-million-dollar venture” with Triangle Offense, a management company launched by East and his longtime manager, Wayno Clark, a source close to the situation tells Billboard. Mass Appeal Records is included in the deal as a distribution partner. “Us deciding to partner with Def Jam was due in part to Steve, [Def Jam’s vice president of A&R] Noah Preston and the label’s enthusiasm for having us,” Wayno said in a statement sent to Billboard. Dave East Talks Upcoming Project ‘Kairi Chanel’, Hints at Potential Feature On Nas’ Next Album Triangle Offense is home to artists Jazzy Amra and Matt Patterson, as well as producers Buda & Grandz, Rico Suave and Automatik Beats. In addition, hip-hop influencer Karen Civil, who has worked on the digital front for artists such as Nipsey Hussle, Jeezy and Lil Wayne, will handle the social media and marketing initiatives for Dave East through the Marathon Agency. East’s forthcoming project Kari Chanel, the follow-up to his Tales From The East set released in April, will mark his final independent release under Mass Appeal Records. His major-label debut (title to be announced) is slated for release in 2017 via Def Jam Records.

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ALBUM REVIEWS Ty Dolla $ign

Campaign This election season has been dystopian enough to force YG into touring the country with a Trump piñata. Now the Compton rapper’s dayone bro and producer Ty Dolla $ign—an artist not usually known for his politics on anything beyond “these hoes”—offers his own pro-Clinton statement in a new mixtape, Campaign. In its skits, distorted vocals argue in favor of voting as damage control. “She gotta fix these jail policies and everything…but…If all votes count, I’m voting for Hillary. Fuck it,” an uncredited YG declares at the end of “Hello.”

FIND IT AT: iTunes Music

6.9

Review by Winston Cook-Wilson

Usher

Hard II Love Like many child stars, Usher has struggled with his transition to adulthood. He was too old to be lurking like somebody’s creepy uncle in the 2010 video for “Lil Freak,” and too young to be belting like a 55-year-old who’s just bagged his first under-30 girlfriend in the song “Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home).” But on 2014’s “Good Kisser,” a louche wink of a song, he figured out how to relax into exactly what he was: a dude in his mid-thirties with the abs of Michelangelo’s David, the dance moves of MJ, and the money of an artist who released the sixth best-selling album of the 2000s. He sounded breezy and at ease, finally confident

Review by Rebecca Haithcoat

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FIND IT AT: iTunes Music

6.5 10

Moor Mother

Fetish Bones The science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany wrote that the raison d’être of the genre was not about creating an imagined future, but to consider a world in which art can provide “a significant distortion of the present.” To travel through time, to be plopped out on the other end of a wormhole was to excavate the present moment and remix the past. For the Afrofuturist music critic Kodwo Eshun, this thinking was essential. The art of the Afrodiaspora, from Du Bois’ double consciousness to Sun Ra’s extraterrestrial imagination, was united by a desire to create contexts “that encourage a process of disalienation,” by reconsidering what was possible in the present. Camae Ayewa (a.k.a. Moor Mother) follows in the footsteps of these radical time travelers. Review by Kevin Lozano

FIND IT AT: iTunes Music

8.2 10

Flock of Dimes

If You See Me, Say Yes At some point, for Jenn Wasner, all the praise she attracted as a guitarist began to grow complicated. “It felt so strange to have the focus shift from my songs and ideas to my guitar playing,” the Wye Oak leader shared in an essay this summer. “‘This chick shreds!’ ‘Hey, you can really play!’” Wasner saw how her own guitar work was often cast as a spectacle, in contrast to her equally talented male bandmates. “No one draws any additional attention to them — it is taken in stride,” Wasner wrote. “Meanwhile, time and time again, you are fawned over like a child who’s just taken her first steps.” Review by Philip sherburne

FIND IT AT: iTunes Music

7.0 10

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0 engines / 0 emissions / 100% electric

The line between power and reason blurs. Tesla impresses with performance and best-in-class emissions of just 109 grams of CO2, per km. Be ahead of the times and experience one today.

PRESS TO HEAR THE MOTOR START.

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Is A BAd Mood Contagious? WHEN YOU SEE SOMEONE COUGHING, you reflexively know to steer clear of his or her germs. When you observe someone who is cranky or complaining, it is less obvious what to do. Studies suggest, however, that others’ moods may be as easy to catch as their germs. Psychologists call this pheno menon emotional contagion, a three-step process through which one person’s feelings transfer to another person. The first stage involves nonconscious mimicry, during which individuals subtly copy one another’s nonverbal cues, including posture, facial expressions and movements. In effect, seeing my frown makes you more likely to frown. People may then experience a feedback stage--because you frowned, you now feel sad. During the final contagion stage, individuals share their experiences until their emotions and behaviors become synchronized. Thus, when you encounter a co-worker on a bad day, you may unknowingly pick up your colleague’s nonverbal behaviors and begin to morph into an unhappy state. Mimicry is not all bad, however; a person can also adopt a friend or colleague’s good mood, which can help enhance their bond.

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During the final contagion stage, individuals share their experiences until their emotions and behaviors become synchronized. Thus, when you encounter a co-worker on a bad day, you may unknowingly pick up your colleague’s nonverbal behaviors and begin to morph into an unhappy state. Mimicry is not all bad, however; a person can also adopt a friend or colleague’s good mood, which can help enhance their bond.Although mimicry often occurs outside of our awareness, sometimes we can observe it. Let us say you see someone across from you on the train yawn. Often you cannot help but yawn as well. Recent research suggests that this type of mimicry is more common when the person yawning is someone close to you, such as a family member, good friend or romantic partner. Another study revealed that nonconscious mimicry, also dubbed the chameleon effect,occurs more often in more empathetic people.The

More important, emtional crossover was more pronounced when the couple engaged in negative conflict-resolution practices, such as rejecting or criticizing the partner. studemphasize the importance of choosing wisely the company you keep, so you can catch others’ good moods, rather than their bad moods. Most people recognize that they can learn a lot about a person by paying close attention to the person’s emotional reactions.

contagious nature of emotions can become amplified when individuals are in frequent contact with one another. In one study, marriage researchers Lisa A. Neff of the University of Texas at Austin and Benjamin R. Karney of the University of California, Los Angeles, examined more than 150 couples for three years to determine how one spouse’s stress influences the other spouse and overall marital quality. They found that wives were not affected significantly. Husbands, however, experienced lower marital satisfaction when their wives reported higher stress. During the final contagion stage, individuals share their experiences. Thus, when you encounter a co-worker on a bad day, you may unknowingly pick up your colleague’s nonverbal behaviors and begin to morph into an unhappy state. more than 150 couples. sometimes we can observe it. overall marital quality.

reactions in our brains that cause us to interpret those expressions as our own feelings. Simply put, as a species, we are innately vulnerable to “catching” other people’s emotions. In the literature, this process in which a person or a group influences the emotions and affective behavior of another person or group through the conscious .

unconcious induction of emotions is referred to as emotional contagion (EC). And although study after study has demonstrated what a powerful impact it can Facial expressions, gestures, voice tone, rate of speech all have on our relationshipstic partnerships, friendships, of these cues help us figure out how a person is fee ing. Is he or she angry? Sad? Nervous? Afraid? For centuries, teams, business relationships, and groups of all kinds researchers have studied the tendency for people to uncon- interestingly, we often don’t realize how much our own emotions are influenced by the emotional states sciously and automatically mimic the emotional expresof others. it is someone close to you, such as a family sions of others, and in many cases actually feel the same member. Most people recognize that they can learn a lot feelings simply by exposure to emotions in social interabout a person by paying close attention to the person’s actions. Studies have found that the mimicry of a frown emotional reactions. or a smile or other kinds of emotional expression trigger

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THE GOOD Referring to emotions as contagious may connote a negative experience. However, this is not necessarily true. Being “infected” by another person’s happiness or enthusiasm can be a very good thing. Researchers have found that when subjects “catch” positive emotions from others, they’re more likely to be viewed by others and view themselves as more cooperative and competent. They also perceive themselves as more collegial (see the research of Sigal Barsade). Simply put, when you hang out with happy people, you tend to feel happier, have more energy, and feel less stressed. Similar results have been found in team sports. When a team is upbeat, positive, and in an overall good mood, this spirit is transferred to individual players. Results also show that when teams are happier, the athletes on the team tend to play be ter (see the work of Peter Totterdel Some research even suggests that indirect relationships, such as those created by social media, can affect your happiness. Researchers Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler discovered that happiness spreads through social networks, much like a virus, which means that you can be infected with the happiness of someone you’ve never even met, and vice versa. Christakis and Fowler explain: “A person’s happiness is related to the happiness of their friends.

THE BAD The oppostie holds true. EC can occur in the negative direction, adding significant stress and strain in your life. This is particularly true when negative EC creeps into your close relationships. Because marriages, partnerships, family connections, and even close friendships are largely based on emotions, any sadness, fear, or worry on the part of that other person in your life (child, parent, domestic partner, best friend) can have a profound and lasting impact on your overall mood and outlook on life. Research has found that depression in a spouse frequently leads to depression in the partner. The same holds true for roommates. In addition, children raised by depressed parents are significantly more likely to be diagnosed with depression. In fact, one family members’ depression can bring down an entire family system. Other emotions, such as anxiety and fear, can have the same effect. However, negative EC is not isolated to our closest relationships. One bad (e.g., negative) apple can winfect the entire tree regardless of where that tree is planted. Tony Schwartz, author, CEO of The Energy Project, and Harvard Business Review blogger, shared how this kind of unhealthy contagion spread quickly through his company after the hiring of a new executive. Schwartz writefor the well being of the company. He reported to me, and at first, I appreciated his input.”

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suspicious, and others on our team seemed more tense. The buoyant, productive atmosphere that had chara terized our culture for years, even in tough times, began to seep away.” Fortunately, Schwartz eventually realized, through conversations with other employees, the toxic environment that was being created and spread by this one person and ultimately fired him. Yet, Schwartz cautions that he didn’t even recognize what was happening until damage had been done to the overall mood of his employees and his company in general. He confided that once he realized what was going on and his own role in it, he felt “angry and abashed. My most important job is to be our company’s Chief Energy Officer.I’d allowed myself to be unduly influenced by a destructive kind of energy, and then I had unconsciously communicated that energy to others.

team and the company as a whole.” The negativity keeps pounding away at you and ultimately results in significant second-hand stress, which as you might expect, has the same effects on your mind and body as direct. This example should serve as a strong reminder to leaders that they can have a significant impact on the emotional state of their employees and the overall work environment, regardless of whether those emotions are internally produced or externally generated by a negative influence in the Schwartz writes, “Leaders, by virtue of their authority, exert a disproportionate impact on the mood of those they supervise. In this case, I was influenced simply by the strength of this executive’s negative feelings. Others in the office were more influenced by me, because I’m their boss. Emotional contagion took hold. As the negativity spread, it drained the energy of our team and the company as a whole.”

“This example should serve as a strong reminder to leaders that they can have a significant impact on the emotional state of their employees and the overall work environment, regardless of whether those emotions are internally produced or externally generated by a negative influence in the company. Schwartz writes, “Leaders, by virtue of their authority, exert a disproportionate impact on the mood of those they supervise. In this case, I was influenced simply by the strength of this executive’s negative feelings. Others in the office were more influenced by me, because I’m their boss. Emotional contagion took hold. As the negativity spread, it drained the energy of our team and the company as a whole.” Others in the office were more influenced by me, because I’m their boss. Emotional contagion took hold. As the negativity spread, it drained the energy of our

At this point, you may be thinking, if that’s the bad, what’s the ugly. The ugly is the consequences. Just as second-hand smoke can have the same or worse effects on the health of nonsmokers, second-hand emotions (if they’re the negative kind just described) can have significant, long-lasting effects on the health and well being of those experiencing them. The negativity keeps pounding away at you and ultimately results in significant second-hand stress, which as you might expect, has the same effects on your mind and body as direct stress. The body experiences and interprets it as one in the same. Others in the office were more influenced by me, because I’m their boss. Emotional contagion took hold. As the negativity spread, it drained the energy of our team and the company as a whole.” Emotional contagion took hold. As the negativity spread.

Schwartz says, “I began to feel more anxious and

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What You Can Do About a Bad Mood. EAT

So it seems easy, right? Surround yourself with positive people and avoid those who emit negativity. However, that is easier said than done. First, many experts believe that negative emotions are a lot easier to catch than positive ones. Some believe this is reflective of our evolutionary past wherein being highly attuned to other people’s negative emotions (pain, fear, and disgust) was directly linked to survival. Those who could pick up on someone else’s pain, fear, and disgust were more likely to survive than those who could not. Today, fortunately, we don’t have to worry about being surprised by a saber-toothed tiger planning its next dinner. Yet, we still need some degree of emotional mimicry and synchrony skills to live in harmony with others and to recognize the emotional environment we’re in. For example, in a dangerous situation, or a conflict, or even a sporting competition, reading the emotions of others can be

beneficial. The question becomes how do we modulate these instincts so that they don’t have a negative impact on our well being. I think the answer, at least partly, is to become much more aware of our natural instinct to mimic the emotional states of others so that we can use it to our advantage when we can and reduce its impact on our well being when we need to. Am I suggesting that you should never feel empathy for others or try to relate to what they’re feeling at a bad time in their life? No. What I’m saying is that you should become highly attuned to the impact that the emotional states of others are having on you and take care of yourself when you need to for your own emotional well being. Awareness is the key. According to researchers Hatfield, Cacioppo, and Rapson, some people are more vulnerable to EC than others. They have found that those who are most vulnerable to the catching” others’ emotions are individuals

who tend to be attentive and sensitive to the emotions of others. value interrelatedness over independence and uniqueness, and those whose conscious emotional experiences are heavily influenced by peripheral feedback. Researcher R. William Doherty has found that susceptibility to EC is positively associated with affective orientation, emotionality, sensitivity to others, self-esteem, and more strongly associated with emotional than cognitive modes of empathy. He also discovered that introverts are more likely to be affected by others’ positive emotions whereas “those more oriented toward external, social reality tend to be more affected by others’ negative emotional expressions.” Hatfield also believes that women tend to be more vulnerable to absorbing the stress and negativity of those around them because they are more often socialized to attend to the emotional needs of those around them and to want to please others than are men. And research

has found that in certain contexts women are more suspectible to EC for both positive and negative emotions (see Doherty, et al., Emotional Contagion: Gender and Occupational Differences). If you’re wondering how vulnerable you are to catching a bad (or a good) case of emotions, check out my post, The Emotional Contagion Scale, which contains questions developed by Elaine Hatfield and her colleagues to help you gauge how vulnerable you are to EC. During the final contagion stage, individuals share

Surround yourself with positive people and avoid those who emit negativity.

their experiences until their emotions and behaviors become synchronized. Thus, when you encounter a co-worker on a bad day, you may unknowingly pick up your colleague’s nonverbal behaviors and begi morph into an unhappy state. Mimicry is not all bad, however; a person can also adopt a friend or colleague’s good mood, which can help enhance their bond. have also been linked to second-hand stress..

Theoretically, doing anything you like can improve your mood, but food works in a number of ways. First, it regenerates nutrients you’ve lost over the course of the day.

EXERCISE Exercise increases endorphins and can naturally switch a mood from bad in a matter of a few minutes. You can get an endorphin boost from exercise by exerting a moderate or high level of exercise.

LISTEN Music can trigger a release of dopamine into your brain. This is associated with a pleasurable feeling and subsequently can turn a frown upside down in the span of a three-minute pop song. Basically, as you’re following a tune, you are anticpating what’s going to happen next and the reward for doing so is a little shot of pleasure.

EMBRACE IT A bad mood can trigger more attentive, careful thinking and allows you to zero in on specific tasks. As we mentioned above, it gives you a sort of tunnel vision, which also means your focus is dedicated to one project.

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Q&A Kendrick Lamar Is Music a very important part of your life? It’s what I do for a living; it’s not my life. I’m not in love with it; I simply don’t mind doing it. But doesn’t Music require a certain level of inspiration? One great painting out of a hundred bad ones, that’s inspiration. This doesn’t make a professional. A true artist is a trained and experienced master whose work gets consistently better from one painting to the next. To rely on inspiration is to starve. When a commission comes my way, I can’t wait around for inspiration to get me going. Whatever is demanded of you by a client, you do. That’s what I’m getting paid for. You trust your skills and you rely on experience to work on cue. Would you select a brain surgeon on the basis of inspiration? You sound indifferent. Where is the relationship between the artist and his art? There is involvement and professional satisfaction while you work on a piece. You take pride on doing a job to the best of your abilities. But once you’re finished, you have to walk away and forget about it. An artist needs a certain level of detachment from his work in order to remain objective. You can’t fall in love with your work. I’ve known so many who puke on a canvas and call it a masterpiece. How do you creat your Music? Through a visualizing technique: I listen carefully to the client’s ideas and desires and I listen for the things he or she is not telling me. What they want is usually in between. Then I lie down, close my eyes and do absolutely nothing. In a few minutes, hours, days... a week (it depends on the complexity of the commission), I will have the entire painting visualized in my mind, every detail, exactly as it will look when it’s finished. The rest is easy: I do the required research, gather the necessary props and materials, make some mental revisions, and then, I paint the picture that’s inside my head.

26 The Music Of

How much drawing do you have to go through to prepare for a painting? Only one... really! All my drawings are done inside my head; I am no good with a pencil. After I complete the research, gather the props (or pictures of the props) and visualize the composition, I then proceed to draw the cartoon (a finished drawing that serves as the pattern for the painting), which will end up projected onto the painting surface. I rarely make changes. This is a very reliable and productive method I learned from studying Norman Rockwell. Don’t your clients want to see what the work is going to look like before they approve it? In my experience, most clients want to see a finished painting of the finished painting before they say yes to a commission. The only way I will do so is if they pay me for all the time and effort that will take. They rarely agree to do.What I do instead is “describe” what the painting is going to look like. I show a sample of my work so they can judge the quality of the draughtsmanship and painting style. Do you consider music murals more of a challenge than working on a Stage? Murals are more demanding. A muralist works in the open. He is exposed to the public and to the elements. It demands confidence in ones abilities and, above all, it requires physical endurance. I have painted in weather ranging from 105 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit. I had brushes become stuck the surface because the heat would dry the (acrylic) paint almost instantly. Also, when you are close to a wall you lose your point of reference.

Do you do a lot of shows? I have only done one show of new works in my entire life. It happened this spring (May 99) at the Beachwood Arts Center. I was part of a five Latin Artist show that tied in with the phenomenal Diego Rivera exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art. It also had the incentive of having my good friend Hector Vega showing side by side. I’ve been his mentor since the beginning of his artistic career and it’s great to see his amazing success. I am not discarding the possibility of participating in a group shows in the future if I have a work that deserves to be seen. I may even get around to my first solo show if I ever manage to build a body of work to fill a gallery. But shows have never been a priority . Why don’t you make more paintings? Because I only paint when someone hires me to paint. Except for a few panels that I keep for myself, I have nothing else to show. Isn’t easier to promote and market your work if you do more shows? I don’t know. Look at it my way. You can have fifty great paintings that several hundred people will see during a limited period of time. Or, you can paint a mural that thousands of people will see every day. Remember, all it took was one mural to make my reputation. After that, I was cursed; I wasn’t allowed to be anything but an artist. I guess that it is the company of the audience that I most enjoy from painting. Is there a big difference between mural painting and “easel” painting? Absolutely. An easel painter paints for himself; a muralist paints for others. It takes more ingenuity and creativity to work around the clients demands and still get your way. But also, a painting is a self-contained environment; a mural is contained in an environt.

The Music Of

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Are you implying that the business side of art is taken precedence over artistic value? Music as we know it has always been about business. The purists think this is wrong. That art should not be concerned with this. I agree with the principle of this sentiment, to a point. There is a certain ring of truth about it that feels right. But the purists like to create dogmas that tend to forget reality. Some consider artists, like me, who have managed to earn a living by marketing art to others, to be beneath their self-proclaimed standards of what a true artist should be. They forget to realize that artists have lived from time immemorial from the fat of the land. Artists and art intellectuals who think that they work in a vacuum neglect to acknowledge that without an audience, a market, without the sponsors and the buyers, there are no artists. Without these they will die. We all need each other. How has this transition affected your music? It didn’t. I became a painter late in life. By then, I was already in the United States, and to begin with, my artistic role models were Europeans. Besides, Puerto Rico may be a foreign country to most Americans but it is a foreign country within the United States. So even though I grew up without knowing how to speak English, or about McDonalds and Football, I was very familiar with American. What are the assets of being a bicultural artist? It’s like having the best of both worlds. It has also produced some funny side effects. One of my greatest artistic assets with some of my wealthy clients, it’s generally... my accent. It makes me sound foreign and sophisticated (in spite of being a buckeye from Cleveland, Ohio). Clients who can afford to get any competent artist are always looking for something extra to come with the package. So they will choose the one they can impress their friends with. They want to say, “I am sophisticated because I picked him”. A strong following of admirers consider you the artist among

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artists. Your Latino fans address you as “maestro” [the master]. How does it make you feel? It’s embarrassing. But I understand it as it implies as a title. Latin America is profound, artistic and religious. To be a great artist is to have a gift from God. When I paint for a Latin audience, my work makes strong use of symbolism and mystical elements that are part of the Spanish psyche. If your work moves or inspires them, you earn the title. But it only becomes official when your peers bestow it. A diploma from a big name art school or a huge check from your last sale won’t earn you the right, not even if you are the darling of the critics. Only the public can nominate you for that honour and then you try to carry the burden of living up to it. I take it very seriously. You are also an art teacher and a popular speaker with young students and art lovers alike. They say you break away from the stereotypical image of the artist. Why do you think this is so? Because I tend to de-mystify the artist. I tried to see things from their point of view. Like in the fable of the “Emperor’s New Clothes”, the public sees art like children. They will not be fooled by the smoke screen of high sounding words and concepts designed to impose false standards of what is and what is not desirable. I’ve been told that you have an explosive temper. What things ignite you? A have low tolerance for stupidity and incompetence. I expect people who claim to be someone or that know something to produce results when others are depending on them. Truth, honesty and loyalty are qualities I treasured above all. It is nice to be loved, but when it comes to getting the job done, I’ll rather have results.

WOODBURY UNIVERSITY Founded in 1884

Engagement. Innovation. Transformation University nationally ranked 15th among Colleges that Add the Most Value — Money Magazine Animation nationally ranked among Top 25 Schools to hire from in 2015 — Animation Magazine Architecture ranked 24th in the nation for Undergraduate Architecture Programs — 2016 DesignIntelligence Survey Graphic Design nationally ranked as Top Design School in 2016 and 2015 Interior Architecture ranked 4th among the Top Programs in the West — DesignIntelligence

Founded in 1884, Woodbury University is a non-profit, fully accredited private institution with two extraordinary geographic locations at the heart of Southern California’s creative economy in Los Angeles and San Diego. A Nationally Recognized College of Distinction, Woodbury offers over 20 practice-based professional and liberal arts undergraduate and graudate majors, many of which are nationally and regionally ranked.

School of Architecture School of Business College of Liberal Arts School of Media, Culture & Design

School of Media, Culture & Design

Animation Communication Fashion Design Filmmaking Game Art & Design Graphic Design Media Technology Psychology School of Architecture

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MUSIC

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Editor’S Letter lasa ezinei

et me introduce myself: I am Lasa Ezinei new Editor in Chief. And beginning with the September issue—redesigned and reimagined—we will learn from one another what a magazine is, and what it can be, in our always changing new world. To start, let me say that I am a magazine enthusiast, a junkie who from my earliest school days has been obsessed with flipping though the pages of magazines, first absorbed in their images and stories, later assigning and editing my own. I really believe that no matter whether a magazine is delivered to your doorstep or to your computer, printed on glossy stock or on cheap tabloid paper, appearing on your iPad or your cell-phone screen, it is still and foremost the work of an editorial team for a discerning audience, a beautiful and meaningful— we hope—package of ideas, words and images that a group of experts prepares for its readers. While technology efficiently delivers news stories to our desktops, laptops and mobile devices, magazines are all about context—how ideas and images are presented in relation to one another and within a larger point of view. Magazines are about trust and partnership: We, the editors, will strive always to keep you engaged; you, the readers, are free to engage with us or to reject us. But enough theory: Let me tell you about this transitional August issue of W. There is a story this month that I particularly like because it combines a great read with intriguing photographs. The very talented Lauren Collins, a staff writer at The New Yorker, profiles a woman at the top of her game: Gucci Creative Director Frida Giannini. In her spirited and often funny narrative, Collins captures the strengths and doubts of many successful

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women. She paints, with brave strokes, Giannini’s rise to power in a man’s world, professionally and personally, while at the same time delighting in the pleasures and ironies of celebrity and stardom. Artist and photographer Paolo Roversi renders his own portrait of Giannini—naked beneath her mannish suit—and brings Gucci’s fall collection out into the streets of Rome, with mirrors, monuments and more than a touch of Fellini. From the Eternal City we travel to the City of Angels, where Jon Hamm and Rebecca Hall act out our cover story, shot in downtown L.A. The Mad Men star doffs Don Draper’s perfect suit and tie to get intimate with Hall, the Vicky of Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Having just worked on The Town, a drama directed by and starring Ben Affleck—in theaters in September—the pair complain about the dearth of movies aimed at adults, and address rumors of Hall’s romance with a certain director. These days Los Angeles wants to be more than a movie set, and the city is making a serious bid to become a world capital of contemporary art. Many well-known New York art figures have decamped for L.A., most recently art impresario Jeffrey Deitch, now at the Museum of Contemporary Art. A crop of East Coast galleries—L&M Arts and Matthew Marks among them—are establishing West Coast outposts. And a cluster of new galleries has sprung up in Culver City. “It’s not just a coincidence. S—’s on fire,” declares one longtime gallerist. To document the change, photographer Jason Schmidt takes us for a ride along the Angeleno avenues to discovered.

By The NUMBERs

75,000 Albums Released In U.S.

GRAFITi Jayne Haugen Olson Editor in Chief

Brian Johnson Creative Director

75,000

SALES

IN 2016

WITH

75%

ABOUT 75,000 ALBUMS WERE RELEASED IN 2016, ACCORDING TO NIELSEN, DOWN 22% FROM 96.

75,000

60,000 TITLES 2015 THAT SOLD

NEW RELEASES IN 2016, WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;RE BACK TO WHERE WE STOOD

0.7%

TITLES THAT SOLD FROM 1 TO 100 UNITS REPRESENTED OF ALL SALES FROM TITLES RELEASED IN

2016

and

2015

Sales were down 10% during the first half of 2015, while total streaming surged

92%

79.5%

THE NUMBER OF NEW RELEASES PEAKED IN 2015 AT 106,000

IN 2006

0.9% OF SALES CAME FROM THE 80,000 TITLES THAT SOLD FROM 1 TO 100 UNITS

THE 60,000 NEW RELEASES THAT SOLD 100 OR FEWER UNITS AVERAGED JUST 13.3 UNITS PER TITLE

180,000

Units of an increase and 12.7 percent compared to 2010

2016 NEW

RELEASES

Sara Elbert Executive Editor

Jennifer Buege Deputy Editor

Dana Raidt Senior Editor

Steve Marsh Senior Writer

Sydney Berry Associate Editor

Jason Oliver Nixon Contributing Editor

Anderw Zimmern Contributing Editor

Elizabeth Doyle Contributing Fashion Editor

Allison Oleskey, Chelsea Yin, SHO & Company, Inc. Contributing Bookings Editors

Jean Marie Hamilton Senior Copy Editor

Edgar Rojas Spanish Editor/Translator

Sabrina Badola, Rachel Guyah, Colin Miller Editorial Interns

Amy Ballinger, Ted Rossiter Art Directors

Steve Mathewson, Bill Sympson Digital Prepress Group

Frank Sisser Director of Project Management

Jonathon Bernson Production Manager

Bea Jaegar Dierctor of Circulation

Carin Russell Circulation Manager The Music Of

SIMPL-

- ICITY Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

s d re t i er ho il p ch ep p At the forum 3900 West manchester blvd. inglewood, CA 90305 Saturday, December 24, 2016 Over 18s ONLY