An Open Letter to T-Pain

*Disclaimer: To all my readers who may not be in touch with the current state of popular culture, and more specifically popular music, in America you can ignore the clever and more wittier references in this update.

**Disclaimer to the Disclaimer: Given that I've been officially out of touch with popular culture for 3 months (and unofficially for pretty much my whole life) the aforementioned clever and witty culture references may no longer, in fact, be clever and witty. If so, please just ignore.

Dear T-Pain,

I would like to take this opportunity to officially thank you for having ruined the future of music in TWO countries, not just one. Thanks to you, hundreds, nay, thousands of people who realized they couldn't carry a tune in a bucket of water realized that they too can moonlight as somebody who actually has talent. I'll give you an example:

Yesterday I was hanging out after dark shooting the breeze with the night guards. They had a radio on, and the song that started playing was Carrie Underwood's "I Told You So" ft. Randy Travis. They listened with eager intent as I translated the song for them and went back and forth with emotion as if they were watching this poignant story of lost love unfold before their very eyes. Afterwords, they asked me if the song was sung by an angel because it was the most beautiful thing they'd ever heard (OK, they didn't really ask me, but I could tell they wanted to).

The next song that came on the radio had a little more local flavor to it. It was either recorded in the capitol of Maputo, but more likely it was recorded here in Nampula. It featured a nice snappy intro with the local flavor of afro-cuban rhythm to it (for Nampula, think a little more merengue, less samba). Then the horror started. The singer came in.

I've recorded in studio three or for times. And often in mastering the final product, a little tweaking may be done to a few parts where the singer may have been a little strained. It done well, it is not noticeable and is never a substitute for true talent. But more and more in the music here, it is becoming commonplace to take the most untalented singer you can, put them in front of a microphone, and digitally correct it to the point where it sounds like R2D2 is headlining a concert at Cancun's Cinco de Mayo party. And to make matters worse, people over here, like in
America, for some reason find this style of "singing" highly entertaining and if they had it their way that's all you'd ever hear on the radio.

I've had a good close-up look at the recording studio in town. Its a guy mixing midi beats on GarageBand '03. More and more the trend in music in Nampula is anyone who thinks they are God's gift to music can indulge themselves and record a few tracks, digitally correct the singer to the point where a human voice is unrecognizable, and pay radio stations to play it. And thanks to Western influences from rappers who try to sing, they think all the cool kids are doing it. No! They're not. Stop it. You're not cool if you sound like a robot when you're singing. It's not cool in America, it shouldn't be cool here.

Sincerely,
An extremely disgruntled music fan who thinks singing should be left to people that actually possess vocal cords capable of making sounds worth listening to without aid of a computer's auto-tuner.