Beats and Tunes: AJ Rafael
Foreword:
When you have an assignment due, midterms to study for, pre-readings needed to be read, lecture notes to review, and any other work you should be doing, what do you do? You procrastinate.
Procrastination is always present when you have a busy schedule. And in university, that schedule is packed with school work, parties, spending time with the family and going out to relax. But in that block of time you put the label on as work, your mind wanders and you go on the Internet.
Procrastination has a sneaky and incredible way of creeping into work-time in the form of relaxing that you convince yourself. 5 minutes of break from work turns into 2 hours on the Internet.
I have done a lot of procrastinating and when I do procrastinate, I often find myself on YouTube where I find some extremely talented, but unsigned, singers. I will post such talented musicians/artists on my blog so when you are taking a break you can check my blog for something that might interest you. Let the Beats and Tunes reel begin!
AJ Rafael
The Talent
AJ Rafael is a 20-year-old Filipino-American artist in California. He plays the guitar, piano, ukulele and drums, does his own vocals and also writes his own songs. AJ was at the Berklee College of Music (incredible!) but left in 2009 to pursue his career in music. In the winter of 2008 he created a band (drums, bass, lead guitar, and him being the lead singer). Check AJ out on his myspace and Youtube. He is now unsigned, but hopefully that situation will change very soon.
How I discovered him
Have you heard Miley Cyrus’ The Climb? Well, the song is actually very good (despite what you would expect from the original artist) and has been covered by many people. So I was searching for such covers when I discovered AJ. As with lots of YouTube artists, he started out by singing covers, all of them which were very good. Then I found his original songs which really showed his talent for singing and song writing. The lyrics are meaningful, not the mass-produced-trash-to-make-lots-of-money kind of music and shows he really put a lot of thought into his songs. The music industry needs talent, and AJ is the one of them.
Choice Song
Check out one of my favourite songs from him which is also on iTunes: I Just Want You.
in terms of music, how do you think his music generally is because i’m doing a music presentation on him. as in, what kind of beats does he play and how does his music express a specific genre?