Have you heard of SoundCloud rappers?
I'm on SoundCloud all the time.
You don't know what you're gonna get
on the SoundCloud.
Anything goes.
No rules. No parents!
[ Vocalizing with Auto-Tune ]
[ Synthesizer whirring ] -Yes! Go off.
You are just taking us to, like, different places
- that I've never been before! -Yeah. Yeah.
[ Chuckles ]
[ Both laugh ]
As an old white woman,
I have a lot of questions for today's youth,
mainly, is there really that much of a divide
between them and me?
I'm not always comfortable
asking the obvious questions,
but I've decided to put myself out there
and see what I can report
from the front lines of youth culture.
This is "Vice Senior Correspondent."
Okay.
[ Notes play ]
Hi. I'm Constance Cooper.
I'm a 75-year-old
classical music, avant-garde,
singer-songwriter.
[ Playing continue ]
Right now, my projects are composing music,
mostly with the computer and with my live voice
that I then alter via computer.
[ Avant-garde music plays ]
It's this kind of stuff.
I have a SoundCloud presence
to show and develop
my style of composition.
[ Piano playing ]
Have you heard of SoundCloud rappers?
I haven't explored rap at all.
You take me to a rap concert, and I'm gonna take my earplugs.
And also, as far as rhyme is concerned,
rhyme is just one way to write poetry.
Can I do a rap that doesn't rhyme?
What are the exceptions to the rules?
Do you have to have rules?
What can I do
that brings me closer to it?
♪♪
♪ She want to see how it taste ♪
♪ I want her body, she not a thotty ♪
♪ But she gonna give me her face ♪
This piece of music struck me
because its intent seemed
to draw you in with a sort of quiet tension.
The clues are coming in one at a time,
and you can focus on each one.
Like this.
Like, it's almost like
looking at an environment.
We've arranged to meet with Lil West downtown.
Would you like to meet him right now?
Oh, sure.
Does he like to talk?
I hope so.
Oh, I hope so, too.
♪♪
Going to meet Lil West,
I wondered, would he take me seriously?
Would we strike sparks off each other?
Or would we just be like ships
that pass in the night?
-Hi. -Hi. Nice to meet you.
What's your name?
Oh, West.
Lil West. -West. You're West?
Yes.
Yep.
West, how much for a feature
for Constance?
[ Vocalizing with Auto-Tune ]
[ Chuckles ]
So, this is from my SoundCloud.
It's like everybody playing at once.
Exactly.
Okay.
Yeah, but I didn't know
there was, like, a whole rapper paradise on SoundCloud.
You know you make, like, experimental things.
Like, that's how it is with this, like --
with SoundCloud rap.
Like, it's just so different.
She's the next SoundCloud rapper.
Lil West told me how strongly he relied
on daily improvisation for his output.
So, I thought, wouldn't it be terrific
to improvise a collaboration with him.
[ Piano plays slowly ] -[ Vocalizing ]
Yeah. I like that.
[ Vocalizing with Auto-Tune ]
♪♪
[ Piano plays upbeat tune ] [ Rapping indistinctly ]
♪♪
That was fire.
[ Music playing ] -After we'd improvised
for a while, I was curious to see how
we could develop our music further
in this more professional studio.
Is this like how you --
-how you produce music? -Yeah.
-Yeah. -It's kind of like
-we're just building a track. -Yeah.
Let's have Constance do the 808s, huh?
Yeah.
[ 808 drum thumps ]
That's hard.
[ Music continues ] That's hard.
-Yeah. This is dirty. [ Laughter ]
Alright. We're through with dirt, okay?
We're through with dirt. We're gonna get clean.
-Now we get clean. -Let's get clean.
-Alright. -Got you.
[ Synthesizer whirring ] -Yes! Go off.
♪♪
[ Laughing ] Okay.
So...
[ Whirring stops ] -It's fire.
This is going to be a stew.
[ Laughter ]
This is, like, Constance, like your recipe for,
you know, a stew that we're cooking up.
This is great and glorious.
The things we feel... -Yeah.
...you know, we can put them down.
We can record them, and I think to that extent,
these things are not machines.
They're like live instruments. -Exactly.
You were going crazy with the machinery.
Like, regardless of technology, like, it doesn't matter.
Like, it's just how you throw yourself on it,
and you were just taking us to like different places that --
I don't know about you -- but I have never been before.
Yeah, yeah. I haven't been to like that.
[ Laughter ]
Um, would you like to come to my show tomorrow?
Sounds great.
♪♪
Hi, I'm Constance Cooper.
I'm here at the frontlines of rap.
Hi. I have ID.
Do you need it? Oh, okay.[ Laughs ]
And then here I was,
walking into my first live rap show.
What was it going to be like? Was it gonna be loud?
What was the audience response going to be like?
What was it going to be?
Tell me... do you use SoundCloud?
Indeed. Free music is for everybody.
When I'm looking for new music to listen to,
it's always SoundCloud.
That's really interesting
because I have music on SoundCloud.
It's far-out improv.
Is it instrumental?
That's right. Yeah, I'm a pianist.
Oh, man. Nah, this is crazy.
-Uh-huh. -Very like jazz influence.
-I love instrumentals like that. -I like that vibe, yes.
Yeah.
Would you have known
I was the kind of person who was on SoundCloud?
Absolutely not.
Rappers are trying to find
new sounds every day, you know?
Trying to rap on different things
that people don't usually hear.
So, like, even some kind of style
like that could be, you know, applied.
-We all vibe. -[ Laughs ]
[ Laughing ] Like, you're just vibing on SoundCloud.
Are you --
-You're leaving me hanging? -Hey!
We're going to do a shot together.
This is Constance's first rap show
and it won't be the last.
-Cheers. -Cheers.
To Constance.
Yum.
♪♪
Tell me what you're here for tonight?
I'm here for Lil West.
How do you feel about Lil West?
Oh, I like him very much, because I thought,
in my ignorance, that rap was noise.
But this was quiet and tense,
and I didn't know there were different types of rap.
This is what we call growth, alright?
Like, this is -- this is exactly what we're here for.
♪♪
As I watched Lil West perform on stage,
I reflected on how marvelous an experience this had been.
Not only did Lil West so kindly accept me
into his own slice of SoundCloud,
but everyone I met at the show was equally as inclusive.
They were so free.
-Okay.
They offered up their recommendations
without hesitating about
whether someone like me might judge them.
'Cause you've never heard Young Thug yet.
No.
All of this
they wanted to offer me
as a way of welcoming me
into a community
that I was so hesitant to join at first.
So, it's been a great pleasure
and goodnight to 'Elsewhere'
and goodnight to you.