Week 5 Post 2 - Defining What it Means to Be a Creative Person

Henry Romain

   A concise definition of a creative person is a person who creates. This means that if you are not actually creating anything, you cannot consider yourself creative. You can be imaginative without being creative. When a creative person is dealing with something like "writer's block", a good way to combat this is by engaging in other mentally stimulating activities that require focus. Inspiration can come from anywhere, so never neglect even the smallest things in your day-to-day life. Inspiration to create does not have to come from your environment though, it can come from emotions within you. Tyler, The Creator created his album Flower Boy with the purpose of building off of and expressing his emotions, for example. Kendrick Lamar goes into the studio with a premeditated thought tied to an emotion that he feels the need to express and he creates a sound that triggers that though or emotion. He has to find a sound that makes him feel the way he felt when he first had that premeditated thought. Kanye West gained inspiration to create music from his time in Rome working on fashion. His album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is meant to have the listener feel the way they would feel when they would observe high class, elegant fashion. Kanye says 5000 hours of manpower went into every song on the album to refine it. Kanye questioned radio standards by making longer than usual songs that ranged from 5 to 9 minutes long. 

   This sounds obvious, but to be creative you have to create. You cannot just copy someone else's work or make something that has already been made before and be "creative". To create is to bring into existence something that has never existed any where before (with the exception of the Library of Babel, but that is not worth discussing right now). If you listen to contemporary trap-rap music, you will notice that, for the most part, the songs seem to contain the same lyrics and are based on very, very similar beats and so to consider them creative is questionable. MF DOOM, who was able to create a sound unlike any other in hip-hop, says that the key to combating writer's block is to engage in activities that require all of your focus, such as reading a book or intently listening to music. While he says these are important, he also says to always have a pen and pad handy because inspiration can come from anywhere. One way to create is to base creations on unique emotions you feel, and Tyler, The Creator encapsulated this idea in his album Flower Boy. He found inspiration from daily emotions and turned them into songs with the intention of making the listener feel as he felt. Kendrick Lamar derives inspiration from premeditated thoughts as a result of his life experiences, and makes music that makes him feel the exact way that his thought makes him feel. Kanye West has derived inspiration for music from his endeavors in fashion as well as his literal location. While he was working with Fendi in Rome, he was inspired to make an album (MBDTF) that had the same feeling of class and elegance as high fashion and Rome. This album was also intended to question the standards of what is acceptable to be played on the radio, creating songs that are longer than the great majority of rap songs.