The As-I-Amber Podcast & BlogCheck out my Pop/Soul Christmas playlist on Spotify. Also, available on Apple Music click here and click here for Tidal. Also, click here for the Playlist on YouTube The playlist features songs from Destiny’s Child, *NSYNC, Mariah Carey, Donny Hathaway, and other artists.
I think when artists sample songs that they are generation gap connectors and a way to introduce older songs to younger generations. It’s also a way for newer artists to pay homage to the great artists before them. SAMPLED SONGS Playlist Links below. What’s your favorite sampled song? Check the playlist below on Spotify and YouTube. Apple Music users click here and Tidal users click here.
2025 update: *Full circle moment *— In 2021-2022, I completed the Music Industry Essentials program with NYU x Yellowbrick, where my final project explored the impact of Southern hip hop on the music industry. I recently finally visited the #OutKast mural in Atlanta, coinciding perfectly with the 25th anniversary of #Stankonia. A reminder of how culture, creativity, and education intersect to shape the sound of a generation. 🎶
Here is one of my assignments talking about the rise of Southern Hip Hop/Rap. Check out the playlist links below and read the article. #MusicUproject
Click here to listen on Apple Music, listen on Tidal, and click below listen on Spotify.
Hip Hop origins started in The Bronx, New York in the late ’70s and early ’80s. By the mid-’90s, the genre was dominated by East Coast and West Coast-based rappers. However, Southern-based artists were essentially the overlooked underdogs, but would soon be the trailblazing leaders ushering a generation into soulful, yet eclectic sounds. According to BET”s Making documentary, during the 1995 Source Awards for Rap-Hip Hop artists held at Madison Square Garden in New York, Rap duo, OutKast, won for best new rap group for their debut album “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik.
Some felt like they finally had representation in the Hip Hop genre because groups like OutKast had music that reflected their Southern environments, cruising through the city during Freak-Nik, in the car, with bass bumping synths, strings, snares, chopped and screwed soulful grooves. Although the group won they were booed by the audience while they accepted the award. During the acceptance speech, OutKast member, André 3000 said, “But it’s like this though, I’m tired of folks them closed-minded folks, it’s like we gotta demo tape but don’t nobody want to hear it. But it’s like this: the South got something to say, that’s all I got to say!”
This prophetic declaration was echoed around the world and was the catalyst for Southern artists to become award-winning millionaires and dominate the Hip Hop/Rap charts for the 99’ and 2000s through the snap, crunk, bass, bounce, twerk, and trap music eras that came from the South are still felt in 2021. Many Southern producers such as Georgia’s Lil’ Jon, Virginia’s Timbaland, Missy Elliott, The Neptunes: Pharrell & Chad Hugo, Louisiana’s Lil’ Wayne, Juvenile, Mannie Fresh, Master P, and DJ Khaled, Tennessee’s Juicy J and Miami’s Uncle Luke and North Carolina’s Little Brother’s influence dominated the Hip Hop-Rap scenes in the late nineties and early aughts. Some producers even started to create their own record labels such as Georgia-based, SO SO DEF Records lead by producer Jermaine Dupri. Louisiana-based NO LIMIT Records lead by Percy “Master P” Miller and CASH MONEY Records lead by Brian “Birdman/Baby” Williams and Tennessee-based HYPNOTIZE MINDS, lead by Three 6 Mafia’s, DJ Paul and Juicy J and Texas-based UGK Records, lead by rap duo UGK.
Southern Hip Hop producers and artists have paved the way for modern Hip Hop chart-toppers. DJ Screw, Gucci Mane, T.I., Jeezy, Ludacris, 2 Chainz, Lil Jon, Trina, Left Eye, Missy Elliott, The Ying Yang Twins, and Travis Porter, helped pave the way for artists like Migos, Future, Travis Scott, Young Thug, City Girls, Megan Thee Stallion, and more!
I like the choice of wearing my hair in different styles. Most of the time it’s because I get bored easily and other times I just don’t feel like doing my thick hair or permanently having my hair look the same everyday like a cartoon character. Some say “it’s just hair”, but to me, it’s not. Haircare is a multi-million-dollar industry and hair is sensitive and controversial topic. Even comedian, Chris Rock, did a controversial documentary back in 2009 called “Good Hair” about black women and their relationship with natural hair, hair straighteners, and weaves and more recently a Hulu documentary called “Hair Tales” talks about the generational and cultural differences between Black women and hair. I have always noticed how some people treat others differently based off of their hair texture, hair color, hair length and hair style. I have also been treated differently or receive more or less attention depending on how my hair looks.
More recently film maker, Matthew A. Cherry’s , animated short film “Hair Love” about a black father styling his daughter’s natural hair won an Academy Award. More and more black people are embracing their natural curls and coils. However not every person, workplace, or environment is as accepting. The state of California is one of the first states to ban discrimination based off of ones natural hair, with The Crown Act, but other places have currently not followed suit. Recently I’ve read dozens of articles on how some people have been suspended from schools, sports teams, fired from jobs and even told they would not be able to walk at graduation ceremonies, not because of the content of their character, but simply because of their hair texture, hair color, or hair style preference. Why are we judging someone solely off their natural hair and not their character?
In our society depending on the community or culture hair that is straighter or wavier or long is considered ‘good’ and anything that is not like that is considered ‘bad’. I had relaxers (chemical hair straightening) for 14 years of my life and at age 19 I decided to stop getting relaxers and “go natural” (stopped using chemical straightening). I decided to go natural because the stylist I had been going to moved and I was away in college in another city and didn’t feel like experimenting with any more different stylists who said they did relaxers, but ended up damaging people’s hair. I was also curious how my natural hair looked because I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t have relaxers. I also did not want to cut all my hair off so I transitioned by getting weaves and braids. 
I have now been relaxer free for 12 years. I get my hair blown out and flat ironed and I sometimes wear it un-straightened. One thing that I’ve noticed is that my natural hair is healthier and thicker than it was when I was getting relaxers. I still like to wear braids and weaves simply because I think they’re pretty and less maintenance, especially when exercising. There is nothing wrong with wanting versatility in hair. Just because you choose to wear your natural hair chemical free, just because you choose to get relaxers, just because you choose not to wear weave does not make you better or less than. How do you know someone isn’t battling an illness or dealing with hair loss? Not everyone that wears their hair straight or weaved is bald or hates themselves. I find it interesting that whenever I have my hair in a certain style I attract certain people or get more or less attention. I often wonder why this is. I wonder if people think about that when they’re speaking to a person. Whatever happened to style preference and upkeep? What if you want your hair straight today and curly next week? What if you want length and don’t have the patience to wait until it grows a certain length? What if you want to have short hair without actually cutting your own hair? All I want to say is let’s focus not only on hair style, but what’s underneath, like our hair health and spiritual health.
Here is the Apple Music Playlist for Hair & Self Care and Spotify playlist below.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5yYxskT0n2wixFXoTqRrtF?si=BS86ddF2RXScHatTXYfeUw
Sometimes you gotta pick up the phone and have a conversation or not.😂🎶 vibes curated by @asiamber. playlist link below on Spotify & YouTube.
Here is a Millennial Mix playlist taking you back to homeroom and MySpace Top 8 and 106 & Park days. 🎶 Also, available on #AppleMusic under “asiamberjamz.” Click here for the playlist.
Today is my Birthday! I feel blessed to share a birthday with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated’s Founders’ Day. I’m grateful to God for another year of life and for the lessons I’ve learned and am continuing to learn.
Check out www.anchor.fm/asiamber and other platforms to listen to the “As-I-Amber” podcast “30 on 30” episode from four years ago where I went more in depth about the life lessons I’ve learned so far and still learning. I never would’ve imagined back in 2020-2021 entering my 30’s still in a global pandemic.
I wanted to be on a beach chillin’ with my toes in the sand listening to the ocean waves crash. Instead of being on an island for my winter birthday I chilled at home. The pandemic and life in general, have taught me that things don’t always go our way and that sometimes we make plans, but God laughs.
It seems like yesterday I was a 16-year-old who just got her driver’s license and was on MySpace listening to the girl group, Danity Kane. Now, I’m an official adult that pays bills, yet still watches Disney Plus, needs a snack, and a nap to function. The young people on Tik-Tok would call me “old” and older adults call me “young.” I feel in between.
In my twenties, I had lots of adventures as well as ups and downs. I gained weight, lost friends, gained friends, and lost weight. I studied abroad and graduated from college, moved back home with my parents, then moved out of state to a city where I knew no one. I worked in photography, applied for numerous jobs, worked in Corporate America, and now behind the scenes in TV. I traveled the world visiting New York City, Italy, Greece, London, Paris, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. I’ve also gone to numerous concerts seeing Stevie Wonder, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Ariana Grande, Kendrick Lamar, Janet Jackson, Solange, Jazmine Sullivan, Drake, Future, Migos, OutKast, Monica, Erykah Badu, and JoJo perform. I guess you can say I like music and live my life to the fullest.
I know it is 2025 and this is not an episode of Netflix’s “Bridgerton” set in the 1800s. Yet, depending on your culture or environment in some places when a woman hits her 20’s and early 30’s the majority of her peers in her age bracket have children and are getting married and if you’re not a mommy, fiancé, or wife by a certain age you’re looked at differently.
Currently as an unmarried 34-year-old woman with no children I enjoy my freedom to pick up and go without having to consider anyone else, yet sometimes some people peculiarly look at me because of that. There is an unspoken, yet loud sound of the tick-tock of an accomplishment timer and biological clock. We are bombarded with various messages about getting older and what that means regarding fertility or relationship status.
Society tells us what we “should” be doing or accomplishing by a certain time frame. Then in this digital age, it is so easy to compare our lives to what others choose to display on social media and we think that we “should” have accomplished certain milestones by a certain age, and if not you’re somehow “behind” or a failure in life.
But, I’m here to remind you all and myself that God made you a unique individual. Everyone is displaying their highlight reel on social media, but you don’t always know their behind the scenes. Everyone’s life path is different and it does not make you better than or less than if you have achieved or experienced certain things more or less quickly on this journey of life.
Remember you are fearfully and wonderfully made. According to Galatians 6:4-5 (MSG) “Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.”
I feel like a butterfly that has gone through metamorphosis during my 20s and is now breaking from the cocoon to take flight. I’m continuing to live my life like it’s golden and am excited for all the things that God has in store for me. Cheers to this new chapter of life!
I love all genres of music and have created a playlist of rock-influenced songs from and inspired by Black artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Lenny Kravitz, Willow Smith, Prince, and more.
Playlist available below on Spotify. Click here for Apple Music and click here for Tidal.
Many secular rappers have sampled Gospel music in their songs. Here’s a playlist I curated of some of those featured songs. See below for Spotify and click here for Apple Music and here for Tidal Music.
The As-I-Amber Podcast & Blog 