Sometimes when we are planning to be productive, there seems to be a huge wall that feels like a barrier that stands in the way. It feels like everything is not possible, this work is too much, laziness and pessimistic feelings creeping up from our legs. Evidently a lot of people also feels the same. But then, how do we overcome that?
A lot of people in the working age such as teens, college students, and even working professionals experienced that feeling. Some found their productive tempo by using songs, a change of the atmosphere, or even putting white noises to keep focusing.
When I feel so miserably like that, I usually goes to the YouTube live of lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to. There, you can also find many other people in the comment section that had shared their experiences in life. It has become sort of a community where some strangers support another stranger without knowing much of their background. The beats of the Lo-Fi songs also create a sense of nostalgia and relax.
lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to, the girl we have always known in the Chillhop’s live youtube channel.
What is a Lo-Fi?
The word Lo-Fi comes from the term “Low-Fidelity” which has the reference to the sounds of vinyl crackle. “Low-Fidelity” itself means the electronic reproduction of sound or images using technology that results in unwanted distortion or imperfection. Rather than thriving for perfection, Lo-Fi introduce us to embrace our imperfection as a unique human being and just go with it.
With slowed songs, repetitive tone, hums, background noise, limited sound wave amplitude yet still unique in a way, Lo-Fi songs are widely used by students all across the world to help them study, relax, focus, and even sleeping. In most cases Lo-Fi can be a genre that turns songs that you hate into the song that you love.
The history of Lo-Fi
Many Japanese artist, pianist, and jazz artists found the entire groundwork of this relatively new genre. As you can already notice a lot of Lo-Fi channels in YouTube are putting some Japanese aesthetic animation into the background. Some series of anime from Japan deeply influenced this genre such as Nujabes in his work Samurai Champloo and Joe Hisashi’s works in Studio Ghibli’s soundtrack movies.
There is even a singer and composer that only focused on producing Lo-Fi songs such as Keshi or Casey Luong. Keshi is a Vietnam-American singer living in Houston, United States. Even though he does not like to be classified as a Lo-Fi artist, his works was very much a nostalgic fusion of jazz or R&B samples with very raw, and old-sounding hip-hop beats that are good for setting a mood.
The new emerging genre of Lo-Fi in the society is like a utopia. This world has moved on for too fast, and Lo-Fi songs is here to tell us that everything is okay and eventually things would work out. Lo-Fi songs also give the sense of having a nice soundtrack into our world. It gives us the sense of just living and existing in this world.
Author: Yacinta Prima Ayu Easterani | Student of International Undergraduate Program-2020
