I think most music today tends to move too fast, and I think a lot of people like that. You feel a little more bitter when a minor song plays and then immediately move to a more positive place if things become major. But I also think that many of us sometimes don't want to be that moved, and that's when low fidelity, also known as lo-fi music, comes into play. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In many ways the world moves too fast, you go everywhere online and information is constantly flowing at you and a lot of it is bullshit, but we're okay with that. As long as tweets come in, comments on our Instagram photos, replies on our Discord, we are safe and socially surrounded and there is no difference in Billboard's "The Hot 100" music chart. All music is surrounded and chock full of changes in tone, changes in style, changes that evoke changes in feelings and in everyone who listens. Clearly there's a reason for this, it's what people want. It wouldn't be as popular if it wasn't, but like I said before; people don't always want that. I think it is necessary in every situation for people to have contrast, it is the only way to find a balanced median. So, in a world where movement prevails, I think many people are looking for a contrast that is cold to stillness, something that is not so moody and changing, something grounded and repetitive. I think we can find this in lo-fi hip pop, I know because it's really easy to do and most Soundcloud artists play the sample on loop over and over again and the repetitiveness comes out of laziness. But repetition generates a certain aesthetic, which covers the ears and surrounds them. A lot of this comes from the type of artists sampled by the lo-fi producer. For example, in J Dilla's The Look of Love, he samples jazz guitarist Barney Kessel's song of the same name, but Dilla in producing his version of the song selected only one of the smoother samples. Which jazz artist, Herbie Hancock misquotes Miles Davis would say: “Butter notes? Butter could mean fat, and fat could mean obvious where there's no tension, no noise, just smooth butter. I think people might be ready to say that these producers sample songs like this because they sound good and they don't suck, of course they are, no one samples while screaming, well some people do but their music isn't very good. But I don't think that's the reason, there's been a kind of tradition in lo-fi precursor jazz rap where the producer would usually sample from American or Cuban jazz artists. And one of the first people to break this tradition is the Japanese producer, Nujabes, who sampled a Japanese pianist like Noriko Kosei. In doing so he tilted jazz rap towards today's lo-fi sound because Japanese jazz is much smoother than Western jazz. For example, comparing John Coltrane's version of I Want to Talk About You to Ryo Fukui's version. Guess which version was sampled by lo-fi artist Knxwlegde in 2014? Ryo Fukui's version. It is truly an instant sampling of an instant sound because jazz is not bound by the rigid rules of classical composition and is typically improvised by each artist on a moment-to-moment basis. The resulting buttery, graceful set of notes transforms lo-fi to repeat and drown out everything around you while caressing and comforting listeners. Other ambient music doesn't do the same, which is why when people compare lo-fi to ambient I don't think it's a comparison.