In this day and age, with the vast expanse of computing and storage abilities of the internet, it’s rare that you can’t find something you’ve been looking for. More often than not, there seems to be too much information available. Too many links to the same thing. In hip-hop, too many remixes and samples and covers. Madison Stewart stands out as a purveyor of original content across time.
When you’re looking for music from that obscure artist you loved coming up, you’re flooded with a plethora of social media profiles. This wasn’t my experience searching to soothe nostalgia in an older single by Madison Stewart.
Then @MadisonLST, more recently @akagarland, now transforming into something new, I was perplexed by the complicated transformation of sounds. So vastly different that cross-comparisons are impossible and irrelevant. I’m always up for a challenge; thus, a nostalgic note examining the stylistic expansion of Madison Stewart.
What Happened, What Changed
The complexity of Madison Stewart has always been evident in his work and exemplified by his poetic use words. Growing up in Los Angeles, Madison experienced identity dissonance by being both too black and too light. The single that inspired this article is paradigmatic of the experiences of his “light skin trouble”-the “LST” of his first stage name.
Madison left Los Angeles and went on to study English at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and notability wrote his thesis on Malcolm X. The lyrics in both his following works, Oblivion and Garland demonstrate his higher education. In fact, in an early interview he notes that education should be bent to follow one’s passion.
Madison’s debut album, Oblivion, he demonstrates both vocal and composition range paired with intellectual dynamic lyrics. In his EP Garland, this range is maintained yet drastically evolved. Sharp accented notes and sanguine enunciated content is replaced with slight semitone trills and more casual speech. Instrumentation evolves and even visual imagery shifts so drastically that I could never convey in the written word.
What’s Next For Madison Stewart
Madison Stewart is now working and living in New York. Speculative reason follows that this new work will be vastly different from his past releases as well. In a brief exchange, I asked him why his music has changed so significantly over time and continues to change. Casually he responded, “I guess because I’m changing, the more things I experience the more I want my music to reflect who I’m becoming.”
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