A lot has been made of Jay-Z's hot new anti-digitally-enhanced-crooning track, "D.O.A." Jigga has thrown down the gauntlet to other rappers, wishing a pox upon the tone-correcting-and-distorting effect that has gone from an interesting twist on a Cher song to the defining sound of modern pop.
Artists like T-Pain, Lil Wayne and Kanye West (the track's co-producer) get a pass from Hova (because he says they use it "artistically"), but we think there are a number of other singers and rappers that use Auto-Tune effectively. A lot of the time, certain songs probably wouldn't exist without it (Soulja Boy Tell'em's "Kiss Me Thru the Phone" — an excellent song — seems to exist solely because of Auto-Tune). There is also the perception that only performers who can't otherwise sing use it, but plenty of people who have proven their skills have dipped into the Auto-Tune pool (like R. Kelly, whose new mixtape is full of Auto-Tune, especially the single "Tip the Waiter").
Jay's argument is that Auto-Tune makes rap softer and encourages more unnecessary crooning, but some of the best rap songs have come from singing that can easily be called "unnecessary." "Just a Friend" remains a hip-hop cornerstone, while nobody ever seems to complain about Ghostface's "crying" style. And did anybody protest when Ol' Dirty Bastard broke into spontaneous warbling — especially on his cover of "Sussudio"? Doubtful.
Here's the thing: Jay's right in the sense that Auto-Tune is way overused and doesn't always add anything to a track. And a lot of rappers have no business singing. But that doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing, and it's unreasonable to attack singing in rap. Just because an MC breaks into song doesn't make a track any less hard than "Can't Knock the Hustle."
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