{"id":975582,"date":"2020-03-11T12:22:02","date_gmt":"2020-03-11T18:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=965675"},"modified":"2020-03-11T12:22:02","modified_gmt":"2020-03-11T18:22:02","slug":"mustafas-stay-alive-beautifully-and-unintentionally-soundtracks-the-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/music-news\/mustafas-stay-alive-beautifully-and-unintentionally-soundtracks-the-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Mustafa\u2019s \u2018Stay Alive\u2019 Beautifully (and Unintentionally) Soundtracks the Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The streaming charts are filled with genre-agnostic artists \u2014 Post Malone, Lil Nas X, Billie Eilish \u2014 groomed in a world where continually curating one\u2019s digital self-image is a prerequisite of modern existence. Rapping cowboys and teens with the voice of Regina Spektor and the fashion sense of a Juggalo are the new norm. Taken to its logical conclusion, this phenomenon leads to artists like RMR<\/a> \u2014 a masked singer who went viral interpolating a Rascal Flatts song, set a video that nearly parodied your average trap visual \u2014 as quickly as it seeks to defang them. On the surface, Mustafa\u2019s<\/a> \u201cStay Alive\u201d follows this trend.<\/p>\n

The video is set in Toronto\u2019s Regent Park and features your traditional rap video shots: Mustafa<\/a> sitting on a basketball rim, friends hanging out in a staircase, and swarms of young men shooting finger guns at the camera or hanging half their body out of a slow-moving car. Nevertheless, there\u2019s an earnestness to the proceedings. Mustafa\u2019s voice is raspy and his falsetto wobbly, but there\u2019s an underlying soulfulness that cuts through the somber guitar melody. The song for all intents and purposes is about gun violence, and a plea from Mustafa for others not to succumb to the same fate. \u201c\u201dAll of these traps and all of these street signs,\u201d Mustafa sings during the song\u2019s chorus. \u201cNothing will be yours or mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as the 23-year-old singer repeats the phrase \u201cJust stay alive,\u201d it\u2019s difficult not to view it against the chaos and death overtaking the globe. Part of \u201cStay Alive\u2019s\u201d beauty is that its such an imperfect song from a new artist searching to find a voice and control it. Nevertheless, what Mustafa has managed to find shows promise.<\/p>\n

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Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The streaming charts are filled with genre-agnostic artists \u2014 Post Malone, Lil Nas X, Billie Eilish \u2014 groomed in a world where continually curating one\u2019s digital self-image is a prerequisite of modern existence. Rapping cowboys and teens with the voice of Regina Spektor and the fashion sense of a Juggalo are the new norm. Taken […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-975582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-02 11:26:12","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KFMU Solar Powered Radio","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=975582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=975582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=975582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=975582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}