How Being Vague Gives You Extraordinary Creative Powers

I was talking to a rapper friend recently. He’s a very popular artist, one of the most popular on the planet, if I’m just being honest.

I asked him about people picking apart his lyrics online, whether he felt any responsibility to explain himself.

“Not at all,” he said. “As an artist, that’s not something you should really get in the habit of doing. I don’t judge anyone who does it, but it’s not for me.”

I asked him why.

“That’s part of the mystique,” he said. “More importantly, if I could explain the thing I’m talking about, I wouldn’t be inclined to write a song about it. I’m not good at explaining or talking about things — that’s why I make music.”

I chuckled. What he said was funny and telling. Most musicians I know have trouble explaining their songs, let alone anything else. It’s just not something they’re good at. The ones who are, oddly enough, make terrible music. Maybe it’s because their music is too deliberate, too on the nose.

There is, I think, a collective move towards explaining things nowadays. Entire websites — “explainer” websites — are filled with articles where journalists explain things. With news, this has a lot of value.