By Johnny McKenna
BLUE BELL, PA--“The rap thing started off as a joke,” Bar Shoham, a self-taught, self-promoting rap and hip hop artist and student at Rutgers Newark confessed. Two years ago she realized her love for wordplay was what other artists in the genre share. That joke evolved into an exercise where she wrote sixteen lines of lyrics a day. For Shoham, “(the sixteen bars a day) was really just a way of finding out for myself that this was something I could potentially excel at, which encouraged me to explore rap as a musical art form.” The exercise was helpful enough for her to put her lyrics up to music and in April 2012 she released a mixtape named Comfort (16 Bars a Day) under the stage name “Esmarelda” for free on Bandcamp, a major music publishing website.
A year and a half later, Bar has eschewed the pseudonym and simply goes by “Bar S.”, under which she has published two more professionally recorded full length mixtapes. Because she does not make the music tracks that back her lyrics, Shoham reaches out to music savvy friends and music producers on popular media websites like Soundcloud and Reddit for permission to use their tracks. Successfully combining lyrics and music is not a clear cut process. “Sometimes I will hear the instrumental first and it will inspire the lyrics, other times the lyrics will have been written and need a beat to compliment them,” she explains, “Each is half of a whole.” After a handful of tracks and lyrics come together, Shoham rehearses and records performances of her lyrics numerous times, and works with a producer to move around segments of lyrics. A final mix is produced when she is satisfied with what she hears.
Bar’s greatest production tool is the internet. She publishes her music on Bandcamp, Soundcloud and Youtube. She seeks constructive criticism on her music and image as well as finding producers to use tracks from and collaborate with through Reddit, and promotes herself through Twitter and Facebook. “I try my best to use the Internet to 'spread the hype' so to speak,” Shoham says. “In a world where there are many artists on this platform it is very hard to get recognized without professional representation.”
A major benefit to the global presence of the internet is the ease of access to like minds regardless of location. Shoham has an EP in the works with Joseph John Meyers, a producer in the United Kingdom who works under the pseudonym “DRIVE” who she met on Reddit. “He posted a track and I instantly felt it fit my lyrics ... we continued to keep in contact after the track was finished because we worked really well together,” she explains. Collaborating through the internet allows them to stay on task and keep productivity high. She explains that, “[For me] when working in person with a producer it is much easier to veer off of concentration, I prefer to work by myself, so the internet exchange works really well for my focus.” The actual production process remains unchanged. “I send him my recording and he mixes them down, edits his beats and sends them back for review, we continue this way until we feel that the product is complete,” the only difference she notices is that the communication is purely through text. “I still haven't physically spoken to him but man do we make some good music together!”
The same willingness to make a joke and then take it seriously keeps Shoham’s music feeling inspired, lively, and unique. Her enthusiasm and drive for progress will only continue now that she recently turned 21. “This is definitely something I am excited about!” Living in Montclair, New Jersey, only 30 minutes outside New York City, Shoham benefits from having access to one of the largest cities in the world. Most open mic events in NYC do not allow anyone under the legal drinking age. “ My age now presents me with, above all things, a lot of new networking opportunities”. The excitement for her future is evident as she says “you know what they say, if you can make it in New York you can make it anywhere!”
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