Hearing Vs Listening

Some songs sound like summer, then you actually hear the words and everything changes. That’s the lane we’re in today: hearing vs listening, and why the difference matters in music, culture, and real life. I kick things off with a “toxic classic” that gets played like a feel-good anthem, then I pull the mask off the premise and explain how passive listening lets a whole lot slide.

From there, I get into critical listening for real: the technical side of music analysis (mix flaws, rushed arrangements, frequency balance, vocal stacking) and the psychoacoustics behind why most people consume music as background noise. When you train your ear, you start noticing the overpolished trap where technology can hide weak performances, and you also start catching sonic red flags even when a track is climbing the charts.

Then we go deeper into lyrical analysis and cultural blind spots. Smooth R&B chord progressions can trigger dopamine and distract us from problematic subtext, which is how wild lines become sing-alongs. I talk accountability, selective amnesia, and how “hearing” is really discernment you can apply to advice, relationships, and character. I also share the creator dilemma: putting medicine in the candy, dropping meaningful work, and watching people comment on the surface instead of the message.

Tap in, then subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a better ear, and leave a review so more people can find Heavy On The R&B.

Transcript

Cold Open And Toxic Classic

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Someone once said the best way to get over someone is to get underneath someone else. That's true. Until you catch herpes. Let's start the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

So they that bang up out of the brother and go find a love of the I know he's my man. He's all in my hands and feels on my name. She wish I had the same. Tell the thing about my thing. You have something else.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

To another edition of the Heavy on the RV podcast, man. I think this is uh week 17. Jeez Louise Papa Cheese. We are rolling through this thing of consistency. Did I just put together some

Welcome And The Song Breakdown

SPEAKER_01 2:08

bars? Man, perfect. Shout out to me, man. Um, yeah, man. Uh, welcome back. Another week, another opportunity to turn a dream into a reality and a goal into achievement, man. But you know, in between those things, goal and achievement, you gotta have discipline and consistency, and that's what I'm trying to do here, heavy on the RB podcast with K Way, man, where we talk about the rhythms and the blues of life, my life, general life, all centered around the music. That was the great group Mokin Steph, man. How many of y'all remember that? That is one of the most hood, cold, toxic classics that I think is kind of slept on, man. So to me, that's the like ultimate side chick logic. It's it's an anthem disguised as like a summer uh cookout groove. It's a side chick anthem. But there's a hypocrisy trap, man. Uh the core argument of the hook is literally he's mine nine to five, but at the five, that nigga's yours. So he's still mine. But in my logic, nah, he's pretty much everybody's. Because if it was me, you know, and you gonna go for that. I'm gonna see who else I can get away with it with. But that's neither here nor there, man. Great song. Um, I think passive listeners dance to this because it sounds like a sweet loyalty song, just like Earth, Wind, and Fire um reasons. But um, yeah, we we know in this world, um, there's and I'm gonna talk about this. There's listeners and there's hearers, and I think hearers realize that they are literally celebrating a uh patriot custody of a man. But fun fact, man, um the beat is so dope, and and the reason why the beat is so dope because it actually samples two of one of my favorite or two of my favorite RB songs it ever in this world to ever be created, and one of those is Princess Do Me Baby, who uh Tupac also sampled that for uh To Live and Die in LA and Zaps, uh Zap and Rogers, be all right, and Tupac actually sampled that for Keep Your Head Up. Um, so yeah, and then and um yeah, man, it was good song. The group was uh uh uh it was a it was a collection of names. So you got Monifa, Kenya, and Stephanie. That's how they got Mokin Steph. And yeah, man, shout out to them wherever they are. Uh, I think they from out here on the west coast somewhere, and they used to dance, uh, dance and sing for a group called AMG if you remember that, back in the day. So, round of applause for them and everything they got going on. So, let's start the show, man. Today I want to talk about um hearing versus listening, hearers versus listeners. Pastor Hall is back at the pulpit, so pull up, get your notes ready, pull it up on

Hearers Vs Listeners Defined

SPEAKER_01 5:12

your phone, open your your RB apps, and let's get to it. So, to me, there's two types of people in this world: um, people that make moves and people that get moved, people that listen and people that hear. Um I think those who passively listen and those who intentionally hear uh is is while while the standard uh perception treats listening as active. Um even even the definition, the very definition of listening is um you know in that. But we are flipping the the script. So to me, listeners float on the surface and and they let music and life wash over them to avoid the cost of friction and accountability. That's just from you know the book of uh Kway, chapter one, verse one. Hearers, I think they audit the details like myself. I noticed the production flaws, lyrical red flags, hidden motives, um, that person's life, is it a mess? Um, and then from a music standpoint, like are they singing over the ad libs? Did the did the chorus come in too soon? Is there a pre-chorus? Is is the is the production messy? So that's where it's coming from for me. So in in the musical ear, like the productions and the sonics of it, I think, like I said, most people let let the music wash over them. You just want to feel the beat, and if it's cool, that's what it is. But the way that I ingest music, I'm a hearer, so I gotta dissect the mix, I gotta catch the vocal arrangements, you know. Like I said, mix flaws and um and percussion instruments and all of that. But I think to dive even deeper, um, I want to touch on three quick points on that aspect. There's a there's a technical dissection, there's a uh a psycho acoustics and passive processing, and um there's a there's an overpolished trap, and then there's a sonic red flag. So to

How Hearers Analyze Sound

SPEAKER_01 7:04

get to expand on those, um sorry, my dad was calling. Um you know what? Let me answer. Hey, uh, hey, I'm potting. Let me call you right back. Okay, all right, bye. Shout out to Pops, man, Papa Kway, that's my dude. Um, yeah, so the technical dissection. So catch in the pocket, off-grid athl adlibs, vocal stacking, runs, uh, any structural pacing, etc. Then you got the psychoacoustics, which is um another form of like passive processing, and scientific studies um show that in auditory perception, 60 to 70 percent of modern music is consumed passively, so people ain't really paying attention to the lyrics, um, the percussions, the instrumentation, none of that. And it's just it's basically uses strict background noise for like driving, you work and you cook, and you just want something on because you don't want to sit in silence like a serial killer or a weirdo, and not get it. The human brain naturally um relies on selective auditory attention to filter out, you know, like details, um, unless train otherwise. Then you got the overpolished trap, how modern production heavily relies on auto-tune, people that really can't sing, you know, they put things over their voice, um, uh, you know, shit like that. So it's a mastering trick for pastive passive listeners because a lot of people can't rap nor carry a tune, but you would never know that because of how far technology has come. Lastly, you've got the sonic red flag, so it's it's basically like rushed arrangements, poor frequency balance, uh, bad mixing decisions, you know, like all the things that a hearer uh would hear rather than a listener. Um, even if even if it's currently on the charts, the song could sound terribly bad. Like there's some and I I shouldn't. I'm not even gonna go down that rabbit bow. There's some songs that's on the charts right now that if you if you have a hearer's ear of music, is it's terrible. Like the the the the lyrics, the production, the in there's no live instrumentation, it's just there's no soul in the music. So that is where I'm coming from, and stay with me because I'm gonna tie it into something much deep deeper, you know. So um, that's the musical ear. Um, the second part to that is like lyrical audit and cultural blind spots. Here's where we get a little bit into the mess. Listening lets you dance to like

When Lyrics Hide In Plain Sight

SPEAKER_01 9:35

a catchy beat or a jamming ass song, you know, or the groove of it. Hearing makes you stop and say, Wait, what the fuck did he just say? Like RP RB chord progressions and harmonies release dopamine. I don't know if y'all know that. It's it's a proven fact. Look it up. I'm telling you what I know, not what I think. RB chord progressions and harmonies release dopamine, like it could be the way um uh Kirk Franklin sings on uh on Stump um or God's property, um, or uh Ushers on uh Usher on Confessions, these are my confessions. It releases dopamine um uh in in you in which masks a toxic or problematic subtext for passive listeners. So the smooth groove mask, we'll start with this here. So a fire chord progression, infectious hooks, and buttery vocals trick people into like singing along to wild shit. Sexy Bread said, My uh, my booty hole brown, coochie ho pink. Um, first off, ladies, if if your booty hoe is constantly brown, um, I think you may have a hemorrhoid or a cleansing issue. Um, because shouldn't it be pink rather than brown? I'm just saying, I don't dive into that area to me. That's an exit hole only, um, and I'll never you know enter that uh side of things. But anyways, you get what I'm saying. So, you know, you you are you're into those troubling lyrics without even processing the actual content, and to put that into a more like historical context, we could go back to our look at R. Kelly and Aaliyah. Age ain't nothing but a number dropped in May of 1994, I believe. Aaliyah was 14 years old during the recording, KL's was 27. That that that song, I believe it peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 because public passive listeners didn't give a fuck. All they knew is it was a smooth RB slow jam. But when you hearing now as a grown adult, when you hear that the lyrical premise reveals an obvious red flag disguised as a radio hit that we seen take effect. Um uh what was that like 2018, 2019 when that uh R. Kelly documentary came out on Lifetime? It's crazy, man. You can even look at modern lyrical audits like like Drake. Hate I hate saying that nigga name, man. But when you look at the lines like Teenage Fever, um, or one of the songs where he he he said, uh, what do you say, high school picks? She was even bad back then. And and I believe he samper sampled Jennifer Lopez on that song. Um, and when you when you audit those lyrics and you look at his behavioral patterns, you look at what with latest, you know, latest video of him taking shots with a 19-year-old in uh in Canada, you know, whether that's legal drinking age or not in Canada, she's American and motherfuckers 19s. Quite weird to be nearly 40 taking shots with a uh 19-year-old. And I mean that's that's hearing versus listening, man. I think you also got selective auditory amnesia, right? So, like while culture consistently gives toxic behavior and bizarre lyrics a pass, as long as the BPMs are right and the beat drops hard, we really don't give a damn. So man, I really hate breaking the bad news, but sometimes I think we gotta do this and hold each other accountable as people. Are you a listener or are you a hearer? Next thing I want to talk about is life application. Like, do you got wisdom, advice, and character? So for me, um, hearing direction isn't just about analyzing the music, it's about discerning character, um, internalizing wisdom, whether that's from your parents or a mentor,

Hearing As Real Life Wisdom

SPEAKER_01 13:20

and heeding warnings before they take real action. It only took me once to like you know ignore the patterns of somebody like R. Kelly. That's why when Diddy I've been new, I've been heard stories about Diddy, and that's why I don't really give him grace and people like him in that camp because we we've heard these stories now. We can confirm that they're true from court documents. That's not necessarily what he's in jail for, but the shit has been confirmed. Um, but I think we, you know, I don't know, we got a lot of work to do, man. But one thing is direction over noise, like the parental advice. And I want to go back to that because I think the the difference between sound waves bouncing off your ears versus like internalizing advice growing up. Um, like my mom would say, my mother and my father would say, like, choose your friends wisely. Like, here it doesn't just hang out with someone because they're cool or they on a sports team or they got girls or guys around them. Like, nah, you gotta know that person's character. Just because you could throw a football well, don't mean, you know what I'm saying? Like, you the best human. Case in point, OJ Simpson. Heisman trophy, you know, was a handsome dude, but kind of was a piece of shit. When you think about it, you gotta read between the lines, man. Like, uh, a hearer in relationships allows you to perceive what people aren't explicitly saying, though, like through their actions, tone, and energy. You can hear, you can feel that, you know what I'm saying? You can you can hear and be able to dissect if somebody is playing you or not. The hidden cost of passive passive listening, though, is listening without listening without hearing comes with a heavy cost. You ignore those red flags, you make avoidable mistakes, you conform to the crowd, you tolerate toxic behavior that ends up costing you and your peace of mind in the end. And I feel and I think we all have dealt with that a time or 12 in our life, if I'm being you know perfectly honest. So that's my thoughts on that, man. Um, moving along, I I got a dilemma because, like, trying to be a creator, there's a there's a creator's dilemma that uh um that kind of goes along with this, right? So,

The Creator Dilemma In Scroll Culture

SPEAKER_01 15:27

fast-paced, short-form micro content culture has basically trained people to scroll and scam surface level aesthetics and and and images rather than engage with actual context, intent, or substance. For some reason, humans are addicted to mess. We see a fire, we run towards it. We see a fight, we pull our phones out rather than asking for help or calling the fire department. Shit really don't make sense to me. Perfect. So I try to adopt this thing of putting medicine in the candy, and it don't always work. Matter of fact, most of the time it don't work because it goes out of a over a lot of people's head. And I'm I'm learning to accept that I can't expect people to dissect my art the way that I would like them to. Uh I imagine this is with somebody um like a prince or a uh a Kendrick or uh even a Beyonce, well, yeah, Beyonce, you know, those great artists uh that that have incredible songs and and incredible art, I I imagine this is what they feel. So, you know, I think putting the medicine in the candy, the delicate, the delicate art of like creating or writing songs or poetry, producing beats, making motivational videos, like myself, or even editing this podcast, it carries real depth and it is wrapped in an accessible format. And I struggle with that because like you know, like the songs that I make. Um I made a song called LOL, right? Took me like maybe 50 tries to get that right, and and it's it was it was going back, reforming the lyrics. Um, I was trying my best to sample silks, lose control, and and do it justice. Uh, and also wanted to uh craft a song that had um a message. So that's my intentionality in creation creating that was um I wanted a clear message. LOL to me don't mean laugh out loud, it means love out loud. And I wanted to write and curate and put put something out to motivate, especially my young brothers. Like, man, you gotta love your lady out loud because I realized early in my relationship that's something that I was lacking. You know, I would she would tell me she loved me, I'd say I love her too, and then that's where it stopped. But I had to, you know, tighten up and realize like you gotta love this woman out loud because it's more than just being freaky in the bedroom. Um, plus, loving a woman intentionally out loud is going to make the bedroom that much better, anyway. Um, but I don't expect people to really listen to the lyrics or even you know kind of grasp what I'm trying to do because, quite frankly, people probably can't get past the point that it's an AI voice. Although it's my lyrics, my beat arrangement. I created this shit. I laid my vocals and just put better vocals over the top of it. I'm sorry, put but better vocals over the top of it. Um, people may not be able to get past that, but I'm gonna continue trying my best to put the medicine in the candy, and I think the disconnect is that there's a growing gap of um, I think there's a growing gap between like a creator's intent and a consumer surface level distraction. And I think how can I expect somebody that's addicted to mess, every chat, every talking point, gotta be in everybody's live to sit back and listen to my auditory content and take away what I want them to take away from it. I gotta be okay with that. You know, um I don't know, man. That's that's where I'm at with it. Y'all know I've been I've been having these uh episodes a little shorter uh because of everything that I'm talking about. The listeners' attention span is not where it used to be. So I've had to make adjustments in my content creation um as well. I also think that uh surface level listening and micro brain content is ruining the experience of like creators, man. Like who put real heart, soul, energy, time, vulnerability into work like I do. Like, man, this shit can get exhausting and it can get annoying. And that's where I want to talk about with um my gripes today. So that's cue to music. Here we go. On this episode of K-Way's gripes, um, we just spent this whole episode. Well, I just spent this whole episode talking about the difference between a hearer and a listener. Somebody that

K-Way’s Gripes And The Backflip Comment

SPEAKER_01 19:53

makes moves and somebody that gets moved. But I gotta, I gotta tell y'all, it really gets on my nerves when it comes to the art people put out into the world. I put time, like I said, I put time, energy, and real soul into the content that I create. I'm not a person that is uh diving into a lot of salaciousness because I mean it's already a market for everybody repeating the same thing on YouTube or you know on social media anyway. So whether I'm editing a video, writing a song, or pulling together a piece of art, I'm trying to put the medicine in the candy. I'm giving you substance wrapped in the like a form you can digest. This ain't this ain't the butterscotch at at the bottom of Granny's purse, man. This is top-tier fruit roll-up content, damn it. Case in point. I dug into the vault recently and posted a motivational throwback clip on YouTube, right? It's uh it's about five minutes from from uh from a time in my life where I was going through it. I was homeless, I was I was living in Phoenix, I was like really struggling. I had two bags of $48 to my name, and it's a video by Eric Thomas. They call him E.T. the hip hop preacher, and he talks about when you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you'll be successful. I dropped a video hoping it touched somebody, and it did. I got a lot of great comments, and and I I wanted it to spark something in the people that are struggling of getting started or taking that first step. And you know, the very first comment, one of the very first comments I got was damn, I didn't know you could do a backflip. Like, God damn, all this good content, this is what you got out of that. Like, you are you serious? Five minutes of blood, sweat, tears, and survival at a time in my life where I'm being vulnerable, and you worried about me doing a fucking backflip. I don't understand these people, man. I dropped a con Like I said, I dropped a track called LOL. And it ain't laugh out loud. I'm talking about loving out loud. I'm trying to inspire, motivate my especially my fellow men, my fellow men. Um, you know, love your partner out loud. You know, whether it's a man or a woman, love love that person out loud. It's a song about deep connection and vulnerable love and intentionality. And people comment, oh, this is sexy. I know it's sexy, that's not the point. Maybe I gotta go about this thing a whole different way about putting the medicine in the candy because clearly there's a disconnect. Or I don't know, maybe y'all just ain't that smart. Man, look, did you hear the message? I can't dumb this down any further for y'all, man. It drives me crazy when people scroll past the heart of a message just to comment on the surface. Like, like, let's talk about the root, not the surface. Let's talk about how we grew here, how the the soil, you know, touched touch the seed, and the seed turned into a stem, and the stem turned into a flower, and that flower grew, you know, had to overcome branches, and then who knows? That shit turned into a redwood tree. I don't know. Shit. We gotta stop skimming through life and skimming through art. If you're gonna tap in with me, man, please tap in with your listening ears, not just with your eyes. Here's what's hear what's being said. But hey, that's just my gripe for the week, man. Y'all let me know in the comments are you actually hearing or are you listening? That was another episode of K-Ways Gripes, along with the heavy on the RB podcast. Man, I told you I wouldn't be before y'all long. I just wanted to tap in real quick. Week 17. Man, I greatly appreciate everybody checking me out. We got a uh we have a lot

Closing Challenge And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 23:29

of good things going on, and um, yeah, we just gonna keep growing from here. But you know what I say every weekend, man. Please put value on yourself, put value on each other, and we'll have a value society. Peace.