Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
SwisherSweets + SwishaHouse = The Smackdown
Paul Wall’s The People’s Champ is a nigh twenty-track virtuoso of the full-blown glory of Houston Rap. Released in ’05, it features many of the biggest names in the southern scene, from Bun B to Three Six Mafia to T.I. It’s low on message, low on content, high on materialism, and really fun to listen to. The tracks are slow, the Houston Rep is high, and the overall effect makes you want to drive through traffic with a couple twelves in your trunk, ten layers of candy-paint on your oversized truck and let the rest of the city know just how long its been since Pimp C was found dead.
This might not be the CD that put The South on the map, but it was the CD that put The South on the map for me. Which was a surprise for me, because I was expecting it to be a chore. Coming from a couple of weeks of Geto Boys, I figured all Houston rap artists would make me break out my thesaurus to look up new and interesting ways of saying ‘It’s good… if you’re into that sort of thing’. But The Peoples Champ is both distinctly Houston and distinctly awesome, as much as Mai’s, Frenchy’s, or Miller Outdoor Theatre.
Houston production revolves around the chopped/screwed style, pioneered by the late DJ Screw, which involves dropping the pitch down into vocal numbness and blatantly repeating specific lines/words/phrases on the vocal track while letting the beat continue unabated. The use of this technique on Paul Wall’s album is tasteful, and adds to the production value without interfering with the vocalistic integrity of the work, which was the point in Screw’s actual work.
Starting with ‘They don’t know’, The People’s Champ references singularly Houston phenomenon, from Timmy Chan’s chicken wings, to candy painted cars, drank/syrup, and the 59 freeway. This technique is really simple, but its importance can’t be overlooked; while major-label artists have a fan base so wide they’re above throwing out bones to the local crew, southern artists, particularly Houston, get little love on the national stage, and so are forced to find other ways, such as this, to expand their market. The local populism fuels the rappers popularity until they’re doing mixtapes with artists in other districts. It’s like networking, for professionals.
That said, when I say this CD is low on content, I mean… holy fuck. There’s really no thematic play, aside from ‘I have a car/it looks cool/I live in Houston/DJ Screw.’ I swear to God, the phrase ‘candy paint’ appears on this album 44 times. ‘Sippin drank’ shows up 52. The CD’s message is about as deep as the leather interior in a classic Cadillac. Which is absolutely perfect.
It’s easy to want to hate the narrowness of the Wall’s topics. Life is more than getting paper, getting laid, candy paint, and sippin’ drank. And yet, to be able to put out a CD that entirely revolves around that, with an hour of music, and have it sound good is a feat that requires nothing short of muse-like inspiration and bacchanal endurance.
If there is a more sublime theme, it slips in by accident, and it’s the protestant work-ethic that drives urban youth to hard work. There’s the assumption throughout the scene (as in, not just Mr. Wall) that in order to obtain success, there has to be work involved; success is neither given by God, nor delivered by luck. This mirrors real life, in the fact that most rappers start out as entrepreneurs and salesmen, develop contacts with the scene, promotional materials, and make numerous, numerous attempts to sell and sell and sell before finally succeeding. I see it as proof that they understand the numbers game.Its one of those lessons life teaches you, that they apparently learned early enough to become successful. Well done, guys.
On my scale of awesome, I grant The People’s Champ a ranking of The People’s Eyebrow. It towers above the rest of the audio of the Houston scene, is an important record for one of the most electrifying acts in rap entertainment today, while simultaneously doing and saying nothing of substance. Paul Wall deserves to be sittin’ sideways while driving slow, because they don’t know.
This might not be the CD that put The South on the map, but it was the CD that put The South on the map for me. Which was a surprise for me, because I was expecting it to be a chore. Coming from a couple of weeks of Geto Boys, I figured all Houston rap artists would make me break out my thesaurus to look up new and interesting ways of saying ‘It’s good… if you’re into that sort of thing’. But The Peoples Champ is both distinctly Houston and distinctly awesome, as much as Mai’s, Frenchy’s, or Miller Outdoor Theatre.
Houston production revolves around the chopped/screwed style, pioneered by the late DJ Screw, which involves dropping the pitch down into vocal numbness and blatantly repeating specific lines/words/phrases on the vocal track while letting the beat continue unabated. The use of this technique on Paul Wall’s album is tasteful, and adds to the production value without interfering with the vocalistic integrity of the work, which was the point in Screw’s actual work.
Starting with ‘They don’t know’, The People’s Champ references singularly Houston phenomenon, from Timmy Chan’s chicken wings, to candy painted cars, drank/syrup, and the 59 freeway. This technique is really simple, but its importance can’t be overlooked; while major-label artists have a fan base so wide they’re above throwing out bones to the local crew, southern artists, particularly Houston, get little love on the national stage, and so are forced to find other ways, such as this, to expand their market. The local populism fuels the rappers popularity until they’re doing mixtapes with artists in other districts. It’s like networking, for professionals.
That said, when I say this CD is low on content, I mean… holy fuck. There’s really no thematic play, aside from ‘I have a car/it looks cool/I live in Houston/DJ Screw.’ I swear to God, the phrase ‘candy paint’ appears on this album 44 times. ‘Sippin drank’ shows up 52. The CD’s message is about as deep as the leather interior in a classic Cadillac. Which is absolutely perfect.
It’s easy to want to hate the narrowness of the Wall’s topics. Life is more than getting paper, getting laid, candy paint, and sippin’ drank. And yet, to be able to put out a CD that entirely revolves around that, with an hour of music, and have it sound good is a feat that requires nothing short of muse-like inspiration and bacchanal endurance.
If there is a more sublime theme, it slips in by accident, and it’s the protestant work-ethic that drives urban youth to hard work. There’s the assumption throughout the scene (as in, not just Mr. Wall) that in order to obtain success, there has to be work involved; success is neither given by God, nor delivered by luck. This mirrors real life, in the fact that most rappers start out as entrepreneurs and salesmen, develop contacts with the scene, promotional materials, and make numerous, numerous attempts to sell and sell and sell before finally succeeding. I see it as proof that they understand the numbers game.Its one of those lessons life teaches you, that they apparently learned early enough to become successful. Well done, guys.
On my scale of awesome, I grant The People’s Champ a ranking of The People’s Eyebrow. It towers above the rest of the audio of the Houston scene, is an important record for one of the most electrifying acts in rap entertainment today, while simultaneously doing and saying nothing of substance. Paul Wall deserves to be sittin’ sideways while driving slow, because they don’t know.
Apparently, Juggalos Like Dexter
The Jewddhist and the Druid invited me out for a night of raucous merriment, and a nerdcore-concert headlined by MC Lars and that guy with that song about Boba Fett’s Corvette. Arriving only a couple of hours late, I was surprised both at the fact that the second act was on his last song and that the sweltering heat and sweat-humidity from the huddled masses of young black-clad emo-hipster nerd-rock wannabes reminded me uncomfortably of certain market streets in Vietnam. I moved my wallet to my front pocket, kept my hand over it, and complained loudly about bands starting on time. I mean, really, WTF.
MC Chris was the headliner, and the fucker legitimately packed more of a punch in his show than you’d expect from his hobbit-frame/leprechaun-voiced deportment. Seriously, he looks and sounds like a svelte dwarf who just got finished mainlining helium into his alveoli, which I don’t even think is possible. The point is, it was a badass show; two parts hip-hop, one part nerd-comedy routine.
I’ll give props- this guy isn’t Aesop (you’re all familiar with my unbounded and unfettered devotion to all things Aesop), but is in the same vein of white rap-artists who bend the genre into contortions so odd you think they’re doing yoga until you see the cock and realize they’re actually having sex in that pose. His beats are consistently fast, and filled with synth- there’s very little rock or traditional jazz in here. His delivery matches that speed, frequently delivering a veritable avalanche of internal rhyme. Nevertheless, he’s unafraid to experiment with tempo or use big-words. His main calling-card is nerd-culture, so he deals with a lot of Star-Wars, ninjas, action figures, jedi, Street Fighter, storm troopers, and things like that. What makes him stand out is his humor though.
Consider his introduction to ‘Hoodie Ninja’
‘This song is about a boy who sneaks out one night to climb a tree to masturbate to a redheaded classmate of his getting undressed. And on the way home, he takes a shit on his gym teacher’s front porch.’
Or his somewhat longer introduction to a song about the Clone Wars:
“Fuckin Fridays are the best, you know why? ‘Cuz CLONE WARS IS BACK! FUCK YEAH! But as badass as it is, somewhere there’s a guy out there whose kid really loves this show. Fuckin loves this show, man. And he comes up to his dad, and he’s like ‘Hey dad, fuckin Clone Wars is awesome. Obi-Wan and Anakin are such great friends they’re gonna be heroes and friends forever. And the clone troopers? These guys have got to be the best troopers ever because they've always got each others' backs and people say they’re all the same but whatever they have different hair and they talk different and one guy painted his ‘craft to look like a shark. A fuckin shark. These guys are awesome and they do such a good job doing every awesome and I love it.’”
“And you’re gonna be like ‘Ah, shit. Look, Timmy… Ah… I knew this day would come … Ah… Look, all the clone troopers die off when they fight the Jedi when Palpatine unleashes his evil plan for domination and Anakin turns to the dark side and Obi-Wan slices of three fingers of his hand and his arm on a volcano planet and he turns into a robot cyborg that kills the Jedi starting with the children. The fucking children.’”
"That’s like saying ‘You know how Bert and Ernie are best friends? Well Bert slashes Ernie’s arm and three fingers off, and Ernie turns to the dark side and becomes half-machine and kills everyone on Sesame Street. Starting with the viewers.’”
There’s three more iterations in that skit, but that’s pretty representative. And his delivery is impeccable; great tempo, great timing.
What I was looking for was connection though, how the artist connects with the crowd. MC Chris jumped on-stage and didn’t even go into his act, he played some bullshit country song and tried to sing along with the words and failed- turned out it was a joke, because, you know, Texas likes country music, and stuff. During his actual set, he got the crowd moving, arms in the air, side-to-side, even got us dancing a little bit, which I thought was amazing. The crowd was already warm, but what put them over the top was the fact that his hobbit-like antics were so ridiculously charismatic. He’s funny, he’s loud, I’m guessing chicks dig him because they like any dude with a mic on the stage, and he acted completely without hesitation. The man radiated confidence, and I think that’s the source of where people are willing to follow his lead.
Curiously though, he had to open up to eye-contact. The first couple of songs he mostly rapped to himself with his eyes closed, either from an incomplete warm-up or too much pot beforehand, I don’t know. He grooved more eye-contact into his work towards the latter end. Just something I thought was of-note.
One a won to tin scale, I give this a rating of Warhammer 40K. Its better than a sharp stick in the eye, but I couldn’t really make out the words to what he was saying (I’ve never been able to, at any show), so you kind of have to have listened to the album, and the only song I’d heard him perform was the Boba-Fett-‘Vette song. Also, Jesus tap-dancing torrent-bashing Christ, it was hot in there. My pants and shirt are all a solid color- there’s not a single spot that didn’t completely soak through the fabric. Even the denim. Denim. Denim was soaked through. How is that even possible?
Also, I paid $10 for a CD. CD has seven fucking songs on it. I’m so DLing his discography guilt-free.
But it wasn’t a bad show. In fact, it was a very good show, I just wasn’t prepared for it, and I’m not really into nerd-core. I have too much violence in my heart to really enjoy the collecting, the cathecting, the cosplay and the complete isolation involved in actually being a nerd. I’ve been there, got the T-shirt, probably have a few character sheets lying around here somewhere, but I’ve moved on. It’s good to look back though. Like XKCD, I feel like part of a special club when I get the jokes
MC Chris was the headliner, and the fucker legitimately packed more of a punch in his show than you’d expect from his hobbit-frame/leprechaun-voiced deportment. Seriously, he looks and sounds like a svelte dwarf who just got finished mainlining helium into his alveoli, which I don’t even think is possible. The point is, it was a badass show; two parts hip-hop, one part nerd-comedy routine.
I’ll give props- this guy isn’t Aesop (you’re all familiar with my unbounded and unfettered devotion to all things Aesop), but is in the same vein of white rap-artists who bend the genre into contortions so odd you think they’re doing yoga until you see the cock and realize they’re actually having sex in that pose. His beats are consistently fast, and filled with synth- there’s very little rock or traditional jazz in here. His delivery matches that speed, frequently delivering a veritable avalanche of internal rhyme. Nevertheless, he’s unafraid to experiment with tempo or use big-words. His main calling-card is nerd-culture, so he deals with a lot of Star-Wars, ninjas, action figures, jedi, Street Fighter, storm troopers, and things like that. What makes him stand out is his humor though.
Consider his introduction to ‘Hoodie Ninja’
‘This song is about a boy who sneaks out one night to climb a tree to masturbate to a redheaded classmate of his getting undressed. And on the way home, he takes a shit on his gym teacher’s front porch.’
Or his somewhat longer introduction to a song about the Clone Wars:
“Fuckin Fridays are the best, you know why? ‘Cuz CLONE WARS IS BACK! FUCK YEAH! But as badass as it is, somewhere there’s a guy out there whose kid really loves this show. Fuckin loves this show, man. And he comes up to his dad, and he’s like ‘Hey dad, fuckin Clone Wars is awesome. Obi-Wan and Anakin are such great friends they’re gonna be heroes and friends forever. And the clone troopers? These guys have got to be the best troopers ever because they've always got each others' backs and people say they’re all the same but whatever they have different hair and they talk different and one guy painted his ‘craft to look like a shark. A fuckin shark. These guys are awesome and they do such a good job doing every awesome and I love it.’”
“And you’re gonna be like ‘Ah, shit. Look, Timmy… Ah… I knew this day would come … Ah… Look, all the clone troopers die off when they fight the Jedi when Palpatine unleashes his evil plan for domination and Anakin turns to the dark side and Obi-Wan slices of three fingers of his hand and his arm on a volcano planet and he turns into a robot cyborg that kills the Jedi starting with the children. The fucking children.’”
"That’s like saying ‘You know how Bert and Ernie are best friends? Well Bert slashes Ernie’s arm and three fingers off, and Ernie turns to the dark side and becomes half-machine and kills everyone on Sesame Street. Starting with the viewers.’”
There’s three more iterations in that skit, but that’s pretty representative. And his delivery is impeccable; great tempo, great timing.
What I was looking for was connection though, how the artist connects with the crowd. MC Chris jumped on-stage and didn’t even go into his act, he played some bullshit country song and tried to sing along with the words and failed- turned out it was a joke, because, you know, Texas likes country music, and stuff. During his actual set, he got the crowd moving, arms in the air, side-to-side, even got us dancing a little bit, which I thought was amazing. The crowd was already warm, but what put them over the top was the fact that his hobbit-like antics were so ridiculously charismatic. He’s funny, he’s loud, I’m guessing chicks dig him because they like any dude with a mic on the stage, and he acted completely without hesitation. The man radiated confidence, and I think that’s the source of where people are willing to follow his lead.
Curiously though, he had to open up to eye-contact. The first couple of songs he mostly rapped to himself with his eyes closed, either from an incomplete warm-up or too much pot beforehand, I don’t know. He grooved more eye-contact into his work towards the latter end. Just something I thought was of-note.
One a won to tin scale, I give this a rating of Warhammer 40K. Its better than a sharp stick in the eye, but I couldn’t really make out the words to what he was saying (I’ve never been able to, at any show), so you kind of have to have listened to the album, and the only song I’d heard him perform was the Boba-Fett-‘Vette song. Also, Jesus tap-dancing torrent-bashing Christ, it was hot in there. My pants and shirt are all a solid color- there’s not a single spot that didn’t completely soak through the fabric. Even the denim. Denim. Denim was soaked through. How is that even possible?
Also, I paid $10 for a CD. CD has seven fucking songs on it. I’m so DLing his discography guilt-free.
But it wasn’t a bad show. In fact, it was a very good show, I just wasn’t prepared for it, and I’m not really into nerd-core. I have too much violence in my heart to really enjoy the collecting, the cathecting, the cosplay and the complete isolation involved in actually being a nerd. I’ve been there, got the T-shirt, probably have a few character sheets lying around here somewhere, but I’ve moved on. It’s good to look back though. Like XKCD, I feel like part of a special club when I get the jokes
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Gripping It!
My first memory of Geto Boys' Grip It! On That Other Level comes from burning my buddy’s CD collection. They made it into my CD player by having the grace to have ‘Assassins’, covered by the Insane Clown Posse (a rap group so ludicrous, not only do they believe in magic, they do not believe in electromagnetism). So when I found an album put out by these guys that got a shout out by someone I was willing to follow into hell (or, Detroit, as the case may be), I figured I’d give them a shot.
Turns out I thought they sucked, and so I only jammed them when I needed an interlude in between Biohazard and Perfect Circle.
With music tastes that confusing and conflicting, it’s a wonder I’m still alive today.
One neat thing about the album is that it’s pulp; you can't take it seriously. Like pulp-fiction (the genre) everything is exaggerated. The protagonists are not just murderers, they’re rapist thugs with a perplexing level of psychological problems that went curiously uncorrected by granny’s switch or momma’s ‘tussin during their youth. They don’t just bang hos, they bang them until their body looks like swiss-cheese and then give her over to their boys while they go and get another. And they don’t just sell drugs; they are, in fact, made of drugs.
While the esteem of the artists is somewhat enthralling, it doesn’t remove a greater fault – that it all sounds the same. It’s not just the 4/4 beat, with keyboard wounds added in for effect, high snare and low bass. It’s not just the monotonous delivery (from all except Scarface). It’s not just the Godfather/Scarface samples. It’s all that… and the fact that you can probably take any 4 bars from any song, put them into another song, anywhere in that song, and have it fit seamlessly.
Example: contrast the following from ‘Read These Nikes’:
When I hit ya in your goddamn mouth
And show you what a real nigga's all about
When I dispose of your ass like waste
And nothin but my shoe is in your muthafuckin face
With the following from ‘Size Ain’t Shit’
So if you wanna try your luck
C'mon...play pussy'n'get fucked
Asshole snicker and get beat
Your a bad motherfucker if you dare to compete
It’s like they only had enough creativity between the three of them for four songs- ‘Do It Like a G.O.’ (not a typo), ‘Let a Ho be a Ho’, ‘Mind of a Lunatic’, and ‘Seek and Destroy’. The first is your quintessential thug-anthem, the second is a comedic rendition of how easy pimpin ain’t, the third is a long flirtation with horror-core, and the last is… a lot like the first, but with Scarface unafraid to experiment with tempo.
They strung those four songs into twelve.
On a closely related note, last week I reviewed the song ‘Scarface: Pt. II’ off The World Is Yours. Pt. I is on Grip It!, and is, in fact, the exact same story. Scarface deals some raw, raw-dogs a girl, is shot at during the act, grabs his ratchet and goes Vietnam Tom on some enemies. Both were good to listen to; Scarface has a talent for exaggeration and self-aggrandizement that is nothing short of demigodly. Although, if this actually keeps happening to him, he should probably stop. And if not, why make up the exact story twice? For a fan of The Godfather, Scarface sure forgot to make the sequel an improvement.
On a one to ten scale, I give this album a rating of ‘Power Rangers’. It’s from the early 90’s, its violent, its filled with some fucked up noise, but not enough to give an erection to the kids who’re into that sort of stuff. But mostly, ‘cuz its just the same shit over and over. It’s not a complete waste - millions of kids loved that show before they grew up enough to realize it was one of the worst television shows ever. And Amy Jo Johnson was smoking. And the Green/White/Rainbow ranger actually uses his morphin-super-powers when he’s in the octagon.
Morphenomenal!
Turns out I thought they sucked, and so I only jammed them when I needed an interlude in between Biohazard and Perfect Circle.
With music tastes that confusing and conflicting, it’s a wonder I’m still alive today.
One neat thing about the album is that it’s pulp; you can't take it seriously. Like pulp-fiction (the genre) everything is exaggerated. The protagonists are not just murderers, they’re rapist thugs with a perplexing level of psychological problems that went curiously uncorrected by granny’s switch or momma’s ‘tussin during their youth. They don’t just bang hos, they bang them until their body looks like swiss-cheese and then give her over to their boys while they go and get another. And they don’t just sell drugs; they are, in fact, made of drugs.
While the esteem of the artists is somewhat enthralling, it doesn’t remove a greater fault – that it all sounds the same. It’s not just the 4/4 beat, with keyboard wounds added in for effect, high snare and low bass. It’s not just the monotonous delivery (from all except Scarface). It’s not just the Godfather/Scarface samples. It’s all that… and the fact that you can probably take any 4 bars from any song, put them into another song, anywhere in that song, and have it fit seamlessly.
Example: contrast the following from ‘Read These Nikes’:
When I hit ya in your goddamn mouth
And show you what a real nigga's all about
When I dispose of your ass like waste
And nothin but my shoe is in your muthafuckin face
With the following from ‘Size Ain’t Shit’
So if you wanna try your luck
C'mon...play pussy'n'get fucked
Asshole snicker and get beat
Your a bad motherfucker if you dare to compete
It’s like they only had enough creativity between the three of them for four songs- ‘Do It Like a G.O.’ (not a typo), ‘Let a Ho be a Ho’, ‘Mind of a Lunatic’, and ‘Seek and Destroy’. The first is your quintessential thug-anthem, the second is a comedic rendition of how easy pimpin ain’t, the third is a long flirtation with horror-core, and the last is… a lot like the first, but with Scarface unafraid to experiment with tempo.
They strung those four songs into twelve.
On a closely related note, last week I reviewed the song ‘Scarface: Pt. II’ off The World Is Yours. Pt. I is on Grip It!, and is, in fact, the exact same story. Scarface deals some raw, raw-dogs a girl, is shot at during the act, grabs his ratchet and goes Vietnam Tom on some enemies. Both were good to listen to; Scarface has a talent for exaggeration and self-aggrandizement that is nothing short of demigodly. Although, if this actually keeps happening to him, he should probably stop. And if not, why make up the exact story twice? For a fan of The Godfather, Scarface sure forgot to make the sequel an improvement.
On a one to ten scale, I give this album a rating of ‘Power Rangers’. It’s from the early 90’s, its violent, its filled with some fucked up noise, but not enough to give an erection to the kids who’re into that sort of stuff. But mostly, ‘cuz its just the same shit over and over. It’s not a complete waste - millions of kids loved that show before they grew up enough to realize it was one of the worst television shows ever. And Amy Jo Johnson was smoking. And the Green/White/Rainbow ranger actually uses his morphin-super-powers when he’s in the octagon.
Morphenomenal!
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Fuck You, Sean Lebowicz
You remember the early nineties? Tekkaman Blade on Saturday mornings, Highlander in the afternoon? Two different Mortal Kombat movies? Back before you discovered you could cook bacon any time you wanted and the subsequent health problems that epiphany has (or will eventually) cause? When Clinton was in office, but before we all discovered his horrify fetish for fat Jewish chicks and took turns berating him in public for lying to the American people and snickering in private about what bet he’d lost to make him dive on the grenade until we found out it wasn’t a grenade he’d dived on but more like a tub of fat feminine Jew-gold he’d cannonballed into intentionally like Scrooge from DuckTales?
That’s about when Scarface: The World is Yours came out. And damn, does it sound like it.
Hip-hop has come a long way in the last damn near twenty years. Rhyme-writing has gotten a lot more complex. More sophisticated tools have been designed to create, record, and modify instrumental tracks. ‘Gangster’ is now an adjective, in addition to a noun. All that had to be taken into account once I started jamming this album.
I’m not trying to say it sucked. I am saying it’s a period piece. Like Shakespeare.
Like motherfuckin Shakespeare.
So this is Gangster-Rap, and I mean that to say that it’s carrying on an ancient tradition of warrior-poets, where you go out and kill some bloodthirsty savage from another tribe, then fuck his wife and take his loot, and then brag about it, and whoever can brag about it the best gets mad props from all his friends. These are, for the most part, collages full of brags, boasts, toasts, roasts, jokes, punch-lines, and putdowns. Scarface nails that, really highlighting (as narrators are wont to do) his own invincibility and omnipotence.
That said, he doesn’t say it in a particularly amazing or original way. His rhythm is somewhat monotonous, sticking with the beat instead of dancing around it (as was par for the time, with certain notable exceptions). In fact, he mostly gets by on his incredible enthusiasm and a complete lack of self-consciousness in saying absolutely ridiculous things. The enthusiasm probably explains why he’s so popular- the rhymes are simple, but the delivery is so honest and powerful that it’s not for a while until you’re like ‘hey… wait a minute… all these songs are about him randomly killing people and selling drugs.’
He has some legitimate points on his more thought-intense songs, and certain criticisms of the drug game, but it could be that I’m reading more into his ‘anti-police’ vibe than is there.
“Niggas gettin caught, doin time, so they snitchin
They pickin niggas up on a funky ass suspicion
We'll be goin down for some questioning we think
And end up gettin hit with the fuckin kitchen sink"
I mean, from a realistic perspective, doing drugs is, technically illegal, and if the Mr. Scarface character was really interested in avoiding the police, I don’t think it’d be going TOO far out of his way to… you know… not be involved in illegal activities? I mean, fight the power, sure, I’m all about fighting the power. I guess just not too much.
Literally, the high point of the album is ‘Funky ‘lil Nigga’, featuring 2Low. Mostly because he’s thirteen, and he’s spitting lines like:
“I got my street sense from these muthafuckin streets, bitch
And I'm comin real, cause I ain't fuckin with that weak shit
Pass me the joint and let me kick it for the old folks
All the O.G.'s back in the hood that once sold dope”
It’s probably the funniest thing I’ve seen since Afro-Ninja. He just doesn’t get how much he doesn’t get. The overly expletive-filled language, the too-easy familiarity with the signs of rebellion of the age just older than he is paint him as the kid trying too hard to be cool. Like when you were in middle school and your friend, Sean Lebowicz, was bragging about having sex with his girlfriend that lived two towns away and she was a model and he only had pictures of her that he clipped out of magazines and he was trying to describe it and every time you asked for more specific details he told you couldn’t remember it really well but it was awesome and he was sweating the whole time he was telling the tale and then it turned out he was just flat-out lying.
It’s probably not that pathetic, because if 2Low’s hanging out with Scarface, there’s probably some partying like a rap-star going on (rap stars are not known for their judgment), but the false bravado is probably just as clear a sign of immaturity.
On a one-to-five scale, I rate this a high school ex-girlfriend. It’s not perfect, but it was pretty good for that time in your development where you were just excited to get what you were given, and were amazed that her cooch was so similar to what Sean described that for a moment you thought he might have actually been telling the truth until you remembered you read his rant almost word-for-word in a back-issue of penthouse once you finally got around to torrenting them.
Fuck you, Sean. We used to think you were cool.
That’s about when Scarface: The World is Yours came out. And damn, does it sound like it.
Hip-hop has come a long way in the last damn near twenty years. Rhyme-writing has gotten a lot more complex. More sophisticated tools have been designed to create, record, and modify instrumental tracks. ‘Gangster’ is now an adjective, in addition to a noun. All that had to be taken into account once I started jamming this album.
I’m not trying to say it sucked. I am saying it’s a period piece. Like Shakespeare.
Like motherfuckin Shakespeare.
So this is Gangster-Rap, and I mean that to say that it’s carrying on an ancient tradition of warrior-poets, where you go out and kill some bloodthirsty savage from another tribe, then fuck his wife and take his loot, and then brag about it, and whoever can brag about it the best gets mad props from all his friends. These are, for the most part, collages full of brags, boasts, toasts, roasts, jokes, punch-lines, and putdowns. Scarface nails that, really highlighting (as narrators are wont to do) his own invincibility and omnipotence.
That said, he doesn’t say it in a particularly amazing or original way. His rhythm is somewhat monotonous, sticking with the beat instead of dancing around it (as was par for the time, with certain notable exceptions). In fact, he mostly gets by on his incredible enthusiasm and a complete lack of self-consciousness in saying absolutely ridiculous things. The enthusiasm probably explains why he’s so popular- the rhymes are simple, but the delivery is so honest and powerful that it’s not for a while until you’re like ‘hey… wait a minute… all these songs are about him randomly killing people and selling drugs.’
He has some legitimate points on his more thought-intense songs, and certain criticisms of the drug game, but it could be that I’m reading more into his ‘anti-police’ vibe than is there.
“Niggas gettin caught, doin time, so they snitchin
They pickin niggas up on a funky ass suspicion
We'll be goin down for some questioning we think
And end up gettin hit with the fuckin kitchen sink"
I mean, from a realistic perspective, doing drugs is, technically illegal, and if the Mr. Scarface character was really interested in avoiding the police, I don’t think it’d be going TOO far out of his way to… you know… not be involved in illegal activities? I mean, fight the power, sure, I’m all about fighting the power. I guess just not too much.
Literally, the high point of the album is ‘Funky ‘lil Nigga’, featuring 2Low. Mostly because he’s thirteen, and he’s spitting lines like:
“I got my street sense from these muthafuckin streets, bitch
And I'm comin real, cause I ain't fuckin with that weak shit
Pass me the joint and let me kick it for the old folks
All the O.G.'s back in the hood that once sold dope”
It’s probably the funniest thing I’ve seen since Afro-Ninja. He just doesn’t get how much he doesn’t get. The overly expletive-filled language, the too-easy familiarity with the signs of rebellion of the age just older than he is paint him as the kid trying too hard to be cool. Like when you were in middle school and your friend, Sean Lebowicz, was bragging about having sex with his girlfriend that lived two towns away and she was a model and he only had pictures of her that he clipped out of magazines and he was trying to describe it and every time you asked for more specific details he told you couldn’t remember it really well but it was awesome and he was sweating the whole time he was telling the tale and then it turned out he was just flat-out lying.
It’s probably not that pathetic, because if 2Low’s hanging out with Scarface, there’s probably some partying like a rap-star going on (rap stars are not known for their judgment), but the false bravado is probably just as clear a sign of immaturity.
On a one-to-five scale, I rate this a high school ex-girlfriend. It’s not perfect, but it was pretty good for that time in your development where you were just excited to get what you were given, and were amazed that her cooch was so similar to what Sean described that for a moment you thought he might have actually been telling the truth until you remembered you read his rant almost word-for-word in a back-issue of penthouse once you finally got around to torrenting them.
Fuck you, Sean. We used to think you were cool.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Roads? Where We're Going We Don't Need Roads...
Strange Journey Volume 2 (SJV2) has the same stylistic qualities as #1, but is much more specific, and much more introspective. By ‘specific’, I mean each song fulfills its genre much more so than equivalent songs on #1. Let me back up and explain what I mean by ‘genre’.
There are three genres in Hip-Hop; collages, stories and essays. Most work are collages. Tracks with no goal (other than to sound good), but are just an odd arrangement of brags, boasts, shout-outs, put-downs and gibberish, fall into this category. Most rap, in fact, falls into this category. Good examples are the mixtape song 'Anthem' and as mentioned before, anything put out by Jus Allah.
The 2nd genre, stories, are just that; a frequently chronological retelling of events, possessing both a protagonist and a plot. Great examples include ‘The Harbor is Yours’ off “None Shall Pass” by Aesop Rock and ‘Like Today’ by Atmosphere.
An essay has a point (a thesis, even). That point is usually basic- the language of hip-hop is intrinsically emotional, and the lyrical elements unsuited to the specificity required for an ordinary ontological argument. That said, topics both mundane and sublime are attempted, from ‘drugs are bad’ to ‘drugs are good’ to ‘While 9/11 was a tragedy, the reaction to it by the media, government and military-industrial complex is nothing short of disgusting’.
Note- These are my definitions. Outside the context of this blog, no one will care or recognize these terms. Fair warning to those who also frequent allhiphop.com’s forums.
SJV2’s collages are more bangin’, its essays more pointed, its stories more developed.
Ordinarily, I’d quote snatches of song to prove my point, but, trying to put brackets around the awesome parts of the most well-crafted examples is a lot like trying to find the part of The Odyssey that makes it an epic- a herculean task. So I’ll link to them, and provide some commentary, trusting that you’ll blare good jams through your workplace to follow along with what I’m saying.
‘The WWKYA Tour’ is a damn good story (collection of stories, actually) around the plot of some kid mouthing off to the band and the band utterly destroying him (because girls only mouth off to De La Soul, apparently). The story is so cohesive that the digressions add a richness to the story instead of distractions, like how Tonedeff (I think it’s Tonedeff) orders a drink at the beginning of his flow and picks it up at the end, after going through a wrestling match with an offender. Or how in the same flow, he points out the irony of the image he held of the offender, and the one he found on facebook.
‘To Be for Real’ contrasts the emotional appeal of success with it’s often not-so-hidden underbelly. The imagery of conjuring ‘debts from assets’ really appealed to the accountant in me, not going to lie. So too does the closing couplet of the song (not as an accountant... you know what I mean).
‘Tear Tracks’ fully embraces its genre, making a point about the tragedy of a battered woman. I feel it leaves out a necessary element of scorn for women who keep going back to an abusive spouse, and I also didn’t like the fact that there’s no conclusion, just ‘oh, she’s still getting beat’ by the songs end. The fact that the thesis is elucidated clearly enough to critique suggests it deserves some hefty props, though.
The rest of the album isn’t really a step behind these songs- these are just the ones that touched me, that I felt I could critique meaningfully. On the whole, Volume 2 is more introspective than Volume 1, but I’d halt and look both ways before calling one better than the other.
I haven’t mentioned the production work yet: It’s solid. I don’t have enough space to elucidate more on its stylistic influence, but it neither overshadows the performers nor underwhelms the listener.
On a scale of one to eleventy-billion, I give this album a high-five ('cuz bros like high-fives), a big bag of props (see above) and a tearful goodbye, because it's going to be another couple of months until I review a cd I've liked this much. Next week I'll be tackling Scarface's 'The World is Yours'; so if you've ever accidentally confused Al Pacino and this guy, show up and find out how not to ever again.
There are three genres in Hip-Hop; collages, stories and essays. Most work are collages. Tracks with no goal (other than to sound good), but are just an odd arrangement of brags, boasts, shout-outs, put-downs and gibberish, fall into this category. Most rap, in fact, falls into this category. Good examples are the mixtape song 'Anthem' and as mentioned before, anything put out by Jus Allah.
The 2nd genre, stories, are just that; a frequently chronological retelling of events, possessing both a protagonist and a plot. Great examples include ‘The Harbor is Yours’ off “None Shall Pass” by Aesop Rock and ‘Like Today’ by Atmosphere.
An essay has a point (a thesis, even). That point is usually basic- the language of hip-hop is intrinsically emotional, and the lyrical elements unsuited to the specificity required for an ordinary ontological argument. That said, topics both mundane and sublime are attempted, from ‘drugs are bad’ to ‘drugs are good’ to ‘While 9/11 was a tragedy, the reaction to it by the media, government and military-industrial complex is nothing short of disgusting’.
Note- These are my definitions. Outside the context of this blog, no one will care or recognize these terms. Fair warning to those who also frequent allhiphop.com’s forums.
SJV2’s collages are more bangin’, its essays more pointed, its stories more developed.
Ordinarily, I’d quote snatches of song to prove my point, but, trying to put brackets around the awesome parts of the most well-crafted examples is a lot like trying to find the part of The Odyssey that makes it an epic- a herculean task. So I’ll link to them, and provide some commentary, trusting that you’ll blare good jams through your workplace to follow along with what I’m saying.
‘The WWKYA Tour’ is a damn good story (collection of stories, actually) around the plot of some kid mouthing off to the band and the band utterly destroying him (because girls only mouth off to De La Soul, apparently). The story is so cohesive that the digressions add a richness to the story instead of distractions, like how Tonedeff (I think it’s Tonedeff) orders a drink at the beginning of his flow and picks it up at the end, after going through a wrestling match with an offender. Or how in the same flow, he points out the irony of the image he held of the offender, and the one he found on facebook.
‘To Be for Real’ contrasts the emotional appeal of success with it’s often not-so-hidden underbelly. The imagery of conjuring ‘debts from assets’ really appealed to the accountant in me, not going to lie. So too does the closing couplet of the song (not as an accountant... you know what I mean).
‘Tear Tracks’ fully embraces its genre, making a point about the tragedy of a battered woman. I feel it leaves out a necessary element of scorn for women who keep going back to an abusive spouse, and I also didn’t like the fact that there’s no conclusion, just ‘oh, she’s still getting beat’ by the songs end. The fact that the thesis is elucidated clearly enough to critique suggests it deserves some hefty props, though.
The rest of the album isn’t really a step behind these songs- these are just the ones that touched me, that I felt I could critique meaningfully. On the whole, Volume 2 is more introspective than Volume 1, but I’d halt and look both ways before calling one better than the other.
I haven’t mentioned the production work yet: It’s solid. I don’t have enough space to elucidate more on its stylistic influence, but it neither overshadows the performers nor underwhelms the listener.
On a scale of one to eleventy-billion, I give this album a high-five ('cuz bros like high-fives), a big bag of props (see above) and a tearful goodbye, because it's going to be another couple of months until I review a cd I've liked this much. Next week I'll be tackling Scarface's 'The World is Yours'; so if you've ever accidentally confused Al Pacino and this guy, show up and find out how not to ever again.
Monday, May 17, 2010
I'm Sorry, You Call Yourself What?
Okay, this being my first exposure to CunninLynguist, a 3-man troupe from Lexington, Kentucky, a number of introductions ran through my mind;
‘CunninLynguist has created the type of album that just makes you feel good…’
‘CunninLynguist’s new album sounds like miracles, looks like gold, and smells like fat chicks when I’ve had too much to drink…’
‘CunninLynguist forewent it’s usual fare of beating around the bush and really decided to drill this album for all it’s worth…’
'This album has changed me; I now realize half my exes left me for guy’s who were more regularly down for some CunninLynguist…’
But the truth is that Strange Journeys: Volume 1 is so well-written, so incredible in it’s breadth and depth, that it really doesn’t need me to try to be funny. In a very real way, this album is what hip-hop is meant to be. I haven’t been this impressed since Ricardo showed up late to the party sporting stylized gashes in his face and tried to jump off a balcony, claiming red-wings gave him balls. Actually, it’s excactly like that, but completely different, and better.
So first I want to gush about how CunningLynguists incorporate a wide series of literary elements without too-heavy a reliance on any particular one. Not only can these guys throw down end rhyme (typical) and internal rhyme (getting more typical), but they’re able to make honest use of extended metaphor and poetic imagry. The best talent they have is wit and humor though. Brief snatches don’t do the work justice, but:
“I was a pimp, bitch, mixed with modern day romeo
But now my pimp look more like polio”
Out of 'Hypnotized' or
“When I fall in the front door and land in the backyard
Physics don't apply
Midgets in the sky
Skipping 'round my head, singin', 'Negro, you so high'"
On 'Never Come Down'.
The CunningLynguist crew also demonstrates the deceptively incredible skill at just telling a straight story. Seriously, the art of storytelling has been almost completely lost due to MTV's ability to make you forget you were actually listening to a song for some reason by simply flashing a shitload of girlflesh at you while some dude dances worse than a white-boy at prom with a stack of monopoly money in one hand and what passes for his ego in the other. 'The Distance' and 'Dance For Me' both feature a straight story of decline, told with a full plot, including denouement. While lesser acts can’t stay on the same subject for more than a couplet, CunninLynguist not only serve up material fit for Saturday cartoons, but it rhymes. How cool is that?
Cunninglynguist bring every talented indy-rapper ever, from the guys I’ve been digging since I was old enough to put shovel to dirt while jamming out The Box on an early-nineties stereo in my back yard (Slug, from Atmosphere) to the guys I was handed a sampler for free at a show two years ago and actually decided to buy their shit from iTunes (Grieves), and a bunch of artists my faux-friends have completely failed to inform me of (E-famm). Part of that’s because this album is a mixtape though, so it would be inappropriate to assume CunninLynguist outsources this much of their production on the regular. The point though is that they’re doing work with other artists of excellent taste. The cooperation makes great work legendary.
CunningLynguists think deep thoughts too. 'Die For You' is the closest thing to advocating chastity in a rap song I’ve ever heard. 'Don’t Leave' juxtaposes the hardships of being on tour with the family left behind. Even their political perspectives deserve credit; instead of going for the cheap ‘it’s whitey’s fault my community looks like that clip of Basrah they showed on the news’, they talk about the 2nd amendment and being left out of Obama’s economic stimulus. Sure they talk about drugs and corrupt pigs too, but the more I research it, the more I find myself being critical of officers of the law as well.
Most importantly though, these guys bring it. The first couple of songs on the track are heavy-hitters, songs that really get you pumped up to go out and move shit. There are party songs, work that’s fun to listen to because you can tell the artist really enjoyed writing the piece. And both of these genres are done without self-consciousness or hesitation.
So basically, these guys do everything. And they do everything so seamlessly even the most critical of reviewers can’t doubt their mastery of the craft. On my one to five scale I’m giving this one Aspergers, because it literally made most of its competition look mildly retarded- good enough to function in society, but the type of act you let win at checkers because if they lose they’ll throw a tantrum and shit the rug.
‘CunninLynguist has created the type of album that just makes you feel good…’
‘CunninLynguist’s new album sounds like miracles, looks like gold, and smells like fat chicks when I’ve had too much to drink…’
‘CunninLynguist forewent it’s usual fare of beating around the bush and really decided to drill this album for all it’s worth…’
'This album has changed me; I now realize half my exes left me for guy’s who were more regularly down for some CunninLynguist…’
But the truth is that Strange Journeys: Volume 1 is so well-written, so incredible in it’s breadth and depth, that it really doesn’t need me to try to be funny. In a very real way, this album is what hip-hop is meant to be. I haven’t been this impressed since Ricardo showed up late to the party sporting stylized gashes in his face and tried to jump off a balcony, claiming red-wings gave him balls. Actually, it’s excactly like that, but completely different, and better.
So first I want to gush about how CunningLynguists incorporate a wide series of literary elements without too-heavy a reliance on any particular one. Not only can these guys throw down end rhyme (typical) and internal rhyme (getting more typical), but they’re able to make honest use of extended metaphor and poetic imagry. The best talent they have is wit and humor though. Brief snatches don’t do the work justice, but:
“I was a pimp, bitch, mixed with modern day romeo
But now my pimp look more like polio”
Out of 'Hypnotized' or
“When I fall in the front door and land in the backyard
Physics don't apply
Midgets in the sky
Skipping 'round my head, singin', 'Negro, you so high'"
On 'Never Come Down'.
The CunningLynguist crew also demonstrates the deceptively incredible skill at just telling a straight story. Seriously, the art of storytelling has been almost completely lost due to MTV's ability to make you forget you were actually listening to a song for some reason by simply flashing a shitload of girlflesh at you while some dude dances worse than a white-boy at prom with a stack of monopoly money in one hand and what passes for his ego in the other. 'The Distance' and 'Dance For Me' both feature a straight story of decline, told with a full plot, including denouement. While lesser acts can’t stay on the same subject for more than a couplet, CunninLynguist not only serve up material fit for Saturday cartoons, but it rhymes. How cool is that?
Cunninglynguist bring every talented indy-rapper ever, from the guys I’ve been digging since I was old enough to put shovel to dirt while jamming out The Box on an early-nineties stereo in my back yard (Slug, from Atmosphere) to the guys I was handed a sampler for free at a show two years ago and actually decided to buy their shit from iTunes (Grieves), and a bunch of artists my faux-friends have completely failed to inform me of (E-famm). Part of that’s because this album is a mixtape though, so it would be inappropriate to assume CunninLynguist outsources this much of their production on the regular. The point though is that they’re doing work with other artists of excellent taste. The cooperation makes great work legendary.
CunningLynguists think deep thoughts too. 'Die For You' is the closest thing to advocating chastity in a rap song I’ve ever heard. 'Don’t Leave' juxtaposes the hardships of being on tour with the family left behind. Even their political perspectives deserve credit; instead of going for the cheap ‘it’s whitey’s fault my community looks like that clip of Basrah they showed on the news’, they talk about the 2nd amendment and being left out of Obama’s economic stimulus. Sure they talk about drugs and corrupt pigs too, but the more I research it, the more I find myself being critical of officers of the law as well.
Most importantly though, these guys bring it. The first couple of songs on the track are heavy-hitters, songs that really get you pumped up to go out and move shit. There are party songs, work that’s fun to listen to because you can tell the artist really enjoyed writing the piece. And both of these genres are done without self-consciousness or hesitation.
So basically, these guys do everything. And they do everything so seamlessly even the most critical of reviewers can’t doubt their mastery of the craft. On my one to five scale I’m giving this one Aspergers, because it literally made most of its competition look mildly retarded- good enough to function in society, but the type of act you let win at checkers because if they lose they’ll throw a tantrum and shit the rug.
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