Hip Hop | Periscope Depth

From the Blog

Sep

blueprint for a monument

Posted by Perich at 7:36 am

New post up on Overthinking It about a happier 10-year anniversary from this past Sunday: the release of Jay-Z’s album The Blueprint:

The shadow of Biggie’s absence was growing more and more notable. Someone needed to step up and become unofficial chairman of the East Coast once more. And by critical consensus, attention fell on the two most prominent MCs in New York: Jay-Z and Nas. Nas had the critical depth, having produced one of the most acclaimed hip hop albums of all time just a few months before Biggie’s own Ready to Die came out. But Jay-Z had the mainstream success, stepping up with several MTV-friendly hits and embracing the glamorous aspects of the gangsta lifestyle.

To put New York back on the map would take a classic album, one that revived the East Coast technique of funky samples with profound rhymes. The strength of the samples depends on the strength of your producer, though. For his sixth studio album, Jay-Z found that producer, a young man from Chicago named Kanye West.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-check it.

Aug

let me take you on a journey through carmel city

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

The longer I work in marketing, the less comfortable I am with “eighteen to thirty-five” as a demographic. I wouldn’t want to spend 2 minutes in an elevator with most 20-year-olds, and I have to spend another 5 years in the same demo as them? There’s nothing I have in common with them aside from a lack of kids (though, as my friend Jason pointed out, people of any age without kids have more in common than people of the same age if one of them has a child, and try booking a weekend on the beach if you don’t believe me).

Of course, the beauty of Google knowing everything is that marketers no longer have to rely on broad segments dreamed up by Madison Avenue. Soccer moms, job-hopping millennials, gadget junkies, green fanatics: you no longer need to buy a bucket before you go fishing. That’s one of Internet Inc’s chief strengths: defining segments based on the behavior of your existing customers, rather than deciding “your car appeals to do-it-yourself dads” and spending $2MM of your money to find out we were wrong. So if marketing gets smarter – something I’m trying to prod it to do every day, guys, really – I won’t be in this eighteen-to-thirty-five bucket for long.

This came up, oddly, as part of my rediscovery of the golden age of hip-hop, that magical period between 1986 and 1994 when everyone sampled Motown, conscious styles dominated and lyrical flow was at its peak. As a white kid from the suburbs I was conscious of almost none of it. But that spark lay in the back of my mind until it started burning. I’ve been using Spotify to tear through the tracks I should have listened to back in the day. Tribe Called Quest. Gang Starr. Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth.

This was not the soundtrack to my teenage years. But it could have been. The Main Ingredient dropped in ’94, and at the tender age of 13 I was susceptible to fresh cuts and jams. But someone who is 18 today would have been neonatal back then. If “Carmel City” had any impact on their lives, it would have been purely subconscious. They wouldn’t relate to it in the same way I would have. That, in part, is why the eighteen-to-thirty-five demo doesn’t work.

Also, do you have any idea how jarring it is to be kicking it to The Main Ingredient and be interrupted by a Trace Adkins ad, Spotify? Marketing needs to get its act together.

Jan

that’s a one hot album every ten year average

Posted by Perich at 11:32 am

Sean reminded me this morning that it took Illmatic seven years to sell one million copies. Widely considered the best hip-hop album of the 90s, and it wasn’t certified platinum until 2001^*. Add to that the fact that the release of Jay-Z’s The Blueprint was overshadowed by planes flying into buildings that morning^**. Add to that the fact that more people have seen Mos Def play an alien or a safecracker than have heard him rhyme with Talib Kweli. Add to that the fact that more people watch The Roots play on Jimmy Fallon in one week than have bought Things Fall Apart in the last eleven years.

Suddenly I don’t feel so bad about being behind the curve on real MCs.

__________________
* It was so good that, when Jay-Z laid into Nas on his legendary diss track “The Takeover,” he concedes how good Illmatic was. For one feuding rapper to admit that a rival’s product was at all good is praising with faint damnation.

** That has to be something to wake up to. “New album dropped this morning. Damn, look at all these messages on my phone. Must be tearing it UP. Gonna turn on the news, see what they’re saying.”

Oct

out to rock the globe while it’s still here to rock

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

I spent the better part of yesterday listening to classic hip-hop while I worked. I was a latecomer to the genre and my exposure was limited to the commercially successful stuff of my adolescent years – Nas, Biggie, Tupac, Jay-Z and the gangsta tip. Only very recently have I opened my mind to the true classics: that brief era between 1988 and 1992, where samples came from the best, the lyrics flowed and the message was uplifting. I’m paging through this catalog with the eyes of a child, wondering that such music was ever possible. Digable Planets. Tribe Called Quest. De La Soul. Pharcyde.

When I was in high school, just a few years after this golden age, I competed for the debate team. We would travel with the kids who did speech events to local tournaments, riding in our school’s battered yellow vans until we were old enough to drive. One of the speech kids, Rahman, was a hard kid to get a read on. His excitement seemed to live on a different frequency than the practiced cynicism of smart prep school kids. And yet he could transform himself from a boisterous five-foot-three to a poised, commanding presence during speech competitions. Declamation, Original Oratory, Dramatic Interpretation – he killed them. Even on the national level. He forced the debate kids to raise their game.

Our junior year, national finals for the National Catholic Forensics League were held in Detroit. We stayed in a high-rise hotel complex in a section of Detroit that was already decaying, forbidden by our coaches from leaving the building. The entire hotel was serviced by two elevators, which took hours (we felt) to ferry all the competing students between floors on the morning of the tournament.

Friday night, as we caught the elevator back to our rooms, Rahman dashed through the lobby to get in before the doors closed. We groaned inwardly – some of us out loud. We had cases to review for tomorrow’s marathon of debates. We already had those world-weary shells that all high schoolers wear. The last thing we wanted to deal with was Rahman’s enthusiasm.

And he was practically glowing. “You guys,” he said.

“What?”

“One of the kids from Bronx …” – Bronx High School of Science – “… said one of the greatest rappers of all time is here! In the hotel!”

“Who?”

“I’ve got to find him,” Rahman said. “I’ve got his tape in my bag. Gotta get his autograph.”

“Rahman,” we asked. “Who is it?”

He said a name. All of us laughed. “Who the hell is that?” we said.

I don’t have many regrets from high school. I wouldn’t turn back the clock to take more AP classes, talk to more girls or stay out later. I’ve come to terms with the child I was back then, and I’m happy with the man I am now. But not a month has gone by in the last five years when I haven’t wished I took better note of that name. Q-Tip? Chuck D? Rakim? I know Rahman was a big De La Soul fan; could it have been them? It’s lost. I was lost in my own thoughts. It wasn’t one of the three rappers I’d heard of at that time; it might as well have been gibberish.

I wish I’d paid more attention. Think of the world that would be open to me today.

Jul

rooftop, like we bringing 88 back

Posted by Perich at 9:38 am

I love the man, but seeing Nas at House of Blues this week was one of the worst concert experiences I’ve ever had. The tickets claimed doors at 7:30, show at 8:30, but there was still a line around the block at 8:15. A third of the second-story mezzanine had been blocked off to form a “VIP Section,” meaning the rest of us had to cram against the railing in a space 2/3 the size of normal. If they had A/C, it wasn’t strong enough: twenty-four hundred college kids generate a lot of AXE-tinted body heat on a summer night. And Nas and Damian Marley didn’t go on until 10:45. When they did, I could see them in glimpses.

Nas gave plenty of shout outs to the recently departed Guru and covered a broad sampling of his eighteen-year career: “Represent,” “If I Ruled the World,” “Hate Me Now,” “Nas is Like,” etc. The entire venue, despite having put their hands up for peace earlier at Damian’s request, went wild for “Made You Look,” one of those delightful ironies that hip-hop often asks us to confront. Damian Marley, though a talented artist, wasn’t the one I came to see. I like the way he jams, don’t get me wrong, but the usual middle-class complaint re: hip-hop (“it all sounds the same to me! you can’t make out what they’re saying! they’re singing about violence all the time! and drugs!”) resonates for me with reggae. I checked out whenever he was alone on stage.

Reading the defenses of the draconian immigration law in Arizona, the one consistent refrain I’ve seen is that sure, illegal immigrants might not actually be killing citizens in record numbers, smuggling bombs in for al-Qaeda or costing citizens a lot of jobs that they’d otherwise be entitled to by sacred birthright. But it’s the rule of law that matters! If you live in a culture that doesn’t respect the rule of law, everything falls apart, for reasons that are never specified. I saw unimpeachable evidence of that at the Nas/Marley concert. There were three different pockets of weed smokers within spitting distance of me: furtively lighting a joint, crouching down below the crush of bodies to take two deep puffs, then passing them to anyone within arm’s reach. The security guards could smell it – you’d have to be anosmic not to – but did nothing. With such flagrant disrespect for the rule of law, I don’t need to tell you what happened next: three-hundred and fifteen people died. They were flung over balconies, rent by teeth and bludgeoned by drunken anarchy. “Oh, if only we’d cracked down harder on harmless drug use,” lamented one security guard before an Emerson sophomore kicked him in the back of the skull, blood drenching her Crocs.

Apr

youuuuuuuuuu

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 7:00 am

Soulja Boy.

That was fun while it lasted, wasn’t it?

Aug

now what you hear is not a test

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 7:00 am

Why does my race (white people) have to ruin everything cool? Everything cool?

Item the first: from the upcoming VH1 documentary series, “Lords of the Revolution,” each episode highlighting a controversial figure of the late 60s. Episode 101 is about Muhammed Ali:

In an era defined by protest and turbulence, perhaps nobody captured the attention of America in the late 1960s more so than Muhammad Ali. As heavyweight champion, Ali electrified the sports world with his sharp tongue and showmanship flare. (His spontaneous rhymes, in fact, are often considered to be the precursor of rap.)

Oh my fuck.

Look: for at least a few decades before Rev. Run met Jam Master Jay, the word “rap” was known to mean “talking in a loose, rhythmic manner,” hence the phrase “can I rap with you for a second” used by cool cats in the 50s and 60s, hence the phrase “now what you hear is not a test / I’m rappin’ to the beat” in the Sugar Hill Gang’s song “Rapper’s Delight,” because of the relative novelty (to non-urban America) of someone rapping over a bass track and the result being recorded as a song in its own right, so, while perhaps Muhammed Ali’s rhymes might be a precursor to hip-hop music, they could not be a precursor to rap, because that is in fact what he was doing; he was rapping; everyone who heard him do it called it rapping; people rapped all the time, and while the word “rap” may be synonymous with a genre of music today, it wasn’t in Ali’s day; saying that Muhammed Ali invented rap is like saying Russell Simmons invented poetry, and while it may seem like I’m blowing a poor choice of words out of proportion here, I’m freaking out of my skull because the choice of words belies a fundamental ignorance of (A) black culture, (B) popular music, or (C) the culture of the late 60s, and failing at even one of those, if not all three, suggests poor things for a documentary on the Lords of the Revolution.

(deep breath)

# # #

Item the second: two hipsters covering the theme from the Jeffersons:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV0fmNo7474]

This shouldn’t evoke a stronger response in me than “meh,” but I can’t help it.

“Movin’ On Up” is a soulful and danceable song about overcoming poverty through upward class mobility. It translates the American dream – that hard work can pay off for anyone – to the struggling black community. It’s full of celebration at having arrived (on the East Side) and optimism for an even sunnier future. But what really makes it beautiful is being able to bring the whole family along (“as long as we live, it’s you and me baby; there ain’t nothing wrong with that”). We’ve finally got a piece of the pie.

So: rising in social class through the use of labor and capital. Sticking together as a family. And the struggle for black identity in America. If I had to capture the opposite of those three concepts in a single symbol, it’d be a North Carolina hipster playing a trombone on his iPhone.

I’m not saying¹ that “Moving On Up” is possessed of some special negritude that means white people could never possibly sing it. Music ain’t like that. And I’m not saying that the theme song from “The Jeffersons” has some untouchable sanctity. You could play it for laughs. Hell, Hitler singing it is hilarious.

But if you want to cover a really good song like “Moving On Up,” you ought to either (A) cover it faithfully or (B) add something of value to it (like humor, or a new and interesting interpretation).

Is this a faithful cover? No. It’s two white guys who just robbed a thrift store. They bulge their eyes and put on fake soul accents for the close-ups. They play their instruments with as little emotion as possible. They shoot the video in front of backdrops so featureless that the Gap would call them bland. They insert editing tricks for their own sake (overlaying a close-up from a different shot on top of their bodies! wacky!). This song could only vault further from its origins if one of them had bagpipes².

Does it add something of value? No. It’s not particularly funny, aside from the absurdity of two white guys rich enough to afford an iPhone, an HD camera and After Effects CS4 “movin’ on up” from anywhere. And even that’s more of a how-dare-you absurd than a ha-ha absurd. It’s not as if a jazzy number that had a full band and gospel choir in its original incarnation suffered for lack of a slide trombone.

Hipsters! Ruining everything!

# # #

Is this what white guilt feels like?

_______________________
¹ I probably use this phrase more often than any other in this weblog.

² My thanks to reader Tom D. for coming up with the least soulful instrument on a moment’s notice.

May

'cause I'm as ill as the convict who kills for phone time

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 8:21 am

If you’re not already subscribing, you should check out this week’s Overthinking It podcast, in which four white guys and an Asian argue about rap music. We also sling terms like “racially normative” around and, at one point, call Mozart “soulless and technical.” It’s the most controversial podcast I’ve ever been on; don’t miss it.

# # #

Media blows monitor your movements:

Brazil: Tasha Robinson over at the AVClub gave Terry Gilliam a lifetime pass for directing Brazil, and I have to agree with her. With a savage look at the demoralizing effects of bureaucracy and the numbing balm of consumer culture, Gilliam depicts a world too plausible to be real. It’s 1984 with punch and savage wit. The puppeteering and other effects, dated though they are, work wonderfully: Jonathan Pryce as an airborne angel, the legions of hunchbacked baby-faced ghouls, etc.

Half-Life 2: Started playing this about a week ago. I can go at it for maybe forty-five minutes at a time before I get revulsed or frustrated. Either something disgusting leaps out of a corner and attacks me (oh fuck, it’s on the ceiling, it’s pulling me up into its mouth, oh FUCK) or I hit a repetitive stretch of gameplay and tap out. However, I can definitely see what the fuss was about: the controls feel smoother and the enemy A.I. smarter than any other shooter I’ve played in a while. And there’s such an obsessive level of verite in every aspect of the world – from the scraps of paper and graffiti to the periodic radio announcements from City 17 – that I almost don’t want to leave.

Jan

there ain't no need for ya

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 8:51 am

I have a real problem with pop songs that coast to success by sampling really, really good songs.

The most recent example of this is M.I.A.’s breakout hit, “Paper Planes.” The backing track comes from The Clash’s classic ur-ragga of post-colonial blues, “Straight to Hell.” Take one good song, a catchy hook (“all I wanna do is blam blam blam blam“), some mediocre lyrics and voila! Instant pop music! And not only are the lyrics fairly pedestrian, she repeats them twice. So the food’s no good and the portions are too small.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sei-eEjy4g]

M.I.A. I can excuse, however, because screaming hordes of teenagers don’t instantly recognize “Straight to Hell.” There’s no law saying a sample has to be obscure, but I prefer it. It proves that people evaluate your song on its own merits, not by nostalgic transfer.

By that standard, Kid Rock’s 2008 dump, “All Summer Long,” is pure garbage.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-sQy4kwNlM]

Yeah, that’s a sign of true artistic talent right there. That’s the hallmark of genuine aesthetic integrity – sampling two of the most popular rock songs of the 70s, songs that are practically encoded in the DNA of every American born since 1977, and snarling half-baked lyrics that sound like John Mellencamp’s rejected first draft of “Jack and Diane.” You think folks will like it? Really putting yourself out on a limb there, Kid Rock! You bold genius! You maverick auteur!

The most egregious example I’ve ever seen of this comes from Mase and Bad Boy Records, circa 1997, with “Feels So Good”:

Mase – New Music – More Music Videos

Never has the gulf between build-up (“ohmyGAWD, it’s DJ Kool, this my jam!”) and let down (“oh, shit, it’s just Ma$e again”) been so tragic.

I don’t object to artists sampling popular tracks for their songs. Kanye does it. Biggie and Tupac did it. Hell, “Good Times” wasn’t exactly an obscure song when the Sugar Hill Gang looped the bass. But in the two examples listed above – and in countless other examples I’m sure you can think of – the sampling’s so obviously mercenary. It’s talented hacks riding the coattails of more popular songs. That shit’s garbage, and I won’t stand for it.

Oct

I ran like a cheetah with thoughts of an assassin

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 7:00 am

Observed in Target this past Thursday: a scruffy white guy in his late-20s with an oversized sweatshirt, depicting one of Snow White’s dwarves giving a fist jab to the Grim Reaper, under the motto “COUSINS.” I stared unabashedly at the guy until I recognized the dwarf as Sleepy, and then I was like, oh, yeah. I would have totally given him the cool nod, but it took me five minutes to make this connection.

* * *

Another Target observation: some commentators blame the current credit crisis on Alan Greenspan’s loose monetary policies encouraging easy lending. Some blame it on Fannie Mae’s decision to ease credit restrictions for home loans back in 1999. Both of these are correct, but I’d like to suggest an additional culprit: the fact that you don’t have to sign for credit card purchases under $20 with most cards.

When did that happen? I know I’ve been doing it for a couple of years now. I think it only happens at the larger chains – Shaw’s Groceries, CVS, Target, etc – but it’s started to expand. The cashier rung me up for $3.50 worth of generic wet-naps^*, and I swiped my card faster than it would have taken me to pull out four singles and get change.

If I ever steal a credit card – and with your continued readership, it shouldn’t become necessary, hint hint – I’m going to rack up a string of $19.99 purchases all across Boston. I figure I could get away with it for days before anyone noticed. And the useful things you could get for less than $20 would surprise you.

* * *

In last Friday’s post about why I don’t understand a mandatory 30-hour work week, a few misconceptions surfaced (over on LJ, not here). So, to clear those up:

Yes, of course, only rich people have the choice between time and money.^** Poor people – and I mean the genuinely poor, folks for whom the necessities are still touch and go – don’t have this to worry about. People with existing financial obligations, like children or debt, don’t have this choice to make. This is certainly true. And you know what? A law mandating that they can only work 30 hours per week would fuck them.
My blithe dismissal of the notion – “if you want more time, choose more time; if you want more money, choose more money” – isn’t a Four Hour Work Week thing. I was that kind of an asshole long before I picked that book up; that much should be obvious.

^* Best way to wipe off fake blood, like the kind I’m covered with every night in Gorefest. Get your tickets today!

^** “Rich” by the standards of either the planet or history, meaning: anyone reading this right now.