Evolution of Media: Hip-Hop Narrative - Entry #4

English producer and occasional hip-hop collaborator Mark Ronson (Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse) had a Christmas-themed rap track leaked featuring Saigon and Rhymefest a couple of nights ago called "Wreck the Halls." I didn't have to listen too closely to it to reach a handful of conclusions before the 30-second mark:

1. Saigon and Rhymefest are two extraordinarily talented emcees. How has Saigon in particular gone so long without one official major-label release? And why is he still only known as that rapper on Entourage? His level of renown in the hip-hop world are at criminally low levels.

2. The same can pretty much be said about Rhymefest as well, although I think he's more or less boxed himself into a perception that he is only a serious, no-fun-nancy hip-hop activist. While his contributions to community awareness relating to a number of social issues are notable, it is important for him (and a number of other "socially conscious" rappers) to extend the reach of their sound by showing off their technical abilities on tracks that aren't always steeped in heavy topic matter.

3. Mark Ronson needs to become a hip-hop producer full-time, or at least consider contracting his services to more high-profile talent. He's got a great ear for beat-matching, and very distinctive funk/Motown flavor to what his idea of hip-hop sounds like. His creative approaches could go a long way toward reinvigorating the sound of a lot of ailing stars.

Lookin' forward to Saigon's official debut, as long as it doesn't get delayed again.

Mark Ronson - Wreck the Halls (feat. Saigon & Rhymefest)

Evolution of Media: Hip-Hop Narrative - Entry #3

A new leaked track popped up in the blogosphere a couple of days ago, one presumably pulled off of Dr. Dre's fabled and comically delayed Detox. I'm personally beyond any inkling of excitement or curiosity about a Dre record right before the dawn of a new decade, especially since his presence and relevance in the previous 10 years was questionable at best. Dr. Dre's sound, like a slew of other high profile hip-hop producers, haven't aged as gracefully as I would have hoped, and Dre couldn't have picked a worse lead single than "Kush" to reaffirm my suspicions about where his quality of work currently hovers around.

This track, on the other hand, made me do a slight double-take. "Syllables" was curiously labeled as an Eminem track featuring Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, Stat Quo, and Cashis. It's a track that showcases some entertaining social commentary regarding the shallow and vapid state of rap music, mostly on the parts of Eminem and Jay-Z. Em's fluid internal rhyming and proclivity for channeling that into making his raps more conversational naturally makes his bars the best; Jigga, although pretty sharp and compelling in his own right, comes up a somewhat distant second (as it usually goes when these two get on the same track together). The commentary lamenting the deterioration of I guess what these guys consider "good rapping" drops off significantly with everyone else, and the rest of the verses turn out to be pretty forgettable fares comparatively.

The actual production on the track itself isn't noteworthy and sounds somewhat anonymous. Dr. Dre's ability to compel as a rapper depends entirely on whether or not Eminem's ghostwriting is on point on a particular day, so that's not really something I look out for in a Dre solo record...but the string of leaks that have been making the rounds on the web definitely don't do Dre's knob-turning any favors, either. These tracks are some of the most boring, dated, or outright terrible beats I have heard, and that's saying a lot. I forced myself to sit through garbage featuring Timbaland shitting on his own legacy a thousand times over with Shock Value II; not to mention having to deal with Pharrell wanting to live out his fantasies as the lead singer to faceless, garbage alternative band in the latest N*E*R*D train wreck, Nothing.

If the rest of the trend plays itself out, Dr. Dre would simply be completing the trifecta of once phenomenal and innovative late 1990s/early 2000s hip-hop producers who have now swan-dived into mediocrity. I'd love for any of these guys to prove me wrong, but so far, they have all demonstrated that ego and brilliance inevitably leads to a sad state of irreversible creative stagnation.

Eminem - Syllables (feat. Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, Stat Quo & Ca$his)

Evolution of Media: Hip-Hop Narrative - Entry #2

Yesterday's class session showcased a handful of senseless arguments regarding hip-hop and the "direction" it's heading in. One girl in particular was pretty adamant that rap music was not all there was to hip-hop, and that the culture of hip-hop was far bigger than the music; big enough for the other aspects to exist on their own, and that any consideration that could be made about them could be made independently of rap music.

Her argument went something like this:

Classmate #1: "I don't like Soulja Boy, or where hip-hop is going for that matter."

Soapbox Girl: "Why can't we talk about hip-hop without having to refer to the music? Soulja Boy isn't hip-hop, and I don't think we have to talk about rap in order to discuss what hip-hop culture really is."

I was pretty worn out after she repeated her circular arguments, so I didn't bother commenting by the end of her soapbox, but I respectfully and completely disagree with her sentiments. There may be components of hip-hop that comprise the culture as a whole, rap music is precisely what gave birth to the entire movement. Things that hip-hop has come to affect and shape over the years - fashion, vernacular and colloquialisms, mainstream music trends, drugs, media, etc. - are areas that have been directly influenced by rap music, and are able to exist peripherally because of rap music's extensive reach.

Rap might not be all there is to hip-hop culture on the cusp of 2011, but it is arguably the biggest component of hip-hop culture, by far. To consciously omit rap from any consideration of what hip-hop is or the direction it is going in is outrageous, and willfully ignores the primary force that has driven hip-hop culture and its deep mainstream penetration since its inception. If one is attempting to divorce his- or herself from the projected shortcomings that tend to dominate present day rap dialogue (material fixation, misogyny, homophobia, etc.) because that person believes that the heart and soul and hip-hop as it "used to be known as" has fallen by the wayside, that person is just being idealistic. That is one person's concept of what hip-hop culture ought to be, and not how it exists today.

Alternatively, the subject matter that preoccupies much of the rap conversation in the mainstream did not just come out of nowhere, either. These topics have been floating around since rap even started; they have just been pushed to the forefront now due to significant changes in the market landscape of music caused by hip-hop itself. Sex, drugs, violence, and controversy of all breeds have always been prevalent in all genres of popular music, and hip-hop is simply the latest trend to capitalize on the market. Then one also has to consider how the basic "struggle" for up-and-coming hip-hop artists has shifted considerably; the absence of a compelling origin tends to make newer aspiring talent more faceless and appear less original than their predecessors.

Nas famously proclaimed that hip-hop was dead at the tail-end of 2008. Whose hip-hop? There definitely seems to be a stark disagreement about what hip-hop is to begin with, so it is even feasible to have this argument without any sort of consensus?

Evolution of Media: Hip-Hop Narrative - Entry #1

Sorry, Ryan - I'm hijacking this joint blog of ours for the next three weeks for my hip-hop intersession class. Just so you know what's going on, I have to write at least 9 hip-hop-related blog entries, and I plan just writing about whatever comes to mind.

You can have this bad boy back in 2012.

I still can't decide whether or not I am actually incredibly annoyed at the free pass Kanye West has gotten this year with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, or if I think that the groupthink that has ensued in both the press and popular consensus is fascinating phenomenon, or both. I concede that it's easily the most enjoyable album since his debut with The College Dropout, and that it is probably the most elegantly produced album of the year, period. From a sonic aesthetics perspective, West is in as fine of form as he's ever been, and it's somewhat of a relief for me to be able to enjoy his output again (especially after coming down off of horrible, emo, autotuned warble of 808s & Heartbreak).

Conversely, there are a lot of things to dislike about the record, too. He has an entirety of one genuinely funny punch-line across 14 tracks, and the rest of it is a catastrophic mess of thoughtless and outright bad lyrics, and the fact that Twisted Fantasy is West's best rap showcase in the last three years hardly persuades me that West is more than above-average in that category at best. There are a handful of moments where West allows the subject matter to drift into thoughtful introspection, but the rest of the work is badly marred by a lot of his questionable rhymes.

It's pretty mind-blowing how universal of a consensus the music press have granted this album, considering that these highly childish, witless and predominantly misogynistic lyrics will forever be held in the same company of other five-star, Perfect 10 records belonging to the likes of Wilco, Radiohead, and The Flaming Lips. As a (former) music reviewer myself, I understand that hip-hop criticism is accompanied by a different set of criteria, but under no circumstances should the standards be actually lowered. Truly bad lyrics on an otherwise great hip-hop album should not get a pass simply because mainstream hip-hop has a tendency to be lyrically vapid.

One evaluation of the record (courtesy of TinyMixTapes) interestingly noted that "Kanye West is so big, he's indie." This is pretty illustrative of how 1) "indie" as a descriptor continues to be meaningless on the cusp of 2011; and 2) the sea change of hipsters rushing to legitimize themselves as avid admirers of all genres is finally revealing itself in a really bizarre way.

Although I pretty much call bullshit on this, it is very interesting to see how deeply this album has moved and penetrated the music criticism community, and the hand job domino effect that has followed.

Best of ONE World

My world specifically.

Perhaps, not the "best," but that's a pretty subjective statement I suppose. I'm just going to use this area to unleash little bits and pieces of my life that I currently don't have a place for. The idea behind this blog was initially a way to hone my writing skills while being able to keep in touch with my good friend from Norman, but I suppose one out of two isn't so terrible. So here's a terribly revealing vignette about my life and the kind of things that can send my poor heart reeling in ways that even the sappiest of love songs never do.

I love the Marx Brothers. And it's the worst kind of love. Remember Heidi from grade school? You would rub sand in her hair and steal her shoes and be completely obvious to anyone who wasn't in 3rd grade? Eventually she moves away and you go on with life and then finally one day you look back to analyze the many inane decisions that led you to where you are and you piece together those crazy emotions that your heart had no room for when you were 8. I suppose it's not really love, but it was still as intense as love could be at that age. That's how I feel about the Marx Brothers in a way. I don't misunderstand my emotions for them, but I do love them long after they are gone and it pains me in a profound way. Just like you will never connect with that girl from grade school again in the only way that matters, I know that I will never see a new Marx Brothers movie. Sure I have a few left that I have purposely avoided watching, but I know they aren't the best ones and I will watch them a foreboding presence over me, knowing that I have precious few jokes left to laugh at with the sound of surprise in my voice. The fact that they are all dead looms over me with every viewing too. It gets my sense of humor all tangled up with the awareness of how short a time we have here and makes for a really unique state of mind. Sometimes I end up enjoying the viewing even more because of this and then sometimes I can't bear to wait for the screen to fade to "The End" before I get up and turn off the TV.

There is far too much that I love about the movies for me to espouse in this one entry, but I will hit on a couple, and I'll make them the small moments so you know just how important the big ones are to me as well.

I could point out the musical segments of Harpo, the slapstick mute of the group, playing his harp and be perfectly happy writing a couple pages about that, but I'll go even smaller here and hone in on his eyes. For the uninitiated, several of the movies include musical segments and generally feature either Chico on the piano or Harpo on his harp. Chico playing piano is the same Chico you see the entire movie, brash and loud, haphazardly slapping the keys in unexpected ways and playing to entertain the crowd more than to satisfy himself. Harpo, though, is transformed every time he sits down to pluck. He goes from having that inane smile permanently plastered on his face to a look of complete serenity. As a kid I used to mistake his demeanor at the harp as boredom. I figured he just wanted to get on with the movie so he could pull another blowtorch from his jacket and get in bed with a horse, but as I've grown older I can see the love of music in his eyes. A word I've gotten hung up on for awhile now is "earnest." I want to be earnest in my words, my actions and my life so badly that it sometimes keeps me from being anything at all. But Harpo, my god, the word was invented for that man and you see it in his eyes. You can see him pouring his soul into a filler number squeezed into a anarchist comedy. Who else would care so much about something that means so little in the big picture? The same energy that he attacks his madcap character with is right there on the stool with him, but its focused so purely on one thing, making the music matter to the 10 people who didn't go off to buy popcorn during the number. And then of course as soon as the song is over you see his eyes roll back in his head and the character returns, the true self is pushed deep inside to reveal the facade that we have come to accept as fact. And its all in the eyes, I could watch those scenes without sound (but why would I?) and still feel moved in the silence.

Another thing I love about the movies is something I would never have predicted me one day admitting as a child. I love Zeppo, the 4th Marx Brother, the straight man, the absolute most boring part of any film he has ever been in. Eventually he left the troupe to go on and form one of the most successful Hollywood agencies, but during the first few films you could always depend on him to play the male romantic lead and perform at least one cheesy musical number, usually performed with the help of the female romantic lead. My love for him has grown out of familiarity more than anything else. There is a certain predictive nature to all the films that is comforting for the viewer, and Zeppo is anything but surprising. My love for him increased even more recently though when I was reading up on the history of the brothers and discovered that most considered him to be the funniest brother off camera. He could also impersonate Groucho so well that even stood in for him during the black out scene in Animal Crackers. So the most boring brother is also the most versatile and completely content with standing in the shadows of comedic giants. Perhaps he thought being more legitimate in the films would lead to solo roles in big budget pictures, but I like to think that he was just happy to see his other brothers shine and did his best to keep the spotlight on them.

So yes, I love you now too Zeppo, and I get sad when I think that you died 15 years before I was born.

Flash back to this evening now....

I was watching At the Circus tonight because it's Monday and I felt like fucking with my brain chemistry without the help of illicit drugs and a mid-late Marx Brothers movie that I've only seen a couple times will usually do that. Especially if it isn't their strongest showing. It's good enough to get me laughing but not absurd enough for me to completely shut off the nagging parts of my self that like to remind me that they ARE ALL DEAD AND YOU WILL BE TOO. I know, fucked up, right?

I finished it and was feeling not too terrible so I started getting ready for my shower because it's Monday and I like to be clean on Tuesday. I was thinking about my dad because he is so close to my love of these movies, it gets a little mixed up in my mind sometimes because of that. You see, he first exposed me to the movies. I can't recall the first one I ever saw, but I do remember being in Y-Indians and having him show us A Day at the Races, truly one of the classics, at one of our meetings, I think it was a sleepover at the YMCA. I really enjoyed it and so did the other kids. The movies are great because even if you are too young to get all the quick turn of phrases from Groucho, you can still sit back and enjoy Harpo antics and the funny mustache. You have to imagine our neat rows of sleepings bags, TMNT if you were lucky and a plain red one if not, and the eager little faces being illumated by the whites and disappearing behind the blacks. You have to imagine our faces lighting up when we finally adjusted to the machine gun pace of the jokes. You have to imagine being a kid again and how every little thing in the world could be THE world for you in that moment and then you start to understand how these movies grabbed such a strong footing in my being. Looking back, it must have made my dad so happy that one of his childhood loves was being accepted by a new generation, he could see himself in us, which is always what kills people when it comes to kids. A kid can do the cutest things and some asshole might not be moved, but when he sees the kid pick at his ear the way he used to or show him a truck that looks like his old one, even the hardest of hearts melts. And now, years later, it gives me such immense happiness to know that my dad was happy that night, and it means SO much to me that he was, there were certainly other times I saw him happy, but I guess I can finally relate to what he must have felt. Nowadays I strive to expose someone to these films and I have to keep myself from watching their faces with nervous expectation, praying that they "get it," that it clicks for them like it did for me and in that moment I have to make room for another person in my heart. I think of my dad sitting at the back of the darkened gym, looking at the kids, maybe focusing on me even, and feeling that elation in the moment when the connection is made and his love is finally shared, with his own child no less. I'm so happy I could give him that.
Hindsight for me is not 20/20 though, especially when it comes to the younger years, but I never want to know if I remembered this wrong because it means too much to me now.

So I thought about that when I was getting ready for my shower and of course the spectre of Marx Brothers death crept in there too and I cried for the first time in a long time because my dad is going to die someday and I finally understand what that means at 24 for the first time.

Music Review: Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

I know I should probably spend some time writing a review for something that has come out in the last month one of these days, but I figure anything that gets me to a write a thought out entry is a good thing. So here's something about a great band.

Let’s talk about Bon Iver, specifically For Emma, Forever Ago.” I have no idea why Bon Iver finally clicked with me, but I’m so happy that it finally happened. I remember having my iPod on shuffle when it just happened to come across “Skinny Lover” and the song was vaguely recognizable, but I hadn’t made a real effort to dig into the album yet so I couldn’t have told you who it was at the time. When it came on I was in the middle of running to a plane that I would end up missing so I didn’t have time to pull out the player and check it out, which made it even more exciting to me as the song went on. I knew that I had a new favorite song, and possibly a favorite band, and I had no idea who it was. When I got around to checking it out, the name didn’t go with the sound at all for me; I had expected something chaotic or noisy for some reason and instead came away with some of the most gracefully layered music I had ever heard.

On the plane I worked my way through the rest of the album and even though the sound was the same, I still needed more time to appreciate every song in the same way as “Skinny Lover.” It’s not a complicated album in terms of composition, but each song needed a different situation or feeling to cling to before it would all come together for me and I could finally get to the core of the painfully meager nine tracks. This made listening to it all the more enjoyable though, I would find myself coming back to the album again and again every few weeks and finding another way to love it.

Apparently the album is about the lead singer, Justin Vernon, dealing with breakup(s) and the entire album has a sense of resignation and passive acceptance, but the songs are not completely caught up in identifying one aspect or feeling so you still get the freedom to explore each song in a unique way. The first track, “Flume”, for instance is about a baby still in the womb and while you could stretch the themes out to relate to the innocence of the unborn child and the lamenting of the pain that is to come, it’s better to take it for what it is and enjoy the picture that Vernon paints with expert precision. You feel comforted in an odd sort of way during the haunting track and eventually I came to realize that the song actually reminds me of a memory that I do not even have, I still can’t get over how weird it felt when I first came to that realization.

Vernon also has a knack for putting you smack in the middle of a situation and bringing you up to speed on the severity of it in almost no time at all, see: “Skinny Lover.” This is the song that would go on my mixtape that I have to make five minutes before the bombs drop and I have to escape down the hatch to my underground shelter where I will be stuck with only a walkman, an endless supply of batteries and one CD. This is the only definite breakup song of the album, the other ones are musing on what comes before and after and how you deal with it, but this is definitely a song of the moment. Vernon acts like the consummate grief victim in the song, going through all the different stages and finally coming to a sort of acceptance. “Come on skinny lover just last the year,” the first line alone is enough to paint the entire picture, Vernon is pleading not just with the girl, but with the relationship itself all while finally seeing that it will be over by the second stanza. Vernon’s normally angelic voice flies into a justified frenzy as he retraces all the missteps that led them to this point and you can’t help but begin to make the same pleas he does to an unfeeling and immovable force.

It’s probably pretty clear by now that I could go on talking about this album for a long time, and I probably will to myself and in other excerpts that I’ll leave out in this “review,” but that would be pointless because I’ve gotten my point across by now. This is a fantastic album, the kind of album that you listen to at 3 in the morning and suddenly feel the urge to write about. The feelings that Vernon stirs up with the sparsest of sounds are as powerful as the music is subdued and it while it doesn’t plead for your attention like so much other music does these days you will still find yourself inevitably drawn to it as it slowly carves the smallest of crevices inside your heart for itself.