What Are We Gonna Do About Haley?

I love my city, Jackson, and Mississippi as a whole. Moved back here from Boulder, CO; that says something I think. But, it sure is hard sometimes to be a Mississippian, because of what people think about us, our past, our present, etc. It is even harder when we have to answer for our Governor, Haley Barbour-a man who thinks that running the worst state (statistically and generally speaking) further into the proverbial ground over the past several years qualifies a man to be president. On top of that, every few months or so he rattles off some kind of racist remarks off his slimy tongue to the national press. And, we the people are left to deal with it.

Let's start with the quotes from the man himself.

1.) This past spring, when asked about the Governor of Virginia's failure to mention slavery in the state's Confederate History Month Proclamation, Barbour refers to the omission as "just a nit." "It's trying to make a big deal out of something that doesn't matter for diddly."

Well, what he says "doesn't matter for diddly" was actually the most important aspect of the Civil War era, the enslavement of Africans on American soil. Southern politicians and educators like to act like that wasn't the main deal in the conflict, but it was.

I don't feel like explaining it, but start by reading Mississippi's Articles of Secession, just the first few sentences: "In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin."

You get the idea.

2.) In late December, he said this during an interview: "You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders. In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town. If you had a job, you'd lose it. If you had a store, they'd see nobody shopped there. We didn't have a problem with the Klan in Yazoo City."

Ah, the Citizen's Council. The group of men who took the hoods off and worked "legitimately" to block segregation in any way possible. They started a good number of the private schools that sully our landscape and draw resources from public schools, helping to fuel a nasty cycle of self-fulfilling prophecy that allows Barbour to cut funds from an education system that the voters think doesn't work because of the result of underfunding the schools where the Black folks go. My head hurts.

It is as simple as that. There is no sugarcoating the Citizen's Council. When the best thing you can say about an organization is that they are not the KKK, then you really need to question what positives can be construed. Further, anyone that would try is at worst a racist and at best a real asshole. Or both.

So, as it should be, the mainstream media reported these quotes and the liberal blogosphere got it and ran. And not that it is a big conceptual or logical leap, but Barbour gets the racist tag, which certainly won't help his presidential run, considering he is in fact a racist and he would be running against a black man in 2012.

To recap, Barbour, as you can see by his words above, has done nothing to help his own cause, with his willingness to say things that are just downright wrong and disrespectful to the majority of people in Mississippi. He makes the racist comments. No one said these things for him. He said them. It was him.

That is why I was so disheartened to read a recent Sid Salter column in The Clarion Ledger. I guess Salter took a couple minutes off from bathing in Barbour's discarded bathwater to write a column that attacks the, you guessed it, liberal media for attempting to "deconstruct" Haley Barbour.

It was one of those moments for me where I wanted to pull Salter aside, hand him a Twinkie, and say, "Here you go. Have a snack, take a nap, and when you wake up I'll explain to you all the ways that you are wrong. That's right, buddy."

He writes, "Deconstruction? Yes. The goal here is to publicly tear Barbour limb from limb and leave him so politically disemboweled that he crawls back to the lake house and retirement when his term as governor is over. That deconstruction effort began in earnest Monday after a few fits and starts earlier this year. For Barbour - just months ago anointed by the Politico web site as "the most powerful Republican in American politics" - it is an effort that will almost certainly expand and become more brutal."

Basically, Salter argues that Barbour is being attacked by the liberal establishment "who will oppose anyone who challenges President Obama in 2012." The key here is that Salter places absolutely no onus on the Governor for making his own bed; it all comes from the outside. He rants about the people who try to deconstruct the president by playing the race card: "When it's race, the game is even simpler - make the argument that the candidate or public figure is a racist and then dig in their background to find something, anything, plausible enough to at least make the racist characterization plausible." Salter goes on to explain this process while never once mentioning the things that Barbour has actually said and done. The thing is, Salter would have a case if there was actually people digging random shit up on Barbour. But they are not. Two of the worst things I have heard said by anyone in years came right out of Barbour's mouth, within the past 8 months.

Doesn't seem like anyone is digging, Salter. But, he goes on: "The bottom line is that this kind of journalistic archeology and partisan burnishing of Barbour's past on the issue of race will accelerate and intensify so long as he's even a potential presidential candidate. It will target both Barbour and his family." (Wow. Journalistic Archaeology. That is the kind of concept that keeps guys like Salter elated and enamored with themselves.)

Actually, Sid, this kind of stuff will continue as long as Barbour keeps saying things like this. And the scary part is, is that I am afraid too many people have fallen for his "Racist, Bumbling Small Town Southern Sheriff during WWII" shtick. This guy knows what he is doing. He knows what he is saying. The Tea Party wing of the Republican Party is clearly motivated by race (again, I don't feel the need to explain that). He is drumming up support for his cause while at the same time testing the limits of permissible racism. Every time he says something and it gets covered, he gains more followers nationally that share his sentiments but have been waiting for someone in a national leadership position to say them in a way that can be said over the air. Barbour gets beat up by the press for a few days, but eventually the boundaries are widened and more really nasty racist thoughts are normalized, bringing more awful people into the political mainstream. My head hurts.

We can look to this week to see just how calculating this man is. Yesterday, Barbour finally released the Scott sisters from prison. In many ways, it was a great day, because so many of us had been fighting for their release for so long. Lots of high fives and relief. But then Barbour started talking. Basically, it turns out, he released the sisters because one of them was costing the state upwards of $200,000 a year for dialysis treatments. Further, one agreement in the release is that the other sister will donate a kidney to her sick sister to help alleviate further dialysis costs. Barbour's good. In the wake of his recent racial gaffe, he makes a move on one of the biggest race matters in the state, helping to show his soft side. Out of the other side of his head, he speaks right to the Tea Party base with an indictment of state spending. The commenters on the Clarion Ledger get all whipped up about the common themes: welfare; whose going to pay for the sister treatments considering they have been in prison for over a decade and probably won't find jobs with the insurance to cover these procedures. Then, Barbour no doubt hopes, he can politicize it even further, when the sisters end up on Medicaid roles to be covered by the oppressed white taxpayers of Mississippi. Finally, he also declared that this release was more of a parole situation: the sisters screw up at all and they are back behind bars. I wonder how Barbour wants this all to turn out. Oh, and he also wants the state prison board to find out how many more prisoners on dialysis can be released early to save the state money. Amazing.

What all of this boils down to is our collective misunderstanding of the concept of racism. Since the 1960s and the Civil Rights Act, racism has been narrowed down to individual acts of racism perpetrated by one person on another. Once the structural barriers were supposedly torn down by legislation, the only enemy, the thinking goes, is personal racism. And Barbour doesn't violate that edict. He didn't call anyone a n****r or kill a Mexican or anything. That is why Salter can claim that Barbour is not being racist by not even paying attention to the things he actually said. In the minds of the people who make these rules, cough old white men cough, racism is almost gone, except for the rabble rousers that continue to bring it up. That's why Al Sharpton is a racist but Haley Barbour is not. Trust me, it's not supposed to make sense.

Racism, though, is about far more than all of that. Racism is structural. It is systemic. It is inherent in all of our systems. It is about power. And the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was good, but it wasn't that good: there was no way that it could break down a power system that European males had spent centuries to create, perfect, and keep going. When Barbour says that slavery doesn't matter and that the Citizen's Council wasn't that bad, he is being racist to the core of the word's meaning. It takes a whole lot of accumulated power to think those things and say them out loud as the leader of the state where it all happened. That's white privilege and it is alive and well. And, that privilege comes from power. And racism is all about power. To be able to act like slavery and Civil Rights have nothing to do with him, Barbour is upholding and celebrating the white privilege structure that holds all power relationships in place in this country. That is what racism is, and it makes the things that Barbour does and says far worse that using a racial epithet to refer to his gardener (I'm just making an educated guess here, I don't know if he has really done that). On top of all that, people like Sid Salter aid in the problem by defending the things that Barbour says. Instead of helping to fix a system that hurts us all, Sid Salter and others like him vindicate the Barbours of the world and set the struggle back even further and further every day.

And, Barbour does most of his damage systemically. He cuts public education funding every time he can, which means he cuts black education money, since his pals at the Citizen's Council kept the schools segregated. He cuts state hospital funding and public health funds, which in a state where the poverty level is high and race and poverty remain to be correlated, well, you know what that means. The only place he consistently raises funding is in the prison system. And since poverty, race, and crime tend to correlate in a state where the past has never been dealt with, Barbour basically pays to keep a good number of our Black brothers and sisters locked up and segregated from everyone else.

That is what is scary. While we sit around and fight over what words make someone racist, we forget that it doesn't matter if Barbour is personally racist. What matters is that he is the face of structural racism in this state, as is Sid Salter, and too many others to name; that is far more damaging than an old white man who still uses the word colored. Until we are willing to deal with strucutre and systems, we can't hope to fix any of this. And the Sid Salter's of the world will continue to be able to prop the system while those of us that work against it are labeled the problem.

Why I Sold Out or, Hello Facebook, Goodbye Dignity

"No longer selling out, I'm buying in"
-Sole, "I Don't Rap in Bumperstickers," Bottle of Humans

So, yeah, I'm on facebook now. It's as simple as that. Or is it?

It all started when I decided I wanted to put on a hip hop show so that austin (brikabrak) could play in Jackson when he is home for Christmas. So I put together an ill line-up and what I think will be a great party and a stellar show. I got the show put together and and got a venue and we're gonna have a canned food drive and it's gonna be dope.

But I guess we have to go back a bit further to fully understand. Through writing for the Free Press, I met Rashad Street, a local rapper and entrepreneur, and beyond that, a really good dude that shares my passion for hip hop, Nike SB's and fitted caps. I interviewed him for the paper, and we became friends. I took him on the JFP radio show with me to talk about a piece I wrote about hip hop culture. In the parking lot after the show, we talked about building the Jackson scene into something serious, based on the talent we have. We also talked about doing a documentary film, tracing the history of hip hop in Jackson from the 80s to the present. It sounded like a great idea.

Well, a week ago, Rashad Street sets up a meeting with himself, me and Kamikaze, Jackson hip hop legend and social activist. We had a great meeting; we talked about the film for a bit, but the majority of the meeting centered on how we could strengthen the hip hop scene in Jackson and take it to the next level. Lots of good ideas bounced around. I came out of it realizing that I can and should help put on and promote shows in town. Kamikaze told me I should and gave me all kinds of advice on how to go about it. The first thing you have to do, he told me, is set-up facebook and twitter. Cause that's how you reach people.

So here we are. I did it. No choice. But I can't front and say I wholly dislike it. It's cool. Especially cause I have connected with a lot of people that I know will come to the shows we do. It is also pretty neat to see people I haven't seen in years. But that is about the gist of it. I don't see how I can keep up with all that. I doubt I will be posting many status updates that have to do with my mood or what I am up to. It's all kind of boring anyway. People I haven't seen since elementary school probably don't care about that shit anyway. I don't.

I think there is some comfort in just seeing some of those pictures and knowing those people are out there, doing their thing. But, now I am on facebook and they have to put up with my bullshit.

I guess in the end, I have an agenda with all this, and I hope my time on facebook isn't seen as disingenuous (would that even be possible?). But I will also update people when I have a new article out, or when I update a blog or something. People seem to care about that kind of stuff and I want people, ultimately, to hear what I have to say. The blog, the writing, the shows, I see as all part of the same "thing" or whatever it is that me and Rashad Street are trying to do. Which is show the world that the Jackson hip hop scene has a place of importance within the current mode of our cherished culture.

My name is Garrad Lee and I am a sell out. Or am I buying in?

Thug is the New N-Word

I am sure that most of you reading my blog have noticed that how in the past couple years, say since the election of Black man as president, the racial rhetoric in this country has steadily moved downward, as a new sense of white backlash has emerged. I remember while I was at CU-Boulder, when Obama was campaigning and then was eventually elected, several students in different classes with me wanted to do research projects on how race relations were improving in the country because of the prominence of a possible Black president. The argument was that racism was on its way out: how else could a black man be taken seriously or elected to the highest office in the land. Further, once in office, Obama would show the remaining racists that he could do the job and prove all the racists wrong.

Seriously. People thought this. Privileged white kids never cease to amaze me. Of course, I provided the proverbial counter argument, and effectively shut down anyone's attempt to do such a stupid, shortsighted project. I do what I can.

Fast forward two years later, and I would argue that racism is alive and well in 2010. It would be hyperbolic to say that it is as bad as it ever has been; that simply wouldn't stand up to historical analysis. But, it is bad and only getting worse. We are paying the price for the ways that the government handled civil rights. In short, Congress and the presidency in the mid-1960s, with a complicit Supreme Court after, established a set of laws that tried to set up the impossible "colorblind" ideal: everyone is equal and if we simply remove employment barriers and treat everyone equally then racism will go away. That's ok on one level, but it no way deals with the past injustices that shape the present. Colorblindness is only the first step needed towards racial reconciliation, not the end result. But that's what we got: we are supposed to believe the country is colorblind and that our all too inconvenient past never happened. The people (ultra-cons and other not-so-enlightened folk) that believe in this doctrine do not allow any kind of conversation about race, since, in their minds, race no longer exists; it disappeared with Jim Crow. That is how people can call a Black man such as Jeremiah Wright a racist when he simply says that programs and leadership are needed for the black community to solve problems endemic to those areas. Since he is not being colorblind, he is a racist. Tea Partiers can hold up signs calling Obama Hitler.

Fundamentalism is scary. It allows no room for irony.

The result of all of this is that the discourse surrounding race is at a standstill in America, and this benefits the conservatives and racists. That is, by making it racism every time someone mentions race, people with ideas like mine do not get to be critical of any one spouting off racist shit. We are rabble-rousers, or pot-stirrers. For the cons, racism is a thing of the past and if we progressives would just let it the past stay in the past, then it would go away. In other words, it is Black people's fault that there is still racism. Unbelievable.

History is beginning to repeat itself. I had this great idea the other night that approximately as much time has passed between the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (the thing that cons are REALLY upset about) and the present day as did between Reconstruction and the re-disenfranchisement of Blacks. That is, crazy whiteness seems to work in periods of 50 years. The every-other-other generation theory I guess. I can't explain it and don't really understand it, I just find it interesting.

Anyway, hiding behind this veil of color-blindness, racists return to time honored traditions. And, since we live in a "race-free" society, racists have to find code words for what they really mean. Reagan had his welfare queens. Civil Rights activists were Communists, or troublemakers. When you go to a football game, you always hear some old white guy yell “Run, boy?” towards a Black running back. It’s all coded language, so these folks can be racists but not say n----r. But, we know what they really mean. It's amazing what white folks will do to not call someone a n----r.

The new code word that keeps popping up for me is "thug."

When I want to get a good grip on the ways people feel about race in the state of Mississippi, I read the comments following stories on the website for the state’s newspaper, The Clarion Ledger. It is part social science experiment and part masochism, because where it teaches me a lot, it is also very painful and I have no one to blame for reading it but myself. (It's like taking a sociology exam at the dentist's office while he waits to rip you soul through your teeth, if that makes any sense). Following pretty much any story about a Black guy committing a crime, you see comments like “String that thug up!” or “Jackson will continue to go to shit if all the thugs are allowed to keep running free” and "Build a fence around Jackson and kill all the thugs!" and voleyball. Of course, there is often the caveat that they are just talking about criminals when they say thug, although no one ever calls the white criminals thugs. They say things like “What a waste” or “Don’t send him to jail his family has suffered enough.” Like Paul Mooney said, these white people can see themselves in these other people, and therefore they can be rehabilitated. The Black thug, however, cannot, and he will always be a thug by nature (sounds familiar; slavery is calling, it wants its reasoning back).

As I have been reading these comments, I always knew exactly what people meant, even though, because of the colorblind ethos, they never had to say it and could hide behind the shroud of only talking about black criminals. But, even that is starting to change.

Today, there was a story about a report that said that government officials had forged some documents concerning the oil spill so they could make a better argument for shutting down gulf oil drilling temporarily (as if millions of gallons of oil in the water and millions of dead animals wasn’t enough reason). I knew the comments were coming. The cons are gonna jump all over this one, even though Bush got a pass for numerous instances of forging information for the benefit of his own policies (Iraq anyone?) But the comments were worse than I thought.

One guy wrote about the “thugocracy” that is ruling this country. That’s interesting. No way to even attempt to defend the use of thug there. It’s pretty obvious what is meant by that. Then there was the kicker. One guy wrote (and it gets its own line here):

“This is what happens when a thugocrat takes over the former white house.”

Seriously.

Race discourse is starting to take a new shape in this country. Whereas people, for a while, at least had the decency to try to cover up their racism, it isn’t happening anymore. Calling Obama a thugocrat is indefensible, even with the infantile logic of your average ultra-con. This has happened because the usual suspects of racism have been allowed to control the discourse of race, to the point where they can call the president a thug and a fascist, yet if I ask “what do you mean by thug, exactly” I am somehow the asshole for not letting race live in the past.

Think about that coupled with the Tea Partiers saying “Take the country back!” Or, to quote Paul Mooney again, "White people like going back in time, which is always a problem for me. I can only go back so far. Any farther and my black ass is in chains."

The white hegemonic power structure is still in place and it dictates the rules. What can be said, what can’t be said, and who can and can’t say it. Until that power structure is defeated, a thousand Civil Rights Acts and a million Black presidents won’t change anything. Racism is about power, and the power dialectic has barely budged in the history of America. It takes a lot of amassed power and white privilege to pretend like this country can be colorblind. THAT is what I was trying to get those kids at CU-Boulder to understand.

I Taught Myself to Survive Without My Feet on the Ground

Here it is….number one….

1. Deep Puddle Dynamics The Taste of Rain…Why Kneel (1999)

As I mentioned previously, anticon was at the top of their game during this era. This album is, in mine and many other’s opinion, the best of the best that came out of anticon. At the time, the rumor was that this record was produced during a weekend, where the artists locked themselves in a house in Minnesota, ate a heroic amount of psychedelic drugs, and made an album. This was easy to believe, because the record sounds like an acid freak-out to dusty beats. As it turns out, the majority of Taste of Rain was recorded during one week, and the rest during a week exactly a year later (whoa, trippy). As we grow older, we realize that the urban myth of a drug-fueled recording session is not so true. But it is hard to believe that when one actually listens to the album. I’ll put it this way: this album seems to make the most since at 3 AM when driving all night to the next String Cheese Incident show, if that makes any sense.

Taste of Rain was a product of its time and it happened during a time that could never be repeated. As this while white boy hip hop thing was establishing roots, different folks in different cities were establishing sounds and staking claims to identity. Sole, a co-founder of anticon, was holding it down in Maine, while Slug was holding down Minneapolis. Seeing that they were doing some of the same kinds of things, the two artists along with their respective camps cam together to collaborate on a project. Sole brought along fellow anticon label mates alias, dose-one, jel, dj mayonnaise, and moodswing9 (the latter three being producers and beat makers). Slug brought with him Rhymesayers artists dj abilities, ant, and eyedea (who only had a small role in all of this).

The result was an album that reveals a lot about the scene…a kind of state of the union for underground hip hop. The album is no doubt trippy, but also it is beautiful, disturbing, confusing, funny, political, and challenging. It is a wonderful piece of avant-garde, postmodern, performance art. It sounds pretentious, and it kind of is. But that’s no reason to not like it. I hate to sound like this, but this is a record that you just have to get; some people do, some people do not, and that does not make you a bad or unintelligent person. It is for this reason that I very rarely suggest this album to people. If they don’t like it then they think I might be a pretentious prick with awful taste in music. Can’t have that happening. Right? Right? Anyway…

Let’s run through some lyrics:

Slug, from “Where the Wild Things Are”

I got a liter of Knob Creek & bottle of Ether
Got the second Mobb Deep creeping out of the speakers
Would prefer to sit home and drink 'cause it's cheaper
Why you trying to hide the eggs girl, you think that it's Easter?
Got time to kill, got kills to time
Prescription filled, I got pills to climb
Got the firearm ready to rob convenience stores
Got charm baby gonna recruit a team of whores
Got hopes and dreams of no in betweens

(There is this ill noisy breakdown with Sole chanting, then it drops back in; you have to hear it to appreciate it)

I've got hopes and dreams of no in betweens
Good swing keep losing the fall in the green
Good thing most my friends live inside my head
'Cause now I'm never alone, when I lie in bed
Got truth can't recall where I put it
Maybe someone took it, mistook it for value and thought they wanted it
Gone with the wind and the rain all that remains is a subtle taste of sin
laced with grins and astonishment
Don't believe in monsters...I know 'em
Because they dwell in my heart and raise hell in my emotions
If there ever was a reason to live it'd be to die
Now hold still let me wipe the fear out of your eye

Jesus. That is so great. And you really have to hear these songs, if you haven’t. Sonically, they are immense. The “second mobb deep” line is just so haunting when set against the beat that abilities did for the song. Slug kind of stepped outside of himself for this album; he, more than anyone, adopted the vibe of the others involved. He killed it.

Here’s something from alias, off of “Deep Puddle Theme Song”:

light reflecting off soft waves
make it a blurred aspect subject
to ponder the vertical dynamics of further respect
one cannot truly feel the mass between the top and bottom points,
h20 is a symbolism we have chosen to use as an anointment, thoughts are sent,
thinking it skimming it skip in,
dip in my entire action creator and popular inflator
flotation devices are your vices dislocate your elevator,
later you will yearn and pray if the liquid form break from the norm
open wide face up to attempt to, and take particles from the storm

That sounds like he is about to spend the next hours talking to his couch. Now, here is a verse from sole, off of “The Scarecrow Speaks”:

Okay everyone
put away your boyish desires
Your buoyant sighs
Your rolling eyes
Your lust for roll and rock
Your lust for getting rocks off with other follies
All your desires for couch and TV
Pick up a book, pick up a shovel
Put down the gun, throw up the fist
Throw intelligent words in this game of conversation
Try a new arrangement
Dollars and sensibility
Intelligence and ability
Eloquence and nobility
Delicatessens
Treat your girl like you treat your TV
How you should use your headphones
and positive role models
Try staying home
Stop trying to prove
Stop trying to be, stop trying to do
Just be proof, do, and exist
Go to college
Respect your mother
Look out for your little sister
Respect no one except yourself
Treat all others how you expect in return
Exercise intellect
If you're lackin pretend
Call few people enemies and call fewer people friends
Don't do it for the wealth, do it all for the love
Love everything you do, and do nothing halfheartedly
Be what you speak
Man, never speak on what you be
Even if you're lost, front like you got a plan
It aint that hard, but stand if
you're ready to be a man

That’s about as straight forward as it gets on this album. Finally, there is dose-one, the nasally, sort of annoying anticon stalwart. You either love him or hate him, and I fall in between somewhere. It is best in doses. Ha. This is also from “Where the Wild Things Are.” Imagine a woman who has been smoking for fifty years that all of a sudden goes through puberty and can do spoken word poetry real well. That is what dose sounds like.

You, don't know what happens when, (I) close the door
And furniture comes warm, out to greet me, look
Showing with pride, daze, dust
And imaginary hug on non-conscious brush
Things are better now
I adore these, walls as they reveal, supple roots
And vibrant flooring, he's home
Seems to penetrate very fabric of the roof above me
As panels seal (ceiling) seal (ceiling) peels
Back the sky so beautiful with knife
Famous purple clouds and mid-light
Ash black sweeps the character away
A truly awesome, sight
Outside, makes room and weep for it
The amazing thing is with secrets unfolding
Abound, on ground I can only see the light
And thus the moon burns and it tolerates magical got some inspiring
To be or not, join the miraculous now transpiring
That is the, who's flame is it for me to not feed
So my relief becomes my galleon and my plume becomes my bloom
This place has always been an ocean, always been a song

See, it is really hard to believe that these guys weren’t on drugs. It makes absolutely no sense if they weren’t.

So, there you have it. My favorite album of the late 90s early 00s white boy era. Take my rankings for what they are worth. And, do know that this is not meant to be a greatest hip hop albums of all time list either, far from it. Although, a lot of kid’s top 5 of all time lists could look like this. The artists in this sub-genre, without a doubt, appealed to a demographic of suburban, privileged white kids who probably didn’t listen to hip hop until they heard these kinds of artists. In a way, this music was made for these kinds of people. But, again, that is not a reason to shun the music, but it must be recognized. To me, that just makes it better.

If hip hop is a site where we can think about and talk about social issues, then this kind of music offers complex examples of the ways that hip hop interacts with race and class to contribute to the overall dialectic surrounding hip hop. If you are into this kind of thing, then this genre of hip hop is worth exploring.

In the end, this post-Golden Age era (I made that up) of hip hop is really great, and not just for these white artists. This entire era of the underground came of age in the Golden Age, when Public Enemy and Jungle Brothers were on the radio. Out of this we got everything from the Hieroglyphics to Living Legends and Company Flow, and everything in between. It was an awesome era and I am so glad to have been in college in my formative music years during this time. Hip hop just seemed different back then (or was I different back then?). Sometimes I wish I hadn't outgrown it all and it wouldn't have to take the death of eyedea to get me thinking about it all again. But I'm glad it did. Peace.

White Rappers Continued. Count the Analogies.

2. Atmosphere-Lucy Ford (2001)

This is probably not Atmosphere's best album. Overcast is sonically better and Godlovesugly got them exposed to a whole lot of new fans. But Lucy Ford is, in my opinion, their most complete and the best representation of the group artistically. Plus, it has at least, again in my opinion, 2 of their top 5 songs altogether. It has always been my favorite.

Slug is nothing if not a standard-bearer of this particular branch of the underground hip hop scene. Love him or hate him, his influence is everywhere. Even of you say you never listen to atmosphere, it is still almost definite that you have been exposed to his worldview, be it through artists directly influenced or by artists on his label or his friends that have had him on albums. Slug is like Sonic Youth. You may think it is just noise, but it has influenced more people than you feel comfortable with.

When this came out, my friends and brothers and I were listening to Overcast and Deep Puddle Dynamics (more later) on the regular, so we were excited for it. To be honest, at first I didn't this album. Overcast was so raw. It sounded like the whole thing was written while riding a skateboard. But Lucy Ford sounded weird. The topics seemed way more personal, both in the honest way Slug reveals himself to the fans and the ways he was dealing with issues outside himself. It just felt strange. Slug was opening up to me like I was Barbara Walters or some shit.

After a few listens though, I got it. What is so great about Slug is that his lyrics are so simple (something he confesses), yet contain so much meaning. It's easy to listen to. I realized that this was a far more poppy sound that they found. But not simple pop. Challenging on some levels. But it sounded perfect to a lot of (including myself) 20-something hip hop fans. I always found it odd that so many more people got into Atmosphere when Godlovesulgy came out, cause I just never thought it was that great of a record. But, it was poppy as hell, and what I didn't realize at the time was that Lucy Ford laid the foundation for this new sound; in reality, these tracks represent experiments in crossing over.

What it all adds up to is that Lucy Ford is maybe the most honest record they made, because they did it on their own with no real expectations. Everything they have done after this has been paid attention to by too many people and has suffered because of it. Slug and Ant became very self-aware after Lucy Ford, which is certainly natural. It's kind of like the real world. The first season was pure because no one knew what was going on. After that, they are too aware of their roles and what's expected of them. The following seasons are still fun to watch, but they are inherently suspect.

Not to say that is necessarily a bad thing. I can speak of Atmosphere on this level because they are one of the few that have made it and sustained both artistically and in popularity and relevance. They aren't on The Hills or nothing, but they have managed to change over the years to remain relevant. They tour like Phish and play big shows all over the place. But, where as in the Lucy Ford days he was playing to people in their 20s, now they play to high school kids. Which is fine, cause thats how you stay making music. And I am not mad at him for it at all. It is a little weird hearing him say on the new album "hell naw I ain't going to school/the teacher's a jerk he must think I'm a fool" and then do a verse about getting picked on at school. It's a good song, but just kind of strange.

But that is what makes Lucy Ford great. It happened before all of this, and still to this day is the album most people I know cling to because it represented the last time that the underground got to claim Atmosphere as its own. Lucy Ford is almost perfect. Everything that would come to represent Atmosphere after this is on the album. Introspection, battle raps, quasi-spoken word pieces about females, love and hatred for his ex-girlfriend Lucy, and so on. It is all here. And the album references and samples liberally from classic hip hop songs, so it acts a s a sort of hip hop history lesson. Look up the samples some time. You might learn something.

On Guns and Cigarettes, a party anthem style battle-track, he says:

A few years ago an ex-girl of mine
Asked me to keep her name out of my rhymes
So I said this rhyme that I'm about to say
It came from the heart and it went this way:
Go to hell girl, you make me sick!
I hope your new boyfriend gets cancer in his dick
What the fuck makes you think I'd put your name on my record?
there, now I feel a lot better
You know what?
I ain't drank a forty since I became old enough to drink
Not caught up in what the fuck these people think
Cause when I die they're gonna find the missing link
But tonight I'm gonna vomit it in the kitchen sink
I'm surprised more of y'all don't get hit by cars
Missing your surroundings, staring at the stars
I'm lonely without a woman that wants to spar
That's why I spend so much time in these bars
Drunk poolside, screaming, "Do or die!"
Looking at the water asking, "Who am I?"
Saw my reflection, Yes! I'm super fly!
And as you can guess again, I'm too damn high

I wanna bigger than Jesus and bigger than wrestling
Bigger than the Beatles and bigger than breast implants
I'm gonna be the biggest thing to hit these little kids
Bigger than guns, bigger than cigarettes

It's so simple and funny and true. The rhymes are nothing special, but that's how Slug rolls. Then on Party for the Fight to Write he says:

As a child Hip Hop made me read books,
And Hip Hop made me wanna be a crook
And Hip Hop gave me the way and something to say
And all I took in return is a second look
Son, you're shook, cuz ain't no such thing as half way there
Gettin' good at actin' like you just don't care
The circle of life trying to make it square condition
And self sit still
And Still.. where have all the sheep gone
Burnt down the farm and turned the TV on
John Coltrane, Marvin Gaye and Bob Marley all get invitations to my party

I felt that exact same way when I was 22 years old. That sums it up. But the rap was so simple and just perfect. Slug also gets deeper and a little darker on this album with songs like Aspiring Sociopath, Mama Had a Baby and Its Head Popped Off, The Woman with Tattooed Hands, where he raps about almost finally figuring out women after watching a virgin woman masturbate. That's right buddy.

All in all, this record is great and will always remain one of my favorites from the genre. I know alot of people don't dig it, and that's fine, I get that. Being an atmosphere fan to me is like being a Nirvana fan: sure, Pavement is way better and wrote better, more complex songs that challenged commonly held ethos about pop song structure, but no one can deny that Nevermind in its own right is an amazing album. That's how I feel about Atmosphere. Others do it better and harder and with more skill, but damn, it is still fucking good, either way.

And if you haven't ever felt like this: ("Like Today")

Woke up, got up, near eleven o'clock
butt naked except I was wearing my socks
and that's cool, 'cause most the time this floor is cold
stand up and stretch look around this mess
my place has been a cage since she left me
make my way to the kitchen, start the coffee
then dip to the bathroom, begin the triple-s
and wash the previous evening off me....

Or,

and that's when I saw her, sippin' on water
I wanna kiss her mom just for having this daughter
excuse me miss, I don't mean to come across strong
but I've been waitin' a while and you've been taking too long
and she smiled and I began to blush
she asked if I'd like to go to the bathroom and make some love
and I got visions of us, and the mirror getting steamed
and that's the very moment I woke up from the dream

Woke up, got up, near eleven o'clock
butt naked except I was wearing my socks
and that's cool, 'cause most the time this floor is cold
stand up and stretch and look for my soul...

Then you may not be human. Peace.

Number One coming up soon. I think you know what it is......

RIP Eyedea: The White Rapper Chronicles

I heard at the beginning of last week that Eyedea passed away. It was definitely sad news to hear, but it didn't hit me that hard because I hadn't been following his career for the past few years. it really got me thinking about some of the music that, at one point or another, was an integral part of my life. Throughout the late 1990s to the mid-ish 2000s, underground hip hop was my go to. during this era, a number of classic hip hop albums were dropped in the mainstream and major labels were putting out good music that didn't always sell well, but were given a chance. As a corollary, the underground scene was immense, as the underground is often, at least in some senses, a reflection of the mainstream. I mean, del the funkee homosapien was a major label. those were good times.

A sub-genre of this massive underground world was the tripped out white boy stuff. A lot of people were deemed "the underground version of Eminem" and a lot of "so and so beat Eminem in a freestyle in 1992," type shit. it was a very interesting aspect of the scene. it had always been that most hip hop shows were attended by white kids, so it always seemed natural to me that a bunch of kids who were raised in the third, more post-modern era of hip hop (think freestyle fellowship and organized konfusion) would end up offering their take on a culture that they felt was as much theirs as everyone else's. It worked because a lot of kids got it and alot of really interesting and creative artists got to make a living putting out very fascinating takes on hip hop music that reflected themselves in a way art is supposed to (what is art? are we art? is art art? what do you think, art?).

I get very reminiscent for this era. and with the passing of eyedea I got out the hard drives and cd cases to mine for some music i used to listen to everyday but haven't heard in years (up to seven for some stuff). I love music for this reason; I can, for example, listen to something and really try to remember where my head was at when I first heard an album. So with that in mind, I have been on a listening spree, looking for the music to reveal clues about what my deal was in 2000. Its like therapy with white rappers.

Here is my top ten favorite underground white rapper albums. They would all be peppered in my top 20 rapper list, but none of these guys are the best ever or anything. But close. (Also it must be noted that Beastie Boys are not considered in this discussion. They are a whole different thing that, to me, out ranks any of this stuff.)

5. Sage Francis-Still Sick...Urine Trouble (2000)
I know this isn't really an album, more of a mixtape that he sold on tour. It is part of a larger series of mixtapes that he always sold at shows. I bought this at a show in St. Louis in 2001. the show was atmosphere, sage francis, eyedea and abilities; it was in the basement of the student union at Washington University and cost $7. Great times, awesome road trip. This one has a lot of freestyles and random bits and pieces, but it is worth for the few full songs, the best of which being "majority rule," in my opinion. here's a verse:

I got lectured once while eating breakfast for lunch
Said dad to me "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch
Whatever you want the truth to be, simply fool the masses
Attack them mentally with tools of power like the Masters
Get em in elementary school and college classes
Eventually you'll overrule their cowardly asses
Don't worry about society, they're all horrible bastards"
With this knowledge I blast kids. stay dark like Howard's glasses
I'm "Stern!" plus I rule with an iron fist
With no concern, it's so cruel, where did I learn this?
It's in my gene pool. For permanent bliss
It seems cool, only if you suffer from eternal ignorance
Internal innocence rejects external filth. Hurdle the guilt
My ancestors left. Dress with a traditional kilt
Curdled milk that's under suspicion will get spilt
Ain't no use crying. Who's lying about the empire I built?
Another self proclaimed historian
With Einstein as his passenger, and a flux capacitor in his Delorean
Rewrote my past, taught me sin
When we spoke at last he caught me in the chin
There was no need to ask, I know he fought me to win
My broken task is born again, let a new war begin
I think he saw me grin. Played my ass like a sucka
Turned that brunch between me and my father into our last supper

That shit is great, I don't care who you are. Sage has an incredible ability to handle words and really twist shit up. He came from that Rhode Island slam poet thing, so he's really more of a poet, but his flow is tight and he owns beats. Political bent that made a lot of sense to me at the time.

That show in 2001 was a month or so after 9/11 and sage played a brand new song called "makeshift patriot" that put the whole world in perspective. check it out as well, if you haven't. Although I have the feeling that anyone reading this knows these songs.

4. Aesop Rock-Labor Days (2001)
At the time, this was arguably the most anticipated album in underground hip hop. He had done some albums on smaller indie labels, but then he signed with el-p's def jux label. This was huge. Blockhead on the beats. El-P street cred. This was what it was all about in the competitive world of subterranean rap music.

And this album delivered.

No letdown. Almost a perfect album. And this was at a time when def jux was putting out mr lif, cannibal ox, and a bunch of other luminaries, they owned shit, and this album showed it. The thing with aesop rock is that at first listen he makes no sense. you can't really understand his words and he is using such amazing word play and complex logic and analysis that it takes many many listens to figure out. sometimes, that is a reason to only listen to a record once and give up on it. with labor days, it was just a way to justify listening to it every day for months. Sample verse from "daylight":

Slacker bounded intimate tabloid headline with a pulse
Shimmy cross the centerfold, and a dead time engulfed, divvy crumbs for the better souls
With seven deadly stains, adhere the blame to crystal conscience,
The result's a low life counting on one hand what he's accomplished.
Ok, link me to activism chain, activate street sweep
Plug deteriorating xenobit Pendragon
I hock swords cores for the morbid spreading of mad men (Alley gospel)
Sinking yer Lincoln-Log cabin and Charlie Chaplin waddle
--I could zig zag and zig 'em again for the badge dream sparkle in my brick wall windows
Another thick installment of one night in Gotham without the wretched "Houston we have a problem
--Attached to the festive batch of city goblins"
Who split holiday freak on a box-cut cinema high road bellow
Head gripped! Watch red bricks turn yellow
Sort of similar to most backbones at camp Icarus
We're all feeling crimes congregating at pamper for bickering
Life's not a bitch! Life is a beautiful woman
You only call her a bitch because she won't let you get that pussy.
Maybe she didn't feel y'all shared any similar interests
Or maybe you're just an asshole who couldn't sweet talk the princess.
Kiss the speaker wire; Peter Pacifism pagan thresh hold
Stomach full of halo kibbles
Wings span cast black upon vigils
Here to duck hunt ticker tape vision and pick apart the pixels
I got a friend of polar nature, and it's all peace
When I seek similar stars but can't sit at the same feast
(Metal Captain) This cat is asking if I've seen his bit of lost passion
I told him yeah, but only when I pedaled past him.

That's some deep shit. I have yet to figure out hardly any of it. There aren't many albums you hear where your brother has to explain bottleneck effects in localized evolutionary ecosystems just to understand what Aesop Rock is talking about in one line of one song. This was really fun to me for a while. As I have grown older, I have become more lazy and don't have time to do it anymore, so I started listening to Young Jeezy. As good as Jeezy is, he can't touch Aesop. I still almost tear up every time I listen to "No Regrets;" I feel like me and Lucy have met many, many times before....

3. Anticon-Music For the Advancement of Hip Hop (1999)
Anticon was, at the time, the number one underground label, at least in the deep underground where weekend long drug benders often resulted in ground breaking albums. Anticon was more of an artist collection with a similar outlook on hip hop that had very few rules and very loose boundaries. Most people, at least the ones I knew, were first introduced to the Anticon thing through this compilation album that featured most of the current roster of artists at the time and a few close friends. This was the first place I heard Atmosphere and Deep Puddle Dynamics, both of which are coming up on the list. This compilation revolutionized the way I listened to hip hop. It did for me for hip hop what bitches brew did for how I listened to music in general.

There are so many ridiculous songs on this album that it is hard to pick an appropriate verse. For posterity, I'll go with Eyedea's verse from "Savior?" with Slug and Sole. This was the first thing I ever heard from him; he was 17 or 18 and hungry as shit. Actually I'll post the whole song. Slug and Sole own this as track as well.

(SLUG)
Sometimes I wonder if you'll ever shut the hell up
But you don't quit, and you just don't stop
Sometimes Iwanna hop on the 5 and ride circles around my city a couple times
And pity my troubled life
Sometimes I wake up like 'fuck the world!'
And after I fuck my girl, I wanna curl up in the corner of my basement
Waitin' for civilization to fold
The pressure to pay that toll, it takes control
So I can be a better dad, I can be better in bed
I can be a better man, I can be better off dead
I can a better son, boyfriend or employee
But I better fix my head before I let that shit destroy me
Yeah, you know me, that cat with no game, no gear
Been in love as many times as I've been alive in years
It ain't my fears that's riding me, nope
It's how I cope and construct, and how I act as if I don't give a fuck
But damn, if I stop and count the amount of fucks I've handed out
All in the name of trying to find what it's about
I'd probably drown, gasp, cough, gurgle, found dead
Stiff position as if I'm about to jump that hurdle
So while you lose your hair, I'm losing a war
You living thick off the pulp while I'm chewing the core
And sometimes I reflect, sit and wish that I was ignorant
Unaware of the poison so I could enjoy sipping it
That's why the only thing on my mind is everything
So I blame my brain for trying to hold me down
And when they finally wash it and hang it out to dry
Make sure they know I spoke, make sure they know my sound

EYEDEA
Dear primate relatives with extra-terrestrial intelligence
I've gathered delicate information stating my spaceship's developed a virus
And I was thrown out of orbit past the moon
And crashed here November 9th, 1981, Monday afternoon
I've adapted to this twisted way of living
But I always knew I wasn't from this planet cuz I'm so damn different
I've kicked it with kids that would've but couldn't
Kids that could've but wouldn't
Some took it, misunderstood, stood under it and overlooked it
Love, hate, straight, crooked
Bad, good, should, shouldn't
Plastic, metal or wooden
It's all a part of water based pudding
This is a cry for help and I don't give a fuck
I've joined every alien cult on earth waiting for ya'll to pick me up
I've sipped the cup of reality, now my brain is dying
I try and explain I'm not human, now my room is an insane asylum
They blame the violence on children and try to forget they raised 'em
Jerry Springer and Banned From TV is what they get paid from
Man, I hate them homosapiens, they're a little too complex
Survival instincts are blocked for the biggest cock contest
Man, please come get me, the shit's sickening
Man, I can't stand it
I wanna break the ozone and go home to my own planet
This panic, I'm stranded, goddamnit I'm damaged, my sanity's bandaged
Ever since I landed I've been abandoned and planned to run
I ran and managed to reach peace for a day or two
But it's probably government computer chips that make me think the way I do
Hey, I knew my origin was beyond this galaxy, even as a baby
I asked the ones who told to call parents and they said I was crazy
I've been beat half to death by those designated to serve and protect
I pay them taxes from my check so they break my neck
Now take a sec and think what I did to deserve this
I'm waiting for the mothership spacecraft
To take me away from this purposeless earth shit
It's worthless
I'm like a polar bear living in the equator
Or an ice cube in the refrigerator
I'm outta place and outer space is where I need to get ya'll
So when you come down, just remember I'm leaving with ya'll
Sincerely yours truly, Eyedea

Chorus:
So if you've got a savior, please won't you introduce?
Cuz you muthafuckas behavior has got me broken loose

SOLE
Oh, ya don't like sand? I heard it tastes like dirt
I do dirt, my girlfriend used to be a rock
All the favorite words, they woulda been 'stop' if she could talk
So I did, lovemaking, playing inside a mole hill
Ever read the diary of the ego without a fate?
Music without a place
Man without a plate
Metal plate in skull which means I'll never get a chance to fly
Wasn't coordinated enough to get college grants for playing sports
But I stole your girl
She was lucky enough to get the goods by a smooth talkin', player hatin'
On the class failin', shoplifting one man solar system
I'm the sun to earth, super nova Novocain, no preservatives
Don't know exactly what life means
But I know for damn well that she ain't talkin' to me
But I know everything I spend will somehow ends in negativity
I can smoke all your imbeselic isms and idol ideologies
For idiots who idolize ideals but never truly comprehend
And feel experience experiments
They said take breaths when you can
I fill my pockets will small triangle remnants of static moments
Pessimism appeals to Sole which stikes him as more likable
Never know no equals, still my style becomes more biteable
I forgot how to sleep, don't remember being tired
Which means heads think I'm sick until the day that I'm fired
A wise man told me be a snake and let all people believe you're a sheep
Cuz all ya have is your pride, so in the end you'll never sell me cheap

Yes, Sole really says "Oh, ya don't like sand? I heard it tastes like dirt/
I do dirt, my girlfriend used to be a rock." That is fucking amazing. It covers so much in two lines. Eyedea's verse is dense if you peel away the layers. And slug just nails it. The rest of this album is this good. It is super heady (not like a 20 minute bathtub gin heady but foucault and hegel having coffee with carl jung heady). check this album for an introduction to a who's who of late 90s psychedelic white hip hop stars. some of em are from Canada. It was like that.

Numbers 1 and 2 to come later.....Enjoy for now. Thanks for Reading.

peace,
g

Whale Wars

I like to watch television. I really do. Not too much, don't have time to watch too much. Would if I could, so glad I can't. I am committed to the television thing. There are so many cool things to watch, from sports, music, funny shows, movies, boobs, and on and on. Some of the funniest things I (and you) have ever heard said have been on tv shows like Chappelle's Show, South Park, the Soup, and Jersey Shore. Say what you will about tv's effects on culture and society, but it has given us good stuff. March Madness is the best thing ever. Ever.

So, to balance it out, I like to watch dumb shit and shit that pisses me off to even it out. There are plenty of shows that just suck, and are fun to watch, like Real World Road Challenges Fresh Meat (the original one, mind you, not part II). Then there are the shows that piss me off. And there are fewer of those. I really have to make an emotional connection with something if I am going to take the time to get pissed off at it. With that, I have two words for you...

Whale Wars

I watch this show when I catch it on. I love it. I hate it. It is the worst shit ever on tv. At least it is, the way that it is presented. I watch these hippie morons in the middle of the sea try to stop this Japanese whaling fleet, using the most ridiculously stupid tactics you could imagine. I have seen better strategy in pine cone fights in South Jackson. Seriously.

There are two ships, and on each ship are like 20 something self-righteous neo-trust fund hippies, who think they are saving the world by trying to stop legal fisherman from doing their job, which is catch whales. It is legal for them to do so. But, not debasing their ideologies with logic or fact, the whale protectors see it as their duty to drive really big boats and try to get in the way of the whaling ships, in an effort to shut down the whaling industry. To save the whales. They call the whales their clients. I have heard a couple of them say that they would die for the whales.

Jesus.

It is these kinds of people that you get to watch fuck up for an hour every week on Whale Wars. It is fun to watch people fuck up. That is what humor is. The fact that you get to watch a multi-layered stereotype of a hippie fuck up, well, it just makes comic gold. Deep. Layered. Nuanced. It is intense, to say the least.

The funniest part about these kids are their tactics. For the most part, they try to simply keep up with the whaling fleet, in the hopes that they get in their way enough to make whaling not worth it, and thus wreck the season. Usually, they are nowhere near the fleet. Is it that hard to find a group of boats in the ocean? They even have a helicopter. Isn't there an app for that or something? I think I could find a boat in the digital age.

Anyway, even when they're just floating around looking, they fuck up. One ship ran out of oil. Ran out of oil. Really. I doubt any of those officious pricks have even had to get their own oil changes, rich fucks. So it almost makes sense. They have managed to, at various times in the season, wreck all of their small speed boats, rendering them no way off the ship. I keep watching this one Australian guy talk about boarding one of the Japanese ships. He always gets close, but pussies out. I think he finally makes it though.

When they do get to the boats, they do stuff like throw rotten vegetables and stink bombs at the whaling ships. The idea is that if the Japanese do catch whales, the hippies will make it impossible for them to process the whale, thus making the season a loss. And then the hippies win. That's fucking interesting. On this episode I am watching, they try to coat the ramp where the whalers load their catch with a chemical that makes the whale meat spoil, thus making the season a loss, blah blah.

So, let me get this straight, hippies: It is better for the planet that you burn millions of gallons of fuel (which a lot of people have to die for before it gets to you), in the middle of an ocean, while causing whalers to throw chemically tainted whale carcasses into the ocean, than it is for a few whales to die? I wish I could think with that kind of logic. My life would be so much easier. Holy shit.

This is just a taste of the pure stupidity of these sea-faring hippies.It goes on an on and nothing ever happens. And when it does, it is trivial and nonsensical and it is funny to watch the hippies get all geared up because they think they might see a whaling ship. The network uses 3 commercial breaks to signify to epic-ness of this event, and on the next episode, about half-way through, you find out that it was a boat that they saw! It is a treasure chest of funniness. I love when something is funny that isn't supposed to be . Like when the president's wife dies in Independence Day.

Today, I am watching, and it shows one of the hippie boats sailing alongside some killer whales, whales that the Japanese don't hunt. Guess what the killer whales eat? The whales that the hippies are out to save. That's right. Killer whales are actually the largest group of whale hunters in the world, and do in a day what the Japanese whalers do in 3 months. None of the hippies tried to attack the killer whales, and stop their path of murder. They aren't even committed to what they are doing. When you get into something like that, you have to fully commit to the premise. All or nothing. You would think that the hippies willing to sail around a freezing ocean to maybe save a few whales would be more committed. But no. They are a bunch of pussies.

But, I watch the show, so what does that make me?

BTW-I have no problem with hippies. I got some hippie in me that comes out every now and again. I used to be hardcore committed to my ideals. I got old, and that shit is tiring. I look like a hippie, especially at String Cheese Incident shows. So I am not opposed to the idea. But, these kids are a different breed. I might have not eaten meat and refused to wear Nikes, but I wasn't trying to be in the middle of nowhere trying to save some animal that is there simply for other animals to eat. That shit is dumb.

Now, I am 31 and I look good eating fried chicken in my Jordans. That's right.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and dresses like a gangsta rapper

Recently, someone asked me a very simple question: What kind of music do you listen to. As anyone reading this right now probably knows, for me that is not as simple a question as it appears. I hate to answer that question with a one word or one genre answer. It's too complex. Or, I think about it too seriously. Either way, other peoples music is all I got. I have no talent to create anything. I mean, I played the guitar in high school, but I couldn't write any good songs, cause girls wouldn't break up with me and everybody was trying to throw me the skins. Not enough heartbreak in the post-Cobain era for g to use as inspiration for the next great song.

But I have always based who I am on the things I listen to, and to a lesser extent, the things I read. If you put a gun to my head, I would tell you that I am a hip hop head first and foremost. In the early 90's, I listened to a bunch of rap during middle school cause that's what my friends listened to (Black Sheep, Digital Underground, Public Enemy, etc.-all good stuff, but I had no context from which to understand what it all meant). Then came A Tribe Called Quest, the first music I ever listened to that made me feel cool when I heard it and made me want to hear more. I was hooked after hearing low end theory for the first time. I was in eighth grade when I heard it and everything changed after that.

I became hip hop, at least in my own mind. I tried to dress like rappers, buying the same clothes they did: girbauds, nike air max, cross colours, and so on. Interestingly, I still do this, and, coincidentally, I look like more of a douchebag every year since I essentially dress like the cornball white people that you see on MTV. Walking parodies, and I look just like them. I guess I'm cooler than them, I'd like to think so. But if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and dresses like a gangsta rapper...

Anyway, the reason I say all of this is because hip hop has stuck with me through the years, in many ways, not just my stupid fashion sense. Lots of people say that they live hip hop and as corny as that sounds, it seems to be true for me. But maybe in a different way than is quickly obvious. And this brings me to being able to explain what kind of music I listen to.

Hip hop, initially, was a hybrid a genre that absolutely had to draw from multiple genres and experiences to even be born, much less exist and thrive (and fall). The OG DJs were masters of other people's music. Had to be, and they loved it. It was how the culture was born. Inasmuch, hip hop, as a genre and culture in general, looks like a quilt patched together. Everything makes sense once you see it together. I use this image to help explain my top ten artists (and one honorable mention-this one goes to 11).

When I answered the question-what kind of music do you listen to-I gave my top ten artists, and they are as such (in order):
1. Stevie Wonder
2. Wu-Tang
3. Miles Davis
4. Herbie Hancock
5. Talking Heads
6. Cymande
7. Bob Marley
8. Sonic Youth
9. A Tribe Called Quest
10. Fela Kuti
Honorable Mention: Phish (yeah, I said it, want to fight about it?)

That's a bad ass list, and you know it. It's perfect. At least for me. I know, hipsters: there is no obscure bands (maybe other than cymande) that no one else has heard of that is "genius." I don't have room for all that. The genius of this list is that it fully represents about 99% of all my music tastes. From this list I can extrapolate almost every artist and type of music that I listen to. It's all over the place, just like hip hop (and in parentheses it will say like it's supposed to be). I listen to music like hip hop was created (that sounds pretty cool, is it profound, or retarted-you decide). This top ten does more than just list the top ten musical acts that I love. It also lists every artist I love.

And, if there are any hipsters reading, please note that I am not saying that Stevie Wonder is the best music of all time and that anyone that doesn't listen to stevie isn't allowed to have an opinion on music. I am simply saying that for me he's the best. And I think the whole world would be a better place if all 6 billion of us listened to "heaven is 10 zillion light years away" at the exact same time every day for a week. But if you're not into that and think that radiohead or jack white is the best music ever, then that's on you. You do you, I'm gonna do me.

For the next few blogs, I will go through each artist and explain and pull it apart. I think it will make for good reading and it will be fun to do, as I have always wanted to do this in some form. Hoe you enjoy, both of you that are reading. Stevie Wonder is up first.

peace,
g

Introducing...

So, people are always asking me if I have a facebook page, since that is the only way that we can communicate with one another. Well, you know what, FUCK facebook. I'm not really sure why, but I have decided that I will take a stand against facebook and not start a page. I don't have that kind of time. Plus, it just seems to me that if god is benevolent, then those of us without facebook pages will be spared in the afterlife. I can't back that up, it's just a hunch.

Instead of telling people the address to my facebook, twitter, or myspace, I am going to tell them to come here to this blog. I figure if someone is gonna track me down on the internet, they should at least have to read my thoughts and put up with my bullshit for once.

There is really no unifying theme, other than just being a place for me to work out ideas concerning school (History Master's at JSU), work (research assistant at JSU), and other things I do on the side (assignment writing for Jackson Free Press). If I can stay motivated, anyone reading this will have a good idea about what I am up to and where my thoughts are going. What I'd really like to do is something extraordinary. Something big. Something mega. Something copious. Something capacious. Something cajunga. But I'm sure no one will read and I'll probably just end up working at Great America, mopping up hurl and lung butter.

Stay tuned.