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.