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.