"May I cut this dance to introduce myself as The chosen one to speak Let me lay my hand across yours And aim a kiss upon your cheek They name's Plug Two And from the soul I bring you The Daisy of your choice May it be filled with the pleasure principle In circumference to my voice About those other Jennys I reckoned with Lost them all like a homework excuse This time the Magic Number is two 'Cause it takes two, not three, to seduce My destiny of love is brought to an apex Sex is a mere molecule In this world of love that I have for you It's true..."
Very topical (and almost prophetic when reading back) lyric from 1998, I'm glad a certain individual this year did decide.
Where you gonna run? Where you gonna hide? When the truth comes down upon you, you have to decide Where you gonna run? Were you gonna hide? Information When the truth comes down upon you, you have to decide
[Killah Priest] The Information we have become with laser scanners, At supermarket department stores and direct mail houses Which will record every single item we purchase Data about your daily habits And movements will flow into the beast system From spy satellites constantly circling overhead Watching us like it's squirting 666 database investigate Entire race headed for a cyberspace Riots, breaks inside of empire states Every move you make is recorded on tape Some of us are wired, imprisoned behind gates Hid miniature videos in the briefcase Cameras will be recording our every activities Indoors and outdoors, day and night Obscenely invading our piracy, our privacy (privacy) Stargazing because Allah is far amazing Than any green god of a pagan Raised in synagogues of Satan Awaken with this starving nation Left beaten, scarred and shaken Robbed of education My birth was foretold Look deep within my wardrobe Embrace the crossroad, we once wore gold But now we electric probes with silicon brains, synthetic All faces are strange, pathetic Check the eyes, a man can't even recognize his family I blame it on humanity, for this insanity Spy satellites, the last battle for life There's no day or night CIA take samples of my DNA Newborns grow horns placed in uniforms Shipped off to the military Where they killed and buried Interactive TV sets will be watching us Just as we watch them They will also report back to the beast computer at headquarters Our telephone conversations will be automatically wiretapped And transcript by the National Security Agency Honesty, modesty, poverty, famine, the sons of Amman Deal with reprogramming and iris scanning Breaking out of Satan's bondage with long garments Like we bionic, no longer paying homage Remember after '96 beware of biochips Now it's '97, beware of Armageddon Bloodshedding and beheading Head on head collision in the 'Valley of Decision' To lock the beast in prison
[Chorus: Killah Priest] Where you gonna run to? Where you gonna hide? When the truth comes down upon you, you will have to decide, Where you gonna run to? Where you gonna hide? When the truth comes down upon you, you will have to decide When that time comes, you will have to decide, Information, Information You will have to decide, Information Where you gonna run to? Where you gonna hide? When the truth comes down upon you, you will have to decide Information, Information, information
Come on, Gordon, you gotta dig the Planets (circa '93), at least.
1993 is the key year in Hip Hop history, because it was, in my view, the end of the positive, interesting, and for lack of a better word, arresting, and I really thought the genre would change and become an actual art form. But in late 1992, the execrable "The Chronic" was released and Hip Hop/Rap was forever doomed to (largely) reside in the gutter. The corporate goons promoted the hell out of Gangsta Rap and for nearly twenty years now, the template and the "mentality" of that album has been pretty much the norm in the genre whereas before it was only a part of what constituted it.
Mr. Kramer's authentic accomplishments - if anyone actually dared to delve and investigate - will resonate farrrrrr longer than the usual one-sentence pot-shots.
And here's the hat trick.
For all his accomplishments, reducing him to a soundbyte only reduces him further. Though I have no love or particular interest in rap (aside from the kitsch value of Grandmaster Flash and his ilk), the fact is that Kramer's statement is simply stereotypical of educated white males. Its the way they felt with jazz after classical, rock and roll after big band, disco after... well, no, disco actually sucks, but you get my meaning.
The whole of it is no different and no less thoughtful than "You kids get off my yard!"
I agree with the "get off my lawn" remark to a point, but Rap, unlike Jazz and Rock, has not evolved much in its lifetime. In fact, it would be interesting if someone had a graph or something that charted Rap's evolution over the past thirty-five years compared to how those other forms of music changed during their first thirty-five years and they became true art forms in that time, but Rap looks standstill and adolescent no matter what time in its history we look; quite a difference from what transpired in Jazz and Rock over that same period.
When I first heard rap back in the MC Hammer days I gave it maybe 5 years, 10 tops. The reality of its persisting for decades is basically incomprehensible to me, but then again so are a variety of other 'least common denominator' entertainment trends these days... like superhero movies for example.
I never got into rap or Hip Hop. Not my thing. But, damn, Biz Markie used to make me laugh. "Vapors," "You Got What I need." "Spring Again." That was comedy gold!
Showcasing The (alleged) Sound Byte wasn't intended as a blanket condemnation.
As we revealed to our somewhat gobsmacked-to-hear-the-confession { Fiancee } this morning at breakfast, there are any number of rap-spawned Songs WE were shocked - Shocked! - had more than the cliche boom-boom-boom to it.
[ Absolutmundo in agreement with your example and the extended sharing that followed, Josh].
And, once more, Dan, we're not in disagreement at all - tho its also not about injuriously negating something from lack of either exposure or experience.
Point is: those elements most spotlighted - say on MTV or BET - for so long that got such justified flack for the images and visual symbols they were presenting as something to aspire to - the bikini babes, bejeweled 'kool' kats - is also indicative of what (if one goes back and re-reads what we rote) of a culture that has a McDonalds quick-fix mentality not just for fast foods but fast vogues as well.
Nothing inherently 'wrong', natch - and the marketplace is usually one of the ultimate Survival of the Fittest arenas extant.
No one's denying anyone the right to express themselves in whichever way they wish but - ala assembly-line degrees or the current fashion for all those who suddenly announce themselves as 'ministers' - a society or culture bereft of standards and values that one observes and is subjected to - Paying Yer Dues is what it useta be called, not automatically being heralded as It when you've barely emerged from the creative womb - something's definitely a'kilter (and not just in Denmark).
As the artistic creative caveat goes:
You have to learn the rulesbefore you can break them.
Mentioning Mr. Adler's thoroughly thrilling book - and hope you saw the equally elevating PBS series Mr. Moyers hosted with the former commenting and taking part in all the segments with the other luminaries gathered - reminds us of how igniting true intellectual discourse can be.
It's all a matter of personal tastes and opinions, that's all. Thank God, we are all different. I've been a visual artist all my life. There are artists whose work I admire and look up to, and then there are "artists" who take a dump on canvas and call it an important statement. I can see for myself that the Emperor has no clothes. I don't listen to rap music because I haven't found any of it that I like. That's all. Much of it that I have heard required little or no talent whatsoever to produce. On the other side of that coin, I've heard other selections that did indeed display tremendous talent and creativity. But that didn't cause me to enjoy it any more than I did before. We are blessed with infinite choices in the world of art. We can study Michelangelo and Renoir. We can also behold the black velvet painting of Elvis or John Wayne gracing a neighbor's living room wall. I may offend some of you by saying this. There IS good art, and there IS bad art. The truth is that there is probably only 2% of the population, if that, who are educated enough to know the difference. I think it is worth celebrating that among those infinite choices there is something out there for everybody to enjoy.
Nicely put, Chris. And somewhat similar to a chat the Missus and I had in the car the other day. I was droning on about artistic merit and how all art includes some measure of pretension, but that some works of art are more pretentious than others, depending upon the artist's aspiration for that particular piece. We agreed that the less pretension a work of art contains, the purer (for want of a better word) that work would probably be. In that sense, I opined that a copy of Hustler would actually be a "purer" work of art than a copy of Playboy, because Playboy aspires to be an artistic statement--whereas Hustler does not aspire to be anything more than what it is... vulgar closeups of female anatomy (which, to be sure, has its fans--I suppose... my girly mag days ended about 30 years ago!).
Anyway, if the analogy is stretched towards the music world, can one say that a rap song has the same "free pass" of credibility as Beethoven's 9th? Is it a matter of education/appreciation?
I don't have an answer, though I will say that I don't care much for rap myself, except when it's done for laughs. This would have been in the "older" days of NWA, 2 Live Crew and such like. Or when it had an actual message, going back further to Grandmaster Flash, etc. Nowadays it seems like it's all geared toward dead-serious hostility. Not much fun in that, so I reach for my Beethoven.
I've heard both good and bad "Rap" on LA's Skid Row. Even there, it seems, the cognoscenti and the crass live side-by-side...just like these message boards.
Thank you, Octoberman, for your kind compliment on my post.
"Anyway, if the analogy is stretched towards the music world, can one say that a rap song has the same "free pass" of credibility as Beethoven's 9th? Is it a matter of education/appreciation?"
I firmly believe it's all about education. Education develops and changes an individual's appreciations. The uneducated soul who gives the same value to 50 Cent and Beethoven both is sadly misguided in their views. But...so WHAT? Opinions are things we all possess an abundance of, and education isn't necessarily involved with any of them.
Which is all we've been advocating: Experience equals Exposure which results in Enlightenment (not 'information' which has nothing to do with Knowledge).
And if the pitiful degradation of education in this country the last coupla decades exemplifies anything, it's precisely how superficial the Standards have become in preparing people to distinguish one between the other, let alone embody those concepts.
That's why one of our favorite lines from Lorraine Hansberry's equally brilliant above follow-up to "A Raisin in the Sun" is the following:
IRIS: I'm entitled to my Opinion, Sid-neeeee.
SIDNEY: No, you're not - not when your 'opinion' is based on nothing but [ Stylish Ignorance ].
And it takes a carbon-unit equally full of itself to allegedly recognize it in anyone else.
So since that's all you have to offer, PP, take a flamin' hike if it ain't to your liking and stay amongst the elevated Olympians more like your own obviously emaciated yet thoroughly Everest self.
- had more than the cliche boom-boom-boom to it.
