It was voted too cold for ice cream last night, but warm enough for a trip to walgreens where I purchased more blank tapes and window fan. Not that we particularly need a 3-foot box fan right now, but spring will come eventually and air circulation is a good thing. Plus it was on mad sale.
I started a new mixtape in honor of tomorrow night's gig at the AZone. Sort of my favorite "politically motivated" rap or whatever. I always feel weird when isht gets labelled "positive rap" or whatever and have nightmarish replays of conversations from years ago when I'm playing a Roots CD at a friend's house and their crunchy dykey friend asks if their "good to women". And she didn't understand when I suggested that was a questionably racist comment since I bet she owns Rolling Stones CD's. She didn't really respond, I think because she was thoroughly confused. Then again, in another music discussion, she had the CD of a crunchy dyke local folksinger and I noticed she did a cover of Nirvana's About A Girl. She responded with "Alright! Taking it back for women!" Taking what back? I didn't understand this comment. I guess people don't realize that over half of Nirvana's material came from Kurt's near unrequited love affair with Kathleen Hanna the big guru leader of the riotgrrl/dyke punk movement. So I was thoroughly confused by her comments as well. It was just a bad communication conversation all around.
But anyway, yeah, so "positive rap", not so much, since I don't like to deem stuff that might be hard to listen to or dark/harsh in nature as "negative" and therefore bad. I'm sorry if this music challenges or scares you, but it doesn't make it less positive. I also hate when things get labelled "political" just because they're not talking about booty or slinging dope. Common gets mentioned a lot as being a "polticial rapper" (Wyatt just described a similar experience I had when listening to his last album), but I don't find Common to be super political at all, espeically if you compare his words to other groups, like The Coup. I mean, he does try and rise above some of the isht, but I think stuff he says in interviews is often more provocative than the lyrics themselves. I will admit, after seeing him live, I was sufficiently impressed by his performance and MC skills, and became a solid if cautious fan -- I like him and keep an eye out for his stuff, but I don't totally trust him to speak on every subject. But I do love that he grows and changes and imprvoes upon himself -- one of my favorite songs on his latest album is Pimps, Hos, Hustlas, where he addresses some of his previous attitudes towards women (see the song Heidi Hoe on "Can I Borrow a Dollar?" Or better yet, don't) and his own 'hypocrisy' (with the help of MC Lyte). I think people get unfairly called out as hypocrites just because they learned something along the way and changed their stance. Why do we even bother to educate folks if we're just going to ridicule them for changing their minds? The Beastie Boys were going to call their first album "Don't Be a Faggot". But they've acknowledged that they've grown up and changed their view based on life experiences, and even apologized for past wrongs. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?
This train of thought has derailed. I think my main point for diving into this actually has nothing to do with homophobia and sexism in lyrics. But more about putting "Fuck the Police" on the tape and it still being obviously applicable. And digging out Rakim's "Casualities of War", then getting chills while listening to it on the bus today because it's still fcking applicable 12 years later and when he says "President Bush" in the song, it's no longer dated, and I suddenly felt no longer numb to the whole fcked up presidency and government (I sort of unintentionally turned off my rage and gave in to apathy at some point in the past 6 months or so). I mean, I can't necessarily go around all the time with my temper boiling over so much that my eyeballs are about pop out, since it's not good for my own health. But I can't help but think I can no longer just shrug my shoulders and throw my hands up and feel helpless and pray for a complete collapse of the system to occur on it's own. I can't help but feel I need to be doing a bit more to hurry it along to imploding. Even if it's just slipping songs like this into the mixtapes I start selling.
I started a new mixtape in honor of tomorrow night's gig at the AZone. Sort of my favorite "politically motivated" rap or whatever. I always feel weird when isht gets labelled "positive rap" or whatever and have nightmarish replays of conversations from years ago when I'm playing a Roots CD at a friend's house and their crunchy dykey friend asks if their "good to women". And she didn't understand when I suggested that was a questionably racist comment since I bet she owns Rolling Stones CD's. She didn't really respond, I think because she was thoroughly confused. Then again, in another music discussion, she had the CD of a crunchy dyke local folksinger and I noticed she did a cover of Nirvana's About A Girl. She responded with "Alright! Taking it back for women!" Taking what back? I didn't understand this comment. I guess people don't realize that over half of Nirvana's material came from Kurt's near unrequited love affair with Kathleen Hanna the big guru leader of the riotgrrl/dyke punk movement. So I was thoroughly confused by her comments as well. It was just a bad communication conversation all around.
But anyway, yeah, so "positive rap", not so much, since I don't like to deem stuff that might be hard to listen to or dark/harsh in nature as "negative" and therefore bad. I'm sorry if this music challenges or scares you, but it doesn't make it less positive. I also hate when things get labelled "political" just because they're not talking about booty or slinging dope. Common gets mentioned a lot as being a "polticial rapper" (Wyatt just described a similar experience I had when listening to his last album), but I don't find Common to be super political at all, espeically if you compare his words to other groups, like The Coup. I mean, he does try and rise above some of the isht, but I think stuff he says in interviews is often more provocative than the lyrics themselves. I will admit, after seeing him live, I was sufficiently impressed by his performance and MC skills, and became a solid if cautious fan -- I like him and keep an eye out for his stuff, but I don't totally trust him to speak on every subject. But I do love that he grows and changes and imprvoes upon himself -- one of my favorite songs on his latest album is Pimps, Hos, Hustlas, where he addresses some of his previous attitudes towards women (see the song Heidi Hoe on "Can I Borrow a Dollar?" Or better yet, don't) and his own 'hypocrisy' (with the help of MC Lyte). I think people get unfairly called out as hypocrites just because they learned something along the way and changed their stance. Why do we even bother to educate folks if we're just going to ridicule them for changing their minds? The Beastie Boys were going to call their first album "Don't Be a Faggot". But they've acknowledged that they've grown up and changed their view based on life experiences, and even apologized for past wrongs. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?
This train of thought has derailed. I think my main point for diving into this actually has nothing to do with homophobia and sexism in lyrics. But more about putting "Fuck the Police" on the tape and it still being obviously applicable. And digging out Rakim's "Casualities of War", then getting chills while listening to it on the bus today because it's still fcking applicable 12 years later and when he says "President Bush" in the song, it's no longer dated, and I suddenly felt no longer numb to the whole fcked up presidency and government (I sort of unintentionally turned off my rage and gave in to apathy at some point in the past 6 months or so). I mean, I can't necessarily go around all the time with my temper boiling over so much that my eyeballs are about pop out, since it's not good for my own health. But I can't help but think I can no longer just shrug my shoulders and throw my hands up and feel helpless and pray for a complete collapse of the system to occur on it's own. I can't help but feel I need to be doing a bit more to hurry it along to imploding. Even if it's just slipping songs like this into the mixtapes I start selling.