Originally reviewed for okayplayerTypical.
Ndegeocello that is, whatever that is.
(More...)
October 11, 2007
October 02, 2007
Summer Recap: The Whole World Like, "T, Where the You Been?" Me: "You See, What Had Happened Was..."
"Give a dog a bone
Leave a dog alone
Let a dog roam
And he'll find his way home."
Well, I have. The past few months have been an absolute and uncharacteristic whirlwind. Stops in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany -- unshaven, with all of my possessions (sans a razor) in the green backpack I've been carrying around since high school -- kept me on my feet every moment my dissertation didn't keep me in my seat. Now that autumn has fallen once again, I'm back in the States, having just wrapped-up my two year exile in England. To the sponsors of my scholarship: much thanks from the bottom of my heart. To my readers: much apologies for the past few months; rest assured that some good will soon be coming out of it.
A few longer articles, followed by my master's dissertation on NYC, hip-hop, and policing, are on their way, as well as a new slate of reviews. In the meantime, some recently penned items for your consideration (music-related and non-) and a quick run-down of what's been up musically for July through September.
MUSIC: Welcome to the Doghouse
After getting hit with Ta'raach's The Fevers and Black Milk's Popular Demand within the first two months of new year, I thought 2007 would be a great year for hip-hop. Boy, have I been disappointed. Since early February, a slew of hotly anticipated releases (by myself and/or others) have dropped and, in my opinion, few have matched the hype, or even approached vaguely close. The major offenders (off the top because I don't want to dwell on the negative):
Chamillionaire, Ultimate VictoryIt should be no secret around these parts that I've been a major Koopa partisan for quite a few years now. I even dug his material enough to put up with hours of sloppy rapping from his brother Rasaq (if you haven't heard him, he's got a style only a blood relative not directly responsible for fathering him could love). His 2005 major label debut, Sound of Revenge, was the sleeper chart-topper of the year and wildly underrated by everyone except the 1.5 million people who bought it. Since then, Chamill regularly tore apart guest verses (see Papoose's "Pop the Trunk" or the "Party Like a Rockstar (Remix)") and dropped a solid-if-inconsistent free mixtape (The Mixtape Messiah 2)... all signs pointed to a strong second effort from Houston's platinum-jawed wunderkind. Then Mixtape Messiah 3 hit the streets, full of goofy cadences and half-ass rapping that had me more than a little worried. I pretty much knew Ultimate Victory would be an iffy effort when Chamill started discoursing on MM3 about his loss of love for rapping.
Unfortunately, Ultimate Victory ended up worse than expected. Having spun this disc endlessly to squeeze every last redeemable ounce out of its stony grooves, I feel secure saying it's more or less 19 versions of the same song, complete with identical workmanlike rhymes and identical, generic-ass, slapping-me-in-the-face, drilling-into-my-left-ear-drum-with-various-pieces-of-heinous-looking-dental-equipment beats (meaning both the beats and the mix are subpar).
The only thing that upsets me more than the mailed-in-edness of Ultimate Victory is the sudden Chamill bandwagoning going on in the independent hip-hop blogosphere. In what's rapidly becoming my favorite quote for reviewing, "Do you cats listen to music or do you just skim through it?" I'll boost the size of the font to simulate yelling and righteous indignation:
ULTIMATE VICTORY IS NOT LYRICALLY OR MUSICALLY BETTER THAN SOUND OF REVENGE.
Grammy Syndrome (def.: honoring the present work of an artist to atone for ignorance or underappreciation of their prior, more inspired work) strikes again.
UGK, Underground KingzPimp C and Bun B take filler to new heights on their recently released double CD. [Disclaimer: it's easy to rip on double albums because they're so long.]The only thing more clever than the duo christening themselves "Big Dick Cheney" and "Tony Snow" (after George Bush's vice prez and press secretary, respectively) is their astounding ability to recycle lines from earlier in the album further on in the album... sometimes a full 3 minutes later. Even slimmed down to 14 tracks (with a heavy emphasis on Disc 1), the repetition is out of hand. Case in point: if you didn't catch it the first time through, Pimp C thinks that "pimpin' ain't dead, it just moved to the web" (and he has a full business plan to exploit it... "it's the American dream").
Let me also take this opportunity to say that Pimp C may very well say "Bitch" 15 times a track over 29 tracks. It's not just that he uses it as a noun a lot -- he uses it in ways that have no grammatical significance. It's like he's got Tourette's, but his only tick is "Bitch." A simulated sentence (not far from actual recorded sentences): "Bitch, I'm Pimp C, bitch, bitch better get down bitch on that flo' bitch." I don't think I'm a conservative listener at all, and I'm not easily offended, but... for real?
I think my disappointment comes from listening to Pimp C's infamous, amazingly incoherent, and incoherently amazing "Atlanta Interview," where he more or less -- it seemed -- threw down the gauntlet on the entire Southern rap game, accusing its major figures of spilling out boring, fake, socially irresponsible music. I can't say that Underground Kingz has single-handedly reclaimed the game.
Now that I write that, though, maybe there's more to the Cheney-Snow comparison than the phallic/narcotic valences: UGK does a pretty good job running the same reheated rhetoric past woefully uncritical listeners.
{At least Chamillionaire and UGK still have careers. Mike Jones. Who?}
On watch: Pharoahe Monch, Desire
Wildly
Wildly
Wildly
Underwhelming.
So who was spared my wrath?
Hell Razah, Renaissance ChildI've also been a massive Hell Razah partisan since his days with Wu Tang affiliates Sunz of Man. Since the late 90s, he's dropped a series of independent mixtapes/albums, each of which had few shining moments but were crippled by an astoundingly bad selection of beats.
My expectations for Renaissance Child were, as a result, pretty low when I copped it at FatBeats a few months back. After giving it a single spin, though, I realized I had one of the year's undiscovered gems in my hands.
The album definitely lags in places, a built-in flaw of Razah's style. Razah, along with Killah Priest, has been working on what I call the "ghetto syncretist" style: their songs draw equally on the Hebrew Scriptures, the New Testament, the Koran, 5%er rhetoric, the history of the African diaspora, black nationalism, the civil rights movement, etc. Regardless, or maybe, as a result, it's well worth checking out, and I might have a formal review of it up soon.
Madlib, Beat Konducta in India, Vol. 3 - 4The latest installment in the Stones Throw beatsmith's Beat Konducta series did not disappoint. Vols 1 - 2 have been on repeat for me for over a year while I've been working on my various writing projects. India is definitely a "produced" album - he's not just looping beats from Indian films. That being said, it's much less altered than the material from 1 and 2, or even from his Blue Note project. In that respect, this album is more like traditional DJing work... which is great, because DJs (and hip-hop writers) seem to have largely abandoned the work of finding new, unheard music for listeners. So I guess that makes this sort of a meta-review.
Kanye West, GraduationStill need to give this time to sink in. My first reaction: much more sonically focused than Late Registration, but maintaining that degree of manic sloppiness we've come to expect from the Louis Vuitton Don.
Other Albums Getting Well Deserved Play in the CanineCompound
Feist, The ReminderHer beautiful voice is being ramrodded down your throat by Verizon and Apple. Three cheers for the corporate world.
American Analog Set, Know by HeartA soothing, hypnotic set. Like staring at a wall, watching a clock ticking down the final seconds to a moment of foreseen happiness.
Interview With Myself: "Tom Wolf, Keeping Your Beaches Safe"
Answers by me, questions and editing of the answers by another.
Q: How did you find this job?
A: I had just been fired from a valet parking job at the local aquarium. As it turned out, causing vehicular damage is a turn-off for a lot of employers. Thankfully, my driving skills weren't a big problem for the Beach Control.
Q: How old were you when you started?
A: I was eighteen, fresh out of high school.
Q: Would you consider yourself buff (did you work out at the time)?
A: I had what my high school gym teacher called "wiry strength." In other words, I looked more or less like a praying mantis.
Q: What did your day consist of?
A: About two days a week, I sat in a two-by-three-foot wooden box in front of the police station. It was for the specific purpose of selling beach badges. But I spent most of my time staring at my reflection in the police station's plate glass window.
Another three to four days a week, I worked as one of the Beach Control's roving badge checkers, or "Rovers." I worked with four high school girls to ensure that every person on a 1.5-mile stretch of sand had a badge. On a single sweep down the beach on a relatively busy day, we'd check thousands of people. Once we got to the end, we'd walk back, doing the same thing. And we'd do this three times a day in 90+ degree weather.
Q: Were you ever put in any dangerous situations? Were you ever afraid of anything?
A: Listening to the presentation the Town Council gave the summer after September 11, you would think that I had America's most dangerous job. In addition to making sure that everyone had paid to enter to the beach, I had to check people's coolers for alcohol – and explosives. I never found a bomb. I don't think terrorists would come to the beach… I would imagine they've seen enough sand and human suffering in their lifetimes.
Q: Was the pay decent?
A: What was minimum wage then? Like $5.15 an hour? I think I got a twenty-five cent raise the second year because I had "tenure."
Q: Was there competition between you and the lifeguards?
A: We were pretty low-down in the beach hierarchy. Definitely above the garbage collectors, but below the lifeguards. Everyone wanted to be a lifeguard… I think it's pretty much the only job in America that lists shirtlessness and leering as requisite duties.
The best job, at least pay-wise, was probably as a senior officer of the Beach Patrol. They got to drive souped-up ATVs on the beach. It was like being a super-lifeguard, except that they had to wear shirts because all that flying sand was pretty rough on exposed skin.
Q: Did you carry any weapons or have any real authority?
A: My meager authority to throw people off the beach was undercut at every turn by the walkie-talkie I lugged around. Pretty much the only noises that would come out of it were things like, "Forget it, it's not worth the time" or "We can't do anything about that." All of which the beachgoers could hear.
Q: What were your co-workers like?
A: The older, more empowered members of Beach Control were mostly school teachers on their summer breaks. The other "rovers" and badge-sellers were high school girls.
Q: What is your overall impression of the crowds at the Jersey shore?
A: Beachgoers have an amazing ability to act as if they're the only people in the world even when they're in the midst of miles of baking, overlapping flesh.
That being said, a lot of locals had this hatred for "Bennies"–- beachgoers who weren't locals-– that I didn't share. I actually looked forward to the summer crowds. Winters at the Shore can be very lonely. You come to desire the energy and activity, even if that means having to sit in gridlock for hours on a Saturday just to get a sandwich.
Q: Did you eat a lot of french fries/listen to lots of Bon Jovi?
A: French fries? Not really. But there was this great pizza place a bit down the boardwalk from headquarters. They always gave me a massive town employee discount. It was run by a mother-father-son team –- "Auntie Jo," "Grandpa," and "Vito" (aka "The Italian Stallion"). It's since been demolished to make room for more bumper cars.
Q: Any other memorable moments from the job?
A: Once, we found an Amish family on the beach. They didn't have badges, but I couldn't bring myself to throw them off. There was something kind of majestic about how all twenty five of them stood at the shoreline, gazing out over the waves in their handmade overalls and frocks. I think the closest Amish community was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which is about 160 miles away. I still have no clue how they got there.
Q: Why did you leave?
A: I got a better offer the next summer researching early Quaker abolitionism in New York City.
Q: Would you do it again?
A: Would Sisyphus keep rolling his boulder up the hill if he didn't have to?
Q: How did you find this job?
A: I had just been fired from a valet parking job at the local aquarium. As it turned out, causing vehicular damage is a turn-off for a lot of employers. Thankfully, my driving skills weren't a big problem for the Beach Control.
Q: How old were you when you started?
A: I was eighteen, fresh out of high school.
Q: Would you consider yourself buff (did you work out at the time)?
A: I had what my high school gym teacher called "wiry strength." In other words, I looked more or less like a praying mantis.
Q: What did your day consist of?
A: About two days a week, I sat in a two-by-three-foot wooden box in front of the police station. It was for the specific purpose of selling beach badges. But I spent most of my time staring at my reflection in the police station's plate glass window.
Another three to four days a week, I worked as one of the Beach Control's roving badge checkers, or "Rovers." I worked with four high school girls to ensure that every person on a 1.5-mile stretch of sand had a badge. On a single sweep down the beach on a relatively busy day, we'd check thousands of people. Once we got to the end, we'd walk back, doing the same thing. And we'd do this three times a day in 90+ degree weather.
A: Listening to the presentation the Town Council gave the summer after September 11, you would think that I had America's most dangerous job. In addition to making sure that everyone had paid to enter to the beach, I had to check people's coolers for alcohol – and explosives. I never found a bomb. I don't think terrorists would come to the beach… I would imagine they've seen enough sand and human suffering in their lifetimes.
Q: Was the pay decent?
A: What was minimum wage then? Like $5.15 an hour? I think I got a twenty-five cent raise the second year because I had "tenure."
Q: Was there competition between you and the lifeguards?
A: We were pretty low-down in the beach hierarchy. Definitely above the garbage collectors, but below the lifeguards. Everyone wanted to be a lifeguard… I think it's pretty much the only job in America that lists shirtlessness and leering as requisite duties.
The best job, at least pay-wise, was probably as a senior officer of the Beach Patrol. They got to drive souped-up ATVs on the beach. It was like being a super-lifeguard, except that they had to wear shirts because all that flying sand was pretty rough on exposed skin.
Q: Did you carry any weapons or have any real authority?
A: My meager authority to throw people off the beach was undercut at every turn by the walkie-talkie I lugged around. Pretty much the only noises that would come out of it were things like, "Forget it, it's not worth the time" or "We can't do anything about that." All of which the beachgoers could hear.
Q: What were your co-workers like?
A: The older, more empowered members of Beach Control were mostly school teachers on their summer breaks. The other "rovers" and badge-sellers were high school girls.
Q: What is your overall impression of the crowds at the Jersey shore?
A: Beachgoers have an amazing ability to act as if they're the only people in the world even when they're in the midst of miles of baking, overlapping flesh.
That being said, a lot of locals had this hatred for "Bennies"–- beachgoers who weren't locals-– that I didn't share. I actually looked forward to the summer crowds. Winters at the Shore can be very lonely. You come to desire the energy and activity, even if that means having to sit in gridlock for hours on a Saturday just to get a sandwich.
Q: Did you eat a lot of french fries/listen to lots of Bon Jovi?
A: French fries? Not really. But there was this great pizza place a bit down the boardwalk from headquarters. They always gave me a massive town employee discount. It was run by a mother-father-son team –- "Auntie Jo," "Grandpa," and "Vito" (aka "The Italian Stallion"). It's since been demolished to make room for more bumper cars.
Q: Any other memorable moments from the job?
A: Once, we found an Amish family on the beach. They didn't have badges, but I couldn't bring myself to throw them off. There was something kind of majestic about how all twenty five of them stood at the shoreline, gazing out over the waves in their handmade overalls and frocks. I think the closest Amish community was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which is about 160 miles away. I still have no clue how they got there.
Q: Why did you leave?
A: I got a better offer the next summer researching early Quaker abolitionism in New York City.
Q: Would you do it again?
A: Would Sisyphus keep rolling his boulder up the hill if he didn't have to?
October 01, 2007
SPEECH/ESSAY: The Wisdom of Paul Turner
Paul Turner passed on in June 2007 after fourteen seasons as Harvard University's field coach. I considered him a major father figure and counted him among my closest friends and trusted confidants. In what could only be an understatement: He'll be deeply missed. The following was prepared for a memorial booklet produced by The Friends of Harvard Track & Field, but written more to be spoken.
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Reggae Review: Collie Buddz, COLLIE BUDZ
Originally reviewed for okayplayerZarathustra: “Everything goeth, everything returneth; eternally rolleth the wheel of existence. Everything dieth, everything blossometh forth again; eternally runneth on the year of existence.”
Collie Buddz: “Finally, the herb come around!”
Zarathustra: “Yo, could we do something else?”
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