Speech: Goodenough Faculty Dinner, February 14, 2007

After noted lapsed Marxist Claire Fox dropped a bombshell of a post-dinner speech (reviling multiculturalism, the West, the Near East, the youth, academia... and, well, everyone in the room), I had the privilege of closing the evening. Never a good idea to let me get the last word:

"Well, I'm now put in the odd position of speaking on behalf of the angst-ridden, multiculturalist youth of the world. Welcome to our cavernous, fabulous hall. If I may add my own brief thought on multiculturalism: As an Irish Catholic raised in suburban New Jersey whose cultural diet consists almost entirely of Jewish philosophy and hip-hop, and now living an expatriate existence in London of all places... I must say that there is a certain value in standing outside your own comfortable assumptions. Through the greatest self-questioning comes the greatest self-understanding.

Now, as any good social theorist will admit, there is a complicated relationship between theory and practice. Claire has given us today, and has given us throughout her public career, a strong argument for the value of unfettered speech. She not only speaks of it, but exemplifies it in her actions. And, maybe, in theory, free speech -- the unchecked flow of ideas -- is the bedrock of a democratic culture. But... in practice... I would guess, after three hours of food and drink, and based on the looks that you all are giving me right now... in practice, the last thing we need is another excuse for ME to keep talking. So, I ask the Governors, our distinguished guests, and my fellow Goodenough members to join me in thanking Claire for keying our evening." Exeunt.

Video: Young Buck, GET BUCK

I haven't really felt G-Unit since Lloyd Banks' first album, and had even less time for Young "Gun-fi-rur" Buck, but his new single and video... tight. It looks like a hardcore version of OutKast's Rosa Parks, with particularly ill visuals on the third verse.

Video: K-Ci and JoJo Live

Wow. Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow. You're kidding me, right?

"Put me down."

Hip-Hop Review: Shawn Lee and His Ping Pong Orchestra, VOICES AND CHOICES

Originally reviewed for okayplayer

(NR) Shawn Lee vs. (1) T.M. Wolf – Final Round: Okayplayer Literalized Ping-Pong Metaphor Championships

“We’re not trying to ‘get’ anyone here.”
- Martin “Ruddy” MacDougall (1875 – 1942), Olympic Gold Medalist, tournament founder, confirmed alcoholic
(More...)

SHAMELESS PLUG: Eric Paras, FOUCAULT 2.0

Debut work from a good friend and former teacher of mine, Eric Paras (PhD, Harvard '05) -- easily the most lucid, interesting, and vividly written study of Foucault I've encountered. I mean, in my wholly disinterested, unbiased, ethical journalistic opinion. (Buy it)

January: Deep in Thoughts

(Thanks, Rafi)

"I'm thinkin' / Deep in thoughts / Ya boy ain't even winkin'"
And that about sums up January. Heavy coats for heavy times, and heavy conversations for heavy minds...

Thankfully, I've got a few more items to lighten things up. First, a short video essay on genre conventions in hip-hop, chased down with two "different" reviews from my vaults, the second of which caused a *bit* of a stir when it was first published. Like I've said before, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Time to step out of the boxes we've neatly crafted for ourselves.

What have I been thinking about? Everything and nothing at once. And that looks kind of like this...

Videos: Punching Genre Convention

Hip-hop is roundly criticized as a "violent" art form. As of late, rap lyrics have even been drawn into court proceedings as "proof" of the writer-in-question's murderous obsessions. Outsiders fail to realize, however, that -- inasmuch as some rappers talk about their violent "realities," using lyrics to explore their circumstances and/or brag about their exploits -- gun-talk and "murda-muzik" are, for 99% of rappers, part of an elaborate genre convention. To the general literalist public: Rappers and other assorted Others DO have the ability to be metaphorical, ironic, or darkly humorous... and they exercise it regularly.

But let's be clear, a big component of rapping is "battling" -- a form of verbal violence. There's a certain fit between wordplay and gunplay, which probably goes a long way towards explaining why gun-talk and ki-shifting is hip-hop's reigning convention.

As far as I see it, there are at least three ways to step outside contemporary hip-hop's genre conventions:

1. A rapper can simply not acknowledge them, and rhyme about anything but guns/drugs without referring to the fact he's not rhyming about guns/drugs.

2. He can draw attention to the fact that he doesn't rap about guns/drugs while pointing out his opponent's tendencies -- usually self-fictionalizing -- to rap about guns/drugs. To see a good example of strategy #2 in action, check out Round 1 of the Serius Jones vs. Murda Mook SMACK battle, one of my favorites. Pay particularly close attention to Serius' verse (he's the first to rap):



Do I also need to point out that battling represents an organic rhetorical tradition?

3. He can call his opponent's bluff. Which is just what E-N-J did recently to Nyckz on this YouTube fav:



I'm not sure if that was the most positive or negative move in hip-hop history (there's a "true story" video floating around out there, but it doesn't do anything to clarify the situation). Positive or negative, that's a huge punch right in the face genre convention.

Literally.

Soul Review: Jeremiah, CHASING FOREVER

Originally reviewed for okayplayer

T.M. biographers (well, if there were such a thing) will note that I once referred to aesthetic theory as “the graveyard where all good philosophers go to die.” Okay, fine, my stance on aesthetics has softened a bit. Chalk it up to the experience of an affected provincial living in a world city – I felt like I had to choose between synthesizing Kant and contemporary soul (theory), or wearing a scarf/sportcoat-with-elbow-patches/monocle. The monocle was uncomfortable, the coat ill-fitting, and the scarf itchy. Which left me with… Kantizing Jeremiah’s Chasing Forever. (More...)

Hip-Hop Review: k-os, ATLANTIS

Originally reviewed for okayplayer

I won't chop up the story. Click here for the piece in its entirety.

December: "Pyrex Stirs Turned into Cavali Furs"

"Read T.M. Wolf's review of More Fish then try and say something funny style about Okayplayer's reviews section."
- Dan p period

Much love to the okayplayer staff for the front page love (Dec. 18), and much holiday love to everyone out there reading the December update. While haters were getting tied up in knots in The Lesson (I know how this blog game works, you don't think I'm actually going to drop a link, do you? I know you see it), I was eating strombolis and canolis in fly gondolas and building with the Doctor of Plague on all subjects Venetian -- including lion-head mailboxes and mini-pistols in hollowed-out prayer books.

Up for this month are reviews of the latest Ghostface -- with some cribbing from the last update -- and Free Speech's audio screed, Laffy Taffy Rots Your Teeth. Follow that up with a short feature on Raekwon's classic video for "Incarcerated Scarfaces." And for a stocking stuffer? "White People," my recent non-hip hop picks.

2006 is drawing to a close and 2007 is fast on us. If you've stumbled across my little corner of the net, drop me a short line and let me know what you think. Otherwise... Happy Holidays, in the most multi-/non-sectarian and all-inclusive way possible.

Hip-Hop Review: Ghostface Killah, "More Fish"

Originally reviewed for okayplayer.com

The only thing more classically “Ghost” (read: perpetually intriguing, frequently counterintuitive, and occasionally non-sensical) than Def Jam releasing the second Ghostface album of the year was the brilliant (read: ridiculous) decision to title the follow-up to early-2006’s coke-cooking, soul-sampling rhymefest Fishscale… I pull your terry-cloth robe not... More Fish. Who other than Ghost would literalize a metaphor beyond all comprehension (Ghost as coke-slinger to Ghost as cod-monger)? While not exactly a proper solo successor to Fishscale, More Fish combines with its predecessor to suggest that the man once caught in Cancun eatin’ grouper is now serving up a significantly less exotic plate to a blissfully unaware listening public. (Read More...)

Hip-Hop Review: Free Speech, "Laffy Taffy Rots Your Teeth"

Originally reviewed for okayplayer.com

Laffy Taffy Rots Your Teeth? So does death. Just ask Steve Biko – he’s rolling in his grave as we speak. (Read More...)

White People

People often say to me:
"Tom..." (if they knew me between the ages of 0 and 14)
"T-Wolf" (if they knew me between 14 and 18)
"T-Dub," or "T" (18 - 22)
"T-Dash..." (22 - 23)
"T.M...." (present day)

... They say... "We know you like hip-hop. We know you like soul. But what else are you digging right now?" Here's what I tell them:

Sizzla, Black Woman and Child (VP Records, 2002)

Sizzla might be reggae's most prolific artist, flipping easily between roots-y chant and grimy dancehall. His insane level of productivity keeps his name out there, but it also works against his legacy: there are tons of Sizzla albums currently out on the market that should never have seen the light of the day. Black Woman and Child, however, is not one of them: from front to back, probably the strongest disc of this ilk since Buju Banton's Til Shiloh. Where Buju is gruff, Sizzla is smooth, skipping over his riddims with a truly unique vocal style. Check out the title cut, "Hard Ground," and for some straight wildin', "Mi Lord."


Ali Farka Toure, The Source (Hannibal, 1993)

An excellent recommendation from my good friend, ChinaDialogue writer Ross Perlin, Toure's The Source hooked me with a single song: the haunting "Inchana Massina." Based out of Mali, Toure has built a career off mixing elements of American blues with equally strong components of the African musical traditions. Metacritic recently ID'd his latest, Savane, as the most highly rated album of 2006 -- but The Source, with its slightly echoing vocals and haunting rhythms that seem to spiderweb out of the speakers, is as good a place as any to start for those curious in modern genius at work.


Charles Mingus, Oh Yeah (Atlantic, 1961)


Long a favorite of mine -- recommended by current NYTimes ad hustler and Nabokov scholar Dave Cohen -- Mingus' Oh Yeah catches the notoriously... um... fickle?... bassist at his most fickle. Some songs, like "Eat that Chicken" and "Oh, Lord, Don't Let them Drop that Atomic Bomb on Me," are zany enough at face value. Some of the more sedate, however, seem zanier once the backstory gets filled in. "Devil Woman"? Written while sitting butt-naked at the grand piano of a Hollywood madam, after a night spent passed out in her marble foyer from his first coke binge. I highly recommend listening to Oh Yeah, then reading his "autobiography" (a total postmodern spree of self-fictionalization), Beneath the Underdog, then taking another listen.


"But Tom/T-Wolf/T-Dub/T/T-Dash/T.M.," they say, their eyes widening a little, "We meant something other than, you know..."
"Oh, what you meant was, music by people who aren't black! Why didn't you just say so?!"


The Decemberists, Picaresque (Kill Rock Stars, 2005)

For a paragon of urban cool, the Decemberists, with their fanciful tales and slightly effete self-presentation, are about as un-street as you can get (this side of Sufjan Stevens). Their most recent album, The Crane Wife, has been receiving considerable buzz -- and rightly so, as it's sprawling compositions are both evocative and versatile. Honestly, as good as Crane Wife is, I prefer Picaresque, if only because Crane's polished sound seems so, well, un-Decemberists. Picaresque sounds like the soundtrack to treasure island, full of corsairs and sea chanties. Colin Melloy, with his fake British accent, cuts an awkwardly loveable leading man, while the album's closing tracks, like "The Engine Driver" (which almost brings a tear to my lupine eye) and "Angels and Angles," clearly pointed out what was coming down the pike, more than a year prior.


Jens Lekman, Oh You're So Silent Jens (Secretly Canadian, 2005)

Another Perlin pick that's wormed its way into my feral heart, Silent is one a string of recent releases from the vaguely mysterious, hugely awkward, and delightfully ironically detached Swedish vocalist Jens Lekman. Blessed with a deep voice, Lekman trips all over cliches, only to rebuild infinitely more touching songs around them: "I could say that you are pretty / But that would make me a liar / You turn my legs into spaghetti / And set my heart on fire"; "I had a friend, a girl, who looked sort of like a guy." Heartfelt, but distinctly un-singerly. My picks: "Pocketful of Money" and the strangely poignant "Black Cab."


Steve Reich, Music for 18 Musicians (choice version: ECM, 1994)

I had the pleasure of seeing Reich himself perform Pulses at London's Barbican Theater this past October -- there he was in all his baseball be-hatted glory, tinging away alongside his white-shirted ensemble. Pulses is good, but 18 Musicians is great: a cycle of minute variations on simple sounds, as expansive as it is simple. Also great writing music, the constant accompaniment to my own projects (big and small).

Video: Raekwon, "Incarcerated Scarfaces"

November: SUBLIMITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Photo copyright of T.M. Wolf, 2006.

Much like the J.P. Morgan Building, November was a sublime month -- terrifying in its monstrous, steely presence, but all the more intriguing because of that. In addition to a short entry re: Ghostface's upcoming More Fish and an annoucement/party invite for the Roots' London dates, I've got an embedded version of one of my favorite hip-hop vids -- the Lost Boyz' "Renee" -- and two more reviews. The first is another remix review, this time of Citizen Cope's ho-hum Every Waking Moment. The other is an experimental review EXCLUSIVE to CanineMind -- John Legend's stellar Once Again. The trick? It's a circular review. You can print it out at home, and overlap the first line with the last line by pulling the top and bottom edges of the paper together to create an unending loop of soul (criticism). If nothing else, I try hard for y'all.

And, finally, two new features:
1. "DoggieBags" -- the CanineMind e-mail feed. Now you don't have to check the site everyday for new content (I knooooooooooow you see it). Just enter your e-mail address into the field to the right and you can have the updates zipped right to your e-mail.
2. A restored RSS link, which can be accessed by clicking the orange icon to the right.

Onward and upward...

Video: Lost Boyz, "Renee"

Rather than just posting up videos I find absurd, how about I post a video I like for a song I like even more?

The Lost Boyz' "Renee" is a slice of blustery, down-jacket, mid-90s NYC hip-hop -- it remains one of the finest hip-hop love ballads of all time, and one of the songs that sealed my love for hip-hop. Discount the fact that Cheeks uses the phrase "smoke a blunt" 11 times in the song... his smoky delivery and coy withholding of key details ("She started feelin' on my chest /I started feelin' on her breast / And there's no need to stress the rest") add up to a significantly more emotionally powerful presentation than your run-of-the-mill "no strings attached sex" roughneck love song. I just wish I could find a version without a Toni Braxton pin-up tacked onto the beginning.

Rock/Electronica Review: Citizen Cope, "Every Waking Moment"

Originally reviewed for okayplayer.com

To wake, to live --
To live --perchance to create: ay, there's the rub,
For Every Waking Moment what things may come
Whilst we shuffle along these charged surfaces,
Must give us pause.
- The Bard, ed. C. Quixote

(More...)

Soul Review: John Legend, "Once Again"

A CanineMind Exclusive

“It’s not over, there’s another again.”

Once Again, John Legend presents soulful recursion at its best… with no end in sight.

Rarely did Legend’s debut, the platinum-selling Get Lifted, display the sort of raw vocal virtuosity associated with male soul greats. There’s something implacably aged in his vocals, a slightly ragged, geriatric quality that doesn’t always assuage the listener’s ear. If Legend’s voice isn’t the always the most enticing, he and his collaborators know exactly how to nest, layer, and counterbalance it to produce powerful, polished numbers. Fittingly, Get Lifted surpassed much of new millennium male soul albums with the precision of its glorious arrangements.

On the technical side of things, Once Again picks up where Get Lifted left off: argue with the songwriting on early cuts like “Heaven” and “Each Day Gets Better,” but not with their structures. Pleasantly surprising, however, is the expanded vocal range Legend displays this time around. Who knew he had a slightly raspy, trembling falsetto (“Show Me,” as touching as “Stay with You,” with extra heartbreak on the side)? Who knew he could give Sam Cooke a run for his money on some o-runs? I’ve long referred to Cooke as “The Master of the Sung-‘O’”: dig up an old cut like “Only Sixteen” and listen to how he drags out the ever important vowels (“with eyes that would glooooo-OOO-www”). Legend still can’t touch Cooke note-for-note, but he tries his damnedest to surpass the past master on “Slow Dance.”

“I propose / That we go / To the flo’ / And we sloooooooooooooooooooooooooow
dance… Let the music make you mOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOve.”

Hat’s off.

Legend’s lyrics and trademark piano accompaniments still occasionally cross the line from smooth to schmaltz (“Coming Home”). Nevertheless, his words can now vie with his arrangements. At the heart of the album is Legend’s on-going, self-reflexive preoccupation with the writer’s dream: the hope that, with a few artful twirls of the pen, straight lines can be bent into perfect circles. From the frame-breaking, album-opening meta-entrée, “Save Room” to the penultimate pleas of “Another Again,” he all but begs the listener to return over and over, layering listening upon relistening in an unending loop of soul.

Legend v.Once Again is a figure sick not just with love – who among his many peers and predecessors wouldn’t fit that description? – but moreso with the always near-graspable possibility of completion and permanence achieved through words. If only, Once Again suggests, one could find the words – and arrange them just so – that would make further words worthless, that would entice another to enter and stay on forever – so that one could finally rest knowing

“It’s not over, there’s another again.”

*This is a "circular" review -- print it out on a single sheet of paper, and overlap the first and last lines to create an unending loop of soul (criticism) -- T.M.*

London Jawn

Okay, players...

Hip-hop's greatest band and (FULL DISCLOSURE) the shadowy overbosses upon whom my fledgling writing career currently rests, the Grammy Award-winning, Philly-bred Roots, are currently out on the European leg of their Game Theory tour, and are set to hit London around the middle of December. They're playing two shows at Shepherd's Bush Empire, one on Dec. 11 and the other on Dec. 12: doors at 7 PM, 20 gbp a pop. If that wasn't enough, Roots drummer/mastermind ?uestlove will be dropping a DJ set at London's Jazz Cafe on Dec. 13 -- doors open at 11 PM, 10 gbp (advance)/12 gbp (night-of) for the dopeness.

If you've been to a Roots concert before ("I've been losing count myself, and I ain't even that bad at math" -- "let me see, one, two three... my bad, this will be the fifth one... in three years"), you know live hip-hop... eff it, live MUSIC... doesn't get any better. If you've been to six, you know they hit you with a different playlist every time (the bossa nova remix of "You Got Me" they did in Asbury in 2003 was great). If you haven't been to one in the last year, they've got a full clip of new joints courtesy of Game Theory -- without a doubt their best effort since 1999's Things Fall Apart.

If you've never been to a Roots concert at all... well, I feel sorry for you. Don't keep on making the mistake you've been making for your entire earthly existence.

And if you've never been to a hip-hop concert before, put all your irrational fears aside... okayplayers are sophisticated... well, at least they have computers.

If you've gotten this far and still have no clue what I'm talking about, 'tube it up. I'm done with what I came to say, y'all can continue on...

"Never Do" feat. Raphael Saadiq



"You Got Me" feat. Erykah Badu on the hook



"The Seed" feat. Cody ChestnuTT

That's mad pyrotechnical, god... Pass the fish, son

Word around the Wally campfire is that hip-hop's e.e. cummings, Ghostface Killah, is dropping his second album of the year on Dec. 12, following up the early-2006 media darling Fishscale with a project titled (I pull your terry-cloth robe not)... More Fish. Let's forget for the moment that "fishscale" is coke, so calling it More Fish effectively literalizes the metaphor beyond comprehension (Ghost as coke-slinger --> Ghost as Cod-monger?)

Normally, I don't give the Jiggaman much credit as a record executive, but "chea"ing two albums in one year seems like a counterintuitively good move. Anyone who's familiar with the ever-growing Ghost apocrypha knows that for every great jawn included on an official Ghost release, another three were cut out for sample-clearance/angel-dust considerations. The best cuts on Bulletproof Wallets didn't actually make the album ("The Watch," "The Sun," the original "Flowers"); and Ghost's 718 album with the Theodore Unit pretty much sonned The Pretty Toney Album with a single little cut known as "Gorilla Hood" (Yo, they got that work -- check the "Media" section). Despite its horrendous title, the production line-up looks strong -- Madlib, Pete Rock, MF Doom, and Hi-Tek -- and the tracklist looks typically wacky.

Will the final product just be cutting-room scraps? Probably -- in fact, I hope so. Will it be better than the Game's latest (for real, it's alright not to like him)? Will it receive significantly less promotion than Kingdom Come? Most definitely. Will it be "mad flavorful"? How could it not? Word to my Wonderwoman Bracelet.

November: The Month of Her Majesty

No matter how hard I try, I can't get away from the Royal Family, more specifically, the Queen. The Queen was amusing; the Queen coming over for lunch and unveiling yet another highly (and strangely) phallic monument to her greatness is highly, highly inconvenient. Worst of all is being forcibly evicted from the Queen's Windsor guest lodge, tossed out into the night to "see what it feels like to be living in a palm shack in Santo Domingo."

I beg to differ with the rationale of this exercise: slum dwellers in the Dominican Republic don't have to worry about the Queen's snipers shooting them on sight.

I am so happy to have escaped with my life and my land tenure intact that I've got not only two reviews (Omar's latest addition to his famously strong catalog, and a very, very overproduced effort by Robert Randolph and the Family Band), but also a new *EXCLUSIVE*(BOMBS DROP) list, an excerpt of a longer piece on women in hip-hop, and a reflection on the selfhood-smashing simultaneity of B.G.'s "Where Da At?" video (I use the word "simulacric." !) Enjoy. Ol' scary ass...

Humor/List: "Recipes for a Terrible Day"

1. Open box of cereal. Eat contents with hands.

2. Make sandwich. Eat off shirt cardboard.

3. Heat up frozen pizza on space heater. Eat off desk.

4. Open can of tuna. Gag. Throw out. Go hungry for remainder of day.

5. Open jar of peanut butter. Dip in spoon. Eat. Notice oily cooling sensation beneath eyes.

6. Offer personal favorite meal to homeless drifter. Be rejected.

Video: B.G. and Jeff Richter, Pomo Auteurs Extraordinaire

It's difficult to explain how bizarre I find this video from New Orleans hood legend B.G. It is, for all intents and purposes, a low-fi version of Kanye's "Drive Slow" video -- and yet what it lacks in slickly simulacric, hyper-reflective car imagery it makes up for in the mind-bendingly self-referential final vignette, where B.G. raps while standing in front of a huge real-time video reproduction of himself.





As seems to be a running theme with me, I find this infinitely more thought-provoking than it probably should be.

Reflection: Women in Hip-Hop

Originally published on okayplayer.com

Women have always occupied a fraught place in hip-hop, perhaps more so now than ever. If not subjected to borderline-ridiculous-if-not-for-its-readily- obvious-cultural-influence misogyny (spearheaded by Snoop’s ambitious cultural project of ensconcing the mystical “ho” as a viable Third Sex in the place of actual women) or extreme credibility bashing (NaS), women have the unenviable “honor” of being pure embodiments of sugar, spice, and moral enlightenment… who also can sexually service a man like an experienced pro...

...And it gets weirder as one peels back the layers, moving beyond male rappers’ discussions of women and female rappers’ self-presentation to rappers’ metaphorical representations of hip-hop as a woman. These presentations aren’t necessarily all misogynistic – some can be seen as uplifting. They are, regardless, deeply gendered. But don’t take it from me…

Common (“I Used to Love H.E.R.)?
“Slim was fresh yo, when she was underground
Original, pure untampered and down sister
Boy I tell ya, I miss her”

Shabaam Sahdeeq (“I Still Love Her”)?
“She universal, she got all that with her
Loving her body I couldn’t wait to hit her
Got with her had to get her in my clutch and thrust
‘Cuz I love to lust, and lust to love”

Cormega (“American Beauty”)?
“I love her like a mother, my physical path
She even overlooked the fact about my criminal past”

Pharoahe Monch (“Rape”)?
“Grab the drums by the waistline
I snatch the kick, kick the snares and sodomize the bassline”

If hip-hop is a woman, why does she almost always have a man’s voice?

Click here to read the full original review of Eternia's It's Called Life

Soul Review: Omar, "Sing... If You Want It"

Originally reviewed for okayplayer.com

Fellow Exiles, Devoted Readers, and Habitual Haters,

I’m more firmly convinced than ever that England is the place to be (until daylight savings time expires, at least): the pound is strong, the weather is unseasonably warm, the architecture is daring, and the graveyards are exceedingly creepy. Best yet, England is home to the path-breaking soul singer Omar, who, unlike his better known American counterparts, actually releases albums – and excellent ones at that – with some semblance of regularity. Sing… If You Want It? Consider the choir convened. (More...)

Rock/Soul Review: Robert Randolph and the Family Band, "Colorblind"

Originally reviewed for okayplayer.com

I’ve got Robert Randolph and the Family Band’s latest, Colorblind, in my system. I’ve got a fat pack of construction paper. AND I just got my new 150-count Crayola Telescoping Crayon Tower. Your boy is going to WORK. (More...)

The Most Sincere Blog on the 'Net

In an attempt to beat-out Linus for the most sincere blog on the 'net, I'm back with a mid-October update. For all you greedy little ghosts, my full-length interview with -- and reflections on -- hip-hop legend Kool Keith. Also, a recently published review of the latest from one of my personal favorites, Method Man. And, if those weren't enough rocks to fill your pillow case, I've got a CanineMind Exclusive on Meth's style, something I like to call the "Excursus on Listening to Method Man -- Enter the Shiv Style." Hope you enjoy, and put in a good word for me with the Great Pumpkin if you see him...

Interview/Article: "Reality Ain't Always the Truth: A Conversation with Kool Keith"

Photo copyright of T.M. Wolf, 2006.

On a sweltering July afternoon, Okayplayer elbowed its way among the likes of MTV and URB to shoot the breeze with Kool Keith. The scene? An otherwise empty, frighteningly cold banquet room on the 18th floor of Manhattan’s Hotel Pennsylvania. The subject? His latest album (The Return of Dr. Octagon), realness, fiction, battling, and Fred Astaire. (Read the interview)

Hip-Hop Review: Method Man, "4:21 The Day After"

Originally reviewed for okayplayer.com

"Yoyo yo Me—, hold-up hold-up, yo, Meth, where my killa tape at, god?"

No really, where my KILLA tape at?

[Read the review, then check back in for the CanineMind Exclusive "Excursus on Listening to Method Man"]

On Style: Excursus on Listening to Method Man -- Enter the Shiv Style

A CanineMind Exclusive

If 4:21 left me less than satisfied, I’m still no less convinced that Meth has been receiving unfair hate as of late. On top of resequencing and relistening to T2 and 4:21, listeners should consider the following stylistic points…

Meth may be hip-hop’s most mis-appreciated MC. True, until Supreme Clientele transformed Ghostface into a Golden Child for the hip-hop literati, Meth was the most visible member of what was then one of the world’s most popular hip-hop acts. His classic smoked-out voice, his towering stage presence, and his easily memorizable lyrics from 36 Chambers’ “Method Man” made him, for the all the pop listening public seemed to care, the true pointman of the Clan – a mid-90s urban icon who attracted media attention in ways more critically beloved Wu brethren like Raekwon and GZA never managed. Subsequent recording and film projects with Redman (Blackout!!! and How High, respectively) solidified his status as a larger-than-life embodiment of urban cool/stoner goofiness for the MTV crowd.

The public embraced (and Meth fed) this image so eagerly that, twelve years after his debut, few seem to regard him as either a master technician or a capable, unique lyricist. So much the worse for all involved.

Flow-wise, Meth is on a level occupied by few others. They don’t just call him the Method Man because he’s “like roll that shit, light that shit, smoke it,” but also because “there’s like mad different methods” to his style: he can switch-up his delivery several times in a single verse, shifting from machine-gun to sing-song in an instant. 50 Cent and Chamillionaire sound like they were taking notes. Even among the Wu, he stands apart. Unlike Inspectah Deck, the Clansman closest to Meth in terms of structure and preferred slanguage (a.k.a. the “really dope but at least recognizably conventional MC” – compare their lyrics to the free-abstraction weirdness of the rest of the WTC and get back to me), or the notoriously flow-crazy Ghost, Meth’s vocal inflections give his verses a visceral, mantric quality.

Lyrically speaking, Meth will never be praised for being the most complex or abstract rhymer, even given the quantum leaps his verses made from “Method Man” (“I be Sam, Sam I Am”) to tracks like “Shadowboxin’” (“Hard times and killer tactics / Spittin’ words / Plus semi-automatic slurs”) and “Supa Ninjaz” (“Flabbergasted by tracks that be True Master’d / Opposites attract beef plus they ass-backwards”). To compare Meth with GZA or Elzhi would be to miss his own distinctive (and highly effective) rhyming method.

When putting together his verses, Meth combines his flexible flow with what I like to call the “shiv style” of rhyming: he picks up random, inoffensive pieces of language and refashions them into dangerous weapons. This is not the happy-go-lucky cultural recycling of Nelly (“Ande-rei, ande-rei, Mami, E-I, E-I, uhooooooh) or Young Joc (“Eeenie, Meenie, Minie, Mo”); this is brutal word re-usage. A tired saying (“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”) becomes a call for a beat-down (“If you can’t join ‘em, BEAT ‘EM, and push your way in”), legal procedure (“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law’) becomes supra-legal menace (“MCs have the right to remain silent / Everything you say can and will be used against y’all motherfuckers”). Meth’s aggressive approach to the commonplace is visible throughout his verse from “Triumph”:

As the world turns, I spread like germs

Bless the globe with the pestilence

The hard-headed never learned

It’s my testament that does burn

Play my position in the game of life standing firm

From foreign land

Jump the gun from the frying pan

Into the fire

Transform into the Ghostrider

A six-pack and a Street Car Named Desire

Who got my back in the line of fire holdin’ back?

WHAT?!

My peoples, if you with me, WHERE THE FUCK YOU AT?

Niggas is strapped and they tryna twist my beer cap

It’s court adjourned for the bad seed from bad sperm

Erb got my wig fried like a bad perm

What the blood clot

We smoke pot

And blow spots

You wanna think twice, I think not

Now Iron Lung ain’t gotta tell ya where it’s comin’ from

Guns of Navarone tearin’ up your battle zone

Rip through your slums

There’s a reason his lyrics might not strike listeners on first spin: they’ve heard a lot of what he’s said at some other point in their lives, spouted by parents, police officers, or high school English teachers. And that’s the genius of Meth. He recasts clichés by revealing their latent malice… or injecting something sinister of his own. Sharpened up in the uniquely Meth-style, even the blunt clutter of everyday language comes out on point.