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ÉÍÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄùùú úú úùùÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÍ»
ÓÄÄÄÄÄÄÍ» ÚÄÍÍ T H E ÍÍÍ D U B ÍÍÄ¿ ÉÄÄÄÄÄÄĽ
ÉÍÄÄÄÄĽ ÃÄÍùú P R O J E C T úùÍÄ´ ÓÂÄÄÄÄÄÍ»
³ ÉÍÄijÄ͵ PRESENTS: ÆÍijÄÄÍ» ³
³ ³ ÓÄĽ ÓÄĽ ³ ³
³ ³ Dub: Monitor of Hip Hop Culture ³ ³
³ ÈÍÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄͼ ³
ÈÍÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄùùú úú úùùÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄͼ
"Dub"
Monitor of Hip Hop Culture In Mainstream Media
Volume One, Issue Two
07.05.94
-=> Editor's Note <=-
The Dub Project complies and makes available this monitor of hip hop culture
in the mainstream media. The goal of this guide is to increase the visibility
of the hip hop community worldwide. While this guide is an not an exhaustive
resource, it is a useful compendium of many resources and can be a helpful
reference for a true hip hopper surfing cyberspace. This resource contains
articles from other sources for analysis and discussion.
The Dub Project is now involved in building a place for hip hop within the
emerging information infrastructure. If you are interested in becoming a
member of the Dub Project, which is involved in the creation of this extensive
public-access hip hop database, please inform us.
R.O. King,
Director of the Dub Project.
rawlson.king@ablelink.org
-=> Contents <=-
Dub News
Gangsta Was the Case
DR. RAP: U-M prof finds rhyme and reason in hip-hop
Recurrent Monitor: Arrested Development
Recurrent Monitor: Grand Puba
Hot Hip Hop Recurrent 12" Anthems for hard rap sets
Taking Cypress Hill (By Strategy)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
D U B N E W S
-- If you are reading Dub for the first time, welcome aboard! This
electronic sheet is published twice a month by _The Dub Project_. To
subscribe via Internet E-Mail, simply send a message to
Rawlson.King@ablelink.org. Once you send a message, you will be added
to our mailing list. You will not only receive ten issues of Dub,
but also a free lifetime membership in the project.
-- To obtain Dub via anonymous FTP:
etext.archive.umich.edu /pub/Zines/Dub
-- An FAQ about _The Dub Project_ is presently in the works. Like
Gangstarr kicks: "Stay Tuned...."
R.O. King
Director of the Dub Project
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
-=> Gangsta Was the Case <=-
Shaping Our Responses to Snoop Dogg
The Village Voice
March 8, 1994
Washington D.C. -- for all intents and purposes, last week's Senate hearing on
gangsta rap was really a trial of Snoop Doggy Dogg (in absentia), and he hung
the jury. Verdicts ranged from guilty to not guilty by reason of insanity to
innocent by virtue of telling it like it is. So flowed the judgements from
panelists before the juvenile justice subcommittee, which convened under the
rubric "Shaping Our Responses to Violent and Demeaning Imagery in Popular
Music."
Despite the broad title, the debate--before an SRO crowd of more than 300,
with a sizable contingent of rap fans from Howard University--focused almost
exclusively on the hardened genre of hip hop that Congress itself has now
catalogued as gangsta rap. For reasons not fully explained, Senator Carol
Moseley-Braun-- the Illinois rookie chairing her first hearing--insisted
rappers were not being singled out. Yet clearly there were. During the four-
and-a-half-hour symposium, only fleeting mentions of heavy metal or punk acts
flew by. The sheets of graphic lyrics stacked on the press tables had dated
rock samples: "Necrophiliac" by Slayer, "One in a Million" by Guns 'N Roses,
"Shout at the Devil" by Mtley Cre, and "I Kill Children" by the Dead
Kennedys. The latter band, of course, broke up years ago, though the ripe
name remains de rigueur for Washington rock hearings.
The Moseley-Bruan proceeding was dominated by African Americans who were
sharply divided on the top. Unlike the February 11 House gangsta-rap hearings
chaired by Illinois Democrat Cardiss Collins, which featured expert testimony
from Yo-Yo, only one rapper appeared last week, despite invitations Moseley-
Braun's staff said it extended (2 Live Crew's Luther Campbell was scheduled,
but didn't show.) It turned out that not testifying was a fine strategy,
because the impressively credentialed gangsta defenders outargued, by my score
card, similarly prestigious attackers.
Representative Maxine Waters whose congressional district includes South
Central L.A., was the first to address the senators (three of them at the
opening, then quickly dwindling to only Moseley-Braun). Waters championed
gangsta rappers, at one point reciting a lengthy passage from Snoopy Doggy
Dogg's "Murder Was the Case," in which a jailed young man raspingly despairs,
"Dead God, I wonder can you save me?/My boo-boo is about to have a baby, and I
think it is too late for praying."
Yes, Congresswoman Waters said, the relentless cursing is offensive and
insulting, all that ho and bitch talk: "But I have to tell you all. I am more
truly bothered and grieved, however, by the painful landscapes these songs
paint--story after story about young Black men losing their way and losing
their fight in this nation of ours." Snoop Doggy Dogg, Ice Cube, Ice-T, Queen
Latifah, Dr. Dre, and Yo-Yo, Waters said, "are our artists and our poets....
Let's not lose sight of what the _real_ problem is. It is not the words being
used. It is the reality they are rapping about."
Does reality shape rap or does rap shape reality? That was the heart of the
day's argument--and the heart of previous debates about popular culture, from
congressional hearings on violent comic books in 1950s to recent congressional
hearings on violent video games.
Civil rights veteran Dr. C. DeLores Tucker, founder and chair of the National
Political Congress of Black Women, didn't even see the need for argument. Her
mind was made up. Gangsta rap induces crime, it's obscene, and government is
obligated to silence it. Coming from a potent Democratic fundraiser and
policy shaper, such an opinion carries weight in the Capitol and elsewhere.
(The organization has picketed D.C. music stores that sell gangsta rap. In
one such encounter, Tucker was arrested with fellow protestor Dick Gregory.)
Tucker's clout made me think of Tipper Gore and the Parent's Music Resource
Centre, who were not in evidence last week. In 1985 the PMRC finagled a
hearing a hearing before the Senate Commerce committee, which Tipper's husband
Al Gore sat on, to attack dirty rock lyrics. The artist and song that
inspired Tipper to form the PMRC, as she then told it, was Prince's "Darling
Nikki," which begins, "I met her in a hotel lobby/Masturbating with a
magazine." In response to the Senate's intimidation, the music industry
voluntarily instituted the PARENTAL ADVISORY EXPLICIT LYRICS warning stickers,
negotiating directly with the PMRC. The outrage over auto-eroticism now seems
quaint compared to the grave argument Tucker made that gangsta rap is a deadly
evil. She testified:
"Recently we have seen two incidents which vividly demonstrate the cause-and-
effect correlation between what young people hear in rap and how they act. In
one case, a 16-year-old from New Mexico, along with two of his friends,
stabbed to death the boy's 80-year-old grandparents in a dispute over beer. A
lieutenant investigating the case said that the teenagers worked themselves up
by listening to a tape of Snoop Doggy Dogg entitled "Serial Killa." The
second incident just occurred last week, when an 11-year-old Dayton, Ohio boy
accidentally killed his three-year-old sister and injured another
five-year-old sister, while brandishing a gun and imitating the actions of
Snoop Doggy Dogg."
That Dayton 11-year-old was a spectre haunting the hearing, though no one
asked where his butthead supervisors were. Many citizens might fault Mom or
Dad for leaving their copies of _The Chronic_ or _Doggystyle_ laying around.
So shouldn't the blame for leaving a gun within their boy's reach also land
squarely on them, rather than scapegoating Snoopy Doggy Dogg (or GI Joe or
Ninja Turtle Donatello)?
Tucker slipped down other slopes as well. She pointed at the blown-up cover
of _Doggystyle_ on a tripod at the front of the hearing room, and said, "If
the filth that is depicted in those cartoons in not obscene, then I submit
that nothing is." (In her presentation, the ACLU's Laura Murphy Lee sliced
open such reasoning about obscenity, noting that in 1992 a federal court
concluded that "music possesses inherent artistic value" and therefore 2 Live
Crew's notorious _As Nasty As They Wanna Be_ did not fulfil the law's
definition of obscenity.)
Still, only a calloused soul could dismiss Tucker's wounded sensibility, which
was seconded by Dionne Warwick, a cochair at the Congress of Black Women. The
only performer to address the proceedings, Warwick said, "I am hurt. I am
angered. I am tired, and I've had enough." Again, the PMRC's fuss about
jerking off seems trivial compared to the source of Warwick's pain, T-shirt
slogans like "Women Ain't Nothing But Bitches and Hos." Given that ugliness,
can these politically wired women be faulted for using their clout to demand
action?
Well, yes, though it was relief to see the disagreement couched in terms other
than street dis. In addition to Maxine Water's affirmation of the toughest
rappers, Brown University professor Michael Eric Dyson challenged gangsta
critics to not only try to understand the music but to consider their own
biases. Speaking as an ordained Baptist preacher, the father of a 16-year
boy, and as a "petit bourgeois Negro intellectual," Dyson said it is sad "the
way in which most black leaders critical of gangsta rap remain silent about
the genre's vicious verbal abuse of gays and lesbians...A brutal battery of
'fags,' 'punks,' and 'dykes' are peppered in gangsta rap's vocabulary of rage,
and black leaders' failure to make this an issue only reinforces the inferior,
invisible statues of black gays and lesbians in black cultural institutions,
including the black church.
"We must deal with an honest assessment of the conditions that lead to gangsta
rap," Dyson continued. He too, let fly some Snoop Doggy Dogg, this snippet
from _The Chronic_'s "Lil' Ghetto Boy," and also despairingly beseeching God:
Waked up, jumped out of my bed
I'm in a two-man cell with my homie Little Half-dead
Murder was the case that they gave me
Dear God, "I wonder can you save me?"
What you have in Snoop Doggy Dogg, Dyson explained, "is a second-generation
Mississippi drawl in the postindustrial collapse of L.A. trying to come to
grips with what it means to make the transition from a stable life to one
that's been undermined by forces of economic misery, economic immiserization,
and class division. Those are the real culprits here."
This set up the sharpest clash of the day. Dr. Robert T. M. Phillips, deputy
medical director for the American Psychiatric Association, labelled Dyson's
reasoning "nonsense." Phillips argued that violent music does indeed cause
violent behaviour. Although forceful and ardent, he didn't make a case that
was nearly as persuasive as Dyson's. To my reading, the studies Phillips
cited, elaborated in his statement provided to the press, seemed biased or
inconclusive.
"We are not talking about freedom of expression," Phillips continued in his
rebuttal of Dyson. "We are talking about the protection of our children from
pathology. This is pathology. This is a cause-and-effect relationship
between what we hear and what we see and how people act violently in the
street. We can not intellectualize this away. We can not cast this in the
mould of an art form. We have to recognize this for what it is. It is yet
another example of the way in which we are institutionally and racistly turned
inward against ourselves. We are doing today what centuries of oppression
could not do to us."
May car heard real anguish resonating within Phillips, which, in a way the
physchiatrist did not intend, testified to the power of gangsta rap, the most
fiercely disturbing music ever made.
_The rest of the_ day's discussion was anticlimactic. The ACLU blew away the
hazy legal talk, a couple record executives and lobbyists brought some
diplomatic industry noise. David Harleston, president of Def Jam Recordings/
Rush Associated Labels, noted, "Some would argue the purposes of gangsta rap
are being served right here on Capitol Hill." In other words, perhaps the
National Political Congress of Black Women was merely another authority
leaning on rappers, a fresh target of protest. You can bet rude rhymes about
it and the hearing are being readied for the mike.
Ultimately, though, it seems unlikely that this hearing will lead to
legislation. Moseley-Braun said as much in a press conference after the
hearing, noting that no follow-up hearings are planned in the Senate (though
two others are tentatively slated in the House). She'll wait to see what
response the hearing elicits before revisiting the topic. "The industry
should get the message from what we said here today." In particular, she
indicated, certain titles should not be sold to kids, and she hoped the
private sector could handle that, perhaps even developing a rating system like
the one used for the movies.
Tipper Gore (along with Mrs. James Barker, Mrs. Bob Packwood, and several
other wives of Washington heavies) scared record companies into stickering.
Moseley-Braun is hoping for something more--banning sales outright. It seems
doubtful she and the National Political Congress of Black Women have the
muscle to advance such a profit-threatening agenda. What they have is bully
pulpit, which could conceivably scare retailers away from gangsta rap.
Wal-Mart and K mart already refuse to stock albums with warning stickers. The
mid-Atlantic chain Kemp Mill Music has a store-by-store policy. One outlet in
suburban Herndon, Virginia, breaks down rap suitable for kids, teens, and
adults.
Although perhaps overly optimistic, I think free-speech forces won this
battle, or at least drew a stalemate. If so, this hearing might be applauded
if the focus shifts to healing the environment in which gangsta rap bleeds.
Even if C. DeLores Tucker, Cardiss Collins, and Carol Moseley-Braun are not
convinced, they're politic enough to know when to reconsider a subject.
Outlawing gangsta rap would only further the isolationist urban policies of
the Reagan era. Is it really in their interest to make the ills of the city
even easier to ignore? Snoop Doggy Doggs that don't bark are perhaps more
dangerous than the ones that do. þ
Research: Smith Galtney and Selwyn Seyfu Hinds
12/10/93
Copyright, 1993 Detroit Free Press
DR. RAP: U-M prof finds rhyme and reason in hip-hop
BY ROBIN D. GIVHAN
Free Press Staff Writer
With everyone from Newsweek to NBC slamming rap and
getting all hot and hysterical about it, we decided to sit
back and get intellectual. So we called professor Robin
D.G. Kelley.
Kelley, an associate professor at the University of
Michigan, teaches ``Black Popular Culture and Contemporary
Urban America,'' which covers hip-hop _ from graffiti to
music. In addition to academic papers on rap _ particularly
the West Coast gangsta variety _ Kelley also was featured
in a recent issue of Rolling Stone along with a handful of
other profs who are taking hip-hop into the
classroom.
Kelley, 31, grew up in Harlem, Seattle and southern
California. He lives in Ann Arbor with his wife and
3--year-old daughter, who by the age of 2
knew all the words to Arrested Development's
``Tennessee.''
Kelley favors baggy jeans, baseball caps, Reeboks and
Pumas. His hot picks of up-and-coming rappers are Madkap
and Lords of the Underground. And he has been known to
break the silence in the faculty parking lot by blasting
the boomin' beats of Cypress Hill.
Freep: Why do the mainstream media seem mostly to
ignore the rainbow of rap and focus only on the hard-core
stuff?
Kelley: I see it as part of a general attitude toward a
lot of African-American youth. There's without a doubt a
crisis of escalating violence, and people are looking for
an easy way to explain it. And the easiest way is to hold
three or four guys up as the explanation.
Freep: Like 2Pac and Snoop Doggy Dogg?
Kelley: Tupac Shakur is crazy. I'm not about to defend
him. . . . I think the hype around Snoop is as much
generated by the record company as it is generated by
critics. . . . As a performer and as a rapper, in the way
he uses his voice, the tone and meter, he's brilliant.
There are few who have the talent to fall in between the
beat. He's kind of a Thelonious Monk of rap.
But a lot of his rhymes are just schoolboy stupidity.
But, hey, I've rocked to schoolboy stupidity when the
beat's bumpin'. It's not political rap; it falls in the
toasting and dozens tradition (early forms of creative
boastings, put-downs and storytelling incorporated into
rhythms and rhymes).
Freep: Do rappers intentionally play up a dangerous
background?
Kelley: A lot of rappers and PR people who bank on
danger play that up. . . . Most play down or make no claims
to a dangerous or tough background.
Freep: That's become an issue, hasn't it? Background
and the notion of the authentic black experience?
Kelley: Groups like Disposable Heroes (of Hiphoprisy)
question what black is. Blackness does sell; so does a
connection with ghetto life. Look at ``Boyz N the Hood''
and ``New Jack City.'' The tragedy with society is that
there's a belief that there's a more authentic way to be
black and that equals the ghetto experience.
Freep: In hip-hop, what are the different definitions
of ``nigger''?
Kelley: As a term of endearment, it's extremely old.
Part of what is happening is ordinary language comes out in
hip-hop, including ``nigger'' as an endearment thing.
For a lot of gangsta rappers, it refers to people who
are second-class citizens. When Ice-T uses it, it's
everyone who's a second-class citizen. When Tupac uses it,
it's N-I-G-G-A: Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished.
There's also a debate against using it. The hip-hop
community is divided.
Freep: Will folks ever excuse rappers (for their bad
behavior)?
Kelley: I don't think so. . . . Rap is such a mixed
process. It's one of the few musical genres where the music
is rarely ever talked about. It's the lyrics. It would be
great to reach the classical acceptance of jazz and rock,
but because it's so connected to the black urban crisis and
the menace of black urban males, well, I don't think I can
see that far into the future. In all my years of research,
I've never seen such an assault on music like the one we're
involved in now.
Freep: What are your favorite groups?
Kelley: The Coup, Freestyle Fellowship, the Pharcyde,
and I really like Salt N Pepa's most recent album (``Very
Necessary'') a lot.
The older I get, the more I sort of pay attention to
music as sound. So for a lot of these groups, the politics
isn't important. I'm less interested in having someone
preach to me about a revolution I'm supposed to be involved
in and more interested in how they construct their music.
My politics comes from reading the Nation. (When it
comes to my music ) I need to have something in my car
playing so loud the rear window shakes.
-=> Recurrent Monitor: Arrested Development <=-
In the heart of Georiga, U.S.A. lies the town Lithonia, home of Life Music
missionaries Arrested Development. The town relies on nearby Altanta for
major action and its isolated nature nurtures bands with original vision like
Arrested Development, unconstrained by the demands of an "in scene."
Spirtual is an adjective made for Arrested Development, symbolism is their
noun, and atmospheric is their music. Their ground-breaking debut album
3 Years, 5 Months, and 2 Days In The Life of.. captures this descriptive
trinity. (The three years, five months, and two days referred to in the
title is the time spent since formation to signing a record contract).
Bored with the hard-kicking gangster music haze enveloping America at the
time, frontperson Speech, searching for something new, came up with the
term Life Music. What it was and remains to be, is msuic that makes people
appreciare life when they hear it. In tune with this philosophy, Arrested
Development is comprised of both male and femal members. Gender is not a
issue as the sistas look, act and dress like women, but refus to take part
as stereotypical babes in the background.
"We felt that one they appreciated life, they'll want to fight for their
right fot their rights as a person and as a people," states Speech.
"I didn't feel that rap was losing it roots, I just felt that rap needed
to grow more, and that wasn't a dis, that's the truth. I think the music is
such a beautiful music that it always has room to grow and I'm not saying what
Arrested Development is doing is the last growth period it's gonna go
through."
"I think there's gonna be groups, in fact I know there will be, that will
take it further, and that's good because that's what hip hop is about...
constantly growing. I don't want it to go in cycles, I want it to continue
to bring on more and more new elements."
Arrested Development have brought a Southern perspective into the hip hop
world. They are the first group to talk about the deep south and dirt and
trees, as opposed to concrete buildings and projects. People are just
beginning to realize that hop hop is not created in N.Y. and L.A. exclusively.
Hip hop is Georgia, hip hop is Wisconsin, hip hop is Texas, and in small
little
towns that people never though about. Residents in those little rural towns
have a different perspective on what hip hop means to them. They may never
have seeb a project, or know what NYC looks like but they definitely know
what their area looks like.
"It've very gratifying. It's beautiful to know that people are into it and
that they want to here music like this," exclaims Speech. "It's really good
to know that because sometimes you really get frustrated that it isn't even
worth it. Are people even willing to listen to anything? And when you find
out that some people are, it just makes you feel really good, especially the
black community. The black community is one where there's so many different
things influencing us right now that I'm just happy that there's some positive
things out there that's influencing us also."
Speech and crew are doing the job he feels every conscious African should be
doing: to try to think of solutions and not only talk about the problems.
Fishin' 4 Religion deals with the frustration Speech feels from the lack of
impact the Baptist Church has on today's people.
"I think the Bapitst Church here in America and being black is one and the
same 'cause I think almost every black person has experienced the Baptist
Church in America. The Baptist Chirch is very passive and it has been for
at least the last 100-200 years. Back in slavery though, the Baptist Church
was the pillar of black life. Reverend Nat Turner came out of the Baptist
Church; David Walker came out of the Baptist Church. These were people that
were rebelling against slavery and were very active. Nowadays, the Baptist
Church doesn't play that same type of role as much, so it's surprising."
The song Tennessee was written by Speech in a state of sorrow following the
loss of both his brother and grandmother. By giving people feelings of joy
that this dance floor classic elicited, Speech felt uplifted and it helped
get him through the pain he was facing.
"I think in the same way for people... I think that if it brings them joy then
that's cool 'cause that's ultimately the reason. I hope it gives them more
than just just joy but hope."
His latest creation my be his most important. Revolution is the song he was
asked to record for Spike Lee's Malcolm X movie. Changes in the musical style
of Arrested Development were brought about to add a new spirit. The sound is
rougher, a result of the Harlem attitude Speech wants the audience to feel.
When Malcolm X was alive he walked the streets of Harlem, he didn't walk down
south. Speech aimed for a feel of Harlem and of culutalism. The song also
includes the I-OH chant, borrowed from Radio Freedom, voice of the ANC
(African National Congress).
"I wanted to bring a feel of 125th Street in Harlem. Really what was going on
in my mind as I wrote the lyrics was all the struggles that our ancestors have
been through, to get me where I am today and to get my friend, who is sitting
here, to get her where she is today. That's what was going through my mind at
the time, and just giving praise and saluting to those people."
Thanks to the contributions of Arrested Development, Public Enemy, Bob Marley,
Gil Scot-Heron, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, and the Last Poets,
today's youths are getting mental food for thought.
Recurrent Monitor:
Grand Puba
The nubian brother with the flow is back. One the phone from NYC, with son
Hassan in arm, Grand Puba explains all about his new flavour.
Following differnet that his former posse Brand Nubian, Reel To Reel gives
us a Grand Puba with broader thoughts. Still a member of the Nation of Islam,
the topics and issues covered show us a Puba who can have fun with his music.
"Indeed so. It's not a matter of being serious. To me being serious is
hitting the issues that's not going ahead. Just one of two songs of mine can
be more damaging than a whole album. They pay more attention that way because
they understand that you is just the same as them. You is comin' where they
is comin' from but you deal with those things first. That makes you listen to
it more than just keep goin' on and on and on. It's just different ways.
Everybody moves in different ways."
These days Grand Puba is chillin' with DJ Alamo and Stud Dugee, who he grew
up with. The new material came about the same way as the old, listening to
msuci, gathering thoughts and ideas. It is a little bit of everything,
meaning that there are all types of music on the album, not just one straight
thing. Versatility.
"It's real. It's every topic, ideas and thought," says Puba. "They all real
and it;s real rap, it's not watered down. See, they just show the different
things of rap like R & B, then the hardcore, then the cool out. Just a
variety but it's all real."
"Day by day. Things that are most on my mind and the things I do most of the
time. I deal with reality. I don't make up no crazy wild stories or nothing
like that. I don't dwell on that point, like on the negative side 'cause
there's a lot of things that happen. I think that's gonna be for the next
album, where it gets more street and more of the other things that happens in
one's life but it's gonna be on the reel to reel again. Just gonna be a
continuation of what I didn't get to say on this one."
360 Degrees (What Goes Around) has already become a club favorite. The next
single and video is Check it Out (featuring Mary J. Blige). It will be a
remix, rugged and funky, with a whole new little twang to it.
Hot Hip Hop Recurrent 12" Anthems for hard rap sets.
..............................................................................
Artist(s) Title Label
Fu-Schnickens Ring the Alarm Giant
Lord Finesse Return Of The Funky Man Jive
Ultra Magnetic MC's Make It Happen Mercury
Black Sheep Try Counting Sheep Polygram
Tribe Called Quest Jazz Jive
Eric B. & Rakim What's On Your Mind? MCA
Monie Love Work It Out Quest
Del Tha Funke Homosapien Mistadobalina Elektra
Sir Mix-A-Lot One Time's Got No Case Rhyme Cartel
Raw Fusion Rockin' To The PM HollywoodBasic
Nice & Smooth Sometimes I Rhyme Slow Columbia
X-Clan Fire And Earth Polygram
Leaders of the New School Int'l Zone Coaster Rush
De La Soul Keeping The Faith Big Life
Naughty By Nature Everything's Gonna Be... Tommy Boy
Queen Latifah Latifah's Had It Up 2 Here Tommy Boy
Slick Rick It's A Boy Def Jam
Digtal Underground Kiss You Back Tommy Boy
Biz Markie Toilet Stool Rap Cold Chillin'
LL Cool J Strictly Business Uptown
Chubb Rock Just The Two Of Us Select
Nikki D Wasted Def Jam
Marley Marl Symphony Pt. II Cold Chillin'
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh.. The Thinhs That U Do Jive
Cypress Hill Real Estate Ruff House
2 Pac If My Homie Calls Interscope
AMG Jiggable Pie Select
UMC's One To Grow On Wild Pitch
Marley Marl At The Drop Of A Dime Cold Chillin'
BDP Duck Down Jive
MC Lyte Poor Georgie First Priority
Das Efx They Want EFX East West
Pete Rock & CL Smooth They Reminisce Over You Elektra
Fu-Schnickens La Schmoove Jive
Yo-Yo Home Girl Don't Play Dat East West
X-Clan Xodus Polygram
Positive K Night Shift 4th & Broadway
Naughty By Nature Guard Your Grill Tommy Boy
Jeru The Damaja Come Clean Payday
Tribe Called Quest Award Tour & Oh My God Jive
Souls of Mischief 93 Til Infinity Jive
YZ The Ghetto's Been Good... Livin' Large
Mad Uon Shoot To Kill Freeze
Black Moon Powerful Impak Nervous\Wreck
Illegal We Getz Busy (Remix) Rowdy
Snoopy Doggy Dogg What's My Name Death Row
Erick Sermon Erick Sermon Def Jam
..............................................................................
-=> Taking Cypress Hill (By Strategy) <=-
By Joe Levy
Village Voice
May 10, 1994
Wu-Tang Clan
Black Moon
So when exactly did hip-hop become the new art-rock? It's all there: the
headphones, the dope smoking, the oversrutinized lyrical complexity, the
demand for improvisation and virtuosity, the emphasis on flow instead of
fretwork, the promise to transport an overwhelmingly male audience to a new
realm, only this time it's the 'hood instead of the Court of the Crimson King.
Hip-hoppers honour the sound of a collective past the way art-rockers
embroidered their work with folk music--now that superbly flutes are in vogue,
can Jethro Tull samples be far behind? That's not all, either. Yesterday's
archetypal art-rock narrative pitted the heroic individual against the
strictures of authority (the state, the record company, or, for Pink Floyd,
Mother); today's archetypal hip-hop narrative pits the heroic against the
police state, the Man, or, for Snoopy Doggy Dogg, bitches and 'hos.
Blame it on hardcore. As a cocoon, hardcore seemed to make sense: talk tough,
and white audiences and record companies will think twice before pimping the
music. When hardcore's first supergroup surfaces in 1989, their name, N.W.A.,
was rumoured to be an acronym for No Whites Allowed. This was less reverse
racism that do-unto-others-before-they-do-unto-you, not an unreasonable
precept in a community that continues to be done unto and done unto again.
But like the hardcore punk that preceded it, hardcore rap was a brutal truth
whose difficult epiphanies and easy pleasures quickly disintegrated into rules
and regulations. Part of the point for both hardcores was that no one could
you how to be angry--you could express your rage any way and every way you
could imagine. Yet within a year or two both brands of rage became formulaic
anyhow--maybe because it was so easy to get away with that it sucked in
phonies and dumb asses, or maybe because rage is such a limited artistic
device that it dissipates unless shaped by increasingly sophisticated formal
restraints. White hardcore remained a ritualistic subculture until it found
its pop voice in Kurt Cobain. And though black hardcore was never so
circumscribed--it always had its pop voice, however much it sought to deny
just that--it reserved few surprises. Uzi and Tec-9s--check; bitches and
'hos--check; sex and violence--check; stunts and blunts--check; gin and
juice--check. Its seeks relief from this routine in overwhelming texture,
complex minimalism and futuristic technology. Brian Eno would be proud.
How much conformity does the hardcore ethos promote and demand? Check out the
near identical titles of the debut albums from the two current exemplars of NY
hardcore. Wu-Tang Clan's Enter the Wu-Tang (Loud/RCA) and Black Moon's Enta
da Stage (Wreck). Because the preferred format of what are now called hip-hop
heads is cassettes, both are divided into two sides, like the classic concept
albums of yore---Wu-Tang Clan even clog up their record with
self-mythologizing dialogue and _narration_ about the secrets of the wu-tang
sword, and just be glad they wasted their youth on kung fu movies instead of
J.R.R. Tolkien. Wu-Tang and Black Moon pay homage to _Enter the Dragon_ for
obvious reasons: it's the kung fu flick that fulfilled the ultraviolent
requirements of its genre and then rose above them on sheer style, hard-fought
innovation, and steel-eyed determination.
Do Wu-Tang Clan and Black Moon manage the same trick? Sometimes.
Wu-Tang--Best New Group at last week's _Source_ awards--broke out of Staten
Island with "Protect Ya Neck," a freestyle showcase that brought urban
compression back to the underground, which hadn't thrilled to this sort of
distinctly New York explosion since forsaking Public Enemy. Wu-Tang's gimmick
is eight MCs, all of whom rhyme against, around, and between the beats with
the sort of endless variation and invention that engenders unfortunate
comparisons to jazz (jazz being to hip-hop what classic music was to
art-rock). Only two, though, are real stylists: the aptly named Ol' Dirty
Bastard and Method Man, a real character whose sane-in-the-brain,
mad-in-the-throat delivery goes from the Stones to Sam I Am to Tweety Bird to
Fat Albert to _Mary Poppins_ in a single song, and who's already earned his
own Def Jam contract. To get to his showcase on _Enter the Wu-Tang_ you have
to endure 60 endless seconds of torture talk played for laughs: "I'll fucking
sew your asshole closed and keep feeding you, feeding you, and feeding you,
and feeding you...."
Wu-Tang's producers, Prince Rakeem, refers to soul hook like a preacher citing
the gospel by chapter and verse, leaving the faithful to fill in the rest. He
conjures dublike r&b ghosts, plinking out dusted piano notes like Dr. Dre on
"Deep Cover." At his best he's hard but never brutal, relaxed and mean at the
same time-- a trick that's paid off for Wu-Tang just as it has for Snoop and
Domino. _Enter the Wu-Tang_ is approaching platinum on the strength of
"C.R.E.A.M." (as in, "Cash Rules Everything Around Me"), a bleak chronicle of
necessity, drug dealing, and lives around the way that balances lines like
"As the world turned/I learned life was hell/Living in the world/No different
from a cell" with introspective piano and ominous synth shading. As in much
current hardcore, the music suggests the conscience of the '70s, thus freeing
the lyrics of any obligation to embrace or reject it. There's not so much a
lesson here as the memory of one; the sound says memory is enough. Solid as
a statue, the groove draws all its rhythmic play from the bob and weave of
Wu-Tang's MCs, hinting at sweetness without cracking a smile.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
BACDAFUCUMMAGUMMA: TABLE OF EQUIVALENCIES
(insert from Voice)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
HIP HOP ART ROCK NOTES
Cypress Hill Pink Floyd Trippy head music, seminal
N.W.A. Genesis Dr. Dre = Peter Gabriel,
the concept master
Easy E = Phil Collins,
the short guy with the high
voice
MC Ren = Steve Hackett, the
hack
Ice Cube = Mike Rutherford,
because "Dead Homiez" =
"Living Years"
P.M. Dawn Roxy Music Love is the drug
Onyx Rush Overstatement, emphasis on
insanity and persecution
Das EFX Magma Invented their own language
A Tribe Called.. The Soft Machine It's a jazz thing
De La Soul Steely Dan Beautiful, ironic, too smart
for their audience
Wu-Tang Clan Yes Everybody got a solo in
"Roundabout" too
Black Moon King Crimson Music yes, lyrics arggh
Arrested Develop Jethro Tull Folk-influenced homeless
advocates ("Mr. Wendal,"
"Aqualung")
Tupac Syd Barrett Shine on, you crazy diamond
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When Wu-Tang music moves slowly, comfortably, or melodically, it's like a
sunny day in a vacant lot--the weather may be nice, but you never lose
sight of the broken world surrounding you. As their name suggests, though,
Black Moon don't want even that hint of sunshine. Threatening other punk-ass
rappers on "U Da Man," they sound less like gang-bangers than neighbourhood
kids who _wish_ they were in a gang--kids so desperate for cred they're worse
than the real thing. From Dolomite to fat bags of buddha to getting you open
like a six-pack, their touchstones are identical to Wu-Tang's--there version
of "C.R.E.A.M.: is called "Make Munne." But all the talk of dealing,
stealing, and dying that Wu-Tang work for laughter and tears is here played
straight. The funniest Black Moon's Buckshot Shorty is threatening to do a
drive-by on his skateboard, and that's only if he's joking. At least Wu-Tang
have enough imagination to pretend they're kung fu fighters; Black Moon can
only boast about being "real niggas" -- that is, N.W.A.
"Momma just killed a man/Put a gun against his head/Pulled my trigger/Now he's
dead," raps Buckshot Shorty on "Buck Em Down." Only that's not Buckshot
Shorty--it's Freddie Mercury in "Bohemian Rhapsody," which begins by posing
gangsta rap's central riddle: "Is this the real life?/Is this just fantasy?"
Art-rockers tried hard to invent hip-hop--remember "Another One Bites the
Dust" and _My Life in the Bust of Ghosts?_ But it was too much of a
strain--their command of the colloquial and the avant-garde was anything but
casual. Black Moon's DJ Evil Dee never has that problem. At once typical and
innovative, his production epitomizes hardcore's blunted bounce and roll. It
comforts as it rouses, fading in flourishes (audience-approved jazz samples,
frosty organ, dramatic strings, buzz and static) to both keep you awake and
convince you that you're dreaming. Like _Another Green World or King Tubbys
Meets Rockers Uptown_, this music demands almost nothing, repaying however
much, or little, attention you gave it. Like so much art-rock, it trumpets
its own seriousness even as it undercuts it. And the bass hits so deep in the
chest it can give you a contact high.
Art-rock began as a reaction to rock's inferiority complex _and_ its
superiority complex; depending on how you looked at it, it's formal
aspirations were a way for a lowbrow music to become "serious" and
"important," or a natural progression for a music that was already more
"serious" and "important" than any other ever had been. Either way, it was
inevitable. Hip-hop as art-rock was inevitable for the same reasons--only this
time the music actually had avant-garde implications to make good on, no
highbrow conventions needed to be grafted on. So today rappers run from radio
play and pop crossover as a way of uplifting, protecting, and extending their
music's proud history. Wu-Tang Clan and Black Moon could be Yes covering the
Beatles in 1969, injecting chops where none had ever been needed. Or as
DJ Evil Dee told _The Source_, "Hip-hop is limited. There's a lot of beats
out there, but it's limited. It's not what you can create, but how you can
flip it the best." Spoken like a true art-rocker.
In the next issue: A Hip-Hop Guide To Cyberspace.....
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