The Best Football Fan Raps →

I spent a lot of last week putting this together. Sadly, it required kind of a lot of research, but I was tasked with creating a comprehensive history of the NFL fan rap for Adult Swim.

It started as a thing players did for themselves in the 80’s — see the aforementioned “Super Bowl Shuffle” — and fell out of favor in the 90’s. That part has been documented before, but did you know that the modern era of football fan raps traces back to… Seattle in 2005? It was the perfect storm: The Seahawks in the Super Bowl for the first time, YouTube as a distribution means; the technology that meant that every fan in a bedroom could suddenly produce a track that sounded halfway competent.

From there, this shit is cray — there’ve probably been 5-6 new Giants/Patriots raps uploaded to YouTube per hoursince Championship weekend. If you want to see how the form has evolved from “Let’s Ram It” to “Arizona Diss Rap,” click the link, y’all.

Source : adultswim.com

3 months ago | 2 notes | Reblog | | Comments
adult swim, football, rap, but only kinda,

The Battles Of G-Baby →

I have a story in the new issue of the Texas Observer. It’s the first in the magazine’s new monthly format, which is exciting — previously, the magazine ran bi-weekly, so this one will be on stands for twice as long.

The story is about Whitney Perkins, who raps under the name G-Baby. I first met Whitney when I was sitting in on a performance/sharing at Travis County Correctional Complex — Kat teaches theater classes to women incarcerated there, and she invited me to see their end-of-term project. Whitney was definitely the most charismatic performer that day, but I was still very surprised to see her retire a 5-time champion on 106 & Park’s Freestyle Friday a few months later.

The article is about battle rap, and sexism and homophobia in hip hop, and Whitney’s completely indomitable spirit. I’m pretty proud of how this one came out — give it a read, will you?

9 months ago | 16 notes | Reblog | | Comments
g-baby, texas observer, whitney perkins, writing elsewhere, rap, hip hop, homophobia, misogyny, conspire theater,

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Track: White America
Artist: Eminem

Caption:

150 Favorite Songs: #100, “White America,” Eminem (2000)

I stuck by Eminem for years because of this song. Even after it became very clear that he had nothing left in the tank, that he was Tyson facing Lennox Lewis or even Danny Williams, I stuck with him, mining albums like Relapse and Encore for flashes of what he was capable of.

By the time Recovery came around, and nearly everything I ever liked about Eminem was absent, leaving just bitter, self-indulgent meanness, I was willing to let him go. I actually downloaded Bad Meets Evil last week, and by track three, it was in the recycle bin. (Incidentally, that song — “The Reunion” — underscores everything that’s always been vile about Eminem, but without the maddening complexity that had kept him interesting. A 40 year old multi-millionaire with a teenage daughter rapping about imprisoning some woman in his car and yelling at her doesn’t carry any of the underdog charm that a song like, say, “Kill You,” by a hungry guy in his twenties, might have, or even the tortured conscience of a song like “97 Bonnie And Clyde.” In Eminem’s songs, bullies have always been the enemy — but at this point in his career, he’s clearly the bully, and he’s validated his critics in ways that call his entire body of work into question.)

But once upon a time, Eminem was making important music. “White America” is everything that Eminem was ever good at — wordplay and a dramatic, rock and roll heavy beat, with a personally revelatory, honest confession, all turned on to make an important statement to his fans, and to foster a conversation that absolutely needed to be held.

I had never heard the phrase “white privilege” when I first listened to “White America,” but I’ve never heard it explained more clearly than it is here. I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating: Eminem devoted the first song on his biggest album to explaining all of the ways that white privilege has benefited him and his career, laying out for his fans exactly what whiteness has done for him at a point at which he was already accepted by black fans and adored by white ones. It’s a singular statement — no one in the country was in a position to foster a conversation about race, whiteness, and the benefits thereof, more than Eminem was. And when he decided to do it, he did it with the lead track on the album, and he put the personal narrative that he’d cultivated — as a poor white kid who nobody believed in or took seriously — on the back-burner. He used all of his considerable talent to paint pictures of what it’s like to sell twice as many records as you would have if you weren’t a white dude.

That’s what Eminem has always been good at. For a long time, it was maddening that he balanced it with spiteful shots at women and gay people, immature nonsense songs fueled by pill addiction, and — worst of all — hatefully abusive songs directed toward his ex-wife. It’s weird to say, “I would probably not have understood the concept of white privilege if Eminem hadn’t explained it to me,” because it’s hard to hold that guy alongside the cruel abuser who used all of his considerable resources to hurt the mother of his child.

These days, we don’t really have to. Even when he’s good now — even on a song like “Not Afraid” or “Elevator” — he’s still self-indulgent, using his narrative talents to navel-gaze. It can still be compelling, but it’s hardly essential, and there’s no reason to sit through something as vile as “Bagpipes From Baghdad” or “The Reunion” in the hope that we’ll get to hear something that’s at least honest about how hard it is to be Eminem. If that’s the most he has to offer — and these days, it is — then we can let him go.

But that doesn’t make “White America” any less great a song.

11 months ago | 38 notes | Reblog | | Comments
eminem, white america, rap, hip hop, 150favoritesongs, white privilege, bad meets evil,

A challenge for music writer friends!

Every time you file a story about Odd Future and whether we should take them seriously and the conflict you feel about the fact that Tyler is so good but so awful at the same time, and how great art can be destructive and reprehensible but probably still great — let’s also be sure to file a story about a woman or a gay person who makes music, too, cool?

Because if all of the energy we spent blogging about and contemplating Odd Future and the meaning of misogyny and homophobia in art was matched by energy championing the people who are marginalized by those things, then our hand-wringing has the potential to be about changing them, at least to some extent, instead of just growing this kid’s influence by making him the only thing people want to talk about.

I’ll play if you will. What do y’all say?

1 year ago | 13 notes | Reblog | | Comments
odd future, hip hop, rap, gender, misogyny, homophobia, music writing, journalism,

Common and Childish Gambino and Karl Rove and me.

“Yes, let’s invite a misogynist to the White House.”

— Karl Rove on Common’s appearance at the White House poetry event.

This has all been super weird. I don’t believe for a second that any of the conservative outrage regarding Common has come from anyone who’s even dimly aware of Common’s recording career. I am fairly certain that anyone who’s outraged by the fact that “a misogynist” was invited to the White House (like Common is the first one EVER to get that phone call!) got a context-free crash-course in Common’s lyrics over the past week, at best, and is just making assumptions because he’s a rapper, more likely. If people are going to whine about “the race” card when they’re called out for describing Common as “a thug,” then it’s really, really clear that it’s just an attempt to silence people, because the real racism is pointing out racism. “Oh, I hadn’t even noticed he was black when I said that!”

That said: I kinda agree with Karl Rove a little bit here. Which is weird! But so much of the outrage-to-the-outrage has revolved around the fact that this is Common! He’s one of the good guys! And I get it — socially-aware hip hop fans have pointed to Common as a shining star for over a decade. I mean, I’m talking about myself there — I used to love H.I.M. I quoted the dude in my wedding vows. But this kerfuffle has reminded me of something I’ve been putting off writing about for a while now, at least since I interviewed Donald Glover a couple months ago.

Which is: I think it’s actually worse for me when someone who’s thoughtful and insightful and expresses viewpoints I relate to starts dropping thin misogyny than when it’s over-the-top, Nate Dogg or Odd Future shit. That’s a thing that really bothers me about Glover — as a comedian, he says a lot of things that I think are insightful and perceptive and challenging. As a rapper, meanwhile, he says a lot of shit like “cumming on her face” and “fuck a bitch to pass the time” and “I’m a rapist!”

So when I got the chance to talk to him in March, I asked him about it. His answer wasn’t really satisfying — basically, he got kind of defensive and made excuses, and then his publicist pulled him away because he had to shoot a video thing, and when I asked a follow-up after he came back, he took the question in another direction (incidentally, he talked about his defensiveness about being called “faggot,” where he was once more thoughtful and making decent points). I’m never quite clear, with entertainment journalism, how much you’re supposed to poke these issues. I know that I am very interested in Donald Glover’s misogynistic lyrics, but I don’t think my editors particularly want an interview that’s 1500 words of me trying to get him to admit that he’s full of shit. Furthermore, he’s not on camera — he can always blow me off if he doesn’t like the questions. So in this case, I took the fact that he didn’t really engage with the questions to mean that I needed to move on to something else. Which means I never got at what bothers me, which is this: When you have a guy who has obviously given some real thought to the social forces at work behind gender issues — one of the “good guys” — and then he starts dropping this sort of casual misogyny, he’s saying some ugly things about the concept of being a responsible dude. He’s saying, A, that it’s a part-time job, and B, that at the end of the day, it’s still totally cool to cut loose and go on about all the bitches you want to fuck.

I’m not a prude. I recognize that Glover is a single dude in his 20’s who is suddenly rich and famous and who is rapping about his life. I don’t think that there’s anything inherently wrong about rapping about horniness — when he drops his line about how he wants to “fuck small girls / minus SM / meaning fuck all girls,” I’m not sure he’s doing anything besides honestly talking about himself. It’s the “fuck a bitch to pass the time” shit, where he’s so obviously posturing in a way that’s actually dishonest that bothers me. Because if you’re a thoughtful, insightful dude who’s socially conscious and who talks about women respectfully, you gotta drop a no homo in there somehow, right?

And I don’t think that was ever more clear to me than on Common’s verse on “Make Her Say” by Kid Cudi. The song is awful — I love Cudi’s first record, but that’s not a highlight of it, with a lazy, obviously lying-around Kanye beat and sleepy rapping from Common, Kanye, and Cudi — built around the fact that the words “poker face” sound like the words “poke her face.” Like with your dick!

But Common’s verse is offensive even within offensiveness. Because he is so quick to dismiss everything that made people like him to express this shit. “They say, ‘you be on that conscious tip,’” he raps, “Get your hair right and get up on this conscious dick!” And — man! What a bummer. Because that’s the point he’s making, expressly and explicitly — just because he’s got a reputation as a socially conscious guy, that doesn’t mean he’s not willing to treat women like total shit. Haha, poke her face! Because it’s not about horniness — it’s about violence.

And so when Karl fucking Rove starts talking about how wrong it is to invite a misogynist to the White House — because lord knows we’ve never done that before! — I want to be able to point to the guy who wrote “The Light” and “I Used To Love H.E.R.” and say that he’s obviously full of shit. But I can’t, because even the leading example of what a progressive, conscious rapper is can be accurately characterized with that word. And I fucking hate agreeing with Karl Rove.

1 year ago | 7 notes | Reblog | | Comments
hip hop, feminism, misogyny, gender, common, childish gambino, donald glover, interviews, rap, karl rove, race, race,

I’m still on some “boycott cocaine” shit. I still feel like, if you’re part of this movement, why are you fucking with the puppet master’s drugs? Cocaine is tricking a lot of soldiers. There are a lot of good people who are part of our movement using it, but cocaine is a sweatshop drug. It comes from child slavery. These are kids in the fields who are being forced to pick this shit. It’s basically the powers that be keeping you high so you’ll stay distracted. It’s just a stupid fucking drug. It’s wrecking your life, and it’s wrecking our lives—the people who choose not to do that drug. There’s no way to do cocaine without impeding on someone else’s happiness. All of the fences that shit has to jump to get up your nose, you are definitely impeding on some people’s happiness when you do it.

I’ve been busy with a bunch of deadlines this week, so blogging has been light. But here’s one that ran today that I liked a lot — it’s an interview with Slug from Atmosphere for the A.V. Club.

I wasn’t sure what Slug would be like, since he’s such an intense, occasionally cranky, dude on his records. He was actually really funny, and extremely laid back about everything. I’ll often keep a list of backup questions tucked away during an interview, with things that I’d like to ask if the mood is right, and I feel like I’ll get the person I’m talking to to open up and give me something honest. I got to drop a couple of those questions here, and I loved his answers. The first was about his tendency to use an imaginary woman as the metaphor for whatever’s pissing him off (i.e., “Fuck You Lucy”) and his answer — “I’m just fuckin’ lazy” — was a believable one. The second is the one quoted above, about his anti-cocaine messages. He went off there, and it made for pretty good copy.

1 year ago | 13 notes | Reblog | | Comments
interviews, the a.v. club, music, hip hop, atmosphere, rap, writing elsewhere,

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Track: Oh No! (w/ Pharoah Monch and Nate Dogg)
Artist: Mos Def

Caption:

150 Favorite Songs: #116, “Oh No!” Mos Def, Nate Dogg, and Pharoahe Monch (2000)

Y’all youngsters may not remember this, but there was a time when hearing mainstream rap stars like Nate Dogg on the same track as “conscious” rappers like Mos Def on the same track was kind of mind-blowing. They were different worlds, and so the first time I heard “Oh No!” I thought it was amazing.

It still sounds great, with Nate doing his Nate thing over a funky beat while Pharoahe Monch does his mad preacher thing, and Mos has about as much fun as you’ll ever hear him have on a record. But it’s funny to think how far hip hop has come in the past decade. Now, the biggest rapper in the game can collaborate with some bearded folky dude on a couple songs and we barely blink.

I love Mos Def’s verse here — it’s so much looser than he usually is, full of amazing boasts, the sort he rarely bothered with. “The kids better buy my rookie card now / cuz after this year the price ain’t coming down” may be my favorite rap boast ever. “Keep your boots laced if you wanna keep pace.” When Mos Def wanted to be the best rapper in the world, he could record songs that made a strong case for it.

Pharaohe Monch’s verse here is pretty dated. I mean, Skytel pagers! Weird homophobia*! But it’s energized in a way that he rarely was on his own records at the time — aside from “Simon Says,” he was always sort of a disappointment, but he brought it on “Oh No!”

I think that what makes the song really work for me, though, is the fact that it’s bigger than the sum of those parts. It’s not just one of Mos’ best verses, or a turn from Pharaohe Monch that isn’t a let down, or even the fact that both of them recontextualize Nate Dogg a little — it’s just a great, unexpected song, dropped as part of a compilation CD from over a decade ago, that sounds fresh everywhere except for the lyrical references.

1 year ago | 2 notes | Reblog | | Comments
mos def, nate dogg, pharoahe monch, 150favoritesongs, oh no!, rap, 2000,

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Track: Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Bonus Track)
Artist: Kanye West

Caption:

150 Favorite Songs: #119, “Diamonds From Sierra Leone (remix),” Kanye West (feat. Jay-Z) (2005)

I loved The College Dropout so much that I had a hard time imagining that Late Registration would do much for me. That first album was such a fun, interesting surprise that I figured most of the joy would be lost once I had my arms crossed expecting Kanye to show me something. It didn’t help that the first track, “Diamonds From Sierra Leone,” was this kind of dull rant over an admittedly hot beat where he just rapped about how he didn’t get enough respect.

This being the Internet age, and Kanye — at that point, at least — being an artist who took criticism to heart (anybody remember how humble Kanye was early on in his music?), he went back and re-did it. He re-wrote the first verse so it delivered on the socially-engaged, politically-aware commentary that the name promised, and then he brought in Jay-Z for a post-retirement victory lap.

Kanye’s verse is about diamond mining and the inner conflict he feels in wanting to wear them even though he knows that a whole lot of people get hurt bringing them to his watch; Jay-Z’s verse disregards that struggle entirely, because when is Jay ever really political? But he also turns in a series of the best boasts ever put to record, dropping his own gems line after line. “This ain’t no tall order, this is nothing to me / difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week;” “I sold kilos of coke / I’m guessing I can sell CDs;” and of course, “I’m not a businessman / I’m a business, man.” He tops the verse off with a casual, “I’m young, bitches.”

For sheer hip hop bravado, no one has a swagger like Jay-Z does here. Is it incongruous with Kanye’s verse? Well, yeah, sure. But that tension has been at the core of rap — of protest music, really — since forever. Public Enemy let Flava Flav do silly shit like “Can’t Do Nuthin’ For Ya” alongside Chuck’s preaching;” Bob Dylan would deliberately undermine his politically-minded songs by recording vague nonsense right next to them. Anyone who was all-message, all-the-time, has also been pretty boring, because the pop song isn’t a perfect medium for those sort of important messages. Even Rage Against The Machine, that most humorless of message-bands, broke up the heaviness by dropping covers of apolitical songs like “How I Could Just Kill A Man” and “Microphone Fiend” on their final album. For me, the fact that Kanye took an epic beat and showed how it could be just as effective at carrying a message about his personal struggle with the diamond trade as it was at conveying Jay-Z’s message about how much better Jay-Z is at everything than everybody else is — that’s a certain kind of message, too.

1 year ago | 11 notes | Reblog | | Comments
150favoritesongs, diamonds from sierra leone, hip hop, jay-z, kanye, music, rap, posts that are gonna get reblogged a dozen times but with all the text deleted,

If I keep rapping, we might get a song about getting my prostate examined.

quote that won’t end up making it into the article from an interview I did this afternoon.

1 year ago | 3 notes | Reblog | | Comments
interviews, freelancing, slug, atmosphere, rap, hip hop, music,

Leaders of a New School: Hip-Hop in Universities →

Also on MTVHive, I have this story about the unexpected trend in universities to hire rappers on as faculty. I saw lots of jokes on various blogs about the fact that Bun B was teaching Hip Hop And Religion at Rice, and I knew that 9th Wonder had some experience teaching in North Carolina, and I started looking into it more closely.

I really loved putting this story together, because it gave me a chance to talk to a lot of fairly brilliant people about topics I was keen to discuss. I spent a week talking to professors like Mark Anthony Neal and Anthony Pinn and Adam Bradley (who was super thoughtful and insightful in our exchanges, and who helped inform every aspect of the story, but whose quotes were cut for space reasons); as well as rappers like 9th Wonder and Dessa, about the way hip hop is changing and the role of rap in higher education that isn’t just, like, a “The Meaning Of Tupac” elective or something.

Even on days when I’m not working on anything particular exciting, I’m still aware that I’m very lucky to have this job, because compiling events picks or writing dumb jokes for some blog are both way better than most other jobs I am qualified for. But the week I spent putting this story together, I realized just what an incredible privilege it is to have the opportunity to talk to all of these insightful people about a topic that all of us are deeply passionate about. I hope some of that comes through in this story.

1 year ago | 1 note | Reblog | | Comments
freelancing, writing, mtvhive, rap, hip hop, music, education, higher education,