Cultur3lla

Justified

2011-12-21T14:16:00.001-08:00

Really experimenting now, so bear with me.

The Rock

2011-12-21T11:21:00.001-08:00

Because I like the man.

Adventures in Hip Hop | Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor

2011-12-13T14:17:00.001-08:00

There’s a tiny thing I miss in Hip Hop, as opposed to my previous musical staples, and that’s being able to sing along. I love singing and, despite my unpredictable voice, when I like a song I WILL sing along to it, consciously or unconsciously. It’s a part of my appreciation, and a deeper immersion into the music.

With Hip Hop this is harder. I’m still getting used to the rhythms and the different jargon, and well let’s face it, I’ll never be a rapper. So I find myself singing along with the instruments and MOVING more to the music. It really hit me with this album, where I regularly found myself happily dancing and bouncing around in my chair while I listened.

Where Be served us a supersized helping of Soul and R&B and Game Theory continued that but surprised me by throwing in a Radiohead tune, this week’s installment had me actively going “Whaaaaaaaahahahahat is that doing here???” Yes, it is once again a “family friendly” offering (apt description of the last two albums by a reader), and yes, this will change. But I needed to fall in love with the genre before I would be able to forgive it it’s… warts. Besides, the fact that Hip Hop is family friendly shouldn’t count against it anymore than if it is more adult in theme. Anyway, I think Cmonies has successfully seduced me into falling in love with Hip Hop, using only three albums. Bravo sir!

I think this is the most diverse album I’ve heard so far. Lupe Fiasco pulls his inspiration from very diverging genres and his subject matter too, though familiar, focuses occasionally on something more distinct, more personalized than purely an ode to/dirge for the hood. I guess the same can be said for the previous albums, but the outings here are more deviating than what I’m used to.

Also check out that cover guys, as you’ll see it fits perfectly with the retro-futuristic vibe we’ll find in some of the music.

As usual, all orange titles are clickable!

1| Intro

The intro almost daunted me as it tapped into one of my unfaced fears: angry lady rappers. I know I’m going to have to confront them sometime, but there can be something very aggressive and intimidating about a female rap artist. At least to me. Fortunately, this lady is not angry. It is in fact Iesha Jaco, Lupe Fiasco’s sister, who introduces us to her brother and this album.

She calls out the state of youngsters in Urban America, and that the days of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King have ended. Youths are not idealistic anymore, but are only concerned with clothes, rims, shorties and violence, keeping the hospital wards filled with GSW victims and the funeral homes in booming business.

In contrast there is this person “evolved from the hood” who is trying to turn “the fiasco to good”. Cue Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, aka Lupe Fiasco, with an Islamic prayer and his philosophy:

I think the world, and everything in it
Is made up of a mix, of two things
You got your good, y'know, and your bad
You got your food, and your liquor

And there we have our album title and the main philosophy. Iesha’s rap is underlayed only with the cheerful whoops and yells of people meeting up on the street, then a wistful tune complements Lupe’s dedication to his grandmother before flowing into the lavish opening orchestra. The very grandiosity has quite a thrilling effect.

2| Real

From that slightly heady beginning we jump to something that is altogether more driving and urgent. We have an unavoidable guitar riff borrowed from the intro of Harvey Mason’s How Does It Feel (please check that out, the gruff vocal posturing cracked me up, especially combined with the album cover), and this gives it a dash of disco, without going near the campiness of the rest of the tune. It’s extremely infectious, with a clapping, energetic feeling and a great hook sung by Sarah Green.

Lupe speaks of the disillusionment of people who find out their pursuits are actually not real, but empty and destructive. What stood out to me was that Lupe seems to have a feeling of responsibility because he has it better than most. If he is able to keep his homies out of trouble by giving them some rims or sneakers, he’ll do so, but he also wants to give people something of worth.

3| Just Might Be OK

Humphrey’s Overture, by Paul Humphrey, has a trumpet fanfare somewhere in its intro. It also has some subtle laser sounds and that nice swampy Shaftish vibe. Lupe takes these elements and dials them WAY up. The fanfare is repeated every few bars, there are MOAR LAZURS, faux-futuristic squiggles and doodles and even airplanes zooming overhead. The cacophony works, but it’s borderline. One more bleep or boop could have sent it spinning into the realms of Just Too Much.

What we’re dealing with though, is a hustler taking stock of his situation. He has listened to the devil on his shoulder a few times too often, turning him into a guy that puts on a different face when he goes home to see his mama, and worried about the little brother, practicing his swagger in the mirror, who so much wants to follow in his footsteps. And doesn’t the brazen, over-the-top medley of noise suit the slightly defiant optimism of this man, who tries to convince himself that they “just might be ok”? Gemini features on the hook, as if desperate to make the whole sound sunny.

4| Kick, Push

I really love this track. It is nothing more or less than a love song to skateboarding. We follow a young kid as he gets on a skateboard for the first time, promptly falling off of course. He perseveres and becomes a proficient roller, skating around his city and being chased away everywhere. He meets a girl he likes but he is hesitant of commitment:

He said I would marry you but I'm engaged to these aerials and varials
And I don't think this board is strong enough to carry 2
She said boy I weigh 120 pounds, now
Lemme make one thing clear
I don't need to ride yours I got mine right here

So they skate on together, forming a clan and still being chased from parking lots to apartment block stairs. I love how Lupe portrays the sounds and experience of skateboarding, the rhythm of the Kick, Push, Kick, Push, Kick, Push, Coassssst in the chorus, and:

Ca-kunk, ca-kunk, kunk
His neighbors couldn't stand it, so
He was banished to the park

The whole is supported by quite a dramatic orchestral background again, the strings of which are sampled from Filipino singer Celeste Legaspi’s Magtaksil Man Ikaw or Bolero Medley. Again, the rather smarmy cheesiness of the sample doesn’t seep through in the track. It just gives me the vicarious feeling of the freedom and rebellion of skating, without actually trying to get on a board. Knowing me, I would surely break a few bones if I did.

5| I Gotcha

We have some illustrious guest stars here, in the form of Pharrell Williams on vocals in the hook, and The Neptunes producing. He credits them sure enough:

And so to sign off, this beat I rhyme off
Is from the Thelonious P and Hugo Mind Boss

One hell of a compliment to Williams, calling him Thelonious P. Here Lupe seems to be presenting himself as the real shit, the genuine article, someone who has battled his way up and is proud of it.They use a lilting, playful piano melody together with a tight, choppy beat, and is that an accordion I hear in there?

6| The Instrumental

This is where the outside influences become really diverse. We’ve already had seventies disco and Filipino crooners, and now Lupe intersperses the verses of the rather inaccurately named The Instrumental with a chorus that includes pieces from Nestle, by the alt-rock band Far.

We’re going for the futuristic vibe again, with slightly eerie synths and a plodding bass beat. The subject is a television obsessed man, and his obsession seems to drive him mad. But it might as well be about media-addicted society as a whole:

He just sits, and listens to the people in the boxes
Everything he hears he absorbs and adopts it
Anything the box tell him to do, he does it
Anything it tell him to get, he shops and he cops it

Josh Matranga assists Lupe on the choruses of this rather haunting track. It tends to stay with you.

7| He Say She Say

This was the heartbreaker of the album for me. It doesn’t sound like it though! The sweeping keys, brass and strings are lifted from the seventies lounge of Burt Bacharach’s The Last One to Be Loved, giving it a mellow, agreeable flow. Gemini and Sarah Green both join in again to heighten the soul.

The lyrics deal with a mother and son, who have been abandoned by the father who can’t be bothered to stay involved. The mother kicks off, painting a portrait of a little boy who used to do well in school, but is now flagging and getting into fights. His friends ask if his dad is sick of him because he never comes to pick him up. Sad as that is, it really tugs at your heartstrings when the little boy repeats her words:

I don't deserve to get used to that
Now I ain't asking you for money or to come back to me
Some days it ain't sunny but it ain't so hard
Just breaks my heart
When my momma try to provide and I tell her 'That ain't your job'
...
You know the world is out to get me, why don't you give me a chance?"

Tragic stuff. Let’s lighten the mood by looking for the same Burt Bacharach hook in The B-52’s Mesopotamia. Hint: first appearance at 1:36.

Laying down the law indeed.

8| Sunshine

This track, on the other hand, is full of romance and optimism. It is the story of having seen someone a few times in the club, and finally getting up enough courage to go up to them and ask them out. And it works! You leave the club together, go for a drive and she tells you that she has been waiting for you to make your move.

She says "that I've been waiten for you"
And I know you been chasen me too since they kidnapped me from a castle
I been thinken of you
I told a firebreathen dragon "he best not harm me" or he be sorry when he meets my one man army
And thou has come ta rescue me
My knight in shinen armor yes you be

It is brimful of the hope and optimism of first love. Lupe takes the scissors to the violins, keys and some of the electric elements of Diana Ross’s lag-ballad Friend to Friend, alleviating the halting effect with a sprinkle of bells. It’s relaxing, summery, romantic.

9| Daydreamin'

We step into a reverie next, structured completely on I Monster’s languid Daydream in Blue. It’s less floaty and ethereal than the original, but the theme is there from beginning to end, and it’s used literally in the chorus, sung by Jill Scott. Lupe does make it sound a bit more spacey again, and the bombast from the rest of the album creeps in almost without you noticing it.

The dream itself is surrealistic and not altogether pleasant. We are steering a gigantic robot through the streets of the hood, and as we observe, the whores, drug addicts and felons encroach further and further up the huge body. As the orgies and debauchery increase, he can’t help but turn away from his source.

Me and my robot tip-toe 'round creepin
I had to turn my back on what got you paid
I couldn't see half the hood on me like Abu Ghraib
But I'd like to thank the streets that drove me crazy
And all the televisions out there that raised me

He can’t bear to carry his background around with him as a millstone around his neck, but he is still grateful for what it has driven him to be.

10| The Cool

Submerged synths greet us on The Cool, leading into this spooky track. We have an old friend helping out on the chorus and production, in the form of Kanye West, giving him an appearance on three out of the three albums I have reviewed so far. The synths and the tight snare rhythm and even some of the guitar riff are taken from Dexter Wansel’s Life on Mars, which in itself is quite a cheerful seventies sci-fi pastiche, but Lupe alters the mood completely for this ghost story.

A drug dealer is shot dead and buried. However, he claws himself back out of the grave and goes wandering back to his old neighborhood, where the hoppers are trying to sell to him and end up threatening him with the same gun they shot him with.

Put it to his head and said "You scared ain't ya?"
He said: "Hustler for death. No heaven for a gangsta."

The story is full of morbid details, like his coffin being flooded with whiskey, him having to use his mouth to dig himself out and swallowing the grave dirt when he can’t spit it out. I found it quite a bizarre little tale.

11| Hurt Me Soul

The next song seems to combine the evolution of a rapper with the degradation of society. The opening interested me greatly, because it laid bare some of Lupe’s beginnings:

I used to hate hip-hop... yup, because the women degraded
But Too $hort made me laugh, like a hypocrite I played it
A hypocrite I stated, though I only recited half
Omittin the word "bitch," cursin I wouldn't say it
Me and dog couldn't relate, til a bitch I dated
Forgive my favorite word for hers and hers alike
But I learnt it from a song I heard and sorta liked

It hints a bit at the peer pressure that must come with growing up in urban America. The chorus highlights the tragedies and horrors of the environment with the drawn out track title forming practically a wail. The soulful orchestral handling with the playful keys keeps it from becoming too heavy.

12| Pressure

Another high profile guest star shows up as Jay-Z takes a verse of Pressure off Lupe’s hands. I must admit that the lyrics are (even) more cryptic for me than what I’m getting used to but I’m going to take a whack at interpreting it anyway.

I may be totally wrong but in my understanding we’re speaking of ways to make a living, from making jeans in a sweatshop to hustling, to being a rapper. Jay-Z has something to say about it too, having come so far:

So the pen is mightier than the sword my lord
My first picture was a line-up, now I'm on the Forbes
And I still remain the artiste through these all

But the most important thing is your motivation, what or who you are doing it for. To back this they use the driving bass of the disco instrumental Pressure Cooker by Thelma Houston. They even add an eagle overhead, leaving the rest virtually unchanged for an adventurous, enterprising feeling.

13| American Terrorist

American Terrorist has a powerful message of anti-intolerance, and it’s refreshingly directed at all the partaking parties indiscriminately.

camouflaged Torahs, Bibles and glorious Qurans
the books that take you to heaven and let you meet the Lord there
have become misinterpreted, reasons for warfare
we read em with blind eyes i guarantee u there's more there

And

the ink of a scholar is worth a thousand times more than the blood of a martyr

He even managed to find a positive point in the ongoing recession!

now the poor ku klux man ...can’t burn his cross cause he cant afford the gasoline

The musical setting is again very unexpected, the Spanish guitar trills and riffs having been taken from the rambling latin-jazz The Romantic Warrior by Return to Forever. The chorus features Matthew Santos and the tempo gives it a nervous, breathless energy.

WHAT IS THIS DOING HERE

14| The Emperor’s Soundtrack

As we near the end of Food and Liquor we get another glimpse of Lupe Fiasco’s philosophies and codes.

Only fear God
Know the weapons of the weak
The weakness of the hard
And never fall asleep

Never fall asleep, because it is a dangerous world out there and nobody is immune to falling prey to the expectations of others, of conforming to your environment.

The accompaniment is deliberate and rather threatening, even though the sweeping synths are a harsher take on the guitars from the soaring and absolutely beautiful rock classic Between the Walls by UFO.

15| Kick, Push II

Kick, Push II brings us back to our group of skateboarders and life has not been kind to them. They are full of scars from their lives till now, from violent or absent parents to having to beg for some money to buy a gyros. But they still have their escape:

You kick, push
Over your shoulders you swore you'd never look
Cause wasn't nothin' there but the blackness
Life wasn't too attractive

It has the same blend of classical strings and keys with a strong snare beat that we have seen in many of the tracks, tying an otherwise somber tune nicely into the whole.

16| Outro

And that brings us round full circle! Because Lupe Fiasco uses exactly the same music as the Intro and the 12 minute+ Outro is actually a thanks and dedication track. Although I must admit the shout-out to Dave’s Quality Meats among all the producers, moms and musicians has me do a double take no matter how often I hear it.

I really enjoyed the diversity of this album, the way it took us from growing up in the hood to skateboarding to first dates to daydreams and ghost stories, and musically from the cheesiest of lounge crooners to campy retro-space-disco to fusion jazz to soaring rock.

I may try a less safe option for my next post… because I’m no longer worried of being scared off. I won’t be able to shake Hip Hop ever again.

Hugs,
3lla

05-12-2011

2011-12-05T11:04:00.001-08:00

Madge

2011-11-29T14:46:00.001-08:00

Yes you will also be seeing drawings here.

Hearing with different ears

2011-11-28T09:58:00.001-08:00

It’s been a busy week, and unfortunately I have not been able to do a complete album the justice I want to do to it. So I thought I’d just let you guys know how I’m experiencing this project.

I’m not used to having to make an effort to listen to music. There was an interesting article on the AV Club a week or two back, which dealt with “boring” music and eating your cultural greens. Coincidentally the “boring” music they discussed is exactly the kind of “slow to mid-tempo, mellow, melodic, pretty in a melancholy way, catchy, poppy” music that has tended to form a staple in my listening diet for the last ten years.

So when I first read the article I thought that calling it “boring” was a pretty bald statement to make, but that’s because I have traditionally made a connection with songs of that genre, so I didn’t have to work to like it. My “boring” music was Hip Hop. Notice the use of the past tense there? Because even after two albums I am already noticing a distinct change.

When I am in the car now, and a Hip Hop track comes around, I consciously find myself listening to it in a completely different way. Sitting myself down to really attend to the music, discovering its building blocks, laying bare the technical craft that goes into constructing it and the emotions that inspire its creation have made me actually hear the MUSIC in Hip Hop and I think that’s what I was missing.

And what’s even more wonderful, I’m finding myself listening to ALL music afresh, plumbing hidden depths in old classics and favorites. It’s like I opened a new little chamber of musical appreciation in my mind.

I found myself agreeing more and more with the closing paragraphs of the article:

If you hear a song and don’t get that elusive, enigmatic, deep-down-in-your-guts feeling, that’s an honest reaction, but it’s not necessarily a criticism of the music. The reason you’re not connecting might very well be you. Your boredom could indicate an inability to appreciate a particular kind of music at this moment in time. You should regret that—or take it as a (here’s that word again) “challenge”—not wear it like a badge of honor. What good is there in not being able to like a song, something that might bring you pleasure?

So if there’s a genre of music that you’re not quite digging, or maybe you outright dislike it, I can heartily recommend just trying to take a closer look at it. Maybe ask a knowledgeable friend to send you some suggestions and pointers, and really give it a chance.

It’s so enriching!

Hugs,
3lla

Adventures in Hip Hop | The Roots–Game Theory

2011-11-18T07:43:00.001-08:00

After my last post somebody asked me why I didn’t introduce a rating system for the albums I would be covering. A “1-10 on the scale of 3lla” sort of thing. So let’s get that question out of the way first.

I am not going to introduce a ranking system anytime soon, because it would be completely meaningless. If, for example, last week I had stated that Common’s “Be” was my favorite Hip Hop album of all times, it would have been as hollow as saying that London is the most beautiful capital city in England.

At the best of times I am not fond of assigning a rank, or worth, to cultural expression. Any attempt at doing so will always be highly subjective, and the only way it can be taken in any way as an indication of quality is if the critic is an expert on the subject in hand.

And I don’t even have a frame of reference! My frame is being constructed by writing this blog, it’s happening right before your eyes. What am I going to hold it up against? The Beatles’ White Album? Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon? It would be the height of absurdity.

No, dear readers, I am not going to be so presumptuous as to give a certain album x stars out of x. I would much rather just talk to you about why it is interesting to me, and delve into its details. I’ll point out what I enjoyed, and maybe what I didn't, and let all of you make up your own capable minds on what it’s worth to you. And there’s a big chance you have already done so in the past.

So without further ado I am seizing you by the ear and dragging you into the album “Game Theory” by The Roots. When I did some reading up on it I found an interview with Questlove and Black Thought (founders of The Roots) in Rolling Stone Magazine. I tried to read around any descriptions of the music itself as I wanted to go in unspoiled but it gave me some background on their thoughts behind it.

Firstly they addressed apparent fears that they were selling out because they had signed with Jay-Z’s record label Def Jam:

Because of our past association with [Jay-Z], people could have easily thought, 'OK, these guys are about to be all on this yacht, pouring champagne on people.

However:

In this day and age, I'm kind of noticing that nobody in urban music really has the balls to just stop partying for one second... I mean, partying is good and whatnot, and it's cool to get down, but I really think that 2006 called for a very serious record. This ain't the Debbie Downer record, or the political, save-the-world record, but this is definitely not the MC-based, battle-themed album that the Roots have been known for. This is our most serious record to date.—Questlove

So is this a relentlessly commercial, radio-friendly album? Or is it a depressing and dreary dud? Let’s find out, shall we?

1| Dilltastic Vol Won(derful) (Orange track titles are clickable)

We open with a very short intro track, that leads us with its discordant chimes into False Media. You’d think there wouldn’t be that much to say about the roughly 27 second opener, but you’d be wrong.

To start with, the title refers to somebody even I know already, and came across in my post last week. Indeed, this dissonant melody is almost a dedication to J Dilla, the late, legendary producer. Its origins are mixed, because even though it has been taken directly from the Dilla-produced Fantastic by Slum Village, you have to go further back to find the source. But don’t worry, You’ll Know When You Get There. Courtesy of Mr. Herbie Hancock’s electric piano.

It’s an almost surrealistic, dreamlike introduction.

2| False Media

The dream is of short duration as the chimes fade out and a nasal voice scratches in that seems to be discussing social issues (you may know who this is but I don’t), accompanied by the cymbal-heavy drums. The voice is replaced by the dark brown tones of Wadud Ahmad, who voices the chorus.

False media borrows heavily in both substance and subject matter from Public Enemy’s Don’t Believe The Hype, which, in turn is made up of a complex construction of samples. I absolutely love how that song has been put together, but I will leave the discussion of that for a possible future review of “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back”.

What remains recognizable here are the percussion from Melvin Bliss’ Synthetic Substitution and a certain squeak originating from James Brown’s Escapism. It’s fascinating, on Brown’s record the squeak sounds harmless, perhaps a girl spotting a mouse under the table. Public Enemy makes it sound strident and rebellious, but The Roots blur it into something eerie, even ominous.

Black Thought (it’ll be a while before I lose the Douglas Adams association with his name) raps the verses and we have a variety of bells, piano scales and other indefinable tinkly bits over the tight rhythm, which brings back the dream scene a little.

The topic is anything but dreamy and, like Public Enemy, deals with the evils of a biased, untruthful media system. But where Public Enemy denounces the media’s attitude towards themselves, maybe Hip Hop artists as a whole, here we cover the skewed stance of the press on pollution, war, and how we raise our children. Rhyming Littleton with Ritalin is a strong statement, and it sets a serious tone.

3| Game Theory

We merge into a slightly more languid sound as we are greeted by the voice of Sly Stone, taken from Life of Fortune and Fame which pretty much forms the intro and the hook to this track. Black Thought eventually ups the aggression considerably with his verses, which he alternates with Malik B, a former member of the group, but as an electronic take on Sly’s trumpets joins us, the mood overall stays just on the soulful side of hostile. At least on the surface.

Listen to the lyrics and the tone of the rapping and it gets quite belligerent. We recognize themes here that were also touched on last week, the drug culture of urban America and the struggle of life on the streets, but where Common was wistful, The Roots are quite unapologetic about it. You tell us what choice we have and then we’ll talk, they seem to say, taking up their stance clearly on the side of what they view to be the victims.

Yeah, where I'ma start it at, look I'ma part of that
Downtown Philly where it's realer than a heart attack
It wasn't really that ill until the start of crack
Now it's a body caught every night on the Almanac

Harsh reality, and they’re not wrapping it up in clean linen.

4| Don't Feel Right

This reality echoes through into Don’t Feel Right but the mood shifts subtly. The antagonism is on the backburner and despair is stirred into the mix. Ahaha we hear after the starting snare beats, and it’s a groan, not a laugh. It may be a groan of the nice kind on Ohio Players’ Ecstasy but that’s not the spirit in which it should be taken here. Right afterwards comes a rather threatening, monotonous piano rhythm, crafted very slyly from Kool and the Gang’s ridiculously upbeat Jungle Boogie brass and bass intro.

Too much fun not to post.

Maimouna Youssef’s voice chimes in for the chorus, which is almost panicky in its urgency. It don’t feel right, it don’t feel right, she sings, and there is a lot wrong indeed with the scenario painted here.

Yo, in the land of the unseen hand, and hold trouble --
The struggle ain't right up in your face, it's more subtle --
That's the reason the system makin' its paper from the prison
And that's the reason we livin' where they don't wanna visit

Remember back in the days, when the kitchen had eggs
And pancakes, thicken and greens and Kool Aid
When the 'fridgerator naked then the cupboard is bare

If you ain't sayin' nothin', you a system's accomplice
It should play with your conscience, do away with the nonsense

It don’t feel right indeed. The overall tone is slightly uncomfortable with that piano dirge, but damn, does it groove.

5| In the Music

We have a few tracks without samples to dissect now, in fact only the last two tracks feature them so we might make better time. From here we also see a quite amazing mix of styles, In the Music already being a big shift in tone, if not in theme. We’re still on the streets, fighting for survival. We’re all carrying guns and people are dying. There’s grim shit in these verses.

It's kind of a thrill, my mind it will spill, my nine it will kill… Hittin your guts splittin your torso…Joints stiff from rigor mortis

But the accompaniment! It has a stark, almost industrial opening until it is filled out with a rippling guitar riff and sweeping synths. It’s a whole different sound to what we’ve been hearing so far, Malik B and Black Thought each taking a verse, and with a rousing, rhythmic chorus which keeps the riffs and sweeps from becoming uniform.

6| Take It There

Bleakness reigns supreme, Take It There whittling away the new electronic vibe to leave us with just voices and a minimum of percussion, a bit of guitar and keys. It has a poetic grandeur, as if the words might be recited earnestly from the podium of a beatnik café, with an unkempt, crazy-haired guy picking moodily away at the piano, every so often spasming across the instrument.

It's a trifle inaccessible and sullen, as a beatnik poet would be, and it suits the lyrics as always. Anger about the state of the world, the state of the environment, American cities, and corrupt politicians riddles the rhymes, and can you wonder at it.

I'm from the side of town
Where shots get sprayed around
Where the expectancy rate be twenty-eight around

7| Baby

We’re able to bump along to the music again with Baby, it has a lazy but steady clap beat that idles along under the rapped verses, and a sing-along hook (the words are not too difficult) that features a certain John John. You might all be going “Ahhhh John John!” at this point but I do not know this man.

I enjoyed this leisurely interlude, although the subject is hardly more cheerful. We zoom in from the larger issues to observe the domestic tableau of a girl who gets cheated on by her man. The first verse starts with the results:

Young girl caught in a crime of passion
Sitting there crying in designer fashion
Didn't blow, didn't have time for asking
Somebody call for the ambulance, girl

The second with the cause:

Everybody seen him run around and you bound to catch him
The condoms, you found and asked him, was all this just for practice?
He didn't realize what he had
Now your heart got fractured girl

And in between we have Mr. Two Hundred Dollar Suit pleading for his life.

Baby let me live, please girl let me slide
Baby if you let me go, I swear I'll change, just change your mind

I guess she didn’t.

8| Here I Come

The gears shift again for what is undoubtedly the fastest paced track on the album. It almost shouts its challenge at you, and with its electronic, almost rock-like tempo pounds away quite ruthlessly. It has an irresistibly provocative effect and feels like the perfect rebel anthem, making even a goody two shoes like me want to go outside and kick a road sign or a mailbox or something.

One foot in the grave
One foot in the toilet
Still I'm onstage
In front of an audience
Disturbing the peace
And the local ordinance

FUCK YEAAARRGHGH *ahem*. I would be inclined to think The Roots are being ironic with their fuck y’all lyrics, purely because the last line has them screeching defiantly off in a Mazda.

9| Long Time

After the fumes have dispersed we find ourselves in Motown, with a positively relaxed bass riff and percussion leading into a laidback trip down nostalgia lane. The gentlemen even have soul legend Bunny Sigler providing them with the chorus. And though the past that is described is a tough one, it is also an ode to Philadelphia:

Pure soul is what the city
Most popular for
Hear the tones
That will ease you
Smooth
As Bunny Sigler's soundtrack
Keepin your head boppin and all

And that’s absolutely undeniable. This feels almost like a peaceful amble after the brisk jog of Here I Come.

10| Livin' in a New World

We’re still chilling with some percussion and the hint of electronic beats, and we have John John back giving us the carefree chorus on this short song. The words belie the indolence however, as Black Thought lets his paranoia rub off on us in the domain of Big Brother, pointing mercilessly at the security cameras and phone wires that try to keep the streets in check.

From the vibe they could be singing about a day on the beach, but the message makes me look over my shoulders.

11| Clock with No Hands

This is perhaps the jazziest tune on the album, with meandering keys, soulful beats and Mercedes Martinez taking care of the hook. It’s a wistful tale of nostalgia, of abandonment and losing faith in friends.

People think that I'm crazy, just cause I wanna be alone
You can't depend on friends to help you in a squeeze
We all deal with shit on our own
And sometimes the beef can grow, get out of hand
Yeah, you know it gets full blown
I never said that you mean the world to me
Maybe it's best that you never know

The writer is firmly turned inward, and has had some hard knocks.

I watch my back, and watch my step
And I might forgive, but I will not forget come on

12| Atonement

We internalize even more, and where some of the previous contributions felt like a tranquil walk, Atonement is almost a shuffle, a dragging of feet. Black Thought shows the uncertainties in his faith as guilt and doubt surface.

We start off with Jack Davey, of the formation J*DaVeY, performing the languorous chorus. And faintly sobbing in the background, heightening the melancholy factor substantially, I was very (pleasantly) surprised to find Radiohead’s You and Who’s Army?

I was charmed to find them here, in the place you’d least expect.
The text remains bleak, fatalistic.

Now I'm faced, with the weight of survival, plus the taste
From the way I been lied to while the preacherman spittin his gospel
I can win if I try to

13| Can't Stop This

We come now to the epic finale, which is essentially a eulogy to J Dilla. I am not going into the text too much as I feel it needs to be listened to.

It’s backed by Dilla’s own Donut of the Heart (song title of the century perhaps?) including the sensual moans, which in turn is based on The Jackson Five’s All I Do is Think of You.

It’s giving me more of an idea just how influential this man was. He left a lasting impression that reverberated around the music industry for years, and actually still does. I feel I will be hearing a lot more of him. I hope I will.

Overall:

This album speaks of some of the bleakest themes you can imagine. The amazing thing is, this doesn’t press through into the music. It’s not like you feel depressed or burdened down after listening to “Game Theory”, on the contrary. There is such a fantastic mix of styles, tempos, beats and influences, you go from upbeat and violent to gentle and languorous and it all makes sense. Relentlessly commercial? Not a bit of it. Dull and dreary? Definitely not. I can listen to it over and over.

More next week.

Hugs,
3lla

PS.

I created a Facebook page for the blog, and that not wholly out of narcissism. Once I get some followers I want to start sharing some of the music discussed in my post during the week that follows, so if you’d like your feed to feature some more Hip Hop and maybe some fun musical facts now and then, feel free to like it. I promise not to spam, but I’d love to hear more opinions as I learn.

Adventures in Hip Hop | Common – Be

2011-11-11T05:02:00.001-08:00

If I said I wasn’t apprehensive on starting this project, I would be lying through my teeth. This was Hip Hop, that genre of music which in the past had always made me reach instinctively for the buttons on my radio or the TV remote. It had been unanimously frowned upon in my youth, and when I did accidently come into contact with it I often found it unfriendly, downright hostile.

Granted, the last year or so I had been confronted more and more with the genre, my boyfriend being an aficionado. Once in a while I would hear a track in the car, or he would link me a particularly hilarious video, and as time went on to my surprise I found myself occasionally bobbing along to the rhythm, or singing a tiny snippet of lyrics that I had chanced to understand (mostly incorrectly). Clearly it was growing on me.

Still, I didn’t know the first thing about Hip Hop. What if I didn’t know what to write about it, or wouldn’t understand it? What if I simply didn’t like it? It is sometimes said that negative reviews are the most fun to write and they can be a joy to read, but something told me that a weekly column consisting solely of “You guys I hate Hip Hop and this is why” would start to pall extremely quickly. No, I would need to get under its skin, and it would need to get under mine, for this to work.

So I called in the big guns, a mentor, someone to guide my toddling steps down this daunting path. Thankfully Sensei Cmonies recommended a few albums for me to start off with, and without further ado I grabbed hold of my nose, clicked play, and jumped elegantly off the deep end.

Bracing myself for the half-expectedly inhospitable waters, I waited for the shock of icy depths and treacherous rocks to hit, but found instead, as the first notes washed over me, that I was floating in warm… friendly…

1| Be (Intro) (Please note, all track titles are clickable)

… JAZZ!

The first lazy bass notes quicken into an agreeable riff, and take us into a muted version of the brass section from the Motown record Mother Nature by Albert Jones. A few bars later the brass itself shows up, I smile in reassurance, sit back and enjoy.

This snappy opening track is steeped in jazz and soul and makes for a perfect introduction to the album. Common even presents us his chief inspirations and motivations on a platter, naming Malcolm (X), Coltrane and Yusuf (most probably Yusuf Asad) as role models. He speaks of his daughter and how he wants to change the world through her. He also touches on the struggles and troubles in his environment, contrasting a tendency to be materialistic and rushing through life with the need to live in the moment.

The brass stays with us throughout the track although he sometimes reigns them in to rap over the bare keys. All in all both the musical inspiration and lyrics of this short opener feel like the perfect foundation for what is to come.

2| The Corner

At least in subject matter, the second track is already rather less lighthearted, as we are brought to a scene of drug corners straight out of any random episode of The Wire. (If you have never seen The Wire, please take this as my urgent recommendation to do so with all possible haste. In fact, stop reading and come back when you’re done, I’m not going anywhere).

This is the first track where Common is joined vocally by regular collaborator and producer Kanye West (producing all tracks except 6 and 11, this album was an important stepping-stone in his career), who takes care of the jagged hook. Common’s verses detail the struggles and causes, and are alternated with raps provided by The Last Poets, which speak more of the culture and sense of belonging.

The corner was our magic, our music, our politics
Fires raised as tribal dancers and war cries that broke out on different corners
Power to the people, black power, black is beautiful

The gentlemen speed up a part of The Tempree’s rather melancholy refrain from You Make the Sun Shine (don’t click if you’re depressed), slightly slow down the rhythm of The Temptations’ What It Is (bad quality audio, sorry) and weld the two into a solid structure. The three elements of Common, Kanye and The Last Poets might have seemed slightly standalone if left to their own devices, but that tight support connects them inexorably and produces an urgent, driving sound.

3| Go!

Ok folks this is the first song that actively surprised me. You see, in my Hip Hop journey I know I will at some point inevitably be faced with misogynism, the hardcore objectifying of women, with hoes and bitches and skanks, with hitting skins and, above all, lots and lots of skeeting. I have prepared myself for this, and feel confident that I will be able to view it with suitable humor and objectivity. What I was NOT prepared for however, was to be actually turned on by a Hip Hop track! Because let’s face it, Go! is as inescapably steamy as it gets.

It has Common lustily fantasizing away about great sex with the perfect girl, and he keeps it remarkably woman-friendly! When in the end a threesome is initiated it is suggested by her (many a man’s perfect girl indeed) and the whole takes place without any actual profanity. Not a skeet in sight. Even the video is very elegant (I purposely steered clear of the videos because the music makes enough of an impression at the moment, but this one came highly recommended) featuring Common and his fantasy lady in a symphony of browns and golds, later joined by a string of gorgeous girls. The man in this video is definitely one of taste.

Here, treat yourself.

For Go! Common takes a tiny portion of riff from Linda Lewis’s carefree Old Smokey (do have a listen, it’s absolutely delightful), and turns it into a meandering piano melody that lilts almost absent-mindedly around the more urgent rhythm and voice. On the encouraging chorus we have Kanye West again, this time joined by none other than John Mayer, aka Mr. Woman-Friendly himself *cough*

4| Faithful

DJ Rogers’ Faithful to the End features a slightly plaintive women’s choir. For Faithful, Common tweaks it into an altogether more cheerful sound on which to base this relaxed ode to loyalty.

Common starts off philosophizing about how he would react if God were a female. Surely not the first time this spiritual quandary has been pondered upon, but he takes it to the next level by theorizing how his relationship with Her would be, practically seeing her as a girlfriend.

The second verse brings things back down to Earth, where a couple is having marital problems. Apparently the husband has indiscretions in his past which have resulted in some trust issues. To make matters worse an evil temptress appears, who tries to seduce our hero. Fortunately also this song takes the woman-friendly route and he goes home to his wife, professing she is his blessin’ and best friend.

The final choruses have John Legend of the honeyed vocal chords joining in (he will be joining us again for track 10) and as the amount of voices swells this goes more and more in the direction of a casual spiritual.

5| Testify

This is one of my favorite tracks on the album, and it certainly uses my favorite sample. Innocent till proven guilty by Honey Cone is the sweet soulful song of a woman pleading her innocence towards her man. He accuses her of infidelity but she begs to be allowed to testify to her innocence.

Who could ever suspect her?

Common gives this quite a spin and puts the woman in a courtroom, with her lover on trial. It’s the harrowing tale of a drug dealer’s wife who has had a nightmare of a life and now has to watch as he is sentenced to prison. She has an emotional breakdown in court but her screams and pleas are to no avail. Or are they?

When her husband is declared guilty her tears turn to laughter, and it turns out that she has been setting him up, and that she is in fact the guilty party, the “queenpin”. And so Common takes innocent Honey Cone’s heartfelt defense and turns it into a ruthless criminal’s tool. Well played, sir. I did not see that coming.

He uses the sample to fantastic effect, but keeps everything else but the rhythm toned down and sparse, giving the short track a breathless, slightly frenzied tone which goes perfectly with the lyrics.

6| Love Is...

The first of two tracks on this album produced by the late J. Dilla, of whom I have the feeling I shall be hearing more on my adventures, is one of the more spiritually uplifting tracks on “Be”. Still, I love how low-key the spirituality stays, I don’t have the feeling for a second that Common is preaching, he’s merely telling us about his outlook, and the difficulties there are in living a loving and responsible life in his milieu.

There are a few subtle shout-outs (the Lennon may be imagined on my part, teehee, but I do feel I’m correct on the Blige), however what genuinely delighted me was to hear the voice of the immortal Marvin Gaye murmuring in the background from the epic God Is Love.

Let’s just say you don’t need to be religious for this to make you happy.

A subtle tinkle is lifted from the Gaye track too, making the nicely paced, soulful sound a bit more delicate.

7| Chi-City

We turn the aggression up a good few notches and welcome Kanye West back for Chi-City, one of many references to hometown Chicago. Common infuses his rant with the electric bass and horns from Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose’s Since I Found My Baby, which eases the bitterness sometimes seeping through the lyrics.

The world of Chi-City is a hard place, full of rivalry. Common is in full-on attack mode against the more violent and worldly forms of rap. I laughed at the line:

So many raps about rims, surprised niggaz ain't become tires

And at:

What you rappin' for to get fame or get rich?
I slap a nigga like you, and tell him "Rick James bitch!"

Any reference to the Super Freak will get me giggling uncontrollably. Be warned.
Speaking of Dave Chappelle:

8| The Food (Live)

A live recording from the Dave Chappelle show and introduced by the man himself is included on “Be”, although there was a studio version recorded. But hey, I’m not complaining, I always like the sound of Dave’s nasal voice, and upon comparison find the live version more enjoyable.

The Food has Kanye again providing us with the chorus. We’re back on the drug corners, with the chorus giving us the dealer’s view and Common’s verses lamenting the status quo, tipping on his struggles to improve his situation and his determination to keep his chin up. Sounds dramatic, but the rhythms they chose make this undeniably the catchiest tune on the album.

Common breaks a tiny piece off Sam Cooke’s Nothing Can Change This Love and turns it into a tight, square, stalling loop to frame his verses, while using a melody from the latter half of The Chi-Lites’ I Never Had It So Good and Felt So Bad to cascade over Kanye’s humoristic chorus. Completely impossible to sit still.

Genuinely tiny pieces were broken off, so enjoy the full song!

9| Real People

Common is on his own for this one, laying his raps over a practically unchanged Sweet Children by Caesar Frazier. It makes for perhaps the most soulful and jazzy contribution to the album, and one of the easiest to listen to.

The lyrics handle the recurring theme of a struggle against a materialistic culture and the focusing on status symbols by people whose origins were in the ghetto, and the difficulty in forming and holding on to your identity.

Black men walking wit white girls on they arms
I be mad at ‘em as if I know they moms
Told to go beyond the surface, a person's a person
When we lessen our women our condition seems to worsen

I’m pretty sure Common doesn’t have anything against white women, but using them purely as trophies sure gets his goat. Especially the “I know your mamas” dig struck me as funny. There’s a touch of rebellion against the racism of the police force in there too, with Common wondering if Bob Marley and Haile Selassie are looking on from on high.

10| They Say

The playful piano track from Ahmad Jamal’s Ghetto Child and the saxophone from Papa Wings by Jazz legend Stanley Turrentine form the framework for They Say, a song about the reaction to a rise to fame and prosperity by the people you have left behind.

John Legend returns to give us the melodic choruses, while Kanye West and Common alternate to describe the negative talk directed at them by the haters when they became successful, and the worries of their loved ones as they got to deal with the pressures of the media and recognition.

Kanye’s personal issues when it comes to this are so well publicized that even I know the memes with reassurances that he’s “gonna let me finish” so he does sound slightly bitter.

They say because of the fame and stardom
I'm somewhere in between the church and insane asylum
I guess it's messin’ with my health then
And this verse so crazy when I finish
I'm just gon’ check myself in – again

Common sounds slightly more vindicated, at least where his fashion sense is concerned:

They say my life is comparable to Christ's
The way I sacrificed, and resurrected, twice
They say, "The crochet pants and the sweater was wack"
Seen "The Corner", now they say "That nigga's back," uh

Still, the rhythm and melodies stay supple and flowing, so the song does not give the impression of a complaining diatribe, it’s more wistful in tone.

11| It's Your World (Part 1 & 2)

The final track is the longest and most epic, without being oppressive in any way. Again produced by the late J. Dilla, the sweeping orchestra from The Modulation’s Share What You Got accompanies us on a melodic trip down Common’s memory lane. He takes us back to the ghetto again, and paints various vignettes of people and circumstances he has met.

Luckily, we go from tragedy to hope and inspiration when they bring in a parcel of kids to lisp their hopes and dreams into the microphone. We end with an optimistic mission statement to meet our potential to the fullest and to:

Be... eternal!

Amen.

The man himself

You know, when I saw the album cover and the Go! video I couldn’t help thinking I had seen Common’s face before somewhere. And no, it wasn’t from the highly amusing kerfuffle that had ensued from his being invited to the White House earlier this year, though I do vaguely remember the boyfriend chuckling about it (Seriously people? You haven’t had presidents do more outrageous things?). No, the reason that he looked so damnably familiar was that he had been staring at me from the pages of the AVClub all week.

You see that highly quizzical-looking gentleman on the left? Yessir indeed, Common himself. It turns out he is quite the actor, having 18 roles under his belt since 2003 and now starring in the new Wild West show Hell on Wheels on AMC. You may, unbeknownst to you, already have seen him in American Gangster, or in Terminator Salvation, and pretty soon you can have the dubious pleasure of hearing him voice a character in Happy Feet 2, if you like that sort of thing.The man is definitely versatile.

When it comes to his music career Common is held to be an exemplary figure due to his friendly treatment of women and a bit more recently also homosexuals. The album “Be” was received to great critical acclaim in 2005.

I hope to hear a lot more of his work. Cmonies knew very well what he was doing in that this was an ideal artist and album to start off with. It made it easy for me to see the layers in rap, the roots of it all, it helped me understand it better and it made me want more. Hell I may even have to agree with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson when he tweeted the words of the recently deceased Heavy D (I have yet to learn who this is exactly):

“Once you’re hip hop, you’re hip hop. It’s in my blood – it’s not going anywhere.”

And with YouTube user yungstunnaandjetfly:

i gotta get this album back. this shit TOUCHES THE SOUL. we was so fortunate to get a album like this in the 2000's where we seemed to have lost hope for our beloved Hip Hop, Common man..im just glad u last so long as u do, many rappers are gone, but he and alot others are still here, i had to express myself after hearing this gem.

Looking forward to more!

Hugs,

3lla

Escape from the Secret Garden

2011-11-07T06:00:00.001-08:00

Once upon a time there was a little girl. A very inquisitive and adventurous little girl who wanted to know everything about everything. There was only one problem; she lived in a garden, and around the garden were high walls that kept her always inside. She was told that The World on the other side was a dangerous place and that if she went there she would surely die.

So she stayed in the garden. It was very pretty and it had lots of flowers and friendly people, but as the girl grew up she found herself moving in ever tighter circles, always searching for something new, something different that she knew deep down simply wasn’t there. As the years went by she stopped being inquisitive and adventurous. She sat down in a corner of the garden and watched the other inhabitants potter happily around the cultivated flowers and pristine statues.

Until one day she heard strange voices coming from over the wall. They were rough voices and spoke a dialect she had trouble understanding, but they told of The World as a place of infinite possibilities, of journeys to far-away places, of thousands of questions with millions of answers, of myriad adventures to be had.

She started to climb up the wall. It was a painful process, the stones were sharp and cut into her hands and brambles ripped at her limbs. The panicked cries of the other people in the garden shrieked in her ears, warning her of the inevitable doom awaiting her on the other side. But she kept going because this was her first adventure, and who had ever said that adventures would not be painful.

When she reached the top of the wall she rested there a moment amid the broken bottles and barbed wire. What she saw almost made her turn back, but not because it was not beautiful. No, The World she saw unfolding around her was of a rugged grace with wild jungles, dark forests and treacherous peaks as far as the eye could see. She saw weird and wonderful flowers, heard tantalizing melodies and smelled exotic odors she had never even dreamt of. And there were people there and they were more alive than anybody she had ever met.

She only hesitated a moment. “What if I really do die”?” she thought. “I will first have lived.” she answered herself. There was a small group of people standing beneath her and she realized it must have been their voices she had heard. “Hello… I want to come down.” she called.

“Jump!” they said. “We’ll catch you.”

And they did.

I was twenty-four when I left the garden. Since then I have been knocking around The World, drinking in its culture in everything I come across and trying to make some sort of sense of it all. I have been overwhelmed and inspired and confused and awed.

Writing about things always helps me understand them, so I am going to try and map out my World, country by country. I’ll start slowly and see where it goes.

When I was choosing a topic to start off with I wanted to go for something that was still very unfamiliar. When I met my boyfriend about a year ago I was slightly dismayed to discover he was very much into Hip Hop, a genre I had never appreciated. However, I grabbed the opportunity with both hands and have chosen it as my first regular blog topic. I may randomly post about other culture related subjects too, but this will be the main focus for now.

To help me get started I asked a good friend of mine, the legendary artist and Hip Hop connoisseur Carlton “Cmonies” Stevens, to guide me a bit. He kindly agreed to put my feet on the right rungs so I would avoid knocking my Hip Hop baby teeth out on potential obstacles. He will provide me with an album a week, give me some pointers on why it is important and what to listen out for, and I hope to spin my findings into something worth reading.

In my travels, all the gorgeous people I have met, physically or virtually, are what bring me the most joy and inspiration. Anybody who wants to add their presence and voice to my chorus of muses is warmly welcome.

Hugs,

3lla