As hard as this might be for people from Los Angeles to believe, a lot of people don’t like yr city. I’m constantly defending LA from it’s reputation – although I usually couch it with “but it is it’s own planet.” LA is definitely weird, but it’s so huge that it feels like constant discovery. Maybe I just like it because I have good friends here, but I always leave feeling content. And full. Pho real.
Anyway my best friend forever Yosef Dosik is usually my envoy to all things LA, and he’s been up to some pretty good things since the last time I drove down the 5 (and through central california which is (not a place) nothing but weird smells).
Joey did the arrangement, although apparently Bilal skipped about 20 bars of it. Still sounds pretty good to me. Anyway your best friend in a band with Flying Lotus = cool. Also, Miguel is probably the sweetest person I’ve ever met. His personality is proof Los Angeles is redeemable. Luhyew dudes. mp free:
I didn’t know it when Kleino hadned me Edmund Morris’ (Pulizter prize winning) The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, but 1400 pages later, and halfway through TR’s second administration (Theodore Rex) I’ve realized how allegorical Roosevelt lore is to the start of a, and forgive me for using this word, epic road trip. Teddy Roosevelt was incredibly ambitious, focused & above all, vivacious. He had the sort of lust for life that would make Iggy Pop jealous, and a force of personality that endeared him to nearly everyone in this unbelievably, almost unfathomably, large & diverse country. Aaron and I, we have a lot of conviction. We’re certainly not candidates for the highest office, but we walk softly and carry a big stick, if you know what I mean.
We’re headed way out west, but it hasn’t officially begun yet, because we’re still in Michigan -- though we’ve escaped the madness of Ann Arbor.
I’ll miss it all. & you too Earthern Jar.
Tomorrow: Minneapolis. Monday: The Badlands. Then: Outer Space
Right now I’m overlooking Bostwick Lake in idyllic Rockford, Michigan. It’s been relaxing, but rife with the knowledge things are about to get deep. Not as deep as the X-Games, which I watched for awhile this afternoon, but I realized during the street skate competition that not many things are. Some Rasta dude with an “I&I” tee-shirt was doing switch fakey 540 hurricanes (might not be a real thing) off of a thing that looked like a tea cup while Tony Hawk was narrating with some other brother, and this 16 year old Puerto Rican kid was flawlessly executing kick flips onto a rail that would probably have crippled me, with subtleties I couldn’t comprehend and I couldn’t help but think, holy shit life is basically a Tony Hawk xbox game from my childhood, but then realized we’re about to get really rill with some nature, and that is basically the exact opposite of the X-Games. Anyway, I’ve already left -- checked out in more ways than one. After all:
All summer long I’ve been doing research, staying up late, getting up early trying to figure out the craps on the haps – WAT IS OUR SUMMER JAM. The criteria are pretty simple: ain’t none. It’s still to early to declare the summer jam 2k10, but here’s the front-runner:
It’s a great tune, catchy as all get out – just don’t listen to the lyrics. It’s mean, it’s dumb, it’s morally reprehensible, but hey ITS SUMMER. Since I’ve decided not to care (aka start drinking four loko) I am no longer able to pass judgment on anything other than if this is a JAM. Which it is. A JAMMER.
for some reason at this very moment i’m finding these first two videos to be very important. hopeful. excited for the future.
it’s real easy for us to get scared about what’s goin on with youngins these days, growin’ up too fast, never learning values, being real shitty at being little kids.
but here is hope:
(jaden smith & barth fonker, disregard justin at this moment)
will smith & barth’s mom are doing a really nice job at making little people who are sweet &&& up on the times. jaden is rapping about being independent, always staying positive, and he gives props to his pops. i don’t know what barth is really saying, but it seems to be thoughtful- maybe about how he loves his mom, and in the third video it seems like he might be talking about racial injustice, maybe slavery. good job, boys!
I have a feeling that not very many people on the internet know why they like Lil B so much. Me neither, but I’m starting to get a handle on it, and it has something to do with the fact he lives his life as art (that video) & this quote, from an article in the New York Times magazine about author David Mitchell:
“‘I’m interested in human mud because, as you age, your life gets muddier. As an artist I think you realize that’s where art is art. I can only say it in very simple terms because it’s a very simple thing: art is about people, it’s not about experimentation.’ Mitchell paused, ‘ I was assembling a flat-pack cabinet of bewildering complexity one afternoon listening to Tom Stoppard being interviewed on the radio, and at one point he said: ‘Good God. I just realized. It’s about people. It’s not about metaphysics!’ The reason we love the books we love -- it’s the people. It’s the human mud, the glue between us and them, the universal periodic table of the human condition. It transcends.”
That explains my love for rap, The NBA and Party Down about as succinctly as possible. It’s all about the people. The jorts & the adidas sandles. Lizzy Caplan’s eyes & Bill from Freaks and Geeks. “I’m Always on Time” & The 2010 NBA Champion Lakers.
Perfect people are boring/don’t exist. Lil B doesn’t try to be perfect, or attempt to filter any part of his performance art from his personality. Ja Rule didn’t exactly have the internet to allow access to his soft side -- I suppose that was Ashanti’s job. In sports, Ron Artest is another perfect example of someone whose eccentricities have always overshadowed his obvious talents, and have managed to both detract from and elevate those same skills. The difference between Ron Artest, and say, Thabo Sefolosha is SAY QUEENSBRIDGE, not 3pt fg%.
It takes time (a whole lotta time!) to uncover these things -- time, and a big enough body of work to feel like you’ve gotten to know someone, grown older alongside them, learned something about yourself by trying to figure out why you save Ja Rule jpegs and pictures of old people using computers while listening to Lil B or some thugged out UK garage x Jamaican dancehall x German electronica where you can only understand 30% of the words, but are hoping to someday understand 65%…
“What is unique about the “I” hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person. All we are able to imagine is what makes everyone like everyone else, what people have in common. The individual “I” is what differs from the common stock, that is, what cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled, uncovered, conquered.” -- Milan Kundera
I caught Rye Rye (along with perennial faves Ninjasonik & Nguzunguzu) at M.I.A’s album jump off at PS1 in Queens a couple days ago, and it was sort of the embodiment of this thing I wrote a couple weeks ago. If there had been a roof Rye Rye would have torn it off (it was in the courtyard), and as it was her and White Boy (guy on the right side of that picture) were definitely the highlight of the all-to-brief show. Anyway, here are some fragmented thoughts on a few leading ladies:
For a variety of legitimate and mystifying reasons, hip hop has always been dominated by men. The female emcee has been something of a novelty as a result and more often than not you’ll find the fairer sex on the hook, not the verse. I might be sensing a sea change where there’s really just a slight shift, but the move away from male commercial hip hop domination might be more than a trend.
Nicki Minaj is a challenge to nail down, but it’s her outsized personality and unpredictability that keeps her from being a Lil Kim parody. She can rap for sure, (no ghostwriter for her) but its her energetic cadences that turn so-so punchlines into the most memorable part of a song. The video above looks a little like a Lady Gaga parody, but to me, it shows a little more self-awareness than Gaga has to this point. Sure Minaj’s Harajuku Barbie act is hypersexual, but its so direct and honest in a this is so fake its really real sort of way. Additionally, Nicki has rapped about getting with girls enough at this point that she might have a claim as the least homophobic rapper, or at the very least, the gayest rapper that gets played on the radio. This video flips the traditional gender roles, and while its a bit of a train wreck stylistically and the song is only mehh, it’s definitely not something you would ever change the channel on.
Elsewhere, Baltimore has produced a few talented female artists that seemed primed to go bang nationally. Rye Rye has been killing it since she was a teenager rapping over Blaqstarr beats (check “Shake it to the Ground”), and now M.I.A. has thrown her weight behind the duo. Their sound has evolved symbiotically and Rye Rye has the sort of deft lyricism that can make a song about Mary Jane seem more substantial than a cloud of smoke.
The Get ‘Em Mami’s are the other intriguing Baltimore artists, and a slightly rarer bird at that – a female rap group without even a hint of r&b. They aren’t supporting characters in someone else’s story, and they blend regional club music with swag that wouldn’t be out of place in Queens.
Pink Dollaz is sort of the Los Angeles equivalent of the Get ‘Em Mami’s. Instead of club, they rep Jerk, and don’t give an inch to their male counter parts, The Rangers. Once again, sexuality is a portion of their identity, but its not the most important element of their appeal. Basically, they own their style and don’t act like they owe anyone anything.
And who knows – I ‘d profer that the best is yet to come. Just check out these girls knocking out a beat on a table in the libary and breaking off an a cappella that’d make Beyonce jealous.
My parents live here, but its not really like home. Its more like an outpost in the middle of the woods between Baltimore, Philly & NYC. And sure enough, I came from Baltimore, and later today I’m going to Philadelphia. I’m trying to throw together a mix for a kid I used to babysit. He was a musical prodigy at 4, and now he’s 13. For lack of a better idea, I’m calling it Team Jacob (his name, although I did just go see Twilight with my sister and who wouldn’t prefer a fucking gigantic wolf to a pale Mormon?) and I’m filling it up with semi-obscure indie rock. Its hard to remember what I liked when I was 13, or what would have helped me be cooler. I was pretty cool. I’m gonna lead it off with that Julian Lynch track. And then maybe this Tim Cohen jam:
I would not want to live in a world where this moment in time was not captured by a webcam and posted on the internet. So many things had to come together to make it happen. Lil B had to be very good at the internet, Based has to be a thing and Joy Morton had to found Morton Salt in Chicago 168 years ago (fun fact: his Dad, J Sterling Morton, came up with Arbor Day). I can honestly say that I have never been tempted to take a video camera and film myself doing mundane things and post it on youtube, but I like that this is 1000% culturally acceptable and I can watch a person that, straight-faced, can introduce himself as “ya boy Garrett, aka fruit snaxxx” try a Double Down for the first time.
So yeah, I’ve been listening to the new Diplomats track a fucking ton, even though I didn’t like it the first time I heard it. It’s a grower, which is good, because I have a feeling Hot 97 is going to play the shit out of it, and Flex is gonna drop 57 bombs every single time (which makes it better). I’m not even sure where the appeal lays -- the beat is bananas (who knew Araab Muzik listened to dutch hardcore?), Jim Jones is still kind of endearingly bad at rapping, Cam’ron is still naaasty and Juelz might actually have the best verse. Best is relative. This is just a jammer.
I think that this means Dipset is about to re-take over the city, but not really because “Salute” is an awesome return to form or anything -- it seems to me Vado is primed to break free from Cam’ron’s orbit and become the next king of NYC all on his own. The Slime Time mixtape is as good as the hype, and I get the feeling the Drake backlash can only help a rapper like Vado who falls somewhere in between clever and hard on the radio gangster scale. I mean, dude has catchy songs about Polo shirts and catchy songs about Rubberband Stacks and he is large on the streets.
When I saw this video over at the Fader (where else?) I immediately thought of a friend it reminded me of. This happens. Then a day later another friend posted a remix of said song. That hardly ever happens!
I think the first time I met Josh, he wandered into Wazoo records, 17 years old, bound for art school and wearing some incredibly tight purple pants. Being a bright and friendly gent, he immediately struck up a repor (with my much more outgoing co-worker Forest). A lot of my other earlier Josh memories include him clutching a handle of Popov and kicking it with my dear friend Cassie. I remember being impressed his band, Our Brother the Native, landed a record deal with Fatcat. Now, I don’t think Josh drinks as much and he’s doing fancy things like having a foreign girlfriend, occasionally being sober and re-mixing bands with cumbersome names and really gorgeous horn arrangements. Right on Josh-o boy-o. Keep up the good work!
Speaking of good work by people whose company I enjoy:
Charles Tillinghast (by birth) or Charles Trees (by righteousness) is one the hardest working DJ’s in Ann Arbor. Dude was hanging out with Disco D and spinning records at parties while I was in middle school. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more pro DJ in that town, and yet I don’t think I ever caught even the slightest whiff of pretension from Charles. He humored me when I was first pretending to DJ, and took over parties in our basement when I’d had one too many Mickey’s. Until recently, I wasn’t aware Charles made his own music. Well surprise surprise, he does – and it is good and hip and on a french record label for chrissakes.
You can buy the whole EP here, and I most definitely recommend you do that, then check his myspace for dates and stuff. Or just hang out in Ann Arbor where you will probably run into him if you are interested in good times.
