Did you see that interview with Tyler Perry on 60 Minutes last Sunday? Probably not, but Perry called his infamous character Madea, “bait”: “Disarming, charming, make-you-laugh bait so that I can slap Madea in something and talk about God, love, faith, forgiveness, family — any of those things.” The beats on BP3 are bait like that.
Visceral, in-the-now slabs of synth and Euro-house party sounds so that Jay-Z can slip his grown-ass man insights onto a new album. It’s more than “mildly entertaining” as Sasha Frere-Jones said in “Wrapping Up”, it’s a deeply affecting album about standing between two worlds and wisely inching towards the smarter, less “cool” choice.
Hunstville, Alabama’s G-Side released an album full of beats not all that different from those weirder ones on BP3 and they did it nearly a year before Jay and they didn’t reach out to 500k-a-beat business buddies, they were holed-up with their town’s avant-rap geniuses the Block Beataz and crafted Starshipz and Rocketz, a perfect album about looking forward and cringing as you look back. The fluttering synths, the stuttering 808s, the waves of weird space-noise running through their songs are not there to reflect what’s going on in New York City clubs–or on sites like Discobelle–but to musically manifest transcendence. Space and retro-futurism as escape from all that bullshit.
Album-ender “Run Thingz” is basically all-out rave stuff, it doesn’t slow the BPMs down all that much and it doesn’t remove the airy edges of the electronics–as is the production habit on BP3–and the verses, from ST 2 Lettaz and Clova, use their current success and parlay it into rap-it-so-it-happens utopianism: “I stay trill like ST/They put a lock where my soul be/And found a way to break free/Starshipz that’s the dedication”.
It’s a long way from ST’s killer first lines on “Youth of the Ghetto”: “Momma stay gone, Daddy’s been gone, lights ain’t on so I had to get grown/No TV, can’t watch The Flintstones/So I went outside with them boys and flipped stones.” You’ll notice that rarely are G-Side rapping in the present-tense about hustling. They’re not that much different from Jay-Z, only their concerns are, even as they float around in space, much more grounded. It’s the production sound and trends of the ‘aughts wrapped in earthy, deeply sincere rhymes. The stuff Frere-Jones praised Gibbs for, just not as wrapped up in niche sound of rap’s past. Looking into the past and then dragging the past into the future.
Their latest project, Huntsville International comes out on November 9th and in title alone, shows these hyper-specific regional rappers talking to the world. It’s named after their hometown’s airport, but it’s also a reference to the group’s broader scope. Since the release of Starshipz, the group’s travelled up North and West and across the Atlantic, picking up new ideas and sounds, all now to be rolled-up in their forward-thinking space-age country rap tunes.
-”Wrapping Up” by Sasha Frere-Jones from The New Yorker
-”Das Racist to Sasha Frere-Jones: Stop Killing Rap”
-”They Don’t Really Dance: G-Side at Guilford College” by ME
-”Artist Spotlight: G-Side” from KevinNottingham.Com
-Tyler Perry on 60 Minutes
There’s nothing wrong with Freddie Gibbs–though, that there’s nothing wrong with him is indeed, what’s wrong with him–but his raps and his business model served-up to contrast with hip-hop’s bleeding into lots of more old/newfangled pop sounds, as they are in Sasha Frere-Jones’ “Wrapping Up”, is problematic. Gibbs does worker-bee, working-class, crime-tinged hip-hop really well but that’s about all he does. And this might something to note or celebrate in terms of hip-hop as a genre if indeed, there weren’t still a shit-ton of dudes stretching the 90s rap form to its limits and not simply carrying on the tradition.
Really not trying to neglect this blog, it’s just working out that way. There’s plenty to comment on (SFJ’s problematic article, a defense of Nicky Minaj), but for now, all you get is this pretty fun, though rather guarded interview I did with Mike Williams of New Orleans’ Eyehategod–a group that’s meant a lot to me over the years. The same hard-ass, fuck everything nihilism rubbing up against community-based humanism you get in stuff like UGK or whatever. I like that Mike throws in a reference to “Bounce” when discussing the sounds of New Orleans, not a lot of metal dudes would. Anyways, check it out. EHG plays with Pig Destroyer and Goatwhore as part of CMJ tomorrow night.
Sorry about the lack of updates lately, you’ll just have to jump off-site to read my rambling. Trying to get back on-track this week though. For now, there’s another installment of my “Music Video Round-Up” column, this time talking about the wonderfully nutty video for Beyonce’s “Sweet Dreams” and the whatever but kinda cool video for Yo La Tengo’s “Here to Fall” and the transformative qualities of CGI when used properly, in both.
It’s a Saturday night and way too many people sat at their computers as their digital clocks rolled over to 10:17 and three count em’ three new Gucci Mane mixtapes dropped: Guccimerica, Brrrussia, and Great Brrritain.
My review of Saturday night’s ridiculous Big Bang! is up on the Baltimore City Paper’s music blog. There were some pretty big fuck-ups here and there, but none the fault of the talent or the promoters and despite the lights going up early before DJ Pierre got to play, it was still an awesome night. Apparently it’s going to happen next month with King Tutt returning and DJ Pierre finally getting to spin. Also, go cop DJ Pierre’s Vol. 7 mix CD, it’s pretty much all I’ve been listening to lately.
So, my music video column on “The House Next Door” finally returns and I’m going to keep up a regular pace with it and not like, one every four months at the best. The first returning one is a little weird because it’s not about music videos really, but it is an interview with the film director Tony Stone who directed the absolutely amazing Viking, Black Metal movie Severed Ways. Stone and I talk about digital video, Michael Mann, metal’s appeal, and lots of other stuff. If you’ve not seen Severed Ways, please go rent it or buy it, you won’t be disappointed…
Probably because Timmy Thomas’ “Why Can’t We Live Together?” is spare like a demo–just a clunky drum machine, voice, and organ–or maybe it’s because Thomas’ plea for peace is a hushed yelp in a world of echo, like he knows the song won’t change real-life (though it did in some small way, becoming the anthem for South Africa’s first free elections in 1994), but Why Can’t We Live Together? (1972, Glades) is less your typical socially-conscious soul classic and more like a guy working all that out in his basement. Comparisons to Nebraska might be a good way to sell it to somebody, because of the stripped-down appeal, but also because it’s just a kind of terribly soul-crushing listen.
The most polite coup of popular music took place in the late 90s via “Neo-Soul”. Though a wrongheaded, rockist-bait term nearly from its inception, the music of Neo-Soul–you know, the part that actually matters–casually but radically shifted what R & B and rap could and would do to this day.
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