Like some weird, natural version of “bling”—mind the quotes—M.I.A moved through the stage subtly flaunting her in-stomach child…something universal and oddly, also way more jarring and discomforting to most than a diamond Jesus piece. M.I.A created a wonderful too-real moment, invoking body issues, TV standards and practices (recall when Lucille Ball was pregnant, the word couldn’t be uttered), and the right kind of fuck-it-all “this is my child!” pride all at once. It was “hip-hop” in that stupid nebulous sense of the word meaning “awesome” or “not giving a shit” and whatever else you want it to mean.
Like so much of hip-hop, it was about aggressively flipping the expected and making a salient–if easy to misinterpret and kinda confusing–point. And Kanye, Jay-Z, Wayne, and T.I upended expectations by waddling out like the forever cynical Rat Pack, dressed nicely, moving politely, but spitting out a song that good or bad, is sonically, a sick slow burn posse cut.
I called the beat “Unicron on his last legs”. Live, it was more some acid-trip Vegas shit, with a synth-line turned into a guitar-line ripped from Kanye’s hard-edged beats like “Two Words” but no less a little terrifying, especially when it was still being rapped with a casual effrontery, an “I’m in a dirty ass rap club not the Grammy’s” attitude that was still reverent enough of the whole spectacle.
We’re used to this and way weirder stuff but remember, this is the Grammy’s we’re talking about and so, pleasantly and politely performing a song like this, as an art-pop (versus Kanye’s Pop Art) indie star nine months pregnant wanders across the stage is pretty fucking subversive. And like, Erykah Badu twitter-ing her pregnancy, the performative aspect of the M.I.A made it more beautiful, more real, less contrived. A group of black rappers rhyme atop a pregnant London/Sri-Lankan bleating out a hook; that’s something a little more real and a little less showbiz. Coming not long after that inexplicably bizarre Katie Couric interview with Lil Wayne, it’s fun to see the unfortunate clichés and exorbitancies of hip-hop so finely fucked around with. The disconnect between what’s being said about rap and what rap is grows wider.
Wasn’t it absurd to see Ms. Katie wheeling out the cringe-inducing “He’s got the teeth and the tattoos” spiel for a rapper like Wayne? As her awful set-up before the humanizing punchline began, we see images of Wayne and he’s not looking “gangsta” at all. He’s rocking brightly colored BAPE or he’s pacing around the stage sheepishly smiling in V-neck wearing a tiny backpack. Couric’s conceit–I’m going to humanize this horrible in your eyes rapper—seems no longer absurd just to rap fans. With Wayne, there’s not that much to “get over” even if you are an outsider, as he’s not hoodied or mean-mugging or anything. The interview confirms your expectations, it doesn’t negate them.
Similarly weird (and even more relevatory) than “Swagger” was Wayne’s performance of “Tie My Hands”. It’s tough to make a song clearly about Katrina as images of Katrina project in the background and not seem really obvious, but Wayne did it. The light jazz re-interpretation of the already light Carter III version works in hooking non hip-hop listeners and also, acts as brilliant counter-point to the explosion of New Orleans music history that makes the history Katrina wiped away more palpable. He’s starts with the pained devastation of his own Katrina yelp and ends with the pleasures of the past by resurrecting them live. That’s some Dungeon Family, Ralph Ellison “that same pleasure and pain” type shit.
Even as T.I yelped out his verse before he’s going to jail for some real dumb shit and Lil Wayne’s still pushing purple like it’s not dangerous drug that’ll stop your heart and uh Kanye’s rocking a , hip-hop’s maturing without losing its plurality.
This is a fascinating end-note to Noz’s A Labyrinth, A Maze (2) in the sense that it muddles the whole “issue” further and further. One thing’s clear—the choice is yours whether it’s good or bad or anything—shit is reversed or flipped or some shit. Usually you know, it’s the mainstream artists that are behind on the times, no?
What’s changed other than it’s way more acceptable—because of Kanye’s fervent pushing of genre, borders, style the whole deal—to be a so-called indie artist and appear on-stage with Kanye West is now, there’s a lot more money in it. Or Diplo told her it was cool or Nylon magazine. Or maybe the whole “I’ll be preggers while I do it” was her London-born, third-world affected version of bucking the system? Intentions don’t matter much when it works and on the Grammy’s Sunday night, M.I.A—and the “Swagger” crew—made it work.
The boner-kill feeling that’s spread across the internet when “Swagger Like Us” wasn’t the event record of the year–or really an event record at all–isn’t a surprise, but it’s unfortunate because it’s closed too many ears to one of the weirder and rewind-able songs in quite some time. “Swagger’s not ready for the club and it won’t get the real head’s heads’ bopping either; it’s a truly out-there song from really, the only four rappers that still sell records and even sort of give a shit about rapping or artistry. They just also happen to four of the most delusional, navel-gazing performers around; stuff is complicated like that.
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