Back page
I feel for you
I’ve been thinking lately about the generation of East Coast rappers that emerged between the years 1993 and 1996. Although this seems like a rather short span, I think it represents the last truly great period in East Coast hip-hop. Jay-Z, Notorious B.I.G., Nas, and Wu-Tang Clan all broke out during this time. Over 10 years later the New York rap scene hasn’t evolved past these seminal figures. Successive generations have not produced a single great rapper. Not one. And, strangely, one rapper appears to exercise complete artistic control over the entire a region, something that has never happened before. Jay-Z is the undisputed king of New York rap and there is little reason to believe that he will be dethroned anytime soon. But enough attention has been devoted to this brutal reality. Very little, on the other hand, has been devoted to the collective identity of Jay-Z’s generation.
Rap started out as an extension of disco in the late 70s, grew into a kind of reaffirmation of black rock n’ roll during much of the mid-80s, and sought out its funky forefather, James Brown, during its Golden Age in the late 80s and early 90s. ’93 – ’96 saw the birth of late 60s and early 70s soul and R&B-driven hip-hop. The grooves got a little deeper, the rhythms smoother, the drums a little crisper, the melodies more salient, and the lyrics more introspective. Young men, and a few women, born during the late 60s and early 70s began recalling the complicated imagery of blaxploitation. I see hip-hop during this period as an extended vamp on the themes of The Mack, perhaps the most quoted movie in hip-hop history after Scarface. The Mack was about the search for a viable moral code in the black underworld. Goldie was both independent yet socially responsible, subversive to white power yet skeptical of black solidarity, loyal and loving yet violent and unforgiving. The Mack was a landmark achievement in black cinema, for it cast an unsentimental eye on the black community, combining elements of Hollywood action films, neorealism, and surrealism. It lifted the veil on the black American underworld, unabashedly celebrating the fashions and attitudes of criminals (it immortalized the “Player’s Ball”) but not without showing their cruelty. Sound familiar? It should. The rappers who came of age during the crack era of the 80s could easily identify with the moral dilemmas posed in The Mack. These guys had demons galore and they explored them in songs like “D’Evils”, “Can It Be All So Simple”, “Ready to Die”, and “Life’s a Bitch”. They were confessional, regret-tinged and desperation filled cries of pain. But they were also cold, unapologetic, and despairing. Rappers of this period combined the mafioso imagery of Kool G Rap, the cockiness of Big Daddy Kane, the storytelling skills of Slick Rick, and the coolness of Rakim. But somehow they were more than all of these things put together. They were urbane and cosmopolitan with expansive frames of reference. They were esoteric and fully formed technically. They were capable of poetic flourishes and often elliptical. Their voices and their tales were matched by equally evocative production that snatched snippets of the cathartic belting and crooning of Al Green, The Emotions, The Ohio Players, The Isley Brothers, Isaac Hayes, Willie Hutch, The Moments, Curtis Mayfield, Donny Hathaway, The O’Jays, and The GAP Band.
And it should be noted that like all great artists, these guys never really grew. Their voices remained fundamentally the same, although the urgency of their messages might have waned. Sure, they grew less complex as lyricists, but they have stayed so refreshingly themselves. With the exception of Jay-Z, their styles are dead ends, fully conceived and unchanging. No one can sound like Raekwon or Ghostface. No one can sound like Nas or AZ. Why would you even try? They are the acme of a tradition and a style. This struck me rather strongly as I was listening to AZ recently. He sounds exactly the way he did in 1995 when “Doe or Die” came out. This is not a bad thing. The flow is razor sharp, precise, mature. I do not use this last word lightly. What distinguished East Coast hip-hop of the early to mid 90s from everything else then and now was its unabashed adulthood. One doesn’t grasp the complexity of “Only Built for Cuban Linx…” at 16. That Reasonable Doubt is an important social document, rich in both feeling and wordplay definitely doesn’t occur to you then either. Like soul music (and the better forms of African-American music), this particular genre of rap was for grown-ups, folks who had suffered psychological wounds, folks who had loved and lost, folks who, in short, had lived.
What’s equally surprising is how all the narratives seem to have the same general message: I don’t want to live this way. Unlike N.W.A. this was not a lazy, gangster fantasy. These artists weren’t invincible sociopaths; they were vulnerable human beings who knew they could be killed. They rattled off endless lists in their songs of childhood friends who were “still here” in spirit. For these rappers, death was always around the corner. Also, as New Yorkers these artists saw firsthand the terrible chasm between their lifestyles and the culture of wealth and luxury that flourished only a bridge away (most of them were in the outer boroughs). Not surprisingly, their lyrics pay homage to New York-style extravagance in songs like “Can I Live”, “Wu-Gambinos”, “If I Ruled the World”, “Big Poppa”, and “Sugar Hill”. But if you listen to these songs, they’re not, for the most part, about flashing cash and buying out the bar. They’re about achieving elite status, becoming power players, scoring big. There is a complex awareness of not only the means and symbols of success, but also longevity. These guys had vivid imaginations. Jay-Z epitomizes this artistically and financially. But all of these guys are hustlers. AZ, despite repeated lack of interest from mainstream music outlets, continues to put out an album every year that features at least several masterpieces. Nas is still taking himself and his music seriously, perhaps too seriously. Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface remains one of the most critically acclaimed hip hop acts of our time. And even in death Biggie is still making noise.
What I like about AZ, Nas, Raekwon, Ghostface, and to a lesser extent Jay-Z is the way that they re-imagined success, how they either never crossed-over or did so on their own terms, making music that expressed affection for the black musical tradition, soul music in particular, and never lost sight of their political positions. Even Jay-Z hints at this: “Truthfully, I wanna rhyme like Common Sense / but I did five mil, I ain’t been rhymin’ like Common since”. Like hard bop and bebop, early to mid 90s East Coast hip-hop was sophisticated yet firmly and deeply rooted in an African-American narrative tradition. It didn’t translate or inform. In fact, it did just the opposite with its emphasis on slang and the local folklore of criminality. It told a story that was the sole province of those within a particular culture, which is partially why much of it never really caught on. AZ will never have a platinum album. Only a few speak his language. Most of the benefits of the style pioneered by these artists is being reaped by rappers like Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco, who’ve made the sound accessible to white audiences. I prefer those who have not compromised themselves. This is not because I think pop music is bad. Indeed I like some of it sometimes. No, I simply think that black music is more than enough to sustain black musicians.
Remarks: 9 of 9
Remark · zbs · 28 October 2007
But does this suggest that black musicians have an exclusive contract with what you characterize as black music. Delinquency in this sense then, constitutes what you call “compromise” ?
Remark · Justin Mitchell · 29 October 2007
Soul music, which is the form that concerns me here, is black (American) music insofar is it was created by, for, and from the experiences of black Americans. It is derived from the blackest of all American genres (Gospel and Blues). That said, no single artist owes any responsibility to it per se. And certainly no one has “exclusive” rights to it. Like all musical traditions success or failure, understanding or misunderstanding depend entirely on what is brought to it by the performer or listener. A full appreciation of it can only come from a willingness to comprehend its cultural context. I use the word compromise to describe the situations of those who rob the music of its cultural context and throw it into the apolitical realm of stupid pop music, one of my problems with what Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley did with serious forms like Blues and R&B, remaking them into feel-good music for the kiddies. Similarly, people like West and latter day Jay-Z rely on sociological cliches and easy platitudes rather than allowing themselves to be spurred by the complexities of the music they principally draw on.
Remark · zbs · 29 October 2007
Originally I was (not very sincerely) playing up to what I thought was the obvious question lurking here, but here I am tempted to really question the nature of these “complexities”. And, further, the slippage that seems to be occuring between “apolitical” and “stupid”.
And hasn’t everyone, in every art form, relied on easy platitudes and sociological cliches ? Even being capable of doing otherwise is the cause for some celebration. I think there is a logical step missing if you aim to point to the evidence of that sort of laziness in these two guys as the definitive reason for the (purported) ultimate failure of interpolation of pop and R&B as musical traditions.
If that’s the point, anyway, does that mean we are taking issue with most of the catalog of Motown and Stax/Atlantic for casting away at least partly the musical traditions they came from and embracing pop sensibility? Or Prince, Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke, etc., etc. And doesn’t the simplicity of sentiment contribute to making “You Send Me” or “My Girl” so sublime? What is that if not absolutely divine music for the kiddies ? — and as far as I can tell pretty apolitical, too.
Though I like Chuck Berry a lot, and Elvis often, I do agree with most of your judgments here, and certainly with your assessment of the general trajectory of hip-hop in those years; but I am simply not convinced of the easiness with which this causality is attributed it. You can decide for yourself that Kanye West is compromising himself for white audiences, but how certain can you be that he is not truly interested in those other musical traditions he is engaging in ?
Remark · Justin Mitchell · 29 October 2007
Sure everyone in every art form has relied at some point on sociological cliches. But there is a danger in allowing any art form to be dominated by such things. The failures I am pointing to are failures of imagination (Jay-Z’s vacuity, Kanye’s immaturity), all of which mount to a failure to match soul music’s feeling and moral ambivalence. I do not wish to insinuate that their failures stand for anything more than this.
Motown and Stax/Atlantic weren’t monoliths, so I can’t really follow your leading question. Your song selections are equally, well, selective. “A Change is Gonna Come” is not apolitical, for instance. Neither are “Freddie’s Dead,” “Say it Loud,” “What’s Goin’ On” (or “Let’s Get it On,” for that matter) “Across 110 Street,” and “Respect.” I won’t get into my preference for The Four Tops over The Temptations or Marvin Gaye over Stevie Wonder. Suffice it to say, however, that singing about secular subjects in the style of gospel, affirming the pleasures of sex and swingin’ in the face of rampant discrimination during the very unsexual ’50s, and openly addressing “the race question” in song, are very much political acts. See what I mean about context?
Songs work on many levels, as you know. By music for the kiddies I mean music exclusively and deliberately marketed toward kids that expresses what simplistic sentiments. How many adults were hooked on “Too Much Monkey Business?” Nevermind, I don’t even want to know. Yet everyone can listen to “My Girl” and certainly only grown ass folks would want to listen to cats like Bobby Womack, Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, and Curtis Mayfield blow about their relationships with women not girls. Love on a two way street that gets lost on a lonely highway isn’t something teenagers can really grasp, is it? They might like the melody though.
Remark · Justin Mitchell · 30 October 2007
Addendum: I should also point out that Prince is not apolitical at all (he is in fact perhaps the most political artist you name), that through his consciously black-styled band The Time, he often ridiculed and parodied “white” music (“We don’t like New Wave” was a constant refrain). Prince’s candid discussions of sex, his early use of the word “fuck” (please see “Get it Up”), and his struggle with religion is fully in line with the moral ambivalence of soul music (see also, Marvin Gaye). At the heart of soul there is a blending of the sacred and the profane, something you find in many a Prince record. And while he certainly embraced pop at times, there were plenty of times he deliberately did not in favor funk’s fun or soul’s spiritualism.
Remark · zbs · 30 October 2007
Yes, Prince is certainly political, though as with most things he’s very scattered and ironic about it; my point is that he is an example of a brilliant combination of pop and soul, funk, new wave, etc. And, as you point out above, also an example of someone who is capable of combining those without losing his edge. So what makes someone else’s embrace of pop is a “compromise”, which for Prince is only a “combination” — if only an ascribed difference of aesthetic success? And if so, isn’t that a somewhat flimsy platform to make claims about that compromise as a racial-cultural enterprise on the whole.
(And, if one thinks, as I do, that Blueprint is maybe not quite as good but is anyway comparable with Reasonable Doubt, wouldn’t it be reasonable to claim that his problem is not pop or compromise but the extended combination of fame and age, that only very few are able to overcome.)
Remark · cmb · 30 October 2007
Fame, then, is the ultimate killer of “imagination”. Or if not that, taste. The irreducible New Yorker rappers Justin discussed are intriguing, as fame was always a theme, lyrically and otherwise — “achieving elite status, becoming power players”. Could the real converse be found on the West Coast, or is that just an easy platitude ?
Remark · zbs · 30 October 2007
I suspect my last comment above is largely not much at odds with what Justin is saying. To that I would like to add to that another miscellaneous observation: that music (all music, really!) is especially well-suited to reflecting the relatively unambiguous emotional states that one tends to associate with adolesence, and lyric music of the twentieth century was really very especially good with them, and justifiably spent a lot of time on them. But I do agree that the themes one tends to associate with adulthood Justin rightly observes are poorly represented in music today, and could use some rehabilitation.
Remark · Justin Mitchell · 30 October 2007
The retreat from soul music’s artistry in soul-inspired hip-hop is not adequately explained by age and fame, at least not in the case of Jay-Z. There is, in my opinion, a deliberate cheapness and vulgarity in Kanye and Jay-Z’s use of soul music, a music that never shied away from big questions, to perpetuate the idea that big questions don’t matter, or matter only insofar as they can appear chic.They slickly draw one in with soul music’s melodies and rhythms, feigning seriousness but somehow staunchly avoiding it. The apparent goal is to justify their own self-absorption and make their listeners feel good, an evil trick that compromises some of the greatest elements of the black musical tradition and (by Jay-Z’s own admission!) amounts to little more than a scheme to sell records (mostly to white people). I don’t think it flimsy to make explicit what is implicit in Jay-Z’s conspicuous disavowal of the political. At least he’s honest, they say.
Brilliant black artists like Prince, despite their pop sensibilities, never felt that it was okay to say nothing and would find it sacrilegious to use the language and symbols of soul music as vehicles to express this heresy. This is what I mean (mostly) when I refer to stupid pop music. My God is it stupid.