Photo: Mike Schreiber

In my previous two posts on the Robert Glasper CD Black Radio (Blue Note) I laid out some broad ways to think about sound organization in the project, the notion of branding in today’s music as well as some ideas about how we can begin to think about it as “post-genre” black music.  As the cultural critic Mark Anthony Neal has written in his insightful review of the CD, my usage of this term might seem like an oxymoron.  What he is indicating, of course, is that the concept “genre” operates as an index of sound and the social ideas assigned to it.  In other words, people socially agree on what sounds mean, to what community they “belong,” and what extra-musical connotations they might convey and so on.  So, if it’s post-genre, where does the idea of black fit in?

One of the things that’s got me going about Black Radio (particularly after Neal’s meditation of it in the context of historical “black radio” (yes!) is that it reminds me of growing up listening to WVON (Voice of the Negro).  Leonard and Phil Chess of Chess Records owned the Chicago-based AM station for a time in the 1960s.  We heard it all: gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, pop, and because it was Chicago, some more blues. (And if you were a churchgoer and fortunate enough to employ a “note-reading” musician, you heard classical anthems on first Sunday, too.)  A musical eclecticism defined this community of listeners, linking the generations with an “open-eared,” aesthetically patient temperament: one of your songs was coming up next.  Interestingly, when I visited Houston, Glasper’s hometown a while back, I noticed the same historical consciousness on its radio stations.

Photo: Mike Schreiber

Somehow we lost that.  (Program directors under corporate pressure are primarily responsible, I think).  And that’s the reason I’m digging this project’s look back to that moment and why I’m, at the same time, thinking about the forward-looking term “post-genre” to capture Black Radio’s pulse, contour, and impact.

Let’s go to the music.

For my money, every track is rewarding, and that’s hard to find these days particularly with projects of this size.  To my ears, the most attractive sonic features, as I’ve stated in Part 1 of this review, are (1) how the digital aspects of the recording are foregrounded and (2) how Glasper’s signature harmonic approach shares equal sonic footing—but with an ideal that heroic virtuoso solos need not dominate the message.

It works well and makes the recording sound fresh.  Glasper’s proclivity for a progressive post-bop vocabulary—close, infectious harmonies that pivot around common tones and shifting tonal centers is instantly recognizable.  The project collapses this approach, however, with another aesthetic: gospel music.  One can’t help but associate the way that his talented band—Derrick Hodge (bass), Casey Benjamin (vocoder, flutes, saxophone) and Chris Dave, (drums)—hit strong pocket grooves with all the deep soul of a good Pentecostal sanctified band.  They languish over the rhythmic and harmonic possibilities of these grooves, subtly twisting, turning, and burning as if this was the point of the whole matter.  With all the dramatic innovations that have occurred in gospel music of late, one thing has held strong: the love of repetitive grooves that work the spirit, providing a platform for some of the most moving singing and instrumental improvisations in the industry. This CD brims with this aesthetic. (If you want to hear an example in contemporary gospel, check out a Fred Hammond track—groove city).

Soul's Child, Lalah Hathaway

Take “Cherish the Day,” the cover from the chanting, groove-tress herself, Sade.  The song, released in 1993, is emblematic of a core aesthetic of styles that have occurred in the last, say, twenty years in urban pop: verse/chorus song forms that are built on identical chord structures.  This quality has become ubiquitous in R&B/urban soul song writing because of the spillover effect of hip-hop’s cyclic loops.  What separates this band’s take on this overused technique, however, is that they’ve taken the concept—an analogue interpretation of a digital concept—and injected the improvisational freedom of jazz/fusion/funk sonic complex. It sounds like a very hip church fanning up some community spirit.  Why rush through it for radio’s sake?  Moving something up takes a little time.

I’m partial to female singers, and it’s great to hear Ledisi (firebrand with riffs and range), Me’Shell Ndegeocello’s (whispering, warm molasses), Chrisette Michele (breath/croon/sigh), Erykah Badu (Badu-ism, ‘nuff said), and the Lalah Hathaway—yes, Lalah.  Her reworking of “Cherish the Day” features everything that’s appealing about her vocal presentation: an open-throated, well-supported, and sultry alto voice that the engineer captures excellently.  Breathy vowels abound as she moves through tasty melodic lines, working over chords like her Daddy but with more economy. Lesser-known female singers, sisters Amber and Paris Strother and Anita Bias provide a neo-soul-ish warmth to the project.  One more note on “Cherish the Day”: Mr. Benjamin’s synth solo—doubled in parallel intervals throughout is a gutsy statement reminiscent of Chick Corea’s Elektric Band in the 1980s.  And how the band keeps the groove pitched just above simmer beneath it? Wow.

I’m laughing to myself because I have to stop writing about this project for now. Once it’s nominated for a Grammy and is mentioned as one of the most important “post-genre” projects to appear, I’ll get with it again).   For now, just a few other highlights, quickly—Scouts honor.

I dig how the drums were recorded in some places to sound as if they were from an early 1990s hip-hop track.  The lavish background vocals on the old school slow jam “Oh, Yeah” featuring Musiq Soulchild and Ms. Michele demonstrate that the world still needs a duet—thinking here about Donny and Roberta but with the complexity of a Jaguar Wright multi-track vocal symphony. And Glasper’s acoustic solo after minute four of the track—a tasty ride over a Fender Rhodes drenched soundscape—suggests how this recording would have sounded if long instrumental solos had been the emotional focal point of this project.  (I sure hope one day they release the modulating sequences that begin during the fade out: more, more!)

Vocalist Bilal, featured on the CD and in live performances

Male voices—Lupe Fiasco, Bilal, Shafiq Husayn, Stokely, Mos Def together with the turntablism of Jahi Sundance—are showcased in the most experimental tracks that crisscross generic makers with dizzying aplomb.  Scattered unusual mixes, spoken word, electronic effects, stylistic juxtapositions, fade-ins, oral declamations and rhythmic chants, and so on, combine to frustrate efforts to “place” this music.  Coupled with a written statement in the CD by writer Angelika Beener—less liner note than manifesto—this project announces itself as something new, a turn toward breaking out of sonic/marketing formulas so prevalent in today’s industry offerings.  The most important aspect of this “announcement,” however, is this important idea. For the most part, Black Radio allows the sonic to do the preaching.  Thus, we hear their “post-genre” move as a suggestion and not a mandate.  In other words, only the music in the totality of our experience, music that is boundary-less, market-resistant, artistically adventurous, and conceptually focused can take black music back.  Free Black music!

The show was part of the promotional tour for Glasper’s new release Black Radio (Blue Note).   As New York Times music critic Nate Chinen wrote recently it’s “the rare album of its kind that doesn’t feel strained by compromise or plagued by problems of translation.”  That’s quite a feat given that jazz and hip-hop have supposedly operated under different social contracts since the emergence of hip-hop as a musical commodity in the 1980s and the contemporaneous “young lions” movement that shot Wynton Marsalis’ generation to jazz stardom.

Robert Glasper's Black Radio Project, live in Philadelphia

Public discourse pitted the neo-classicist hard bop “analogue nation” against the sample-filled digital soundscapes of hip-hop producers (they’re not even “real” musicians) and their spiting, rhyming counterparts (they’re really not musicians). Although many people could actually find something to praise or disdain in both streams it was easy to find oneself wedged between the polarizing aesthetic/political rhetoric.  That was then.

Changes in the way the “recording” revenue stream of the music industry operates have opened up new creative opportunities for artists.  And musicians are taking them.  Talented engineers and producers—and high quality recording opportunities—abound in all areas of the country.  Many musicians have become equally as astute in engineering, composition and performance, as well as in marketing and promotions.  The clever ones are pushing out the box and crafting projects that are conceptually adventurous.  Some of them purposely share their work around social media sites before they actually “drop.”  Thus, a new kind of art world is emerging in which the shots are not solely being called by “the suits.” Musical collectives that work across the genres lines (those imaginary sonic boundaries that exclude more than they invite) are creating new audience alliances as well.

Although he has a Blue Note record deal, Glasper is on the avant-garde of this new wave.

That is not to say that one cannot find sonic precursors that equally portray what makes Black Radio so appealing and timely.  Chinen mentions a few milestone performers in this regard: Miles Davis, Guru, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and Roy Hargrove.  Each produced projects that blended elements of jazz with that of other populist styles.  We can name others.  Let’s push the list back a bit to include someone like Ramsey Lewis who has continued to build a vibrant career sliding easily around the jazz/pop continuum.  And, of course, the clear-headed and creative optimism of Herbie Hancock should certainly count as an important inspiration both in spirit and in technical execution.

MeShell Ndegeocello: Musician Supreme

And we must not forget the important women contributors to this aesthetic sensibility—an oversight that happens a lot.  Gospel great Elbernita “Twinkie” Clark’s songwriting, singing, and instrumental work set that genre on an unapologetic and sonically ecumenical path.  Patrice Rushen’s work as a songwriter, arranger, vocalist, and keyboardist boasted an eclecticism that surely provided neo-soul rhythm tracks some of its harmonic approach.  Bassist and songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello’s virtuosity in funk, soul, and jazz—and the singular and courageous way she combines them—must be considered a particularly salient and challenging guidepost.

But what’s going on in the Black Radio project that makes me wonder if we are in the midst of a post-genre moment, a realignment of the traditional social contracts governing music creation, dissemination, and consumption in the industry?  I’ve experienced this project as a subject of written criticism and promotion, as a live performance event, and as a recording.  There’s a lot going on that deserves attention.

Black Radio’s sense of aesthetic balance—of getting it just right—may be derived, in my view, from two provocative musical choices: (1) a self-conscious foregrounding of digital technology in the soundscape that includes tricked out mixes and effects, among other techniques; and (2) a harmonic palette drawn from the progressive post-bop vocabulary—close, infectious harmonies that pivot around common tones and shifting tonal centers.  The songs are otherwise characterized by the careful alignment of sonic symbols from across the historical black popular music soundscape.

Check back in for Part II when I’ll show how these techniques, among many others,  animate the songs on this great project.

Dr. Guy

I was thinking about writing something new about Michael Jackson for Day #25 of my black music

Photo credit: Hope Rose

month series.  It seemed only appropriate to commit some new words to paper to mark the occasion of him being gone for two years.  But during the virtuoso super group Take Six’s set at the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival, they broke into a musical tribute to the King of Pop with their own brand of mind-boggling tight-wire “edutainment.”  Mere words will never match up to the honor and respect that their performance demonstrated.  Can’t top it; won’t even try.

The Virtusos: Photo Credit Hope Rose

The kind of channeling demonstrated in their MJ tribute on “Remember the Time,” for example, has kept this group producing high quality, thought provoking music since they formed in 1980.  So what’s so special about this primarily a cappella ensemble?  After all, this kind of genre was wildly popular back in the early 20^th century, sustaining its relevance mostly in the gospel tradition up to the 1960s.  It’s really difficult to sustain audiences’ attentions performing a style that’s nearing its century benchmark.  Where’s the appeal?

In Take Six’s performance I heard a veritable history of African American music making compressed into one set of music.  Each of the members is phenomenally gifted with the gift of mimicry in vocal and instrumental timbres.  And the arrangements—stunning in their complex craft and non-repetitious quality—are marvels to try and comprehend.  The vocal histories embedded in a Take Six performance encompasses numerous rhetorical constructs, including: the early Quartet style; the chorale style made popular in historically black college groups; the tight-knit instrumentally-inspired harmonies made famous by Lambert, Hendrix, and Ross; the male group singing of male groups from the Temptations to the Boyz to Men, to Jodeci.  And that’s not including the mesmerizing lead vocals in any one of these distinctive sonic settings.

Photo Credit: Hope Rose

Take Six also moves through numerous genre configurations: jazz-swing complete with walking bass lines, funk, gospel, and various forms of hip-hop.  In each arrangement the members effortlessly trade lead vocals against plush harmonic backgrounds; create rhythm tracks plus percussion; provide horn lines and synth pads—they execute just about anything one can find in a historically specific composition.  It was stunning to hear them beat box their way right into the hip-hop era and recreate digital sound organizations with the same authority and spot on delivery that they did in earlier styles.

Although I believe that all music is of its time and space, Take Six makes us to transcend the here and now.  Clearly this group will be considered historic and singular; they can never be contained by the description: “Christian a cappella group.”  They are the history of black music in the USA.

The Clifford Brown Jazz Festival affords an opportunity for local photographers to capture these moments up close and personal.  One of them, Hope Rose, a local institution, has become an amazing chronicler of local Wilmington history.  These photos of Take Six represent this great night of music through her eyes.

Now that Dirk and the Boys from Texas have secured their franchise’s first championship last night, it might

Pacer and Pistons Duke It Out

be fun to go back to the vault and think about a classic moment in which the NBA and music history intersected provocatively.

Before game three of the 2005 NBA Finals, Stevie Wonder christened the televised festivities with a soulful rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner.”  Performed on his harmonica and accompanied by a string quartet, the spectacle was masterful.  It worked on a number of levels, in how it deconstructed this classic song, reconstructed our views about contemporary music in American culture, and instructed about the impact of the notion “musical genius” within such.

As many have observed before me, the modern day NBA has promoted an image strongly indebted to hip-hop musical and visual culture.  At all points on the globe, from New York to Milan and beyond, one can witness this arranged marriage on graffiti-sprawled walls, in record bins, on billboards and sportscasts.  Along with

B-Ball, B-Boys, and Bling-Bling

this, the orchestrated and heavily marketed bad boy images of players such as Allen Iverson, Ron Artest, and Latrell Sprewell had become, at that time, staples of the NBA’s public corporate face—anti-heroes in the unfolding narrative dramas of a sports season.

Things were going well and business entirely usual until during a fall 2004 Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons match, an on-court physical altercation turned very ugly and spilled into the crowd.  Following the melee, fines were levied and stiff suspensions meted out.  The media saturated quickly with heated discussions about the intersection of race, sports, inflated ticket prices, humongous salaries, and the new entitled “super-fan,” whose electronic credit card transactions empowered them to hurl soda and loud obscenities.

Complicating matters, a few months earlier pop diva Janet Jackson’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction” revealed more than part of her anatomy.  The internationally broadcast halftime show of the 2004 Super Bowl caused a global crisis and a scandal of huge proportions (fear of a black tatah, no?). Debates about race, gender, sports, and pop culture swirled in all media outlets.  Even the United States Congress weighed in with expected hypercritical political hype, mounting expensive hearings on the media and obscenity at the height of the Iraq war. (It’s funny to think about this last point what with all of the stories that have surfaced since about liaisons in airport bathrooms, twitter accounts gone wild, “side pieces” in Argentina, baby mama drama on the campaign trail, and the latest, Weiner-gate).    More fines, damaged record sales, apologies and promises to do better followed.

Oops! Timberlake Loses Focus

How did the NBA and NFL clean up their respective acts?  They did so with musical genius.   Super Bowl 2005 featured Paul McCartney, a middle aged, foreign born, and thoroughly American icon.  Middle America found solace in the capable arms and performance rhetoric of one of pop culture’s most adorned musicians. Somewhat past his prime in the mass mediated spotlight, McCartney’s performance was viewed as classic, non-offensive, and to some, a relieving alternative to contemporary pop music choices.  An award-winning singer/songwriter, his performance was probably conceived to distance the NFL’s image from the “vulgarities” of present day pop, most obviously

British and All American

articulated in somestrains of corporate endorsed rap and rock music.  Interestingly, what was once viewed as threatening national sensibilities of taste and decorum during the early 1960s would some decades later be chosen as a safe, traditional alternative to illicit language labels, waning moral codes, and faulty stitching in stage costumes.

Indeed, the McCartney example is instructive.  The Beatles, a blues-influenced, working class rock quartet from a gritty British town launched McCartney’s fame within a larger cultural movement that was initially received in the United States as threatening the white middle-class status quo.  Yet the Beatle’s music is now celebrated as fine works of art, attracting continued journalistic and scholarly reflection—and, thankfully now available on iTunes).  Thus, the NFL chose a “universal,” “timeless,” and ironically, a very constructed sense of male musical genius to save the day and our all-American Sunday afternoon football.

Wonder’s performance did similar cultural work for the NBA’s public image.  The shrill timbre and virtuoso runs, riffs, and glides of a typical Wonder harmonica performance is, indeed, a wonder. It is as immediately recognized as any musical voice of the twenty-first century some forty or more years after he burst on the scene as a child prodigy.  Wonder seems to push the instrument beyond its expressive limits, compressing years of blues, rhythm and blues, gospel, jazz, and pop music into its tiny, hand-sized mass.  A formidable companion to his florid, melismatic and energetic vocals, Wonder’s harmonica work embodies a singular voice in global pop.  This is voice, and to many listeners, this is genius.

There are many lessons as well as lingering questions here, listed here in no particular order. It’s important to understand how historically situated ideas about musical value are.  What at one time is seen as threatening the social order will certainly become a safe, child-friendly resource in time.  Why does a corporation like the

Talk to the Hand: Jackson's advertising for her line of lingerie is no malfunction. An art history close reading would note where her fingers are pointing.

NBA cultivate images of edgy, hardened, urban, black culture as its lingua franca and express fake “outrage” when the same shows up at the party sometimes?  The performance practices embedded in early Beatles work and in Stevie Wonder’s output generally were seen as counter to America’s “official” culture; but now these same black musical conventions are viewed as wholesome as our most revered elected politicians—wait no this doesn’t work—as anti-gay preachers in mega churches—nope—as Congress’s concern over children’s safe use of the internet—ummm—as a pop diva’s new clothing line.  Okay, sometime clichés are easier: as a scoop of vanilla ice cream on apple pie.

Americans need to admit that our society is generally obsessed with violence and sex but don’t like to be.  That level of hypocrisy can’t be cured by even a fistful of blues licks and rim shots.  Until this underlying contradiction is squared, I’m afraid we’ll continue to pay for Congressional hearings on fake moral issues run by “freaks of the week,” (fund a school anyone?), violence against the most vulnerable in society, and, tweeted wieners in our inboxes.

Try to see things my way; Life is very short, but we can work it out! Enjoy classic Stevie singing one of those good Beatles songs.

“As much as I wanted to be minuscule the fact is, they’d only be happy with a minstrel actor, Sorry Mr. Charlie won’t chap dance, and f*ck the radio for tellin’ me to snap jam”

-Wale, “Mama Told Me” (Attention: Deficit, 2009)

Rap, in my view, no longer incorporates deeper messages in its “mainstream” work.  Clearly, if you want success, the recording industry requires that you produce club bangers, dance music, and radio singles.  This artistic chokehold constricts artistic output. Neil Postman, a media theorist and cultural critic believes complexity “is a superhighway to low ratings.”  In the rap world, mainstream artists are compelled to invent catchy yet superficial lyrics, leaving the more “intellectual” lyricist to go underground.  Wale, one of my favorite artists, has been around for some years now but continues to straddle the underground/mainstream line because while he is known in the inner circles of the rap world one can’t readily hear him on radio or other popular media.  His very stimulating work goes beyond making clever pronouncements about being rich and getting girls.  His music tackles everyday issues with creativity with which anyone can relate.

Wale’s criticism of the industry’s hindering of his visibility is a motif throughout his work.  He refuses to produce hits solely to entertain and amuse the masses even as he references the late Charlie Chaplin’s famous dance routines.  Wale has recently signed with Maybach Music Group, a record label founded by rapper/producer Rick Ross.  Though entering a “hostile” territory for his particular brand of artistic expression, Wale tells his fans to “expect the same music, better energy”.  It’s apparent through his lyrics that he won’t be compromising his intellectual skills to “chap dance” or “snap jam” anytime soon.

Check this: Video of Wale’s reference to chap dancing

Link to Henry Adaso’s blog about Wale’s signing with Maybach Music Group:

Chuck D: Fighting the Power

I can’t fully explain the power of Chuck D’s words from more than twenty years ago, that “Rap music is CNN for black America,” exerted on me.  I became aware of them long after the moment in which they were initially uttered, and they have now resurfaced in my mind long after I first read them.  For me these words then partake of three different historical moments, and their truth, as it were, is shrouded in mists of time, memory, and nostalgia.  I feel desperately that they are relevant to the present, despite the dismissals of today’s crop of hip hop heads who are more au courant than I ever had a hope of being; and yet I question their relevance because I suspect that the reason they held so much appeal for me in the first place is because of their “rootedness” in the youthful idealism I felt when I stumbled across them for the first time.  Resistance is shot through the sentence’s literal meaning: accusation, separation, and ultimately empowerment through claiming identity.

CNN: "Braking" the News

Is that enough to claim that these words still resonate today?  Certainly, on the surface it would seem counter-intuitive: the luxuriant material emphasis of much current hip hop contrasted with the seriousness of up-to-the-minute news, lent an aura of self-important authority by virtue of glossy delivery.  Nonetheless, based on the reaction in a recent graduate seminar in which rap as black CNN was discussed, it seems that academic types, at least, are willing to consider the comparison, whether out of professional indulgence or genuine agreement.  A brief perusal of the blogosphere, however, pours scorn not only on the contemporary relevance of Chuck D’s statement, but also on the academic types who tend to fixate on it (mea culpa).  Granted, academic interest in the words of Chuck D exemplify a certain bias, a tendency to skew representations of hip hop towards the “conscious” side – a move that is both politic and faintly narcissistic.  Such selectivity is outmoded: most people are now sufficiently familiar with hip hop to know that there is huge diversity in the music being produced, and definitive statements as to the music’s purpose are to be viewed with suspicion.

Ebony Magazine: Selling the Race

Perhaps my insistence that there is an important kernel of truth to the idea of rap as the black CNN has to do with the nature of authority, subjectivity, and authenticity.  Popular wisdom dictates: the mainstream news media is authoritative; emcees speak with authority.  Authority in hip hop derives from a show of force; authority in the news media from a show of knowledge.  The institutional news media depends on popular credence in the authenticity of its statements; authenticity in hip hop can depend on perceptions of street credibility (the ability to speak to “how things really are”, implies an authenticity counter to that of the mainstream press).  So far, then, the categories of authority and authenticity show some semantic overlap, although the form taken in each context is different.  Subjectivity is where we hit a wall.

For the mainstream news media as represented by CNN, apparent objectivity is crucial to the maintenance of authority; whereas the emcee spits from a position of subjectivity – embodied, against the ostensibly objective mainstream.  The power dynamic established between the opposition of subjective rapper and objective CNN concerns the arrogation of the right to represent versus the right to speak for oneself, or at least to defy representation by an outsider.  Subjectivity resists mediation – which is not to say that it cannot be mediated, packaged, co-opted – insofar as it insists on doing the speaking.

Selling The Defender circa 1942

If one were specifically to frame these general oppositions in light of the history of the politics of African American representation in the United States, it would appear that the advent of apparent subjectivity is a new mode of representation.  The policies of The Defender newspaper and Ebony magazine (as represented in Adam Green’s book Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940-1955) were intended to increase and highlight the upward mobility of their readership.  Difference from/opposition to the mainstream was drawn across the color line.  Strategic essentialism was the name of the game in African American-owned media representation – a performative gesture that does not portray the entire picture, as a unified front by definition downplays dissent and smoothes over other rough edges.  Along the same lines, the approach to African American representation adopted by the mainstream, white-owned media also smacks of the kind of essentialism, albeit not strategic, which gave rise to Chuck D’s comment in the first place.  The Defender and Ebony therefore promote the same mode of representation as the mainstream, only from an African American perspective, for an African American readership.  This sets up an opposition that cannot be resolved in a racialized society.

Any medium that derives authority from claims of objectivity must by definition engage in essentialist representational models – models in which the man on the street will not necessarily recognize himself.  The role of the news media is ostensibly to inform; but neatly packaged, convenient morsels of information, divested of much of the immediacy that would humanize them also serve to compartmentalize and control.  The advent of the overtly subjective voice is thus a welcome breath of fresh air.  Today this “breath of fresh air” is not the exclusive territory of the emcee: the blogosphere also has a strong claim to the crown of subjective media representation.

What these media have accomplished is to shed light on the problematic nature of supposedly “objective” media representations of African Americans; however, they also present an alternative route by which people can engage with experiences documented by the media.  This is not to say that there is no mediation involved: obviously there is; but receiving information that is mediated through a subject qua subject foregrounds the individual’s reaction to larger forces.  I hesitate to claim that any gesture is inherently empowering, but I do believe that according pride of place to the voice of the individual valorizes the personhood of that voice as well of that of those being addressed by it.  These voices may be limited to a few outlets—and they may be mediated by the same forces that prune, graft, and control other voices in the name of objectivity.  Nonetheless, these subjective voices openly challenge the authority of mainstream media by offering themselves up as examples of those that did not toe the line and still managed to be heard.  Is rap the black CNN?  That’s not for me to say.  Do rap and other subjective modes of mass communication have the power to poke holes in the hegemony on authority in news media of CNN and others of its ilk?  My answer is an unequivocal yes.–LV

EDITOR’S NOTE: See this related article (“Will Recession Dull Hip-Hop’s Bling?) from CNN.com.

Dizzee Rascal

‘And all I care about is sex and violence

A heavy bass line is my kind of silence

Everybody says that I’ve gotta get a grip

But I let sanity give me the slip

Some people think I’m bonkers

But I just think I’m free

Man I’m just living my life

There’s nothing crazy about me’

This year, Dizzee Rascal has shocked the US music industry with his inimitable style and some addictive tunes. Yet, at only 24, he has remained a British icon for almost a decade. The East London-born rapper mixes grime and electronic music to complement his signature fast-paced, staccato lyrics. Since 2002, Dizzee, née Dylan Mills, has released four albums, all of which have captivated the critics. But his childhood was not as idyllic as his music career. Raised by a single mother, he was expelled from four schools, earning the brand ‘rascal’ from an early age. Consequentially, violence and crime characterized his teenage years.

Although Mills’ struggle is not one with race, he seems to be severely conflicted over the representation of his identity. On the one hand, his lyrics are ostentatious and bold, spattered with constant referrals to money, and reveal his prominent competitive streak. In one of his earlier songs, Money Money, Mills expresses the urge to increase his wealth, adding ‘Don’t get it confused, I will never lose.’ In a later song, Old Skool, he advises to ‘Stand tall even when their hating and their scheming, Yeah watch your money rise right to the ceiling.’ Mills does not shy away from his fame either. In Holiday, he raps:

‘Party around the clock
And when we get there it’s strictly VIP
No need for ID, security know me
No waiting in line, no high entry fee
Don’t worry about nothing when you’re beside me.’

Dizzee Rascal – Holiday

Yet on the other hand, Mills still yearns to be perceived as normal. In his most recent success, Bonkers, he insists that, although ‘some people think I’m bonkers [...] there’s nothing crazy about me.’ However his insistence of normality is farfetched, especially when the following lyrics claim that ‘all I care about is sex and violence.’ At the very least, Mills expresses the desire to counteract the ‘self’ that his industry success has created. In his second big hit and one of my favourite Dizzee Rascal songs, Fix Up Look Sharp, he addresses this concern:

‘I’ve heard the gossip from the street to the slammer,
They’re trying to see if Dizzee stays true to his grammar,
Being a celebrity don’t mean shit to me,
Fuck the glitz and glamour, hey I’m with the Blicks and Gamma.’

Dizzee Rascal – Fix Up, Look Sharp

Despite Mills’ struggle with self-image, his ‘Englishness’ has remained a part of his true identity, and inspiration for countless songs. He stays loyal to his roots, rapping in his signature, quirky cockney and embellishing his lyrics with English street slang. He repeatedly refers to himself as a ‘rude boi,’ terminology that originated in London. In Wannabe, he states:

‘Leave me alone or you’ll be sorry,
Beef ain’t nothing new to me, you wally,
Why don’t you just kick back, be jolly,
Stay at home with a cup of tea, watch Corrie.’

In the end, Mills does not seem to use his race as inspiration for much of his work.  Indeed, there is very little direct mention of the colour of his skin anywhere on his albums, something that seems a rarity for black rappers today. Instead, he focuses on his hometown, a theme that may grow in popularity as the younger generation puts racial struggles behind them and focuses on newer issues of the future. Mills sums up his sentiment in his interview with British newsman Jeremy Paxman. When asked if he was British, Mills replied:

‘Of course I’m British, man [...] It don’t matter about what colour you are, but it matters what colour your heart is.’

Dizzee Rascal interviewed by Jeremy Paxman for BBC Two’s Newsnight Barack Obama Special

ANNA CHRISTOFFERSON

Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs – Maps (Original Version)

Musical improvisation obviously cannot be limited to one particular genre of music; anyone from rappers such as Snoop Dogg to country musicians such as Garth Brooks has the ability to modify the structural components of their work as they see fit. However, these modifications differ in significance depending on the context in which they are carried out. For example, if they are performed during a recording session, listeners from around the nation all have access to the same original song. However, they may never hear any improvisations of this song, especially on a typical album where only one version of most songs makes it to the final cut. On the other hand, if the musician decides to improvise during a live concert, the only people who have access to these stylistic changes are those who attend the concert and are familiar with the musician’s recorded or “original” work.

When musicians enter the recording studio in order to produce an album, they often weather countless hours performing the exact same song until they believe they have reached a point of “perfection” in which the work is ready to be sold to the public. This “perfection” is sometimes not even determined by the artists themselves; in fact, a situation often arises in which a record label representative or producer decides which versions of which songs will rake in the most profit.

This most likely means that the final cut of each song has greater potential to simply provide listeners with more of the same music that has already been made popular by their antecedents and innovators of the past. Consequently, the public loses the opportunity to listen to each improvisation individually. One has no way of knowing if any of these lost tracks of music could possibly bring something new to the table in the music industry, namely an innovative chord progression, timbre, melodic structure, etc. The only way in which musical improvisation can be made manifest to the general public is if artists decide to remix their work, such as performing acoustic versions of songs or adding new instruments to the mix among other measures.

Although only a select group of people can hear the improvisation that occurs at a concert in person, the widespread use of the Internet allows listeners to upload videos of shows that they attend. At most concerts, musicians usually do not perform their work in the exact same manner as it has been recorded on their albums. Consequently, those who choose to attend live shows have a remarkable opportunity to witness artists as they attempt to create new musical ideas and advance our views of what we as a society consider to be “popular music.”

Once the concert ends, those who have chosen to film the show can make these improvisations instantly accessible to the rest of the world if they upload their videos to sites such as YouTube. As a result, people from all walks of life have the opportunity to listen to improvisations that may eventually help change our musical tastes if they are widely accepted by the general public. This degree of change is likely possible to obtain when the masses are given widespread access to improvisation. Conversely, recordings only allow people to consume the same version of a particular song unless artists decide to release a limited amount of remixes or improvisations on a special album.

Here are examples of how improvisation, by the band the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs on their song “Maps”, can create noticeable artistic differences between the original version compared with the album remix, and the live performance of the song  in concert.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs – Maps (Strings/Acoustic Remix)

Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs – Maps ( Live Footage from All Points West Festival 2009 in NYC)

Kevin Hirsh

Jay-Z

Jay-Z is the man who holds “the blueprint” for the successful hip-hop artist.  He started out his career as a young rapper with gangster appeal in the mid-90’s and gradually transformed into a respected artist by all (even political figures) with a multi-million dollar business.

Fans and the media fed off Hova’s street image for most of his career, and his music had widespread influence because of its harsh realities about living in poverty, and its glorifying of sex, drugs, and partying.  Jay-Z advertised his drug dealing past and was well aware that he was not a role model for kids.  When he spits on Young Jeezy’s “Go Crazy” track he even says, “don’t follow me young’n/follow my moves/I’m not a role model/my bad influence got the whole world drinkin’ gold bottles.”

Young Jeezy Featuring Jay-Z – Go Crazy

Jay-Z’s early songs about girls like “Big Pimpin’” and songs about life on the corner like “Hard Knock Life” set the standards for the rappers who were trying to make it big.  Rappers emulated Jay’Z’s style of wearing throwback jerseys and throwing 20-inch rims onto pimped out cars.  For the longest time, the media had associated rap with violence and excess, and Jay-Z’s self-made image fed the fire.

Jay-Z – Hard Knock Life

Starting with Jay-Z’s seventh studio album, The Blueprint 2:  The Gift and the Curse, the tones of his music began to change and so did his style.  Jay-Z’s albums in the past 8 years have shown increased maturity and sophistication.  He also has traded in his jerseys for suits and designer clothes, and his rims for less flashy rides. In Jay-Z’s opening song on his recent album, “The Blueprint 3,” he addresses everyone in “what [he’s] talkin’ ‘bout.”  In the song he raps to the media, fans, and other artists that he’s done talking about the glorifying of drugs and gang violence.  He says that there “ain’t nothing cool ‘bout carryin’ a strap/’bout worryin’ your moms and buryin’ your best cat/ talkin’ bout revenge while carryin’ his casket/all teary-eyed ‘bout to take it to a mattress.”  Jay-Z’s actions have once again started a movement in the hip-hop world, and more and more artists are starting to emulate his sound and style.

Jay-Z – What We Talkin’ About

Jay-Z is aware of the strong impact he has in the hip hop world, and he has used it to his advantage to influence the industry and convey a positive image to the public about hip hop music and what it stands for.  He hasn’t forgotten his Brooklyn roots, and where he comes from is still prevalent in his music; however Jay-Z chooses to talk about issues in an insightful and thought-provoking manner as opposed to a degrading and explicit one.

Taylor Collins

Matisyahu

What do you think of when you hear the words “Hasidic Jew?” Probably the last thing to come to mind would be rapper. But that is exactly what Matthew Paul Miller, better known as Matisyahu, epitomizes. By blending traditional Jewish themes with reggae, rock, beat box, and hip-hop, Matisyahu defies most racial boundaries as an unexpected but talented artist. His race and religion is not a detriment, but a blessing and he treats it as such. Singing of self-proclaimed “songs of love and healing,” he effectively spreads the messages of his religion and beliefs.

Dressed in traditional Hasidic Jew attire complete with a black fedora and long beard, Matisyahu is constantly surprising audiences with his music. His major hit song, “King without a Crown” was a Top 40 hit and was plastered all over MTV and the radio. He was even named as the Top Reggae artist of 2006 by Billboard. Matisyahu appeals to both young and old audiences as he delivers messages of Bible stories accompanied with a hip, catchy reggae beat.  His vocal style mixes traditional Rasta Roots with a dub sound. His lyrics can be deeply spiritual at times, while other tracks are lighter in tone. Some of his musical inspirations include Bob Marley, Phish, and Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.  Most of his songs are completely in English although he does occasionally use some Yiddish and Hebrew terms.

Matisyahu – King Without A Crown

Although he may not look like the stereotypical rapper, Matisyahu performs with “crooning, spell-binding vocals” (Meadows) that create a unique and refreshing sound. Equally impressive is his ability to take a genre such as rap and use it in an atypical way to spread positive messages instead of the hate and degradation that is common in many rap songs. Matisyahu uses his race and religion to separate him from other similar artists. His culture makes him so dissimilar from the rest of the rap artists that people really pay attention when they hear his music in combination with his exterior presence. In essence, he stands out. The intrigue surrounding Matisyahu negotiates the two different representations of self and industry stunningly.

He stays true to himself, his religion, and his music without conforming to the standard message, style, stereotype, and influence that comes with traditional rap music. In Matisyahu’s case, his race and unique representation of himself is a tremendous benefit because he is so distinctive. Most are pleasantly surprised when they hear his music after previously judging him based on looks alone. In a genre primarily dominated by African Americans, Matisyahu successfully differentiates himself from the rest of the pack not only with his looks, but also and most importantly with his unique and refreshing musical styles. Disregarding industry pressures, Matisyahu delivers inspirational music without compromising who he is.

Matisyahu – Jerusalem

Ali Armour

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