I was pretty surprised when I finally caught Lupe's little mess-up at the Vh1 'Hip-Hop Honors' and it was just that, a little mess-up. He screws up a few lines, laughs off the fuck-up and tries to recover on 'Scenario'. Of course, it was Lupe's obnoxious damage control which turned a faux-pas into a sincere but misguided attempt at canon dissection and then devolved into some Andy Kaufman "I'll sue you all" type shit. There's plenty to dislike about Lupe, he's always seemed a bit insincere and trend-grabbing. How that older song he recorded about selling-crack didn't demolish his integrity, I'm not sure. That too was an example of poor damage control, as it took rap nerds to "uncover" the track and when they did, rather than just address it honestly, Lupe used it as an example of how "bad" he wanted a rap contract, which still sort of deflects its sell-out connotations. Dude's a whiner and pussy and it's fun to see him get shit because he's the classic intellectual-type who dishes it out, in condescending songs like 'Dumb It Down' or the legendarily obnoxious verse on 'Daydreamin' and then punks-out when a bunch of overzealous diehards get offended because he stumbled through their gospel.I'd be lying if I didn't sort of relish the sequence of events. Because I'm as full of shit as the next guy, I spend time babbling about those self-satisfied "conscious" rap fans even as I self-satisfyingly make fun of them. The only cliche more grotesque than "conscious" rappers that are boring and not saying anything new would be people like me complaining about those rappers for being boring and not saying anything new. Yet, it's more than that, some of my self-satisfied anger comes from disappointment, the way these high-minded type rappers continually screw-up, fuck over their fans, or just embarrass themselves. It is events like "Fiascogate", over the past decade or so that increasingly distanced me from giving political-type rappers any interest as they, not only disappoint musically (like most rappers) but can't even maintain their ideals...and of course, when they do sell-out those ideals, it's the Jew-run industry that forced them to sell-out or this damned system of Capitalism...
Below are the ones that have really stuck with me. I'm an asshole fan like the rest, so sometimes my disappointment is premature or it took me awhile to understand. Common's falling-off musically, although depressing just sort of makes sense, especially when I get some real-life experience in me and while in 1999, I bitched about Q-Tip's selling-out with 'Vivrant Thing', I get it now, it's just a good fucking song. Others examples however, still sort of hurt...it's an autobiography of disappointment!
10. Lupe's Lame Damage Control Over Some Forgotten Lyrics
I already talked about this above but let's quickly talk about just the idea of "Fiasco-gate". A lot of people make sure to mock the term but it's clearly used ironically by everybody. It's also funny in a linguistic way because it's basically like calling something "Gate-gate" or "Fiasco-fiasco"...but yeah, Lupe's lame not because he screwed up some lyrics or doesn't know about Tribe, but because the whole thing seems offensive to his fans and fellow musicians. Usually, I don't care about what rappers do or say but when they have defined themselves as a healthy alternative to crack-rap and dumbed-down pop-rap, you expect them to handle themselves a little fucking better.
9. Kanye West's 'Late Registration'
This entry explains it well and for me, on a nerdy, homo personal level, 'Late Registration' was a huge disappointment, but I put it at 9 because Kanye, unlike many others on this list, was smart enough to not make too many grand statements about this or that, so when he made an album that sounds like it was designed for Rolling Stone and TIME magazine to celebrate, it's more annoying than hypocritical.
8. Stones Throw's Continued Raping of Dilla's Corpse
While I appreciate the re-release of 'Ruff Draft' a whole lot, I'm nothing but annoyed by this "independent" label's exploitation of the dude. This is a little too fresh in my mind for me to have any real sense of perspective, but those pathetic approximations of 'Donuts' made by Madlib and now his little brother Oh No and the occasional appearance of a bunch of rappers crappily rhyming over a Dilla beat really kind of hurts. It is especially frustrating because it is one more way that the independents suck almost as much as the majors. Dilla is Stones Throw's meal-ticket and they are slowly milking it for all it's worth. No one else on that shitty label can really do anything except for MF Doom and he's been too lazy to rap properly in years, in part because of Stones Throw's partnering up with garbage like Adult Swim (oh-so indie guys...) which adds so many levels of novelty, the music no longer needs to be listenable.
7. Little Brother's 'The Minstrel Show'
'The Listening' was pretty exciting as far as feeling and sounding like those old Native Tongues albums but it was not as derivative as many said. It was only after 'The Minstrel Show' that Little Brother really began to look like humor-less jerkoffs, even though the album was supposed to be a satirical look at modern hip-hop imagery. The album's jokes never penetrated because they were caught-up in a haze of condescension and obviousness.
6. Cee-Lo's Involvement with Gnarls Barkley
Cee-Lo can be (or was) way more of a political rapper than any of the explicitly political rappers out there or Kanye "I'm kinda political and know a bit about the C.I.A's involvement in the cocaine trade" West. Cee-Lo has certainly devolved since Goodie Mob's genius mix of political anger and empathy, but Gnarls Barkley is another level of bullshit. Noz perfectly explains it here but I'll add a few thoughts...By becoming part of something as terrible as Gnarls Barkley, it has the ability of somewhat altering Goodie Mob's message or making one feel a little less hopeful about 'Soul Food's real-life viability. Is there anything worse than retroactively rendering your own message meaningless?
5. Talib Kweli's 'Beautiful Struggle'
I'm not concerned with Kweli's inability to stay on-beat or a bunch of other stuff, because Black Star, 'Reflection Eternal', and 'Quality' were pretty fucking good. When the formulaic 'Beautiful Struggle' came out, it highlighted all of Kweli's problems and none of his strengths. On 'Quality' in particular, he had something resembling a connection to popularity without sounding too pandering but on 'Beautiful Struggle', he just tries to recreate his previous album's successful songs. 'Get By' becomes 'I Tried' and he grabs the Neptunes for a shitty, super-obvious anti-drugs tale. The worst part for me, is that it's a classic manipulation of the fans. Kweli sells-out halfway, as to not alienate anybody but hopefully get a hit.
4. Common Drops Out of the 'Touch the Sky' tour to Be in Some Post-Tarantino Bullshit
This one is more hilarious than anything else. Common seems to have a genuine hit and popular album and is going on-tour with another smart, super-popular rapper- it sounds like the perfect reaction against Jeezy, et. al- and Common drops out to act in some stupid-ass flashy crime movie like 'Smoking Aces'; you know the movie's hack when it's a rip-off of Guy Ritchie who is a Tarantino rip-off himself. It just makes anybody wonder what a man of the people like Common really cares about when he drops out of a tour to pursue some Hollywood cash.
3. Mos Def Releases 'True Magic' without Artwork
I don't know what kind of statement this is supposed to be if any, but it's big "fuck you" to your fans, not your record label or whoever else. Similar to Common or even Kweli's half-hearted attempts at selling-out, it's really fun when rappers that speak out against Capitalism and Tall Israeli's are too concerned with record label problems to drop a real album with real packaging This, coupled with Mos' focus on acting in bad Hollywood movies, should totally ruin anything else he ever has to say. Also see 'Dollar Day' which takes Juvenile's 'Nolia Clap', a song that simply through regionalism and context is implicitly political and making it way-too explicitly political.
2. Chuck D's book 'Fight the Power'
Oh boy, Chuck D's book about "rap race, and reality" exposes him as the ill-informed sloganeering idiot I couldn't admit he was until a year or two ago. It puts him in-line with other "inspirational" political guys that talk out of their ass (Bob Marley, Joe Strummer, Bob Dylan, etc.), which he may or may not like to hear (it seems, depending on the page, Chuck's a hardcore racist or a classic liberal democrat). His anger might be appealing and even inspiring if it felt at all real or earned as it did for the black radicals from which he steals. As you're reading, it's all that you've heard before and probably agree with, but actually presented less-articulately with no semblance of a real solution!
1. Common Does a Coke Ad with Mya
I don't know why this one killed me so much but I guess around 2002 or so, a Pepsi commercial with Common rapping in a cool club as Mya sang, started popping up on television and worse, before movie trailers at your local multiplex. Again, it's annoying because Common presents himself a some paragon of virtue and integrity but that's all obvious. What really hurt about this one was, that it involved rapping and the slogan was something invoking real-ness. Depressing. Let's not also forget the song was some messed-up interpolation of 'Compared to What' which I always connect to Roberta Flack.
Other very recent fiascos (potential gates?) that are genuinely depressing: Ghostface dropping an album the same fucking day as the Wu, The crossover/grab for street cred hustle that is 'American Gangster', KRS-One's support of 50 Cent over Kanye West, Nas calling his album "Nigga" and think he's making some kind of statement...
24 comments:
Wow. That was a great fuckin' post.
1. 2. 6. 8. 9. yes yes yes.
As a moderate fan of Stones Throw (specifically the new Oh No album), I gotta argue with #8. What have they put out posthumously aside from Ruff Draft? I believe The Shining was on another label. Anything else Dilla-related is kept to one-off tracks with said shitty rappers to sell their compilations (I think there's been 2 so far). I wouldn't blame them for catering to demand. There's certainly people out there who want to hear whatever unreleased Dilla tracks are out there. It's a bit unfair to fans who pay for a full album, but with digital downloads, they can just get the specific tracks they want. I agree to a certain extent in that I stay away from those compilations because I don't want to hear some LA-based no-name awkwardly trip all over Dilla's beats. There are certainly mindless fans out there who eat that shit up though. What's so wrong with making a buck off of them? I don't think Stones Throw ever takes a holier-than-though stance on that kind of thing.
And after reading that, I'd like to put out a Death metal tribute album to J Dilla called "The Continued Raping of Dilla's Corpse"
And yea, while I enjoy some Adult Swim, I loathe Stones Throw's pandering to that demographic.
Stonesthrow should be ashamed of themselves.
Fuck Lupe.
I don't like the current music and personae of any of the rappers on the list, but condemning their condescension as anything other than a poor artistic choice is a dead end.
And sometimes I wish that people could be taxed $100 every time they utter the word "sell out." Name someone who ISN'T a sell out?
This is awesome. I think along with Mos Def's dick move with "True Magic," I would count his appearance on Bill Maher's show w/ Cornel West as another moment to bask in. He went from talking about Katrina to how Obama has to win because he's better looking. Then he just started yelling a bunch of shit. Why can't people separate music and other stuff? Some of these are (gasp) not smart/coherent outside of music.
Sweet post but I'm with josephlovesit on the Stones Throw thing.
The lack of artwork for True Magic never even really crossed my mind until you pointed it out. Now it kinda pisses me off. I paid full price for that CD, it wasn't a sale bin cop like 99% of my collection, and it doesn't even have a fcuking cover. I do love Dollar-Day though, not cause of the message I just think it's a good sounding song.
I didn't agree with Noz's Barkley post until I heard the album in it's entirety and realised it is rather crap. Except I was more annoyed at Dangermouse than Cee-Lo cause I'm a bigger fan of his work (Ghetto Pop Life is dope as is The Mouse and the Mask (even though I'm hardly a Adult Swim fan))
Oh and shuttlesworth I liked Mos' appearance on Bill Maher. The Soulja Boy reference he made was hilarious, actually I thought the whole thing was pretty hilarious... So thinking back on it maybe it was quite bad.
It was still fun to watch though.
yea, I thought the Soulja Boy reference was funny, but they were trying to have a productive discussion, and he sounded foolish. but yeah, the whole thing was funny to watch, but that was unintended (i think).
I take back the Stonesthrow thing. I know neither the extent to which his illness strained his family's finances nor how much they make from the posthumous releases. I shouldn't have judged without the facts.
Brandon:
I don't know if you saw my post at The Passion of the Weiss yesterday on my love/hate relationship with Lupe, but it appears we are on the same page.
I too hated "The Minstrel Show"--I hate conceptual or satirical albums (unless done by Masta Ace) because they usually don't warrant repeat listens. The beats usually take a back seat and it's a crime to make fun records because it'll all get in the way of "the message."
I watched "Smoking Aces" and I don't understand why Common would stop promoting his comeback album that almost went platinum to play a minor role in a flashy shoot 'em up co-starring Alicia Keys and Ben Affleck. But it's ok--he will be in American Gangster for 6 minutes.
All I am saying is if Stones Throw is a shitty label, then what is a good label? The not-so-funny thing is that most of your derision of them comes from the way they promote and make money for their label and little about the actual catalogue itself, (save Dilla and Adult Swim stuff) and for me their catalogue is exceptionally diverse and strong as far as I am concerned.
Jason
"And after reading that, I'd like to put out a Death metal tribute album to J Dilla called "The Continued Raping of Dilla's Corpse"
HAHAHAHAHA. Nice.
This is probably one of my favorite entries of late. Maybe because the nature of human interest is inherent bias and this is the sort of shit I love and wanted to talk about (you saved me from having to write an entry on Fiasco-gate, thnx).
But yeah. Everything you discussed I go on and on on allhiphop.com (where I'm just the thought police at this point) about, especially Fiascogate. From the onset, there's always been something about Lupe I never liked (this is starting to be reminiscent of the MIA post), but I eventually (5-6 months after the release) bought Food and Liquor because it is a good, unique album, production-wise and liked what he brought.
I can't recall what did it, but somewhere around this spring I started developing beef with Lupe. It was partially reactionary to him being posited by others and himself as "Over people's heads" and hyper "complex" or some bullshit, and I felt the need to shit on the stans and demonstrate the difference between complexity and an inability to be be clear and concise. Lupe is kind of a glorified alternative mixtape/punchline rapper, which is really an awful combination.
The last straws were his self-fellating and Jay-Z like ego, as well as "Dumb it Down" (really, son?) and his retarded 16-year-old myspace fag-esque blog response to the criticism.
I've yet to hear that crack-rap track, but I've heard about that for the better part of a year and a half and it is mad disingenuous, as is everything he does.
And yeah, Nas stans are idiots and the guy has sucked since 1996. He's another beacon of hope for the lazy and dumb.
And the Ghost/Wu drama is unnecessary and disheartening.
And another thing. I am by no means an Adult Swim fan but the overwhelming disgust around here thrown their way makes it seem like there is something underlying it. Is it really that Stones Throw is pandering or is it because it's pandering to a certain group you despise, (indie hipster white kids who probably do not listen to much hip hop) that earns your disdain? It seems to be me the real source of your venom is certain type of white kid consumer who listens to some Mos Def and Gnarls Barkley and not much else. If any label of reputable hip hop panders to those kids you'd probably be pissed off. Am I right? So what if ST does it?
And about J Dilla and Stones Throw, everyone I know is so sick of faux Dilla worship since dude passed when he was alive no one was giving him much due, I don't particularly think what ST doing is good here, but I am equally tired of the outrage behind the moderate exploitation, get over it already.
Peace,
Jason
Anonymous/Jason-
I appreciate your comments and thoughts, allow me to clarify a few things. Dilla's really fucking great, was when he was alive, is when he's dead. What worship has to do with that or my post I'm not sure. I'd add that for me, a long-time Dila fan, it is his post-humous work that has moved him even further up. 'Donuts' and 'The Shining' (instrumental version) are great, great, great. What is "faux" about my mentioning him?
Nah, it's not STONES THROW's audience or intended audience that bothers me- I see how you'd think that - it's more that because they have an audience generally rap ignorant, they get away with unimpressive shit that impresses rap ignorant fans. Madlib using Melvin Van Peebles samples and shit doesn't impress informed listeners.
They also cater to an audience white and black that sees rap as only fun and/or goofy. This makes an end-run around seriousness and yes quality because anything they make that is shitty or tossed-off is excused as being "fun". It's also really formulaic shit that they pass off as creative.
'The Unseen' was good, 'Madvilian' ain't bad,'Donuts' is a masterpiece, but now they just make those albums over and over. It's PRODUCT, which you know, conflicts with their image as an independent label...
I also gotta call bullshit on the wholesale Stonesthrow bashing. More inane backlash against the white kids with dreads, hipsters, and bandwagon "real hip hop" types who make up a big part of their fanbase.
How can you front on their rap and funk rarities and rereleases?
You can get them for the lack of quality control w/ respect to Madlib, but his good shit at least balances the loads of filler. Oh No is a good producer. They were wise to hitch their wagon to Georgia Anne Muldrow. While I'm not interested in albums by Percee P or Dudley Perkins, they didn't have to take chances on these kinds of projects.
Their collabs with the Tortoise guys, Bruce Haack, Gary Wilson, Melvin Van Peebles, etc. show that they are reaching for a specific kind of obscurist critical credibility, but just as they shouldn't get credit for being eclectic, they shouldn't be dismissed for it either.
Lupe is just not great with public relations, that's about it. I really don't pay attention to what some emcees say because I really don't think they pay attention.
While I like some of Little Brother's honesty the Minstrel show concept was a bit over the top, obvious and annoying at times. I only heard the mixtape.
Talib's Beautiful struggle . . . I haven't listened to that project after my first listen.
Common has a number of slips in my book . . . most of them musically.
Nas should concentrate on making the album superb instead of attempting to create controversy over the title. But what do I know, it might help him sell a couple of more units.
#8 was originally going to simply be "Nas' career", maybe I should've just gone with that?
listen, for starters i'm not the biggest stonesthrow fan in the world. however, this criticism seems pretty off-base. I don't have any numbers to back me up, but to say that dilla is "their meal ticket" seems a stretch. "donuts" may be #1 in the stonesthrow catalog in terms of sales (i'm not sure if it is) and it's probably safe to say that his death brought the label (and the record) a truckload of attention it wouldn't have garnered otherwise (deaths (both the timely and untimely) have a habit of doing such), however stonesthrow was doing pretty well for itself before dilla came into the picture. furthermore, you rail against dilla exploitation (which seems pretty minor in light of what goes on with other dead hiphop-types), but, and i could be completely wrong here, shouldn't there be some type of credit for stonesthrow putting the guy on/recognizing his talents while he still was? "dilla was a genius!" yeah? well, maybe, though its hard to imagine that if he was perceived as such pre-death he would have ended up on stonesthrow in the first place.
and your comment that stonesthrow caters to an audience "generally rap ignorant... that sees rap as only fun and/or goofy." for fucking real? before they started releasing the funk rarities and the dudley perkins shit and the yesterdays new quintet stuff and all that, the label was strictly rap. some of it was good (homeless derelix), some of it was bad (what's up wildchild!), and some of it, for my money, was great (the unseen). but the point is that the early stonesthrow core was rap and their initial audience were hiphop fans. there was considerable anticipation/hype for the jaylib and madvillain records before they dropped due to the fact that the people aware of stonesthrow at the time knew who mf doom and j dilla were. not exactly rap ignorant.
(as an aside it may be worth mentioning that i think part of percee p's appeal to stonesthrow is the fact that the guy has a history within hiphop. from lord finesse to ties with organized konfusion to pushing tapes outside of fatbeats, the guy has long maintained a place (no matter how distant or dim from the center) in the galaxy of nyc rap.)
anyhow, is their audience different today? probably, definitely, but i don't think stonesthrow can be blamed for catering to the rap-retarded. their aesthetic has always tended a little to the weird and it remains, despite the label's growth, inaccessible to a degree. i mean have you listened to dudley perkins? or ynq? it's pretty clear that stonesthrow releases exactly what they want to release with little or no thought given to how the public will respond. i think that's the ideal of an independent label (or a major for that matter).
(also, its time to end this, but i would hardly call the oh no and madlib beat records as rip-offs of donuts. madlib's beat tapes are legendary and people have been clamoring for their release for years)
(and another thing: fuck adult swim)
How perplexing is the Ghostface/Wu drama? Does anyone win? Maybe us for getting all of that new music, but still...generally head-scratching.
Madlib is TERRIBLE. A.D.D half-beats of prog and other obscure samples that anyone could chop and make them sound hot, does not make a good producer. The best thing he's done is 'Blunted in the Bomb Shelter'...and even that has this weird pillaging of a catalog or style that's unfamiliar to his dense audience...
I mean, I agree with all of that except for KRS supporting 50 over Kanye, since, you know, he's right - one can actually rap (though 90% of the time he chooses
not to), the other can't (even though he tries so, so, hard). And although on College Dropout Kanye's lack of any real ability was tolerable enough, mostly because the beats were inspired, he was actually saying something interesting on most of the songs even if he didn't really have a flow to say it with, and he didn't drop some hideous clunker punchline every 4 bars because he wasn't trying to prove himself as some great lyricist, now his shit's just devolved into total drivel. I guess I'd also say that I'm not disappointed by Ghost's release date - not like the Wu album will be good anyway.
eeeehhhhh...yup you just sound bias towards 'conscience' rappers as a whole...
ehhhhhh no shit anonymous.
eehhhhh...just reaffirming brandon...Chomsky does it...you just sound extremely emo...
Chomsky doesn't like conscious rappers?
Post a Comment