Tag: hip-hop

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2011: Are You Going to Eat That?

It’s December and time to reassess the year, and 2011 is a joy to revisit. It was easily my best year ever personally. I signed a book deal, spoke at several conferences with some of my best friends, got engaged to a wonderful woman, built some new bikes, redesigned my website (finally), and finished coursework and comprehensive exams on my way to a Ph.D., among other things.

This year was crazy, from the death of Steve Jobs and Occupy Wall Street to the ramping up of some sort of political happening. I also saw, listened to, and read a lot of good stuff. Here is the best of the media I consumed this year:

Album of the Year: Hail Mary Mallon Are You Going to Eat That? (Rhymesayers):  Hail Mary Mallon is the melding of word-murdering minds Aesop Rock and Rob Sonic and the laser-precise cuts of DJ Big Wiz, all three Def Jux alumni and no strangers to the raps and beats in their own rights. In the interest of full disclosure, these dudes are my friends. To be perfectly honest, if they were wack they wouldn’t be.

These three have been touring and clowning together for years in different guises, and it’s obvious when you hear how well they play together. Are you Going to Eat That? is the dopest record out this year.

Production-wise, “Mailbox Baseball” sounds like an Iron Galaxy outtake, while “Grubstake” evokes the stripped down reduction—all 808s and sparse scratches—of a salad-day-era Rick Rubin. Aes and Rob pass the mic like the Treacherous Three. “Table Talk” is a 21st-century “High-Plains Drifter.” But don’t get any of this twisted: this is not a throwback, it’s a leap forward.

It’s all good (“Breakdance Beach” is dope, though it does get grating upon repeated listens), and the skills are barn-razing and bar-raising. Whether it’s Hannibal Lector or Cannibal Ox, Hail Mary Mallon prove that rap will eat itself.

Here’s their video for “Meter Feeder” [runtime: 3:47] directed by Alexander Tarrant and Justin Metros:

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Close Second: Radiohead The King of Limbs (Waste): “I’m such a tease and you’re such a flirt…” The most important band in the world has returned with another cure for the malaise of the age. Pick one: They’ve saved rock and roll, killed rock and roll, and still emerged from the muck of the music industry well ahead of the curve. Everyone in media keeps them under the microscope to see how they will win. Again. Lean in, here’s the secret:

Radiohead makes great records.

And they do it consistently. They’re also quite adept at parsing the patterns on the horizon of the mediascape, but that wouldn’t matter if their records weren’t good. Damn good.

The King of Limbs is no exception. It’s more mellow than the sparsest parts of Amnesiac, but not nearly as insular. It might be their most even record. Thom Yorke’s voice, which I have to admit used to grate on me as often as it moved me, has gotten mature enough to carry the toughest of tunes. He is the voice of Radiohead, literally and figuratively (no small task either way), and he handles it with confidence and control.

Radiohead was never as joyfully abrasive as Sonic Youth or The Flaming Lips, but The King of Limbs reminds me of the releases of the former’s A Thousand Leaves and the latter’s The Soft Bulletin. All three records are still weird in their ways, but they’re also far more subtle than the previous work of their creators. Radiohead have always been masters of subtlety, and with The King of Limbs, they’ve earned their Ph.D. It’s such a tease and such a flirt.

Even Closer Third: Ume Phantoms (Modern Outsider): If ever a band were poised for the next level, Ume has been teetering there headlong for the better part of the past few years. Phantoms is the kind of record that neuters naysayers and emboldens enthusiasts. Lauren, Eric, and Rachel are some of the friendliest folks you’re likely to meet, but on stage they are ferocious. While Eric (bass) and Rachel (drums) are the stable and able drivetrain, Lauren (guitar and vocals) is the high-octane, internal combustion engine, careening ahead on the edge of control. Theirs is pop music in the sense that it’s explosive. Their live shows are where the real, volatile magic happens, but Phantoms captures their energy serviceably. For further evidence, here’s the video for “Captive” from Phantoms directed by Matt Bizer [runtime: 4:01], the most shared video on MTV.com:

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Runners Up: Wolves in the Throne Room Celestial Lineage (Southern Lord), Seidr For Winter Fire (Flenser), Cloaks Versions Grain (3by3), Jesu Ascension (Caldo Verde), Big Sean Finally Famous (GOOD Music), Knives From Heaven s/t (Thirsty 3ar), Pusha T Fear of God/Fear of God II: Let Us Pray (GOOD/Decon/Re-Up), Random Axe s/t (Duck Down), IconAclass For the Ones (deadverse), Crack Epidemic American Splendor (self-released), Deafheaven Roads to Judah (Deathwish), Panopticon Social Disservices (Flenser), Graveyard Hisingen Blues (Nuclear Blast).
Most Overrated: Opeth Heritage (Roadrunner), Kanye West & Jay-Z Watch the Throne.

Live Show of the Year: Deftones, June 4, 2011, Austin Music Hall, Austin, TX: Say what you will, but it’s absolutely unfair to lump Deftones in with bands they have next-to-nothing to do with (e.g., Limp Bizkit, Korn, Tool, et al). Deftones are as sophisticated as they are heavy and as beautiful as they are aggressive, as much like the Cure as they are Clutch. Their live show confirms all of this and more.
Runners Up: Mogwai, May 16, Stubbs, Austin, TX; Wolves in the Throne Room, September 27, Red 7, Austin, TX.

Comedian of the Year: Louis CK: No one else comes close.

Event of the Year: South by Southwest: SXSW is always a blurry blast, but this year was especially good. I got the opportunity to speak at Interactive and run around with friends seeing great music the rest of the time. You know who you are. Here’s to next year.
Runners Up: SF MusicTech Summit, Geekend Roadshow Boston.
Most Overrated: TEDxAustin.

Book of the Year: James Gleick The Information (Pantheon Books): James Gleick always brings the goods, and The Information is no exception. This is a definitive history of the info-saturated now. From Babbage, Shannon, and Turing to Gödel, Dawkins, and Hofstadter, Gleick traces the evolution of information theory from the antediluvian alphabet and the incalculable incomplete to the memes and machines of the post-flood. I’m admittedly biased (Gleick’s Chaos quite literally changed my life’s path), but this is Pulitzer-level research and writing. The Information is easily the best book of the year.
Runners Up: Insect Media by Jussi Parikka (University of Minnesota Press), The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading by Peter Lunenfeld (The MIT Press), The Beach Beneath the Street by McKenzie Wark (Verso), remixthebook by Mark Amerika (University of Minnesota Press), Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work! by Douglas Coupland (Atlas & Co.).
Most Overrated: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (Crown).

Educator of the Year: Howard Rheingold: Howard’s homegrown Rheingold University started this year and quickly established an impressive online curriculum. I took the first class and joined the very active alumni in continuing our co-learning with Howard’s help. It was through this group that I got the opportunity to speak to David Preston’s Literature and Composition class — one of the best experiences I’ve had in education.

Site of the Year: Shut Your Fucking Face and Listen: My man Tim Baker and his band of ne’er do wells have put together a site that’s as hysterical as it is historical. Mostly focused on music, they veer off on pop culture tangents and mad rants that are always more entertaining than their subject matter. Get up on that.

TV Show of the Year: Breaking Bad (AMC): I have Tim Baker from SYFFAL to thank for this one. This show doesn’t just rearrange the furniture in the standard TV drama’s livingroom, it tosses it on the lawn and sets it on fire. I’ve only made it through the first three seasons, but my guess is that by the end of the recently inked fifth and final, this will be hailed as one of the greatest shows ever to creatively corrupt the television medium.
Runners Up: Party Down (Starz); Lie to Me (Fox).

Movie of the Year: The Muppets (Disney): I haven’t laughed so consistently through a movie since maybe first seeing Doug Liman’s Go in the theater. It’s not flawless (maybe one too many metacomments and one too many eighties references), but it is downright entertaining from titles to credits. So good to see a chunk of your chlidhood revived so well.
Runner Up: Tree of Life (Plan B).

Video of the Year: “Yonkers” by Tyler, The Creator: Written, directed, produced, rapped, and eaten by Tyler himself. I’ve already spouted my feelings about OFWGKTA elsewhere.
Runners up: Pusha-T featuring Tyler, The Creator “Trouble on My Mind,” Big Sean featuring Chiddy Bang “Too Fake,” Hail Mary Mallon “Meter Feeder” (embedded above).

So those are a few of the things that caught and held my attention this year. What were yours?

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Sam Seidel: You Must Learn

Sam Seidel is a progressive pedagogue. He chronicles his forays into education reform on The Husslington Post. In his new book, Hip-Hop Genius: Remixing High School Education (Rowman and Littlefield, 2011), he drops science on the High School of Recording Arts, where he’s implemented many aspects of the four elements in the classroom. In what follows, we discuss the book, the classroom, and how Hip-hop can help education come correct in the twenty first.

Roy Christopher: Most would agree that modern education needs an upgrade. How can Hip-hop help in this endeavor?

Sam Seidel: Hip-hop innovators have always found value in things that mainstream society has deemed valueless–whether it’s old records, the sides of train cars, or the lives of poor young people. Educators can learn from this by recognizing brilliance and beauty where it is often ignored. Much of the schooling that happens in this country fails to respect or build upon the intelligence and cultural competencies of students. Instead schools–encouraged by standardized accountability measures from the federal and state governments–try to force all students to be homogenous generalists.

RC: It’s more than just rapping lessons and turntables in the classroom, right? What’s at the core of this idea?

SS: The core of the idea is respecting young peoples’ brilliance and culture. Bringing turntables and rap songs into a classroom and acting like an expert on hip-hop culture doesn’t necessarily make you a hip-hop educator. You might be an English teacher who is teaching rap songs as texts. I’m not trying to position myself as the arbiter of who is or isn’t a hip-hop educator, but what I’m excited about is exploring new ways of teaching–and beyond that, new kinds of learning environments and leadership models.

RC: Is the success of the HSRA reliably repeatable?

SS: Just like a rapper using a punchline that has already been used in another rhyme is wack, educators shouldn’t just copy someone else’s work, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t study others’ styles closely. More educators could definitely see results like those at the High School for Recording Arts and there are many aspects of HSRA’s program that they could potentially borrow and build upon, but they shouldn’t necessarily try to replicate everything from the school. People can definitely look to HSRA for inspiration, examples, and even direct consultancy, but there is only one David T. C. Ellis, there is only one Twin Cities (well, I guess there are two of those!), and it would be unrealistic to think that you could recreate what he and his team have done there.

RC: Every time I try to spread the word about the power of thinking through Hip-hop, I invariably meet resistance. Do you find yourself defending your love of Hip-hop?


SS: Not so much. I don’t find those conversations very rewarding and I seem not to attract them. Sometimes people want to point out some of the negative elements of Hip-hop… Okay. I’ve never argued that hip-hop is all positive all the time. It is an immense culture. But, in this day and age, who can really front on the power of Hip-hop? The culture has transcended almost every boundary imaginable. My man, Stephen Buddha Leafloor does life-changing hip-hop workshops with Inuit and first nation young people in remote Arctic communities that can only be reached by plane. Hip-hop artists who started as rappers have clothing lines, footwear, and fragrances sold in department stores across the world. The President of the United States has rap songs on his iPod and uses Hip-hop slang. I recorded a song with an emcee from Mozambique, who rhymed in four languages in one verse. I mean people can say they don’t personally like the music or they think graffiti is vandalism that should be stopped, but they can’t front on Hip-hop’s relevance and power–so my point is, if we know it’s relevant and powerful, then what effect it has is all about how it is engaged.

RC: Why do you think people resist this culture so strongly?

SS: They’re haters. It scares them. I don’t know. Yesterday I was walking across a street in New York City and i heard a rap song rattling out of a dude’s car. The lyrics were, literally, “bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, fuck ’em all.” People hear something like that and form a lot of judgements–as if that song must represent the entirety of a multi-dimensional global culture. Don’t underestimate racism. Or classism. We’re talking about a cultural form that emerged from the hood. There’s a lot of people out there who will hate for that reason alone.

RC: So, it’s much more than just a generational difference?

SS: There can be a generational thing. As George Clinton points out in the Foreword to Hip-Hop Genius, the music of a generation often sounds like noise to the generation before. At the same time, it was my pops who brought home rap records when I was five years old. George Clinton is in his 70s and he loves the culture, so… It’s not just generational.

RC: What can we do to get past the stigma?

SS: We need to stop engaging it so much. People write whole books trying to validate uttering the words “hip-hop” and “education” in the same sentence. There’s a place for those arguments, but I think we need to just focus our energy on building beautiful things and proving that what we know works works. Jay-Z didn’t spend years arguing with music execs who weren’t feeling what he was doing, he went and did it himself and then they started paying attention. This has happened over and over again in the rap game. No Limit and Cash Money had to build their own empires before labels recognized that the south had a rap market. Success has a funny way
of smothering stigma.

RC: Whenever one tries to institutionalize an organic movement as such, there’s always a risk of making it lame and losing the students’ interest. How do we use Hip-hop in the classroom and keep it engaging?

SS: By letting the students run it. If they are creating art that reflects their interests and aesthetics, it will never get stale.

RC: What’s next for you and Hip-hop education?

SS: Now that Hip-Hop Genius has dropped I’ve been getting some great invitations to talk about it. The video we made about Hip-Hop Genius has also gotten a lot of buzz online which has led to other opportunities. I just started a book tour where I go to cities, visit as many cool organizations and schools as I can–specifically those related to Hip-hop arts and empowering young people–and then put on an event that features their work, the work of the High School for Recording Arts, and Hip-Hop Genius. The first few events have been dope! We’d love to bring it to more cities, so holler if you have ideas about locations we should add.

————-
Here’s the book trailer for Hip-hop Genius [runtime: 4:23]:

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remixthebook: Guest Post and Tweeting

In 1997, I wrote a piece about turntablism for Born Magazine called “Band of the Hand.” Years later, I wrote a related piece for Milemarker‘s now defunct Media Reader magazine, called “war@33.3: The Postmodern Turn in the Commodification of Music.” I’ve been revisiting, remixing, and revising these previous thesis pieces ever since. I eventually combined the two and posted them here, but I’ve also written other things that spin off from their shared trajectories.

This week, I am proud to be guest-tweeting for Mark America’s remixthebook (Univeristy of Minnesota Press, 2011). In addition, I posted a piece on the remixthebook site. remixthebook and its attendant activities situate the mash-up as a defining cultural activity in the digital age. With that in mind, I tried to go back to the writings above and update them using pieces of relevant things I’ve written since. If you will, my post is a metamix of thoughts and things I’ve written about remix in the past decade and a half or so, pieces which also represent material from my other book-in-progress, Hip-hop Theory: The Blueprint to 21st Century Culture. It’s a sample-heavy essay that aims to illustrate the point.

Here are a few excerpts:

Culture as meaning-making requires participation. In addition to the communication processes of encoding and decoding, we now participate in recoding culture. Using allusions in our conversation, writing, and other practices engages us in culture creation as well as consumption. The sampling and remixing practices of Hip-hop exemplify this idea more explicitly than any other activity. Chambers wrote, “In readily accessed electronic archives, in the magnetic memory banks of records, films, tapes and videos, different cultures can be revisited, re-vived, re-cycled, re-presented” (p. 193). Current culture is a mix of media and speech, alluded to, appropriated from, and mixed with archival artifacts and acts.

…

We use numerous allusions to pop culture texts in everyday discourse, what Roth-Gordon calls “conversational sampling.” Allusions, even as direct samples or quotations, create new meanings. Each form is a variation of the one that came before. Lidchi wrote, “Viewing objects as palimpsests of meaning allows one to incorporate a rich and complex social history into the contemporary analysis of the object.” It is through use that we come to know them. Technology is not likely to slow its expanse into every aspect of our lives and culture, and with it, the reconfiguration of cultural artifacts is also not likely to stem. Allusions – in the many forms discussed above and many more yet to come – are going to become a larger and larger part of our cultural vocabulary. Seeing them as such is the first step in understanding where we are headed.

…

Rasmussen wrote, “there is no ‘correct’ way to categorise [sic] the increasing diversity of communication modes inscribed by the media technologies. Categories depend on the nature of the cultural phenomena one wants to investigate.” Quotation, appropriation, reference, and remix comprise twenty first century culture. From our technology and media to our clothes and conversations, ours is now a culture of allusion. As Schwartz so poetically put it: “Whatever artists do, they are held in the loose but loving embrace of artists past.” Would that it were so.

The whole post is here.

Many thanks to Mark America and Kerry Doran for the opportunity and to everyone else for joining in on the fun. Here’s the trailer for the project [runtime: 1:21]:

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A Tribe Called Quest: Beats, Rhymes, and Strife

A Tribe Called Quest has trudged through many of the clichés of fame and ego and somehow managed to keep their classic status untarnished. The first time I heard Q-Tip was on De La Soul‘s 3 Feet High and Rising (Tommy Boy, 1989). I was instantly a fan, and A Tribe Called Quest was immediately placed on my radar. These four dudes, Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Jarobi (A, E I, O, U, and sometimes Y) all met in high school. Their first release, People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (Jive, 1990) was little more than an excellent companion piece to De La’s debut, but there was definitely something different about it. There was a playful sophistication about the beats and the rhymes that was barely evident in such stellar hits as “I Left My Wallet in El Sgundo” and “Bonita Applebum,” but that permeated their career. While I think their sophomore effort The Low End Theory (Jive, 1991) is their best record, People’s Instinctive Travels… remains one of my most-listened-to golden era albums (“Go Ahead in the Rain” is my jam!).

A, E, I, O, U...

Quest really hit their stride on The Low End Theory. Number two on the mic, Phife Dawg stepped up and started to shine on this one as well. “Buggin’ Out” is his undisputed arrival as an emcee. Many will debate whether Low End or Midnight Marauders (Jive, 1993) is the classic Quest album, but no one is likely to argue that it was down hill from those two.

A good documentary on a niche topic as such finds itself in a tight spot. One one side, its topic must attract enough of an audience to sustain it. On the other, it must tell them things they do not already know. Michael Rapaport makes his big-screen directorial debut with Beats, Rhymes, and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest (Rival Pictures, 2011), and he successfully negotiates said tight spot. Having been a Quest fan since day square, I’m fairly knowledgeable about their history. I collected every magazine article I could find about them in the early days (It didn’t take long for that to be an intractable task, but I still have the clips), but I found this documentary enlightening about every era of their past: the humble, high-school beginnings, the birth of the Native Tongues, the departure of Jarobi for culinary school (I always wondered what happened to the wavering vowel), the petty squabbles, the comeback, and the one album still left on their 1989 Jive Records contract. I got chills several times and verbally expressed surprise at others. It’s not only a good documentary, it’s a good movie.

As it turns out, internal beef and misunderstandings were the reasons A Tribe Called Quest fell off. Phife moved to Atlanta before the recording of their third record Beats, Rhymes, and Life (Jive, 1996), and he was the first to say that the chemistry was dead. To make the long story brief, they got back together for the “Rock the Bells” tour in 2008 for all the wrong reasons. Even their boys De La Soul said they didn’t want them to continue, citing an on-stage lack of love. Quest is all about love, and if it isn’t there, it isn’t them.

Don’t let it get twisted, it ends well: all beef squashed, Q-Tip rockin’ it solo, Ali Shaheed Muhammad still makin’ beats, Phife doing well, and Jarobi cooking good food. Props to Rapaport for bringing their story to the screen. Go’head witcha self.

————

Here’s the trailer for Beats, Rhymes, and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest [runtime: 2:22]:

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Will Brooks: Build and Destroy

“I remember distinctly my first impression of him,” Henry Miller once described his first meeting beat writer and poet Kenneth Patchen, “It was that of a powerful, sensitive being who moved on velvet pads.”  My first meeting Will Brooks gave me a similar impression. Miller continues,

I feel that it would give him supreme joy to destroy with his own hands all the tyrants and sadists of this earth together with the art, institutions and all the machinery of everyday life which sustain and glorify them. He is a fizzing human bomb ever threatening to explode in our midst… There is almost an insanity to his fury and rebellion.

Brooks embodies these two extremes of Patchen: sensitive to a fault, deeply feeling the pain of his people, but ready to deliver retribution with no quarter and no question. Their poetry comes from the same place, a place of pure protest, pure passion.

For the past decade and a half, Brooks has been the center of one of my favorite bands, the noisy Hip-hop crew dälek. He and Brother Oktopus have roamed the globe, destroying expectations and eardrums. Their blend of drones, feedback, and banging beats often buried the vocals in the mix. Theirs was a united front, as much wall-of-sound as it was words-of-wisdom.

This year, Will Brooks emerged for dolo. Under the name iconAclass, he’s been making mad noise in his own right, but this time around the focus is on the lyrics. The beats are still banging, and the grooves are still deep, but the vocals are given center stage.

Henry Miller called Kenneth Patchen, “a sort of sincere assassin,” and I would say the same of Brooks. Allow him to reintroduce himself.

Roy Christopher: Tell me about iconAclass. How does this project differ from dälek? What’s the goal?

Will Brooks: Basically, iconAclass is my solo project. Written, produced, and mixed by my own hand. Shit, I even directed, filmed, and edited the videos! (see below) The only thing I didn’t do were the cuts. Those duties fell to long time collaborator DJ Motiv. This project something I wanted to do for a while now. I wanted to do a very stripped-down Hip-hop project where the lyrics were front and center. I also wanted the challenge of doing a project completely on my own. It was a lot of work, but I am very proud of the final result. The goal, as always, was to make the best possible songs I can make. This is a project that is representative of where my head is at, at this moment. It’s that plate of rice and beans, you know? It was that nourishment, that truth that I needed.

RC: Lyrically, you’re still keeping things rough and rugged, exploring similar themes to previous projects. Is this just more of a straight-up Hip-hop vibe?

WB: Yeah, definitely more “traditional,” I guess, but of course the lyrics got to be truth. I really don’t know any other way to approach music. Again, I definitely wanted to make the lyrics a focal point, where as in the group dälek, the lyrics were more of an instrument and under layers of sonics. In today’s musical climate I wanted to remind heads what Hip-hop is all about. I feel that production is very innovative in today’s music, but there isn’t a premium placed on lyricism. Don’t get me wrong there are heads that are still killing it on the mic — Random Axe, Slaughterhouse, Joell Ortiz on his own, Immortal technique, Pete Rock with Smiff n Wesson, Shabazz Palaces, Doh Boi, LONESTARR, John Morrison, just to name a few. I’m just proud to be a part of that Hip-hop underground that still has love for the culture and the craft.

RC: So, I have to ask: What’s the status of dälek the group?

WB: We are currently on hiatus. After fourteen years of doing it, I think both Okotpus and myself needed a break. We are still working on film scores together (we just finished one for a flick called Lilith) and running the recording studio together, but will be focusing on our respective projects (iconAclass and MRC Riddims) for the time being.

RC: I’m stoked on the book. What made you finally put your lyrics to paper for mass consumption?

WB: Back in 2002, William Hooker first suggested I put my lyrics in book form. I guess that planted the seed. While working on this project, graphic artist and long time friend, Thomas Reitmayer, who worked on the iconAclass album art, approached me with the idea of doing a book of my lyrics with some of his work. I thought it would be a cool thing to press up and have for the first iconAclass tour. It kind of built from there. Adam Jones from Tool was gracious enough to write the foreword, and we got some heads like Prince Paul and Joachim Irmler from Faust to contribute quotes. I was really humbled to have those guys be involved. I’m really proud of the final product. I just wish there were still book stores these days! [Laughs]

RC: Will you be blessing the States with a tour?

WB: We are hoping to at least set up East and West coast runs in the US in 2012. Would also love to play SXSW next year and Chicago. The logistics of a full US tour are very daunting, but we will make something happen for sure.

RC: What else is coming up?

WB: Been running the deadverse recordings record label with my label manager JR Fritsch. We released the deadverse massive TakeOver album. We got an iconAclass enhanced EP coming out in November, along with new releases by Oddateee, Dev-One, MRC Riddims, and EPs from Gym Brown, D.L.E.MM.A, and Skalla slated for 2012 and 2013. We are also planning on re-releasing Negro, Necro, Nekros (1998) in time for its fifteen year anniversary. I have also been DJing on deadverseTV as well as Mixcloud. I’ve been running a monthly deadverse night at a spot in Brooklyn called Don Pedros. It’s been a l lot of fun. Basically just the crew and affiliates DJing and performing everything from Hip-hop to House and Electro beats. Okto and I got a couple more film scores in the works to look out for. I’m definitely hitting the road heavy in support of iconAclass… And in the midst of all that, I did a couple of remixes (Black Heart Procession and Zombi), as well as some guest appearances and collaborations. Some of the collabs that are in the works are a project with Interpol drummer Sam Fogarino, a possible project with myself, Oktopus, Adam Jones from Tool and Heitham Al-Sayed, and I also might work on something with Joachim Irmler from Faust and Alec Empire. So, I’ve been a little busy…

———–

Here’s the iconAclass video for “Long Haul” [runtime: 3:33]:

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And here’s the clip for “I Got It” [runtime: 4:34]:

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————

Henry Miller quotations from  Morgan, Richard G. (Ed.), (1977). Kenneth Patchen: A Collection of Essays. New York: AMS Press, p. 33.

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Matthew Shipp / Knives From Heaven: Heavy Meta

In the 1980s, professional skateboarder Mark Gonzales used to disappear from media coverage for months at a time and every time he would return, he’d introduce the next, new trick. Once it was the kickflip, once the the stalefish, but he always set off a new trend. Antipop Consortium have cut a similar path. Their records are few and far between, but they always bump the bar a bit higher than it was before. Their 2002 record Arrhythmia (Warp) set the tone for 21st century metaphysical Hip-hop, and after a seven-year hiatus, Fluorescent Black (Big Dada, 2009) re-established what had been lost on heads in the meantime. Oddly abrasive to your expectations and undeniably smart in their creation are the way they work. Intelligent, innovative, and insightful are the watchwords.

The same can be said for Matthew Shipp, William Parker, and Thirsty Ear Recordings. The latter’s Blue Series, which includes collaborations with the former, as well as El-P, DJ Spooky, Dave Lombardo, Guillermo E. Brown, Vijay Iyer, and Mike Ladd, among many others, has consistently pushed the boundaries of Jazz, Hip-hop, and the expectations of all those involved. In 2003, it was as a part of this series that Matthew Shipp, William Parker, and Antipop Consortium previously met. Their aptly titled Antipop Consortium vs Matthew Shipp record sounds more like tension than balance, and it is on this tension that the grooves on their self-titled second outing, a collaboration with William Parker as well as Beans and High Priest from Antipop Consortium, Knives From Heaven, rely. Sometimes it sounds like the jostling of traffic swirling around you. Sometimes it sounds like dishes tumbling down stairs. Sometimes it sounds like the incessant churn of machinery. Sometimes it sounds like planets locked in wobbly orbit. No matter: It always sounds just like the future.

I first heard Shipp on the David S. Ware Quartet’s Dao (Homestead, 1995). I’d gotten review copies of that, William Parker’s Compassion Seizes Bed-Stuy (1996), and Williaw Hooker’s Armageddon (1995), which I was planning to review together for Pandemonium! Magazine of which I was then editor. Though I submerged myself in these three records and several similar releases, The Rocket‘s Steve Duda beat me to the review, and I never wrote mine. My taste for the fringes of progressive Jazz had been expanded though, and I’ve checked in with these folks on a regular basis since.

@vijayiyer “old music good! new music bad! except for mine!” — some jazz musician, every other damn day

Matthew Shipp not only plays, composes, and collaborates on Jazz’s edges, but he also thinks deeply about all of the above. When I heard Knives From Heaven, I knew it was time to get the man on the line.

Roy Christopher: This isn’t the first time you’ve been in the studio with these guys. How’d you end up working with Antipop Consortium in the first place?

Matthew Shipp: Beans use to work at a record store here in New York City, and I use to talk to him. He approached me before I had ever heard them. Of course when I heard them, I was blown away by their forward-looking aesthetic.

RC: What is it about their work that attracts you to collaborate?

MS: There is nothing cliché about how they go about it, and it has the feel of the same modern, New York zeitgeist that informs my own work.

RC: Are there any other Hip-hop acts you’d like to work with?

MS: Not really… I use to want to do something with Madlib, and I use to want to work with Kool Keith/Dr. Octagon, but I am completely involved in my own Jazz universe now.

RC: Hip-hop has flirted with Jazz regularly over the past twenty years, but the opposite hasn’t been the case. Knives From Heaven (again) illustrates the untapped potential of their mating. How do you see elements from the two genres working together?

MS: well first I am not sure if Knives From Heaven is Hip-hop flirting with Jazz or Jazz flirting with Hip-hop—

RC: I’d say it’s both.

MS: Well, first, music is music, and if you melt down the particulars there is room for dialogue between the various so-called genres. I think the so-called freedom of Jazz can be a point of inspiration for certain Hip-hop artists of a certain mental bent, and both musics have their own particular swing: The pulse of Free Jazz is a vortex of information, and all electronic musics thrive off of information, therefore it is up to the imagination and talent of the producer to cook a good meal. The palettes of both musics are different in some respects and similar in some ways so a good cook will figure out a blend that makes sense.

RC: Your work blends the architecture of composition with the spontaneity of improvisation. How does your process manifest songs? How do you decide where to start versus where to stop?

MS: I am always working or thinking about my musical language, so how do you start a sentence when you talk? Well, you know the language so well that you just start with the faith that words will come to you that match some internal imagery and the words will match whatever vague emotions and feelings you want to get across to the person you are talking to. It is very similar in this. Also, the deeper you get into your language the deeper the merger between form and content is which means if you have a deep organic concept. The architecture of composition and the spontaneity of improvisation will merge because they come from the same matrix, and form and content are one actuality, so there is some impetus that grows the structure of the piece or improvisation together with the content. And as far as stopping, that is instinct: If you know your language and your phrasing and your flow, you know when the ideas have played themselves out, therefore you know when to shut the fuck up.

RC: You bend time by mixing tradition with futurism. Do you see music in terms of eras?

MS: Yes and no. I see music as vibration that emits pulse and coheres in different ways. I see eras as each time period has its own constructs and organizational worldview… I don’t really believe in linear time so eras are an illusion to me, but a very real illusion: Every so-called time period has its own questions it asks of vibrations… But I do melt down all so-called time periods in Jazz to find some language that I can proceed to move into timeless period in.

RC: You’ve been making music long enough to have seen the changes in the technologies of recording and releasing, as well as listening and consuming. Are things getting better or are they getting worse?

MS: Worse. The world is too complex for its own good. There are too many possibilities and with the proliferation of all the technology and possibilities that we have, with all that, people are no smarter. In fact, you could argue that they are dumber and operate with less focus and concentration about what is really real.

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Check out the Knives From Heaven collaboration, and look for the new record called Elastic Aspects from the Matthew Shipp Trio out on Thirsty Ear in 2012.

Here’s a clip of Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Beans, and Priest working on the Knives from Heaven record at Spin Recording Studios [runtime: 3:06]:

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… and here’s Part 2 with Shipp and Priest [runtime: 2:50]:

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Boombox Apocolypse: From Mixtapes to Mash-ups

The turntable is easily the most iconic cultural artifact associated with Hip-hop, but the advent and adoption of the boombox had as much to do with its spread and tenacity. Before raps were on the radio, they were on the tapes. Think of the turntable and the microphone as the senders and the boombox and the cassette as the receivers: without recording and playback, Hip-hop wouldn’t have lasted long. The already choked socioeconomic conditions from which it sprang could’ve buried it like so much tape hiss. Two recent books explore the technology of Hip-hop beyond the turntable.

Never put me in your box if your shit eats tapes. — Nas

When Hip-hop migrated to the middle spaces between the coasts and big cities, it did so via cassettes. Mixtapes were such an integral part of its spread that I felt weird when I first bought a “Rap” CD (The same could be said for any other underground movement of the time: punk, hardcore, metal, etc.). When it was shared and heard, it was done so on scratchy cassettes. Sometimes these tapes were played in cars, home stereo systems, and Walkmans, but they were more importantly played in giant boomboxes, each occasion allowing producers taking advantage of different aspects of sample-based recording (for a full discussion of these differences, see Schloss, 2004). Unlike today’s iPods, the presence of the boombox was also a public presence. Just as we gather around some screens and stare at others alone, we once gathered around the speakers of boomboxes. When I got my first Walkman and stopped lugging around my Sony boombox, it was a blessing to my back and the sanity of those around me (most notably my parents), but boomboxes remain a part of the iconography of Hip-hop.

Lensman Lyle Owerko set out to document this aspect of the culture with The Boombox Project: The Machines, the Music, and the Urban Underground (Abrams Image, 2010), which is not only a visual history of early Hip-hop street technology, but an oral one as well. Everyone from the usual suspects like LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys, Adisa Banjoko, and Malcolm McLaren, to the less-than-usual like DJ Spooky, The Clash, Chad Muska, and David Byrne display and discuss their boomboxes.

The Boombox Project illustrates that the reception of Hip-hop is as important as its inception, and that the boombox played a major role in its early days. It was the site and the sight of the sound in the streets. Here is the book trailer for The Boombox Project [runtime: 0:40]:

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From mixtapes to mash-ups, Hip-hop is the blueprint to 21st century culture (This is the crux of my Hip-hop Theory — much more on that soon). What used to be done via mixers, faders, and turntables is done via software, iPods, and the internet. In the hands of the indolent and uncreative, sampling is dull at best and disturbing at worst — but so is guitar-playing. The tools are neutral. It’s what you do with them that counts. Can I get a witness?

Yes! No one has explored this undulating landscape more than Aram Sinnreich. His Mashed Up: Music, Technology, and the Rise of Configurable Culture (University of Massachusetts Press, 2010) is one half theory, one half practice and establishes an argument that sampling is the latest legitimate form of musical expression, an argument that seems silly to both sides of the debate. Busting a sextet of binaries, Sinnreich makes quick work of complex terrain, mixing media theory and musicology, as well as copyright and counterculture. Mashed Up is the most complete book I’ve seen on our current culture of convergence.

In honor of the boombox, indulge me for a few more minutes and check out this video from The Nonce. It’s “Mix Tapes” from their 1995 debut World Ultimate (Check for cameos from members of Project Blowed) [runtime: 3:34]. Dope:

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References:

Oworko, L. (2011). The Boombox Project: The Machines, the Music, and the Urban Underground. New York: Abrams Image.

Schloss, J. G. (2004). Making Beats: The Art of Sample-based Hip-hop. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Sunnreich, A. (2010). Mashed Up: Music, Technology, and the Rise of Configurable Culture. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.

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Apologies to the late, mighty Hangar 18 for stealing their title for this post.

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Aesop Rock’s Website and Hail Mary Mallon’s New Video

After much hemming and hawing and discussion, Aesop Rock finally took the web plunge and launched his own website. Though Aes has been active online for a minute (e.g., on the now defunct DefJunkies discussion boards, on Twitter, and on 900 Bats), this marks the official launch of his own spot online. The cat belongs to photographer Chrissy Piper. His name is Andy.

In his defense, the man has been busy with several records by him and his friends (Rob Sonic, DJ Big Wiz, Kimya Dawson, et al.). Here’s the latest from Hail Mary Mallon, which consists of Aesop Rock, Rob Sonic, and DJ Big Wiz: “Smock” (Live from the Burgundy Camry), directed by Alexander Durrant, Justin Metros, and Rico Deniro [runtime: 4:44]:

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Thinking Odd: Learning from the Future

I mentioned earlier that it’s often difficult for adults to trust the youth, but that it’s imperative. Letting youthful vision lead is the only way into the future. Well, Tyler the Creator and his Odd Future crew aren’t waiting for permission, approval, or funding — much less trust — from anyone. They are doing it, and doing it big.

Everyone can stop mongering the minutia of Radiohead’s every move. Though they’ve done nothing but smart things since parting ways with the past, they were already famous in three solar systems when they stepped out on that limb. Clamoring to find what one can learn from their marketing strategies is like trying to climb the stairs to catch the elevator: They’re already there. Odd Future is showing everyone how it’s ground up from the ground up. I’m not going to pretend that I can distill what they’re doing into a simple myth-making and marketing how-to, but I would like to point out a few key things. Some of you will find parts of this redundant, but Odd Future offers an excellent case study in getting out there in the now.

“Go make the art you believe in.” — El-P

For the uninitiated, OFWGKTA (Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All) are a Hip-hop collective out of Los Angeles. The oldest of their ten members are barely out of high school and the youngest are barely in. They have been making waves for the past year or so releasing as many records as they have members — for free — on their website, posting YouTube clips of both of their hoodrat antics and music videos for their songs. The aesthetic is somewhere between Wu-Tang Clan and Anticon, but way more dangerous and unpredictable (any one of them would slice me for those comparisons). The music is amazing, the skills are off the crazy, and their fanbase is huge, growing, and includes Mos Def, Despot, Skyzoo, and Jimmy Fallon, the latter of whom had them perform on his show recently. These kids prove that there is nothing so cool as youthful nihilism.

So, how do ten teens from L.A. build such a following? Here are six things Odd Future does right. This is how the music industry works now.

Release your darlings. Straight up, music wants to be free. It’s not a maybe. It is what your audience expects. Couldn’t you be selling yourself short (so to speak) by giving your work away? How so? Have you seen record-sales numbers lately? Odd Future has given away every record they’ve made thus far. They’re all on their website. Go ahead. Go get them.

Consider the vehicle. Does your idea fit in a tweet? Is it better as a post on your website? YouTube video? Song? Record? Painting? Poem? Find the vehicle that will best let the idea find its audience. Odd Future posts YouTube videos and new songs on the regular, often as soon as they’re recorded. Their cult of personality has largely been built three minutes at a time.

A lot of those videos are just the various Odd Future/Wolf Gang members skateboarding, graffiti writing, and goofing off, but here’s Tyler the Creator’s latest clip for “Yonkers” off of his forthcoming record Goblin [runtime: 3:05]. Take notes, kids. This is how it’s done.

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“Playing it safe isn’t interesting” — Ryan Kidwell

Risk it not once in a while, but every time. If you just watched that video, you know that it took a lot of courage or a touch of insanity — or a bit of both — as well as a truckload of raw talent (If you didn’t watch it, you should probably do so.). When “anyone” can do this, the just noticeable difference can make all the difference in the world. Tyler took what could’ve been another weird rap video and instead made a visual, artistic statement. That isn’t easy. You have to risk a part of yourself to get anything out of anything. Put it out there, and don’t feel forced to explain it. Mystery loves company.

Find a foil. I suggested before that one should start by having heroes as foils would likely come, but Odd Future show that having a common enemy (or three: Steve Harvey, NahRight, and 2DopeBoyz) can unite your crew. They also don’t really look up to many folks. Their whole take is about putting the tools to work in a “fuck it” kind of way. They don’t want or need your guidance. Sometimes we could all use a good shove to the next level, no matter if we feel ready. Finding someone else’s work to counteract can be just the push you need.

“You really can’t wait for anybody, and if things start fucking up and slowing down, you have to do it yourself and you have to make your own noise.” — Apathy

Do it yourself. You can’t wait around for someone else to make your thing happen. Using the establishment when possible is okay as a supplement, but your own efforts are your best resource. Make them count. OFWGKTA don’t even have parents, much less managers, publishers, or label contracts. As their website says about “Yonkers” (above): “Song Produced And Video Directed By The Nigga Thats Rapping.”

“Do what you feel, and feel what you do.” — J-Live

Love it. When you find what you think you want to do, make sure you love doing it. If you don’t, find something else. People often say that great art comes from pain, but I think that sentiment is misguided. I think that everyone should love it or leave it alone.

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Here are Tyler the Creator and Hodgy Beats on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon from February 16, 2011 [runtime: 3:57]. Tell me they’re not having fun. When they announced this appearance on their site, they added “Time To Scare White America.” Mission accomplished:

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Now, go do something bigger than you had planned.

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Hip-hop Then & Now: Chuck D, Common, and Joan Morgan Come to The University of Texas at Austin

On February 10th, 2011, Chuck D, Common, and Joan Morgan assembled in the brand new Student Activity Center at The University of Texas campus in Austin. It was an evening comprised of in-depth discussion, astute analysis, and the usual gripes.

If you know me, you know that Public Enemy is one of my all-time favorite groups regardless of genre. Their It Takes a Nation of Million to Hold Us Back (Def Jam, 1988) is not only what I consider the best record ever recorded, but was crucial in my lifelong fandom of Hip-hop (my own first book is named after a Chuck D lyric from the record). Chuck and P.E. were essential to my getting through high school and undergraduate studies.

Common has been one of my favorite emcees since I first heard Resurrection (Relativity, 1994) in the early 1990s. Not only was he the first rapper out of Chicago that I heard (peace to E. C. Illa), but he seemed to be keeping the Native Tongues torch burning bright at a time when they were fumbling (no disrespect; they got their grip back). He has taken risks, pushed boundaries, and remained successful where others follow trends or fall off.

Joan Morgan is a bad ass. She’s been doing Hip-hop journalism since before it had a name. Her presence and insights in this talk were invaluable, and I wish we’d had more time to hear from her (I’m hoping to interview her for the site at a later date; fingers crossed). Her angle is vehemently feminist, nuanced with knowledge, and tempered with truth. When Nicki Minaj became the topic of discussion, she was one of the few people I’ve heard speak on the Regis Philbin incident. That story should’ve been in everyone’s face, but it was invariably buried.

If nostalgia is the longing for a past that never existed, then the SAC Ballroom was full of just that. Joan asked if the crowd thought that Hip-hop was better “then” than it is “now,” and most of the hands in the room went up. I find this very troubling. I was one of the few, including our three honored guests, who actually there “then” (I heard students around me say that they didn’t know who Chuck D was until they looked him up after hearing about this event). I continue to argue that Hip-hop is better now. Sure, everything that came out then was that next new shit. The genre was young and finding its way (I would also argue that it still is), so there was plenty that hadn’t been done or heard yet, whereas now those styles have been done and heard. But for every Public Enemy and Common, there was an MC Hammer and a Vanilla Ice. Go back and listen to the average record from 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1994 — pick a year: Most of them sound dated and not near as complex and interesting as the worst thing out today. Sure, there are exceptions, but as a whole, Hip-hop is better now. It just is. Thinking that you missed the best of it is problematic on many levels.

Chuck mentioned the fact that fans now have access to the past in a way that the fans of then never did. This is a key insight. Technology curates culture. You cannot assume that the next generation doesn’t know about something from the past. They might not grasp the historical context of say “Fight the Power” by Public Enemy, “Wicked” by Ice Cube, or even “Fuck the Police” by N.W.A., which were uncompromising responses to volatile times in our nation’s history, or to grasp what it was like to hear The Low End Theory, Straight Outta Compton, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) — or It Takes a Nation of Millions… for that matter — when they dropped. But you can’t assume they haven’t heard them or seen the videos. It’s all out there.

On the other hand, Common blamed technology for the lack of creativity and “feeling” in current Hip-hop. This argument troubles me as well. It’s a non-argument that leads to an infinite regress. Hip-hop’s detractors claim that sampling — whether with turntables or sequencers — isn’t really making music. They claim that at best it’s lazy and at worst it’s theft. No one at this talk would agree with that, but it’s the same argument. Saying that technology takes away the human element and therefore the feeling of music or that it makes it too easy thereby giving someone an unfair advantage is the same thing as claiming that sampling isn’t a viable way to make music in the first place. It’s all about what you do with it. Heads know better.

These are not new issues, and I was hoping we’d moved past them. Hip-hop — then and now — is still the most interesting thing happening in music. I will always love H. E. R.

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Here’s a handheld video (no cameras were allowed) of the Q&A session with Common, Joan Morgan, and Chuck D in the SAC [runtime: 8:13]:

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