blog | Oh Word: Hip-hop in its purist form

May 08, 2008

The Mind of Mystikal · by Abe Beame

It may be heresy around these parts to suggest there was any redeeming value to the infamous “No Limit Movement”, but if you were pressed to choose something, it would have to be the body of work put forward by Michael Tyler, known to the world as Mystikal.

Tyler was a Gulf war veteran who was born and raised in New Orleans’ 12th Ward, becoming one of – if not the first – Hip Hop acts to get national recognition out of Crescent City (Also the first to get hated on, specifically by Cash Money’s UNLV as the focus of their classic character assassination “Drag em in tha river”). He dropped an independent self titled album in 1994 which garnered enough attention for the rapper to be signed to Jive and have his glorified demo repackaged with a few extra songs as The Mind of Mystikal, his best work to date.

It’s appropriate that Mystikal was a vet because he got his style from those big ass machine guns you see hanging off the edge of air craft carriers: Statacco bursts of concentrated fury. From his bio, Mystikal appears to have lived a fairly stressful, traumatic life and his verses were memorable for their intensity and emotion, which always seemed to be rage. In early 2004 Mystikal joined the growing list of Iraq war veterans incarcerated for violent crimes in the U.S.

Here’s a brief retrospect of the artist’s highlights and hidden gems.

Here I go
This is probably my favorite Mystikal song. It’s prototypical, displaying exactly what Mystikal does at his very best. He doesn’t really say anything here, and he doesn’t have to. The insidious, creeping, southern fried beat is a perfect backdrop for him to do whatever he feels like within the confines of the lazy drums, and he does. I love guys who practice this sort of abstract delivery. (See: Freeway, Lil Wayne) You get the impression that the rapper has some idea of what he’s going to say but absolutely no idea how he’s going to say it, and in the booth this brilliant jumble of slowed down utterances and hurried barks comes out in a guttural growl that keeps the listener riveted. It’s employing your voice as an instrument, or as Mystikal himself states on “Y’all ain’t ready”, the first song on this album, singing his raps. Mystikal might be the best in the business at doing just that.

Who Run this Shit ft. The Ol Dirty Bastard
This song gets the dubious distinction of being the best moment on the “I Got Tha Hook up” Soundtrack. It’s also the least likely yet most appropriate Russell Jones soundtrack collaboration since he teamed up with Pras and Maya for Bullworth. Grit your teeth through a full minute of Master P playing hype man and you’ll be treated to some pure inebriated energy.

I Smell Smoke
You would think Weed is the only substance Mystikal doesn’t put in his system, but you’d be wrong. He’s angry as ever here, chastising you potheads who smoke a blunt of that boo boo after sorting out stems and seeds and lay back on your parents sofa in the den watching the Food Network On Demand. What I learned from this song is everything makes Mystikal mad.

Not That Nigga (Remix)
From an era when cheap synths hit hard as shit. In production as well as Mystikal’s rapid delivery, this has the feel of a breezy West coast fast rap. It seems like the idea was to lighten things up, which is a much better fit than the dark, gothic feel of the original.

Murder 2
The original version of “Not That Nigga” featured Mystikal’s sister Michelle, who was killed by her boyfriend, a grandson of one of New Orleans R&B legends the Neville Brothers just before Mind of Mystikal was released, probably why she isn’t on the hook for the remix. On this deranged song off his No Limit debut, Mystikal recounts the events that lead up to his sister’s murder and plots his revenge. Thunder rolls on the hook as Mystikal simply screams “Murderer”. What’s really chilling here is the total lack of sadness as the artist speaks to what must be an extremely heart wrenching subject. His delivery is full of the same brutal rage he brings to nearly every track. Murder in the second degree is defined as “a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender’s obvious lack of concern for human life.”

Shake Ya Ass
The Neptunes had already scored a major hit with Noreaga on “Super Thug”, a song which to this day I’ve never understood the massive appeal of. Here they come back with that beat’s polar opposite, a dreamy organ over vibrant drums. Mystikal comes in with his dick in his hands, Jay-Z wants a beat just like it, and the rest is history.

Neck Uv Da Woods ft. Outkast
Another Soundtrack banger, this one off “The Wood”, which as Phil Da Agony once noted, has no rappers from Inglewood anywhere near it. Mystikal showcases his surprising versatility without compromising his style, (Check for the Cash Money sublim) Dre and Big Boi bring it as well. It’s mainly included here for the classic Organized Noise beat, landing somewhere between their work on the introspective, spaced out ATLiens and Stankonia’s cosmic slop.

Mystikal Fever
In the fall of 2000, women of a certain carriage fell victim to a rare disease specific to Mystikal fans. The artist reports from the frontlines on this outbreak over a bootleg Manny Fresh beat. Don’t ask me why but I love this song.

Bouncin Back
Something that’s surprising to me with the proliferation of Southern rappers and musical traditions being injected into Hip Hop is the lack of New Orleans brass powered production. Swizz’s marching band sample on Yung Wun’s “Tear it up” comes to mind, as well as New Orleans’ Jam Band staple Galactic’s Hip Hop fusion project from last year “From the Corner to the Block.”, (Great concept, lackluster execution) that’s about it, anything I left out? Mystikal is obnoxiously restrained on this mainstream intended single, which unfortunately was the best song on this shitty final contribution before he headed to jail, but the beat is the story. The Neptunes play two horns against each other over a ton of cow bell, and the result feels like double fisting hand grenades on a stroll through the French Quarter.

Comment [13]

May 07, 2008

No Country: Calle 13 - Residente O Visitante · by Abe Beame

Many of us believe Hip Hop is at its best when it transcends common questions of aesthetics and picks up the mantle for the moment in which it’s delivered. Chuck D’s voice crashing in like a garbage can through a plate glass window as Smiley tacks a tattered picture of Martin and Malcolm up on the wall in Sal’s, Ice Cube commenting on a city that was a tinderbox waiting for the spark of injustice, Chubb Rock charting our nation’s descent into the hands of the military industrial complex and its affect on his native borough. These days the American Hip Hop market offers little in terms of social or even cultural importance, having been relegated to iPod commercials and cell phone rings. However, for alternatives one need look no further then the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the oldest remaining colony of the United States, where two stepbrothers are arguably making the world’s most important Hip Hop. Their last album was released in the spring of 2007, and to understand what the duo is up to is to renew faith in music as a movement.

Calle 13 refers to the street in the Trujillo Alto subsection known as El Conquistador where Residente, the MC, and Visitante, the producer, would meet up as kids. The stepbrothers come from a culturally rich Puerto Rican family. Residente’s mother (who occasionally sings for the group) was part of a renowned local acting troupe and their father was a painter and musician turned lawyer.

Post-college, the brothers were working on their first album when Filiberto Ojeda Rios, the commander and chief of the Boricua Popular Army who advocated sovereignty for Puerto Rico by violent means, was assassinated in what the FBI claimed to be a botched raid. In response the brothers released a song called “Querido (Dear) FBI”, a song in which they accuse the United States of foul play and promise retribution. The song coupled with the assassination reenergized the Puerto Rican independence movement, which had largely slipped away from the collective consciousness. Calle 13 became instant celebrities and catalysts for change, socially relevant pop stars. Clearly, this is not your little sister’s reggaeton.

Querido FBI

Residente O Visitante, Calle 13’s sophomore effort is a mixed bag. The album alternates between socially conscious political material and sensationalist sex romps. From the group’s inception this has been the case, but here Residente shows a wit and Mathers-like penchant for tongue and cheek shock humor aimed at his would-be censors. On the self deprecating “Mala Suerte con el 13” (Bad luck with 13) Residente allows Spaniard female MC La Mala Rodiguez to turn the tables on him as the dominant female who chastises his pathetic loser, revealing the wink and smile behind his misogyny. The majority of the flack Calle 13 receives is for this juvenile preoccupation with raunch, but the feeling the listener comes away with is a strong sense of individuality. The blue material stands side by side with the political, and what emerges is the relationship between the two stances. Residente clearly equates explicit sexuality and vulgarity with freedom and honesty.

Mala Suerte Con El 13 (fan video)

This approach of general rebellion is illustrated no better than on the album’s first song, “Tango del Pecado” (The Tango of Sin). On this song, Residente outight claims his use of dense hybrid slang is an affront to the language brought by Imperialists to his island. “Tango del Pecado” is believed to concern Residente’s alleged relationship with Denise Quinones, a former Miss Universe from Ponce. In Puerto Rico the relationship between the impoverished beast and the well bred beauty lead to a scandal reminiscent of the affair between former Miss World Cindy Breakspere and Bob Marley (parents of Damian) in Jamaica. If “Tango del Pecado” is indeed Residente’s response, it’s a potent one. The song follows Residente wooing an unnamed woman to rebel against her disapproving parents and take a walk on the wild side. However, Residente frames his song in the language of Santeria. For example, the opening line of each verse translates roughly to “Three shakes of the Ram’s head”, a reference to the Santeria ritual dance for the orisha Chango.

Tango Del Pecado

“Tango Del Pecado” discusses the largest hurdle of the Puerto Rican independence movement: a majority of removed, resigned, pacified citizens so focused on the trees they can’t see the forest (sound familiar?). Santeria is a religion with roots in Africa. Carribean slaves hid their Orishas in the figures of Catholic saints to appease their masters and cling to the tenets of their faith. In Puerto Rico there are deep lines separating race and class, its racial profile is composed of the white European Imperialists who exploited the people and the land, the African slaves they ferried in to carry out the labor, and the native Taino Indians that populated the island. Because of its African roots, Santeria is viewed as an ignorant, Negro peasant faith, and by embracing Santeria and its African heritage Residente is raising a middle finger towards race conscious bourgeois pretension. In this light, “Tango” is transformed from a macabre seduction to a treatise on race and class in the Commonwealth.

Like Che Guevara, Residente views his struggle in the grand terms of a centuries old culture clash between Euro-American Imperialists and Latin America as an entity. In Residente’s verses Puerto Rican historical figures and groups such as the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and the Araucanian (Mapuche) Indian tribe of Chile (a group who resisted occupation from a number of would be conquistadors over 600 years) co-exist and share a cause, contributing to an atmosphere of unified struggle. For instance, On “Pal Norte”, (To the North) a defiant diatribe on statehood and citizenship, Residente is joined by Orishas of a different sort. Namely, the group of Cuban expatriates who sing on the hook, a showstopper that earned Calle 13 a Latin Grammy for best urban song.

Pal Norte (fan video)

Throughout the album Visitante casts a wide net. Morricone guitars, wailing electric guitars paired with lively brass, rich grand pianos, electric distortion, morose bleating horns and orchestral strings are just a few elements present and constantly in concert with one another on his diverse beats. “Algo con sentido”, “Uiyi Guaye” and “La Era De La Copiera” feature synth driven production more Person Pitch than Psycho Les; in general his work is more layered and labor intensive than your run of the mill looped Euro Rap.

Much like Residente, Visitante incorporates a multi-cultural range of Latino musical traditions including Puerto Rico’s African bomba drums, Cuba’s rumba beats, Mexican Norteno polka, and of course stuttering Reggaeton drum patterns.

The album is no classic by any stretch of the imagination. Residente has a strange habit of alluding to sex organs as food throughout the album. (“Each time I think of your baked potato/It makes me want to do undisciplined things to my pillow”) It’s possible that this is intended to highlight the absurdity of his journeys into the explicit, but there’s no other word for it but corny. Or perhaps lazy.

Residente will take entire songs off, and while the production is always solid, at times his unnecessarily affected delivery, employed presumably to assure his audience that he isn’t being serious, has an adverse effect on the music (“Limpiar El Sucio”). Perhaps these can be dismissed as sophomoric tendencies that Residente will be able to shake off. Even with these faults he proves time and time again to be a captivating writer, a student of history who can blend the personal and political with an ease and sophistication that few present day English speaking “conscious” rappers are capable of.

The political aspects of this subject are too intricate to weave into an album review. While Puerto Rico is unquestionably subject to the economic and political rule of the United States without enjoying the privileges of an actual state, there remains a belief among some Puerto Ricans that this status is preferable to the instability of independence. A growing number feel differently. Last year marked the 90th anniversary of the Jones-Shafroth Act, which officially rendered Puerto Rico the property of the United States of America. With American hearts and minds focused on a war, a sagging economy, and an election, it appears that nothing will be changing anytime soon. Something tells me this will do little to divert from the efforts of The Resident or The Visitor. The Euro-American penchant for exploitation and oppression has proven one historical precedent: the Revolution goes on, even when we’re not listening.

Author’s Note- This piece owes a special debt to Emily, who spent hours wading through Residente’s bastardized take on the Spanish language so I could make sense of it. Thank you.

Comment [6]

May 05, 2008

All you need to know about music in 2008 so far · by Sach O

Now he’s smelling like Indonesia.

It’s been a long time…but fuck it I’m glad I left you. As I type this, 50 cent mug of Angkor beer in hand perusing news about dirty cops (no justice no peace), racial hatred amongst rap blogs (you won’t like RHS when he’s angry), Common turning into Lionel Richie ( or is PM Dawn 2.0 a better metaphor?) and the continuing rise of hipster rap (past disagreements aside, Noz’ XXL posts pretty much kept me up to date on the good ship Hip Hop’s downward tragectory), I can’t help but think that I haven’t missed a single important event since I’ve gone AWOL. Stuff was released, stuff was delayed but nothing worth 4 months of message boarding, blogging or even daily downloading. So with the benefit of perspective – I’m arrogant enough to pass off my disinterest as knowledge – here’s all you need to know about music in the past four months.

1. Mr. Music producer, Portishead just bitch slapped you. Those Limeys who dropped that one album with the scratching and dope beats in the 90’s just came out with the single most aggressive and monstrous collection of songs in the past couple of years with beats that make Timbaland’s balls shrivel up into a vagina (I’m still hating). For everyone left scratching their heads when cats called the last Wu album “too weird” (left of center yes, a major departure…nah) this is for you. I haven’t had this big a headache from music since Fantastic Damage.

2. Lil Wayne’s Lolipop is pretty shitty but you deserve to be disappointed if you expected him to drop, I dunno, Microphone Fiend Pt 2. It’s a shame the guy’s album will sell a gazillion (well, 1.5 mill at most) copies, if only because it’ll rob us of the opportunity to use the phrase “Southern Cannabis”“.

3. Paranoia P’s new album isn’t perfect but it IS interesting. The attempt to recreate that old Mobb Deep horror-soundtrack vibe using new-fangled soft-synths doesn’t always work but I’ll take the 70% success rate given that the threat of Prison has made Prodigy batshitlocoinsane. Keep your head up Albert.

4. Erykah Badu’s new album>Anything Common or Andre released this millennium. She may have sucked the talent out of those guys but at least she put it to good use. And aren’t you glad she got those Madlib tracks before Dudley whatshisname did?

5. The first time around, Gnarls Barkley had a bunch of great beats with nothing to say so they came up with some great pop songs and filled the rest of the album with weird one offs about necrophilia and closeted monsters (ayo). This time, they forgo the crazy pop vibe in favor of something a little sadder, a lot more soulful and ultimately more unified. If you’re still bitter than Cee-Lo’s not rapping with Bun B and DJ Paul, stay away but for the rest of us, this group continues to be way better than they have any right to be and once you get past the lack of “Crazy” material, it ultimately reveals itself as the better album.

That’s it. Five bullet points. I guess I could have thrown in something about the new Roots album but I’d rather give that one a few more weeks before dropping a verdict. And no, Snoop Dogg, Webbie and Rick Ross didn’t seem worth the iPod space. In case any of y’all care, I’m doing lovely and have spent the past couple of months crusing around Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Sumatra, Laos and Cambodia. I’m heading into Vietnam next week and China after that and should be heading home (for a few months) come late July to mid August. I’d write more but this site is getting dangerously un-rap related already and it’s 2PM: Happy Hour.

Comment [61]

Apr 28, 2008

.coming soon...Checkmate, an I.C.'s joint · by Rafi Kam

We’ve got a new video called Checkmate coming out soon and it’s going to be a problem. To me it’s looking like the best vid we’ve ever made.

Today Cas posted a couple of fun outtakes as teasers for Checkmate.

Checkmate!

Comment [7]

Apr 28, 2008

Hard work. · by David Donald

A few weeks ago in the shower, I had a harebrained idea for a startup. The startup would be a website that helps you remember the name of the song stuck in your head.

Later that day, over the course of a 30 minute chat with Rafi, we both came to the conclusion that the idea had a bad business model (the part about making money), and decided to immediately shut down operations and liquidate the assets. Fail fast!

But before we did that, we had done some preliminary market research to find potential competitors. One of these competitors was WatZatSong.

Fast forward to today, and I notice that a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend on LinkedIn is an employee at WatZatSong. I quickly shared this new development with Rafi. This conversation ensued:

Rafi: This coincidence reminds me of Curb Your Enthusiasm for some reason. Now one of us would say something really rude to him about his site.

Me: Then later have to attempt to take it back

Rafi: Right, because we need something from him or Jamie. “No, we love the interface. I didn’t say it was garish, I said it was vibrant and charming!”
Me: Then a second later, assuming he is out of earshot, “God, I HATE that name!”
Me: OK, that name does seriously bother me. It’s like something that a character in a 1920s newspaper comic would say. And then say 23 skiddoo!

After which I felt compelled to demonstrate.

Katzenjammer Kids

So the end result of my momentary entrepreneurial fervor turned out to be a hastily edited scan of an early 20th century comic strip, obliquely dissing a company that would only become a competitor if I ever got the gumption to build a real product.

Being an entrepreneur is hard work, folks.

Comment [5]

Apr 25, 2008

"G" To World: Stop Bitching And Fight For A World Where I Can Say "Nigga" Freely · by R.H.S.

“This is a rainbow. It might be in Africa, but that’s neither here nor there.”

G from GrandGood has a lot to say about racism in hip-hop. Unfortunately, most of it is a bit difficult to comprehend and leads nowhere.

“Peace to everyone who felt the need to respond to my recent post about racism. Apologies to everyone who read it looking for some kind of significant insight.”

It’s all good dunny. I never expect to encounter genuine insight in the hip hop blogosphere and your post didn’t surprise in the least.

“a half-hearted vent, filled with my dry humor, about a common prejudice that I come across in the hip-hop community.”

Only half-hearted? That’s an odd claim – are we supposed to care about your viewpoint or not? And “filled” with dry humor – if you have to overexplain yourself for people to get the joke, you failed. As far “common” prejudice – just how common? More common than other forms of prejudice encountered? Pervasive enough to be considered noteworthy and detrimental to progress in general? Entirely irrational or partly understandable? Rooted in larger social issues and the historical legacy of racism and in need of more perspicacious analysis or not? You know you don’t have to blog your thoughts the very nanosecond they arrive at the forefront of your mind, right?

“The idea I was trying to convey that got lost in the shuffle is how much I despise racism.”

Try a whole-hearted, persuasive approach next time. Also, if GrandGood had mentioned Sean Bell more than once in the past year, your claim might be more believable. You need more people, akh.

“If you choose to continue to identify yourself and others primarily according to race, instead of one’s socio-economic background, then you choose to limit your impact.”

Says you. We can play post-modernist rhetorical games all we want while singing Kumbaya around a campfire at a multi-culti rap concert featuring Brother Ali, The Roots, and Tego Calderon, and G-Child, but people of color will still be disproportionately affected by housing discrimination, educational inequality, police brutality and a host of other ills that are far more vexing and difficult to untangle than a couple of people on the internet questioning the credibility of allegedly colorblind white cultural commentators. Can you back up your claim that racial consciousness or identification is inherently detrimental to progressive political movements without resorting to circular logic? I’m doubtful, but I won’t rule out the possibility that you might at least try.

“And if this kind of racism gains ground in hip-hop then it will contribute to our dis-empowerment.”

Translation: “this is a half-hearted attempt at wisdom but a whole-hearted lunge towards nebulousness.”

“Yeah but Bob Dylan was rapping on that one song!”

“Although hip-hop began with a few particular races in a small part of the world, today it is representative of any group of individuals that can relate to the same set of circumstances. Just because you are black does not give you a pass into hip-hop. But being non-black does not automatically exclude you either.”

The “logic” here is interesting. I love how G depicts racial identity and socio-economic status as a kind of arbitrary set of circumstances that are somehow disconnected from historical patterns or cultural antecedents. Just a happy kind of accident that should be overlooked and even de-emphasized in the name of inclusion. Apparently, the struggle for people who do not consider themselves to be a part of the African diaspora to feel at home within hip-hop is more salient issue than the historical circumstances that informed the creation of the culture in the first place? Why? Because G said so!

In G’s world view, the Afro-Diasporic populations that first contributed to hip-hop were not a culturally distinctive group of people at all, but black and brown templates for a deracinated b-boy figure, who could come from anywhere and claim relation to the “same set of circumstances” but would nobly refrain from engaging in racial polemics or identity formation! How convenient! Following this logic, the experience of being Black is not a legitimate common ground for declaring affiliation or allegience, but the experience of being non-black and attempting to claim a space within Black culture while at the same time dictating whether or not race consciousness is consonant with this culture’s evolution – cause for blogging solidarity! Hence, why G has been clowned for his views.

G goes on to make some kind of convoluted point about Fat Joe using the word “nigga,” inclusivity, and the need for people to stop “bitching” about things that anger them (except when the thing that angers you is the response you get using the word “nigga” or claiming your place in hip-hop as a non-black, of course).

BTW, G, isn’t the term “non-black” a racialized categorization? Does the term “cognitive dissonance” mean anything to you?

Comment [14]

Apr 25, 2008

Stuff White People Like: Reality Edition · by Rafi Kam

#97 Acquitting cops who shoot unarmed black people

#98 The systematic murder or non-whites domestically via integrated police forces (not guilty, y’all got to feel me) and overseas via armed forces (5,000 dead americans and who the fuck cares how many dead iraqis!)

Imagine if a super-popular site gave a shit? Imagine if a site that gave a shit was super-popular?

Comment [19]

Apr 25, 2008

no justice · by Rafi Kam

Sean Bell’s murderers acquitted today.

What are you going to do about it?

Previously at Oh Word:

On the lack of acknowledgment at Rock the Bells show in NYC the week of the shooting

Expired biochemical slang f the police mix, Black Cop MP3, links from other blogs

A view from the other side

Comment [6]

Apr 24, 2008

Stolen Legacy: The Secret White History of Hip Hop · by R.H.S.

Park Jam circa 1971, South Boise

First off I’d like to give a freakishly macrocephalic, chromosomally abnormal, prominent brow ridge-having shout-out to “G” over at GRANDGOOD who recently summoned the fortitude to address one of the most pertinent issues of our day: the wanton marginalization of whites in hiphop. In circling the proverbial wagons against the savage arrows of those who would dare contest the notion that the Genesis of hip hop looked something like an omni-racial love-in set in a sprawling meadow with ample room for hak-e-sak ciphers and banjo battles, G joins the ranks of distinguished scholars such as Fresh, Soderberg, and the inimitable Adam Bernard in defending this rainbow-coalition culture from an onslaught of rabidly europhobic listeners.

Although the selflessness required to publicly defend a group as underfunded and voiceless as white Americans in an arena as hotly contested as the hip hop blogosphere is noteworthy, today we will tastefully refrain from popping bottles of Zima in celebration of G’s Great Stand. Instead we will solemnly honor the long, varied, misunderstood, and intentionally erased legeacy of Caucasian rap. It is a diffcult task in a world where shamming professors wishfully speculate that RA The Rugged Man was a “Nilo-Saharan Negroid,” fallaciously presuming his stage name to be a direct homage to an Egyptian deity, thus obfuscating his European heritage and the husky growl of his voice that undoubtedly evokes the cold coniferous forests of Shleisweig-Holstein far more than the Lower Nile. I shudder when I imagine a future dystopia where the Afro-diasporic elements of hip hop skyrocket to the forefront of scholarly inquiry and the last remaining press kits of the Young Black Teenagers are locked away or even burned by mobs of stampeding dashiki-clad storm troopers.

Enjoy this YouTube playlist of the greatest moments in White Rap History — it’s the least we could do.

Ayo yo, what up yo, time is running out, it’s for real though, let’s connect politick ditto

Comment [14]

Apr 23, 2008

A Mook. What's a Mook? · by Rafi Kam

EPIC FAIL

via Matt (via Soul Strut)

Comment [7]

| Previous >