This will invariably fail to shock any regular reader of Flaming Pablum, but the truth of the matter is that I was absolutely never a "b-boy." Despite having grown up in the late 70's and 80's in New York City, inarguably the hallowed birthplace of Hip Hop, my musical tastes largely took root elsewhere. While the cool kids in my high school were grooving to then new tracks by artists like Houdini, Kurtis Blow and Run-DMC ("Rock Box" by same was an inescapably regular favorite on the stereo in "the senior section" of Loyola High School's Student Commons in 1984), I was busily damaging my hearing via ceaseless airings of selections by bands like Venom and the Circle Jerks. It's not that I didn't like Hip Hop (one would really have to have ice in one's veins and two club feet not to be moved by a track like, say, "White Lines" by Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five), it's just that it didn't really grab me by the lapels and smack me around in the same cathartic way as, say, Black Flag or Iron Maiden did. But I did manage to soak in a lot of it by sheer osmosis, as after a relatively short while, Hip Hop was everywhere (I vividly recall Shawn Brown's "The Rappin' Duke" being played a couple of times at my senior prom). It was clearly not just another 'fad' (despite claims to the contrary by the defensive rock'n'roll orthodoxy).
As the years went by and Hip Hop became more and more of the dominant cultural force that it is today, chunks of it crept into my record collection. Largely via fandom for the Beastie Boys (themselves initially a somewhat lamentable Hardcore Punk band), I learned about and proceeded to seek out albums by Public Enemy and LL Cool J by the end of my senior year of college. After graduating, I occasionally sought out the odd Hip Hop disc by artists like MC Lyte, Ice-T, Digital Underground, Das Efx (why their first album, Dead Serious, isn't hailed as a classic is somewhat beyond my comprehension), A Tribe Called Quest, the -- to my mind -- incomparable Busta Rhymes and a couple of notable others, but I still didn't really count myself as a bona fide Hip Hop fan. I can't help it; I'm just more inclined to enjoy the music of an angry person using a guitar as a bludgeoning tool to decry the faillings of a flawed society than someone rhyming into a microphone about their wealth and prowess.
Back in 1990, I had the pleasure of working at a tiny music magazine with a writer named Kris Needs, who tirelessly attempted to turn me onto loads of Hip Hop records. While I stupidly didn't know it at the time, Kris had been at the forefront of the UK Punk movement, was best pals with the Clash and even lived for a while with members of my beloved Killing Joke. But that was all largely ancient history to him. His attention was now firmly entrenched in Hip Hop, and he saw it as his mission to spread that gospel (while I was otherwise inexplicably championing hoary goth miserablists like The Mission UK). I enjoyed a lot of the music -- and still do -- but I continue to have a hard time with the message and the lingo; it's just not my scene. As Hip Hop moved further towards all things gangsta (and, in turn, towards all things, playa, pimp and hustla), I grew even less enthused about it. The bottom line for me is that most Hip Hop just doesn't speak to me. I can't identify with pimps. I'm not interested in bling.
But the message is, of course, only a fraction of it. While I might find the "message" of "Get Low" by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz a bit on the crude side, there's simply no arguing with the dizzying, layered production. I really can't think of anything that sounds like it. Put simply, I find it a joy to listen to, and to be fair, it's certainly no more offensive than, say, "Bring On the Nubiles" by my beloved Stranglers, so who am I to go wagging my finger about "message"? A good song is a good song.
Fast forward a couple more years, and here I am working at this media outlet , a veritable hot bed of Hip Hop. The dizzying amount of rappers' names I've had to learn in exceptionally short order has proven to be a real education. In the few weeks I've been on staff, I've had to familiarize myself with the tangled back stories of dozens of Hip Hop artists, each with their own particular stamp on the genre. The gents I work alongside with over in the Hip Hop department are untouchably cool, really know their stuff, and clearly love their jobs and this music so much that it's hugely infectious. While it's going to take an awful lot to get me to fully renounce my unapologetic espousal of needlessly antagonistic guitar rock played by stroppy hellions with ill-advised hairstyles, I am slowly growing to appreciate Hip Hop -- or at least accrue a greater respect for the genre than I had previously entertained. As a side note, in the course of only a few hours a couple of days ago, I crossed paths with two wholly disparate characters -- both connected with Hip Hop, yet seemingly entirely at odds. While waiting for the elevator to take me down to the cafeteria, I ended up chatting with a fellow employee who ended up being none other than the hugely hilarious MC Paul Barman (he's pretty hard to miss) only later to have one of the founding members of the Wu Tang Clan, Ghostface Killah come hang around in front of my desk. While I may claim to not be especially Hip Hop savvy, even I own a copy of the sprawling Staten Island rap collective's jaw-dislocating debut album from 1993, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), thus I was accordingly starstruck (and for a dude who calls himself "Ghostface Killah," he seemed most cordial).
Still, don't expect me to start rocking the baggy pants, Sean John hoodies and a blinding set of grillz anytime soon. But in terms of Hip Hop, respect is due.
And the last Hip Hop record that really blew a new part in my hair was "Bouncin' Back" by sadly since-incarcerated Mystikal, which is well worth seeking out (imagine a ridiculously fonky Tom Waits!)
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