There’s a telling scene in “T2: Transpotting 2,” wherein conflicted love-interest Veronica (not in the original film) is listening to Renton and Sickboy emphatically regale her with rapturous stories about their favorite footballers from eons past, prompting her to dryly dress them down in her native, Eastern European tongue. She coolly delivers the lines below -– subtitled on the screen -- while withstanding a deafening bombardment of idiotic trivia.
You know nothing. You understand nothing. You live in the past. Where I come from, the past is something to forget. But here, it’s all you talk about.
Now, in the context of the film, she’s ultimately chastising two hopeless ex-junkies who live lives steeped in regret, but something about the succinctness of her statement jumped right out of the film and punched me in the brain.
I’ve expressed concern about this before, here, but I believe I spend far too much time on this blog laboriously lionizing specific elements of the past. Let’s take a break from that and focus on the present.
As a crotchety white guy past the age of 50, I should probably really shut the F up when it comes to the subject of contemporary Hip-Hop. And, for the most part, I have done. Time was when I was more engaged by the genre in question, largely before it became the dominant musical force informing all aspects of our culture. I’m still a great fan of certain artists from decades past, notably the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Run-DMC, A Tribe Called Quest, LL Cool J, Das EFX, Digital Underground, Ice-T, New Kingdom, Wu-Tang Clan and a few others. I sort of cooled on it in the mid-90’s (ironically what some consider its golden age), when more -– to my mind -– interesting acts like the Native Tongue artists and the more stylistically adventurous crews sort of fell by the wayside while Sean Combs/P-Diddy/B.I.G. etc. rose in prominence. After the Biggie/Tupac wars, I liked certain cuts by Jay-Z, Eminem, Missy Elliot and Mystical (“Bouncing Back” was amazing), but –- by and large -– I kinda lost interest in a lot of it.
To my mind, once again, I kinda started feeling like the most prominent Hip-Hop didn’t have too much to say, ...and not just to me, but in general -– which, again, seemed antithetical given the specific tenets of the artform. But, given my age, I wasn’t really the target audience. Strikes me that, much like Punk Rock, Hip-Hop is and remains the music of youth.
As time went on, I felt less and less affinity for contemporary Hip-Hop. I have no real feeling about Kanye West’s music one way or the other, but anytime an artist goes out of their way to proclaim their own brilliance, I become fairly skeptical (Jaz Coleman, notwithstanding). Then I started hearing stuff by names like Tyler the Creator, who just struck me as annoying and crude. By the same token, I’m fairly certain the average 50-year-old in 1982 thought the stuff I was digging by the Circle Jerks, Bad Brains and Minor Threat was annoying and crude, too. It’s all about context.
More recently, though, I was actively put off by certain newer Hip-Hop acts, and not just silly Kanye. At this stage, if you have a Young or Lil in front of your moniker, chances are that I’m going to think your music is meaningless, idiotic and depressing. Seriously, if you can listen to “Gucci Gang” by Lil Pump without wincing, we’re probably not going to see eye to eye on a lot of things. I am similarly stumped by the success of Post Malone, but again –- this music isn’t really for guys my age, I guess. I’m not supposed to appreciate, understand or endorse that stuff.
But just when I feel like I can unleash I tirade on how Hip-Hop used to be better in my day, and blah blah blah blah, I am reminded that it’s not, in fact, all idiotic and there ARE great strides being made by visionary rappers, not just mush-mouthed simpletons with ill-considered tattoos slurring numbed couplets of inane braggadocio and misogyny.
For a start, there’s Kendrick Lamar, who won a goddamn Pulitzer Prize for his deft and refreshingly pointed wordplay (and endearingly upset a lot of folks by earning the accolade). Other notables include J.Cole and Chance the Rapper. I know lots of people might be quick to cite Beyonce here, but she’s kind of a discussion unto herself, let alone one I’m not versed enough to delve into, so I’m going to leave her out of this.
The other big name -– especially this week -– that it fully punching holes in the lazy notion of Hip-Hop no longer having anything to says is Donald Glover a.k.a. Childish Gambino. I completely missed out on his last celebrated record until I heard him perform “Terrified” at the Grammy Awards. That was indeed great, but this week brought us the incendiary video for his latest single, “This Is America,” which is the first high-profile single by anyone in a long damn while to prompt a tsunami of press coverage (the last time, I suppose, was “Formation” by Beyonce). In any case, it’s a bombshell, but you’ve probably read all about that, by now.
But as “troubling” and “traumatic” the video for “This is America” may be, it is rife with haunting symbolism and beguiling in its abstraction. It is both blunt and nuanced in how it reveals its disarmingly impactful message, which is a testament to its artistry. It’s supposed to stop you in your tracks. It does that and more. It's also striking to note that the same guy that's pushing this particular envelope is about to portray Lando in the next installment of "Star Wars." Talk about balls.
There was another recent single, however, that a friend directed me to that hits many of the same buttons, albeit in a much more direct, verbal way. Where Childish Gambino says volumes with coded imagery, this artist simply articulates it in the form of a dialogue. I’m talking about “I’m Not Racist” by Joyner Lucas, and I was so struck by it that it prompted this whole, windy post. Here it is. It concludes with a significantly more hopeful takeaway than “This is America,” but is no less forceful in its message. Check it out. See what you think.
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