Man Enough to Care

I recognized at an early age that the masculine roles being offered me were nothing I was interested in. As a boy I was allowed to be feel angry or horny but not much else. Sadness and empathy were for faggots. Showing the world you gave a shit about anyone or anything was verboten. My friends and I at school spent our time picking on each other and the weak. The roles the older generation had-stoic provider-seemed to leave them helpless when left alone and on a path to be dead by 65. By the time I was in Jr. high I was demanding that my mother teach me how to cook. When I was 17 I decided I needed to move to San Francisco. Though I wasn’t gay, I figured any city full of queers would have space for a wimpy dude who didn’t know the first thing about sports and was more interested in hanging out with girls than dudes. 

Most of my male role models growing up were punks who challenged traditional male roles while providing a trajectory for a redefined and more functional masculinity. Ian MacKaye, who was tough yet sensitive, criticizing the sexist macho thug culture while presenting an image of self-reliance and take-no-shit-ness. Joe Strummer whose lyrics showed an empathy for the underdog, and who managed to embody 50s cool without the sexist trappings of that image. The Subhumans, Crass, 7 Seconds, and Operation Ivy, who all wrote songs that challenged traditional male roles. Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Hole, X, even the Go-Gos and Blondie, who all modeled strong female figures. Even Jawbreaker and Green Day, who were sensitive but cool guys who managed to attract cute girls to their shows and show that punk didn’t have to be about macho aggression.

Last week I downloaded an old 7 Seconds song called "Man Enough to Care." It’s from their New Wind album, which is when they were moving away from melodic hardcore and trying to be U2. (Before you laugh, remember that this was when U2 were an alternative band, and one of the reasons Minor Threat broke up is because half the band wanted to be U2 as well - just listen to “Salad Days”). New Wind isn’t an amazing album, but it has some great songs including “Man Enough to Care.” It’s a little punk, a little Bob Dylan, and details the way in which boys are indoctrinated to not have feelings.

Daddy always told you, do it like a man
Never get too friendly,
Some won't understand
[…]
'Cause boys don't crave affection,
Boys ain't got no fear
But did they ever show you how to shut those feelings on then off again

The tear-jerker for me is the end of the song, where it talks about how this cycle continues:

Handshake show you're friendly, but don't get caught,
You gotta fight to prove you're not afraid
Fuck just to prove you're not,
And all your life you play this game and it goes on and on and on and on
Now you've grown into a man, proud as hell to be,
It's now your turn to raise a son, don't let him be one
And you can teach him all the things you were taught yourself

And now you gotta hide yourself, hide yourself away,
Show you care and you might show the world that you're only gay,
Crying is for babies, for boys is it a sin,
To be a caring, sharing, loving, human one”

That song is 30 years old, but it still rings true today. Even in the liberal Bay Area I hear parents tell their young sons not to cry, or that pink is for girls, or any number of things that reinforce the idea that they have to suppress emotion and focus on being physical. I hear it in the rap songs I listen to that call anyone that isn’t out making illegitimate children they aren’t going to support or killing other young men of color a faggot. And I saw it in the toxic and confused misogyny that led to the murder of seven people in Isla Vista this weekend. (I’m not reprinting that fuckers name. He’s got too much attention already. Fuck him.)

Another punk song that helped me define my conception of masculinity is Crass’s “Big M.A.N.” It’s a more caustic and polemic take on the traditional male role of violent, stupid, womanizing wife-beater. Maybe an overgeneralization, but I’ve always loved the lines:

“If you're a man, you'd better act like one,
Develop your muscles, use your prick like a gun.
Fuck anything that moves, but never pay the price,
Steal, fuck, slaughter, that's their advice.
Are you man enough? Ask the posters on the walls,
Have you got what it takes? Guts and balls?
Keep your myth of manhood, it's been going on too long,
A history of slaughter is the proof that it is wrong.”

Finally there is Operation Ivy’s “Here We Go Again,” which was the most direct call to action in terms of redefining masculinity:

Analyzed the world I was born into
But I could never understand
Knew I never wanted to grow up if that meant being a "man"
Dominating strict competition is the meaning of our lives
Stomping on the weak keeps us the winner of the battle in our minds
Tensions in our lives that are destroying our minds
Unite themselves together to make our consciousness blind
Conditioned to self-interest with emotions locked away
If that's what they call normal I'd rather be insane
Relax yourself from giving what you want to do with your life
Ease up from giving up things like control of your own mind
If you never ask any question
Then you're never gonna get no answer
Always be wondering what do you want
While you keep getting older faster
Here we go again
Another test of manhood just when you thought you'd won
The more we keep competing
The more the battle has just begun

Of all the things that music, and especially punk music, gave me, one of the most important was the knowledge that there could be another definition of what it meant to be a man that didn't fit in with the stereotype. Fathers, don't raise your babies to grow up to be assholes. Let them know that real men aren't violent. Real men don't intimidate. Real men have feelings. Real men don't rape. Real men treat their mothers, sisters, coworkers, girlfriends, wives, and the women they are trying to pick up with respect. Which means like human beings. It's not actually that hard.

Survival Knife

I've been really enjoying the Unwound reissues, and I was intrigued to see that Unwound singer/guitarist Justin Troper had a new band, Survival Knife. I was even more intrigued to see that they rocked. There is the angularity you'd expect from the guy from Unwound, but Survival Knife's music is rooted in hard rock and metal as much as post-punk.  There is a little Fucking Champs, a little Loose Nut-era Black Flag, and a whole lot of chunky riffs. Who says you have to mellow with age?

And for comparison....
:

Jessica Lee Mayfield

Jessica Lee Mayfield's 2011 album Tell Me remains one of my favorite albums of the past decade, so I was excited to hear her follow up, Make My Head Sing. Unfortunately, she's ditched producer Dan Auerbach, opting to self-produce this one. The difference shows. There was a warmth and complexity to the production on Tell Me, which added weight to Mayfield's airy vocals and nicely balanced her rock, country, and folk influences.

Make My Head Sing has strong songs, but too often they get lost in the production. Songs like "Oblivious" "Pure Stuff," and "Anything You Want" work the best. They are grounded in chunky, grungy guitars, and sound like she's being backed by the surviving members of Nirvana. It's the quieter songs that suffer the most from Auerbach's absence. As a result, Make My Head Sing is not a bad album, but it's also not as amazing as Tell Me.

Atmosphere Review

Originally posted at RapReviews.com

Atmosphere
Southsiders
Rhymsayers, 2014

Atmosphere have mellowed since the days that Slug used to rap about his romantic troubles, sexual escapades, and tendencies towards over-consumption of booze, cigarettes, and drugs. This mellowing has happened over time. After a 2003 incident in which a young woman was raped and killed by a janitor at an Atmosphere show in New Mexico, Slug’s lyrics got more serious and less sexually irresponsible. A series of copyright lawsuits convinced Ant to stop digging crates for beats and start working with live musicians. Turning 40, getting married, and having kids was the final nail in the coffin of Atmosphere’s younger, smart-ass persona. There’s nothing worse than an aging hipster and you don’t want to be the 40 year old who still parties like he lives in a fraternity. 

Atmosphere have put aside childish things as they’ve matured, and their sound reflects that. 2008’s “When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold” was their first foray into Grown Man Rap. It was a collection of downtempo, muted explorations of poverty, abuse, and other studies of imperfect characters. 2011’s “The Family Sign” kept the somber tone and focused on families, including good relationships, abusive relationships, and bad daddies. 

They continue on the same trajectory with their seventh album, “Southsiders.” Those hoping that the duo would return to the more uptempo feel of “Bam” or “We Love the Things That Hate Us” are in for disappointment. Most of “Southsiders” is as grey and depressing as the neighborhood it is named after (at least if liner photos are accurate). 

“Bitter,” the first single from “Southsiders,”. “Bitter” is also the album’s weakest track. Slug’s sing/rapping sounds like Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, another group who have mellowed with age. The chorus is terrible, the lyrics aren’t great, and it sounds like an outtake from “Lemons” or “The Family Sign.” On hearing it I had to wonder if Atmosphere destined to keep writing the same ballad over and over again like the Red Hot Chili Peppers have been doing since “Under the Bridge?” Second single “Kanye West,” is better, but not great. It also points to the two biggest weaknesses of “Southsiders” as a whole.

The first is the beat. “Kanye West,” like “Bitter,” like almost all of the songs on their last three albums, is downtempo and dour. It is the opposite of a banger. It is not the song you put on when you want to get pumped up or feel like you can conquer the world. It is not meant for the club. It will not start a street dance craze. Of the fifteen songs on the proper album, only two of them (the title track and “The World Might End Tonight”) could be said to be uptempo. Everything else is either mid- or downtempo, which gives the album a subdued feel. That’s not to say they are bad (more on that later),  but they aren’t exactly energetic.

The second issue with “Southsiders” that is evident in “Kanye West” is that Slug is struggling lyrically. Too often on the album he relies on irony (saying “put your hands up if you DO give a fuck” on “Kanye West,” rather than the more common “put your hands in the air if you just don’t care”), cliche, or making no sense. “Star Shaped Heart” has a line “The handprints are bloody/Because the puppy outran the bunny” which almost ruins what is otherwise a good song. Even “Flicker,” a powerful song about the rapper Eyedea, who committed suicide in 2010, has some seriously dubious lines like “When I hear your smile it’s outlined in sadness/You poked holes in the magic.” There are many adjectives I’d use to describe Slug’s lyrics - self-punishing, insightful, sincere, nakedly honest, cynical, poetic - but cheesy is not one I’d normally use. Yet there are several moments on “Southsiders” where Slug is downright cheesy.

Those criticism aside, “Southsiders” is still an Atmosphere record, which means it ultimately redeems itself. Slug always manages to kick you in the guts with his rhymes. Even when he’s depressing, Ant still maintains an old-school feel in his beats even when he’s working with guitars and synthesizers. He might build a track entirely around reverbing guitar, but you better believe it is going to have banging drums. His beats hit hard even when they are mellow. The  bluesy wail and handclaps of “Arthur’s Song” might not work well for dancing on a pole, but they hit you where it counts. The piano and synthesizers of “Fortunate” manage to convey a sense of hope and promise that matches Slug’s lyrics. By sampling live instruments, Ant manages to capture both the homey feel of analog instruments and the percussive repetition that comes from flipping breaks. “Southsiders” may not be the most exciting album, but it sounds good.

And then there is Slug. Slug is a consistently interesting rapper, and one of the few MCs who are willing and able to tackle such personal subject matter. His domestic bliss may have dulled his edge, but he still manages to offer biting insights into the human condition with serious microphone skills. He can be neurotic: on “Fortunate” he raps, “I highly doubt y’all think about sex anywhere near as often as I think about death.” He spends a lot of the album analyzing friendship, what it means to get older, romantic relationships, and how to keep moving forward when the whole world seems like it is going to shit. When he’s flossing, he’s dropping knowledge with his daggers. “Southsiders” is a takedown/love letter to the neighborhood he came up in, and Slug sounds like an OG calling out all the young kids:

“Whole Southside been up in your guts

Don’t even know how to describe how much you suck

And it’s not just you but everyone of your plus

Follow each other around like a bunch of ducks

Just turn the music up and get dumb

Stretch your skin around the biggest drum

Born from a neighborhood of click and run

And already gave away my last stick of gum”

I pre-ordered a physical copy of “Southsiders” even after I had spent a week streaming it for free. I rarely buy CDs anymore, but I knew I needed a hard copy of this album. For one thing, Rhymesayers always puts a lot of care into their physical product, making it worth the purchase price. For another thing, while Atmosphere may stumble at times, they get it right enough to make anything they do worth listening to and worth paying attention to.  While the line in “Flicker” about poking holes in the magic is a misstep, Slug closes strong:

And now I’m trying to write a song for a dead songwriter

That wrote they own songs about life and death

And every breath is full of self-awareness

Don't ever be afraid to be embarrassed

So I wrote these words to describe what I cry about

But I’m certain if you were here right now you’d ridicule these lyrics

You’d hate this chorus

You’d probably tell me that the concept is too straight forward”

It’s lines like that that keep me coming back to Atmosphere’s music, and make “Southsiders” another solid entry into the Atmosphere catalogue, warts and all.

Sage the Gemini Review

I reviewed Sage the Gemini's Remember Me this week at RapReviews.

If you listen to the one of the local hip-hop stations in the San Francisco Bay Area, nine times out of ten the song playing is either Sage the Gemini’s “Gas Pedal” or “Red Nose.” Those songs are so ubiquitous that Sage has admitted in interviews that he’s sick of hearing them. He worked hard to be at a point where his songs are driving people nuts. The 21-year old dropped out of high school in Fairfield, California to focus on music full time, and it took five long years before “Gas Pedal” and “Red Nose” finally took off in 2013. 

“Remember Me,” which dropped in March, collects several songs that were on 2013’s “Gas Pedal EP” plus nine new tracks (thirteen if you buy the deluxe version). Sage uses the album to prove that there is more to him than making songs to get girls shaking their asses. 

Musically, the songs on “Remember Me” stick close to the template that has earned him a spot in the Top 40: stripped-down, pulsing beats with a keyboard providing melody. It’s a sound that can trace its roots to hyphy staples like “Vans” and “Blow The Whistle,” as while as the Neptunes minimalist classic “Drop It Like It’s Hot.”  He also throws in some hi-hats, snare snaps and synthesizers. He favors ambient elements over dance elements, which gives his compositions a dreamy feel. Sage the Gemini’s music mirrors his lyrical persona: laid-back, a little street and a little romantic. P-Lo, League of Starz, the Exclusives, and Jay Ant also take the boards. The wistful beat on “Mad At Me,” the punishing 808s of “Down On Your Luck,” and the whining gangsta lean of “Second Hand Smoke” show that Sage is as adept at choosing beats as he is at making them.

“Remember Me” delivers somewhat on its promise to show that there is more to Sage than booty anthems. There are several songs where Sage flexes his newfound money and fame at the people who ignored him when he was coming up. The title track is Sage the high school dropout saying nyah nyah to the people at his school, bragging about his success and proclaiming ‘“Cool bro, bitch I’m a nerd!”“Second Hand Smoke” is about how he has tried to avoid the streets, proclaiming “I can’t handle the pen unless it’s a record deal.”  “Go Somewhere” is a surprisingly romantic song from a guy whose biggest hit asks women to dance like dogs:

“Excuse me? I know you don’t care

But I saw you from across the room

And I just want to say I like your hair

Maybe some time we can go somewhere?”

His range only goes so far, however. Sage has said in interviews that he doesn’t really drink, smoke, or hang out in the club. That’s odd considering that many of the songs on this album reference drinking and smoking in the VIP section of clubs. Sage and his HBK crew fall into the same trap a lot of younger rappers fall into,  dropping the same twenty references to luxury goods, smoking blunts, drinking champagne, and getting with bad bitches in the club. There is a rigidity and conservativeness to the subject matter that is at odds with how expansive the music is. Maybe it’s a product of being 21. At that age, what more to life is there but girls, partying, and hanging out with your friends? And do we really want to hear songs about hungover Mondays and working shit jobs to pay the rent?

It’s frustrating that so many of the songs stick to the same cliched themes because Sage can actually rap. He’s got a low-key charm, spitting his rhymes effortlessly. He sounds like a dude who knows what he is doing, not some kid who is barely old enough to buy his own liquor. “Remember Me” isn’t a perfect album, but it has some great songs and a lot of promise. Sage the Gemini has established himself as an artist worth remembering.

A Child and His Lawnmower

I got into two separate online debates with gun enthusiasts in the comments sections this week. The first was in an article on ProPublica about a guy who is trying to study gun violence. My point was:

... to me, killing people is wrong, and guns are far more likely to be used in crimes, suicides, or accidents than in self-defense. If you feel so unsafe that you can't go to Starbucks without packing heat, the answer isn't more guns.

The second was in an NPR article about a shooting at a FedEx facility in Georgia.  Several people noted that this was a gun-free zone, to which I commented sarcastically that clearly the answer to gun violence is always more guns. 

I'm not uniformly anti-gun. I'm anti-gun for my family, but I understand that the 2nd amendment guarantees Americans the right to bear arms, and that most gun owners are responsible and hopefully not nut jobs who are preparing for the race war when Obama tries to put everyone in FEMA death camps (if you think I'm joking, look up "preppers").  There are even a few pro-gun commenters who point out some of the mistakes and errors in the gun control crowd's arguments (i.e. not knowing an assault rifle from a shotgun). And they aren't wrong when they say that many more people are accidentally killed by cars than accidentally killed by guns. For the most part, however, the pro-gun commenters in any online article about guns, no matter how moderate and reasonable, scream and howl about how they can't protect themselves unless they have a mini nuke in their back yard and are allowed to have a bead on people with their AK-47 AT ALL TIMES.

The answer to the gun problem in America is not more guns. It is not to make it so that everyone everywhere at all times can be fully strapped. It's ironic that the gun lobby makes fun of how gun control advocates "sensationalize" mass shootings to call for stricter gun regulations, while using those same mass shootings as evidence that we need looser gun laws so everyone can be "safe." And that statistic the NRA loves to throw around that 2.5 million defensive gun uses by citizens? It's based on extrapolating a 225 person survey from 20 years ago.  In other words, utter bullshit.

But enough ranting. All this gun talk has me thinking of two songs that address the matter. The first is the Dead Kennedys "A Child and His Lawnmower," from the Not So Quiet In the Western Front Maximum Rock n Roll Comp and their Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death collection. It's a short blast from their hardcore phase, and the lyrics describe the kind of weird news story that singer Jello Biafra used to collect for his Fuck Facts collages. 

"Some clown in Sacramento was dragged into court

He shot his lawnmower

It disobeyed

It wouldn't start

Might makes right

It's the American Way

Judge fined him 50 dollars

And sent him on his way"

It was the chorus that has stuck with me to my adulthood:

"You know some people

Don't take no shit

Maybe if they did

They'd have half a brain left"

It's a similar sentiment from what Ice Cube raps at the end of "Dead Homiez"

"So I take everything slow
Go with the flow
Shut my muthafuckin' mouth if I don't know"

As I got older I realized it was a variation both on the Christian idea of turning the other cheek, and the Buddhist idea of being generous with people and not giving in to hate and anger. There's also an element of that business maxim "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." The point isn't to be passive and let people walk all over you, but that if you constantly walk around with your dick out looking for a fight, you'll probably find one. And not live that long or happy an existence,

Secondly, there's the video to El-P's "Deep Space 9mm." When every people salivate over concealed carry laws and call for armed guards in schools, I imagine that this is the future they want.

DJ Rashad Review

I wrote a review of DJ Rashad's Double Cup, which is below. It's a little weak in that a) I had no idea what footwork was until I saw the headlines of his obituary and b) I talk about how druggie an album by a guy who died of a drug overdose is. I didn't mean disrespect to Rashad's friends or family, or fans of a genre that I clearly know very little about.


Originally appeared on RapReviews.

DJ Rashad, “Double Cup,” Hyperdub (hyperdub.net)
Reviewed by Patrick Taylor

Chicago footwork DJ Rashad Harden died on Saturday at 34. It’s always tragic when someone dies so young, but it is even more so with DJ Rashad given that he was just starting to truly blow up on an international scale. His last album was put out by Kode9’s influential Hyperdub label, who are probably best known for releasing music by innovative dubstep artists like Burial. Listening to “World Cup,” it’s not hard to understand why DJ Rashad’s music excited so many listeners, musicians and critics. 

For those of you not familiar with footwork (as I wasn’t until I saw it associated with DJ Rashad’s music), it’s basically ghetto house music sped up to ludicrous speeds. The name of the genre comes from the intricate and insanely fast style of dancing that people do to it. Watching footwork dancers is like watching normal dancers in fast-forward. It’s become a competitive dance, with two dancers going toe-to-toe to prove who has the better moves. 

“Double Cup” gives several good examples of why footwork has gotten so many kids working on dance moves. It combines the janky, clattering snares of street rap with the BPM’s and aggro of jungle. Rashad doesn’t flip samples, he repeats them over and over again until it sounds like the singer has a stutter. Imagine the attitude of street rap with a touch of house soul revved up to drum n’ bass speeds and you have footwork.

When your music is based on speed, there is only so fast you can go before it becomes a limitation. Slayer slowed things down after the blistering speed metal of “Reign In Blood,” and DJ Rashad takes the tempo down on much of “Double Cup.”  On several tracks he builds in the hyperactive footwork elements into a more laid-back tempo. Album opener “Feelin’” still has the chattering hi-hats and stuttering piano lines, but it is placed along a smoother, more languid backdrop. It’s like chillout music for someone with ADHD. The title track starts out hyper and aggro, but then slows things down, only to build the frenetic elements back in.

Rashad was allegedly found with narcotics and drug paraphernalia, which has led some to speculate that his death was due to an overdose. Whatever the cause of his untimely demise, “Double Cup” is a very drug-centric album. “Pass That Shit,” “Drank, Kush, Barz,” “Reggie,” I’m Too Hi” and “Acid Bit” are just the tracks that mention drugs in the titles. The music is druggie as hell too. There is the amphetamine rush and kush comas you’d expect, but there are also psychedelic elements. “Acid Bit” is a crazed drug trip that recalls Wink’s “Higher State of Consciousness,” and “I’m Too Hi” perfectly captures the feeling of taking one or too more doses than recommended by the surgeon general. If Rashad truly did overdose, it is both ironic and sad that he made a song about overindulging.

The drugginess is only one element of “Double Cup,” albeit a notable one. What really makes this album special, and makes DJ Rashad’s passing all that more sad for music fans, is how expertly he is able to weave in and out of different genres. He can go from the ratchet hip-hop of “She’s a Go” to the smooth R&B of “Let U Know” to the silky house of “Leavin’” to the West Coast gangsta lean of  “Pass That Shit.” In Rashad’s hands hip-hop, techno, house, R&B, and footwork all coexist simultaneously. It’s a shame he didn’t get to live long enough to blur the lines between genres even further.

Unwound

I've been listening to the Numero Group's recent Unwound reissue Rat Conspiracy.  The three-disc set (although it is only being released on vinyl and mp3) collects Unwound's first two albums and a third disc of singles and outtakes. 1993's Fake Train is and remains one of my favorite albums of all time, and it was nice to revisit 1994's New Plastic Ideals. Unwound did an amazing job of combining the energy and ferocity of hardcore with some of the noisy art-rock of Sonic Youth. The result is music that  has the aggression of hardcore with the emotional and musical complexity of post-punk and emo, with very little of the pretension or bullshit. Unwound channeled the feelings of depression, anxiety, dissatisfaction and confusion of late adolescence. Their songs are about being bored, feeling unsettled, having nervous energy that you can't contain. They alternate between pretty melodies and all-out noise, falling apart unexpectedly and then retreating into moments of quiet contemplation. I don't know what it says about me that this hits me just as hard at 39 as it did when I first heard it at 19. Maybe somethings you don't outgrow.

One song I've rediscovered with this set is "What Was Wound." It starts off as fairly typical jangly early 90s indie rock, albeit with a tempo that's a bit off. It follows the typical quiet-loud-quiet dynamic that Nirvana perfected. Unwound does it so well though, creating a feeling of unpredictability and controlled chaos. "Salt of the earth on an open wound" indeed.

If you want more proof, watch this entire show from around the time New Plastic Ideals came out, or just skip to 8:00 to watch them play "Nervous Energy" live.

Chuck Inglish Review

Chuck Inglish
Convertibles 
Sounds Like Fun/Federal Prism 

Chicago rapper/producer Chuck Inglish emerged seven years ago as half of the retro-leaning duo Cool Kids. Their signature sound was Inglish's stripped-down beats, with booming 808s and snare slaps that sounded like early Def Jam. The Cool Kids haven't done much as a duo since 2010's "Tacklebox," but both Inglish and Sir Michael Rocks have been busy making solo mixtapes and producing for other artists. The Cool Kids have another album on the horizon for 2014, but in the meantime Inglish has just released his first solo album, "Convertibles."

Convertibles is Inglish's chance to show his diversity as a producer and a rapper. That diversity starts with his label. His Sounds Like Fun imprint is signed to Federal Prism, which is run by TV On the Radio's Dave Sitek. Cool Kids have always been on the fringes of mainstream hip-hop, and Inglish continues that trend by signing to an indie rock label.

I won't lie: the best songs on "Convertibles" are the ones that hew closest to the sound that Inglish is known for. It's hard to go wrong with old-school trunk-rattlers, which Inglish proves time and time again. "Attitude" and "Swervin'" both have pulverizing bass, although Inglish does different things with both beats. "Swervin'" is in the vein of g-funk, with the hint of a piano and snapping snares. "Attitude" has a harder beat, but contrasts it with a sung hook by BJ the Chicago Kid.
"Money Clip" is built around a driving beat with a few string and synth flourishes. The uptempo beat spurs Inglish to drop his usual laconic delivery for a more spirited flow:

"San Diego dayglow, get what you pay for
It's not everyday though, they do what we say so
Uh, def that bump
It's not a drop, it's convertible bruh
Put a rack up on it if you ain't no punk
Do it up like the steps, walk it out like a pet
Off the top, get a tip like 75 percent
This establishment was meant, washing money with the lint"

He's assisted on the track by Vic Mensa, Retch, Hassani Kwess, and Sulaiman. That's a lot of MCs for one track, and it gives it the feel of a posse cut. Most of the songs have at least one rapper and/or singer. Ab-Soul and Mac Miller offer stellar verses on "Came Thru/Easily." "Action Bronson" mixes his culinary and sexual metaphors on "Gametime." Sir Michael Rocks joins Inglish and Polyester the Saint on "Swervin'." These MCs all help offset Inglish's serviceable but not spectacular rapping. He's fine on the mic, but his rhymes have very little stakes. His label is rightly named: Inglish is all about having fun, and as a result his rhymes feel lightweight. He likes cars, he likes pretty girls, likes to have beer and weed with his friends, and doesn't like having his heart broken. To his credit he is less raunchy than many of his peers, and he gets some good wordplay in, but he rarely says anything of consequence.
Inglish doesn't waste his solo debut with a bunch of standard Chuck Inglish beats. He takes the opportunity to branch out and try different genres. "Legs" is a disco-funk with dance artist Chromeo. "Ingles (Mas O Menos)" is a combo electro/Latin club rap track with Mexican-American rapper Cap Angels. Inglish goes full Prince with Jade on "P.R.I.S.M.," which features an electric guitar solo that would make his purple majesty proud. The latter half of the album is made up of downtempo songs that show a more sensitive side and psychedelic side to Inglish.

The album ends with "Glam," a track which features singer Macie Stewart and Chance the Rapper. Chance has been on a roll for the last year, and he doesn't slow down here. His verses add depth and gravitas to what would otherwise be a pretty frivolous album.

"Rid me of my evils
God bless me and all my foolies, my disciples, and my people
Say a prayer for the nine one time
Niggas that robbed me by the Ryan one time
Go vagabond in the line one time
Bro gods, whole squad in the line one time
I know I'll see the clouds with silver line some time
So I don't even feel the need to rhyme some time
See my nigga smiling sunshine sometimes
So bring the hook around for your sun one time"
It ends with the chorus of "God loves all my niggas, nigga."

"Convertibles" isn't a perfect album. The genre-switching makes it lack cohesion, it drags a bit in its later half, and it doesn't pack much weight lyrically. Still, the combination of good-time rhymes and heavy-hitting beats makes it an album worth picking up. Inglish and crew may not have a lot to say, but they are having a good time saying it. As with all of Inglish's work, the beats are throwbacks to the old school with the technology and finesse of the twenty-teens. It's the kind of album you want to put on in your convertible while you are riding around with the top dropped enjoying a warm spring afternoon.

Originally posted on RapReviews

Actress Review

Actress, Ghettoville, Ninja Tune (www.ninjatune.net)

Actress is the stage name of British producer Darren J. Cunningham, who has been performing under that moniker for the past six years. His three previous albums offered an art-damaged mash-up of ambient, dance, minimalism, and experimental music. Actress has called Ghettoville “the bleached out and black tinted conclusion of the Actress image,” and it sounds like a funeral. The bubbly warmth that underpinned his earlier work is largely absent, replaced by bleak industrial soundscapes.

Actress’s music has always challenged listeners with its sparseness and occasional dissonant elements, but there was a warmth to his earlier albums that smoothed out the rougher edges. That warmth has been hammered out of Ghettoville. At times it seems as if Actress is daring listeners to try to make it until the end of the album. He starts things off with seven minutes of slow clanging (“Forgiven”), and then gives the listener five and a half minutes of static glitch (“Street Corp.”). It’s not until “Corner,” the third song on the album, that anything like a beat appears, and it is slow and mournful. Where Actress’s earlier work was grounded in throbbing pulses, Ghettoville is lethargic and murky, crawling along at a menacing pace.

Not everything here is static, distortion and clanging. Much of the album features Actress doing what he does best: deconstructing standard electronic music templates, and creating music that is experimental yet recognizable. “Rims” is built around a sinister bassline and some clicks and whistles that’s like two songbirds having a low-riding competition. “Gaze” is a house music song bleeding through the walls of an apartment. “Image” adds some clattering Detroit techno 808s into the mix. Actress is also pushing his sound forward, adding filtered vocals and offering fractured takes on hip-hop (“Rule”) and R&B (“Rap”). These songs capture what makes Actress such a vital and important part of contemporary electronic music. His songs are stripped down to the bare essential, and he uses sounds that you wouldn’t necessarily associate with music. He explores the patterns that emerge with repetition, avoiding big buildups or breakdowns. Everything feels carefully placed without a single extraneous click or blurb. At his best, his experimentation is grounded in beats so even at their weirdest the songs still bounce.

Unfortunately, the rhythm of the album is constantly interrupted by cacophonous dirges which makes it feel unsettled. Some of the songs stick around long after their musical point has been made, and the album itself is overlong. Just when “Ghettoville” settles into an off-kilter groove like “Rims,” it gets derailed by a buzzkill like “Contagious.”

While much of Ghettoville is up to Actress's usual high standards, it is an unfriendly and uneven album. It’s the soundtrack to urban decay and depression. It’s about exploring dark places and spending an uncomfortable amount of time in them. It is also a suicide note from a pseudonym, and like many suicides, there is a selfishness and lack of regard for others in Ghettoville. Actress isn’t thinking about how his music will sound to other people. He’s not concerned with bringing listener along. He’s not attempting to make an aesthetically pleasing album, or one that sets a consistent mood.  As a result, Ghettoville is a bit of a letdown. If this truly is Actress's last gasp, he's not going out with a bang but a whimper.

Originally posted on RapReviews

Female Rappers

There was an article last week on NPR titled "Where Did All the Female Rappers Go?"

I wrote a comment on the site, and there was a nice debate in the comments section.  Here's what I wrote:

I'm not going to deny that there is a lot of sexism towards and prejudice against female rappers, or that mainstream hip-hop has gotten cartoonishly sexist. However, Angel Haze's album was panned because it was not that good. Her lyrics, which were strong on her mixtapes, are reduced to overused flower metaphors, cliches, platitudes, and vague encouragements to overcome adversity. The album tries to mash together her fierce rapping with dance pop and it doesn't work. Haze is gifted, but "Dirty Gold" is not a good example of her talents - it's an example of the label trying to make her all things to all people and losing what is interesting about the artist in the process. And Kreayshawn is terrible as a rapper- there's a reason her album didn't sell.

You're right that Haze's album was rated lower than less lyrical rappers, but lyricism isn't the end-all, be-all in hip-hop,. That's like saying an artist is no good because their paintings aren't representational. Having a certain vibe can be just as powerful, even if the rapper isn't saying much lyrically. "Hard In the Paint" may be simplistic, but it works as a song a lot better than many so-called lyrical rap songs. Especially ones as chock full of cliche's as the ones on "Dirty Gold."

Haze is emblematic of the problem facing female rappers. It's not enough for them to be able to rap. They have to sing as well. They have to be street, but also sexy, rap as well as the boys but also be good-looking and have pop appeal. Meanwhile, a male rapper can be overweight, ugly, and do nothing but slur about getting drunk and partying with strippers and they get a million downloads.

Anyways, it led me to review two recent mixtapes by female artists.  The first was Chicago rapper/singer Tink's Winters Diary 2. 

The other one was Snow Da Product's Good Nights and Bad Mornings 2."

Brand New You're Retro

I've been enjoying a lot of the melodic punky music that has come out recently. The Joanna Gruesome record from last year is growing on me. I originally had issues with the noisy lo-finess of of it, but with better headphones the melodies come through much more clearly. They have a nice contrast between male and female vocals, loud punk elements and strong melodies.






I also like the new Bleeding Rainbow record. It is a little less punk, but still has that winning combination of loud guitars and female vocals.



I'm also really enjoying Solids' Blame Confusion, which is more grungy and less melodic.




What dawned on me in listening to them is that they all sound very early 90s. Joanna Gruesome could be on K Records. But since they are all in their twenties, them playing this music is sort of like if I had played classic rock as a kid. Or the Beatles. Which makes me feel old.

Angel Haze Review

I reviewed Angel Haze's new album Dirty Gold on RapReviews this week. It's posted below. I had a viscerally negative reaction to the album after listening to it for two weeks straight. Maybe I don't listen to enough pop music so the terribleness of it shocks me, or maybe I was just expecting more from Haze. She has been through legitimate shit and has legitimate talent, but this felt like so much other narcissistic, shallow, self-absorbed pop culture bullshit. Blech.

Diversity has become such a politically correct buzz word in recent years that it is easy to overlook why it is such an important issue. Done right, diversity allows for the inclusion of voices and ideas that would otherwise be overlooked. Diversity means including women and people of color in medical studies, so that issues that are specific to women and different ethnicities are addressed. It means designing buildings so people in wheelchairs can use them. It means designing products and programs that address the wants and needs of a range of customers and constituents, and not just the ones that are the most dominant. Diversity means getting a more accurate picture of what is really going on. Over the course of six mixtapes, Angel Haze has shown why there needs to be more diversity in rap, and what we are missing by having so few prominent female rappers. Haze is a fierce, skilled rapper who can shit-talk with the best of them but also drops rhymes about the struggles that women face. Her 2012 covers EP "Classicks" ended with a version of Eminem's "Cleaning Out My Closet" where she rapped about being sexually abused by multiple men for years. It is a perspective that you rarely get in pop music, let alone hip-hop.
"White Lilies/White Lies" is another example of the perspectives we miss because men dominate hip-hop. There are a thousand rap songs about strippers, but "White Lilies/White Lines" is one of the few that is from the point of view of strippers themselves. "Whose daughter is on the stage?" Haze asks over a brooding beat. "I know her by name." The song is a punch to the gut that will ensure that you never look at a stripper the same way again.
Ironically, it is Angel Haze's very diversity that ends up hurting her major label debut "Dirty Gold." Haze tries to walk the line between battle rapper, pop star, emo rapper, and motivational speaker. That's a lot to tackle in one album, and it is not surprising that it ends up a mess. Too many of Haze's raps are yelled, and they don't jibe with the pop production and softer elements in the music. It's like her label wanted her to be all things to all people all the time, and as a result she's not entirely successful at any of them.
It be easy to blame her label for all the problems with "Dirty Gold." Their attempts to make her next Rihanna certainly aren't helping her, and the fact that she leaked the album ahead of schedule suggests that Haze wasn't totally on board with the direction her label was taking her. While the pop/rap hybrid doesn't always work that well on "Dirty Gold," it's not what really stunts the album. The heartbreaking thing about "Dirty Gold" is how bad the lyrics often are. Haze has shown on her mixtapes that she is not afraid of tackling real problems and addressing things like abuse and her troubled upbringing with frankness and honesty. On "Dirty Gold" she defaults to overused flower metaphors, platitudes, and the kind of empowerment cheerleading that would make Oprah embarrassed. Her spoken word pieces are particularly painful, The album starts with her saying "I'm making it for people who just want to get lost." An interviewer says "That's interesting how music does that. It's like a trapdoor." "It locks you in," agrees Haze. It sounds like a pseudo celebrity doing a confessional on a reality show. Or this spoken intro from "Black Synagogue:"
"And the light, the light can make everything feel beautiful. It can make it feel safe, so safe that, like, in the night, we spend all of our time running away from our truths. And then we meet someone who tells us, 'God will always love you, no matter what you do. The only thing that will never stop loving you is God.' And because of all of our darkness, which at night I still run from, which at night we all still run from, we get stuck chasing light. That's a Black Synagogue."
There is a criticism of religion in there somewhere, but like a lot of her lyrics, it is frustratingly cliched and vague.
Songs that should be moving end up falling apart under the tortured prose and overworked metaphors. The aforementioned "Black Synagogue" is about Haze's disillusionment with religion after growing up in a cultish Christian sect. It comes off more like a temper tantrum than spiritual questioning. "Black Dahlia" is a message to her mother, who raised Haze in the sect. It should be a heart wrenching tear jerkier, but instead it feels like high school poetry. Natalia Kills does some spoken word in the song, telling her mother that she would rather have not been born if it would have made her mother's life better. However, she does it in a British valley girl accent that kills the gravitas of the moment (It doesn't help that Haze inadvertently titles the song after the name given to Elizabeth Short, the aspiring actress who was found mutilated and dismembered in an empty lot in Hollywood in 1947).
It's the endless string of cliches and empty platitudes that killed "Dirty Gold" for me. The love song "Planes Fly" (which could be about a woman) has any romances stamped out of it with clumsy, trite lyrics:
"I'm up in the air, still running from everything below
Yo, I'm not sure what this is but I've got jet fuel in my soul
Propellors tucked in my ribs
We'll fly
When the tunnel's got no light
And the light exposes this dull life
It's alright
When the good feels bad but the bad feels better"
I realize I'm being much harder on Haze than I usually am on male rappers, especially since she can actually rap and is rapping about suicide, self-doubt, love, and other topics not usually heard in the Hot 100. Maybe I am inadvertently playing into the double standard that often goes hand in hand with diversity, in which members of minority groups are held to much higher standards than the majority. There's also the fact that it is harder to rap about real issues than it is to rap about nothing. I'll put up with Ty Dolla $ign rapping about his two bitches in the club, but when a rapper tries to put down some real talk, I expect them to step their game up. I'm also not Haze's target demographic. No doubt her songs would hit much harder if I were a young woman and not a middle-aged man who happens to hate pop music. There have been a number of positive reviews written online about "Dirty Gold," so the record is definitely connecting with some people. It is certainly the type of album that wants to be cathartic to listeners.
I can live with the fact that Haze is going for a pop sound that I'm not a fan of. I can deal with the cheesy power ballads and the EDM beats. What really disappoints me with "Dirty Gold" is how shallow it is. You take a woman who can rap, sing, and could offer some much-needed counter programming to what mainstream hip-hop usually delivers. Instead, she's going for Nikki Minaj meets Eminem meets Rihanna on the Tyra show. It feels like a major missed opportunity. Hip-hop deserves to have more albums by female rappers, and we deserve better albums than "Dirty Gold."

Against Me!

I will admit to being one of those people who never paid attention to Florida punk band Against Me! until their lead singer changed from Tom Gabel to Laura Jane Grace. Laura's gender transition is the big story that follows the band around. Like Chaz Bono and Lara Wachowski, Laura's become a poster girl for transgender rights. It's a good story, and one that has catapulted a fairly successful punk band into a much larger spotlight. Their new album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, would be a strong album if all the members had boring and unremarkable backstories.

My impression of Against Me! was that they belonged to that strain somewhat cheesy, anthemic, Warped Tour-ready alt-punk that the kids loved and that left me cold. Songs like "I Was a Teenage Anarchist" sound to me closer to Kings of Leon than Bad Brains. "Stop" sounds like a Franz Ferdinand  cover.  Their new album is still anthemic rock, but they seem to be less concerned with chasing commercial success. That and Laura has a whole new mess of stuff to sing about.

The title track is a powerful song about her experiences being transgender.

"Your tells are so obvious
Shoulders too broad for a girl
Keeps you reminded
Helps you remember where you come from

You want them to notice
The ragged ends of your summer dress
You want them to see you
Like they see any other girl
They just see a faggot
They hold their breath not to catch the sick."

Later she sings "You know it's obvious but we can't choose how we're made."

The rest of the album isn't always as strong as that opening track. The cheesy alt-rock of their earlier work seeps in during the latter half. I still like it, and I like how Laura is incorporating her experience into punk. One of music's greatest gifts is it's ability to allow us to understand and empathize with people different from us. Most of us will never know what it is like being trans, but Against Me! give is a window into that world. 

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

I wrote about the Macklemore backlash on RapReviews this week. 

In the wake of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis's stratospheric rise to success this year, a considerable backlash has inevitably raised its head on the internet. The backlash got especially heavy in the wake of the MTV Video Awards in August and the Grammys at the end of January. The duo have been accused of being corny, of not being "real hip-hop," of stealing the limelight from African-American rappers and gay rappers, and of being pandering white hipsters. People have every right to not like Macklemore and Ryan Lewis's music. It's not surprising people are getting sick of them given how ubiquitous their music is. Even a powerful song like "Same Love" gets old after the thousandth listen. However, the backlash has gotten ridiculous, and it's now open season on Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. It's gotten to the point where Macklemore could donate all of his money to the poor and people would criticize him as having a white messiah complex or being self-righteous or thinking he's too good for money. A lot of the criticism of the duo rests on faulty arguments, so it's worth looking at what people are saying about them and what the truth of of the matter actually is. First things first: the Grammys are not an accurate reflection of the state of music. They are and always have been an establishment award show that reflects the tastes of older people in the record industry, and they are almost always a joke. Who can forget Jethro Tull beating Metallica for best Hard Rock/Metal album in 1988?  Eminem has won most of the best hip-hop album awards, even for his albums that weren't that great, because he's a known entity to the voters. I, along with Macklemore, was disappointed that Kendrick Lamar didn't win best hip-hop album, but it's not like that invalidates Kendrick or even represents what people who actually care about music think.
Some critics say that Macklemore and Ryan Lewis make music for people who don't like hip-hop. While "The Heist" is definitely a crossover success, it's popular among  hip-hop heads as well. "The Heist" has a 74 on Metacritic, and the low scores are from rock critics. Hip-hop outlets like XXL, Hip Hop DX and this site all gave "The Heist" very positive reviews, and it made several RapReviews year-end lists. Pop fans may love Macklemore, but so do hip-hop fans.
Another argument, raised by Jon Caramanica of the New York Times and Kenzo Shibata on The Learned Fangirl, is that Macklemore is the Pat Boone of hip-hop, a milquetoast white performer taming the music down and acting as a gentrifying force for a legion of white rappers set to invade. There are two big problems with this argument. The first is that Macklemore is not the first or most successful white rapper. He comes from an indie rap scene that is full of white MCs. From El-P to Aesop Rock to Brother Ali to Edan to Cage, there has been no shortage of rappers of European descent in indie rap. That's not to mention the Beastie Boys, Bubba Sparxx, and Paul Wall, white rappers with mainstream success. The elephant in the room is Eminem, who is one of the most successful rappers of the past fifteen years, who also happens to be one of the best, who also happens to have won multiple Grammys, who also has crossover hits, and who also has issues tanning. And that's just America. There are thriving hip-hop scenes with mostly white MCs in Australia and Europe. Jon Caramanica is probably right that Macklemore is a template that your average white kid who was not raised on the streets of Detroit can follow to incorporate rapping into the white, college-educated, middle class experience. I can guarantee that the next few years will see a slew of releases by white MCs who are either doing hipster rap or trying to do a pop-rap crossover. Whether that will lead to African-Americans being driven out of hip-hop is highly unlikely.
Ever since the Beastie Boys put out "Licensed to Ill" in 1987, people have been afraid that white folks were going to steal hip-hop from African-Americans in the same way whites "stole" rock n' roll from them thirty years earlier. There's several problems with this claim. For one thing, white co-option of rock music happened in a time before the Civil Rights Act, when segregation was legal, and when black music was called "race music." While there is still a lot of deep-rooted racial segregation and discrimination in the U.S., we've come a long way from the days when you would not hear black artists on "white" stations.
Secondly, in many ways hip-hop won. It has become the de facto music of youth culture. Rock music, which had been dominant since the 60s, has become a marginalized, outdated genre. Pop music is more likely to incorporate hip-hop production elements as it is to incorporate rock guitars. A young kid nowadays interested in making music is more likely to pick up a laptop or turntables than a guitar. Hip-hop slang has gone mainstream; even country musicians are using it. White sorority girls belt along to Rick Ross and Jay Z songs. Madonna, a 50-year-old white woman, came to the Grammy's WEARING A GRILL. Mainstream "white" culture has gone much more hip-hop than hip-hop has gone "white." Macklemore isn't an example of a white person co-opting hip-hop; he's an example of how hip-hop has influenced mainstream culture. Twenty years ago Macklemore and Ryan Lewis would probably have picked up guitars and formed a grunge band. Nowadays it's more natural for them to pick up a mic and drum machine.
What also gets lost in the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis hate is the fact that they put out their album by themselves. While the music establishment certainly embraced them and their ability to move units, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis were not the result of sinister machinations of the record industry to have white people take over rap. They were two dudes who worked for years before making it big. The other artists they were competing against in the Grammys all had major label support. Macklemore was also not the only rapper nominated for a Grammy whose music has crossover elements. Drake and Kendrick both have pop and R&B elements in their music, as do a lot of mainstream hip-hop artists. There are commercial considerations at work: it's hard to sell a million downloads of a dude rappity-rapping. A lot of this crossing over is due to how completely hip-hop has saturated into mainstream culture. There isn't the division between hip-hop and R&B or pop music like there was twenty years ago. Kids today aren't as segregated in their listening habits as Gen Xers were, and the music they make reflects their diverse tastes.
Some gay rights activists complain that Macklemore is stealing music from gay rappers, and he's acting like a gay savior. I know Madonna and Lady Gaga both have gay detractors who resent them acting like great straight saviors. But those artists, like Macklemore, have done a lot for gay rights by bringing gay people into the forefront of mainstream culture. Macklemore is this only artist I know of who has a hit song supporting gay marriage, and one of the few artists I can think of in any genre to have a hit song that was explicitly pro-gay. That's a big deal.
Hip-Hop is a large and diverse genre. It's not a zero-sum game. It's not like a straight white rapper getting popular means that the quota for hip-hop has been filled for the year so all projects by black and gay rappers have to be shelved. The mainstream success of Jay Z, Kanye, Drake and Nikki Minaj is proof of that. You have artists like Migos, DJ Mustard, and Chief Keef making music that speaks directly to young African-Americans, and you have artists like Chance the Rapper pushing the genre forward. Rap is doing fine, with or without Macklemore. If anything, he can act as a trojan horse for black and gay artists to penetrate part of the market that hasn't been receptive to hip-hop before. There are a whole bunch of people who didn't know they were hip-hop fans before "The Heist." Many of them will continue to explore the genre. Some of them will check out Kendrick Lamar because of Macklemore's clumsy apology on Instagram.
People have every right to be tired of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, to not be into their take on hip-hop music, and to never want to hear "The Heist" again. But creating a narrative where Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are using their white privilege to take over and ruin hip-hop sells both Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and hip-hop short. This music is big enough for different kinds of artists and different approaches. If anything, Macklemore deserves credit for challenging the dominant party rap cliches and opening up hip-hop to new topics and new audiences.

Rival Dealer Review

Burial, Rival Dealer

Originally published on RapReviews.com

British producer Burial came on the scene in the mid-2000s, making dubstep that channeled urban loneliness. His critically acclaimed 2008 album "Untrue" combined dubstep's shuffling beats and wobbling bass with filtered vocal samples that evoked a sense of yearning and romantic longing. It was the soundtrack for walking home alone from a club at 2am feeling disconnected from the rest of the world.

Burial hasn't released an album since "Untrue," but he has been busy putting out EPs. In 2012 he released "Kindred" and "Truant/Rough Sleeper." On those EPs he experimented with longer running times and more complex arrangements. He also started moving away from the confines of dubstep, exploring 90s rave and abstract compositions.

"Rival Dealer" is yet another leap forward for Burial. He completely abandons any semblance of dubstep, replacing it with 90s-influenced techno and house. The title track has a driving beat that references the late-80s dance/R&B of Soul II Soul and C+C Music Factory. It is aggressive and confident, which is a change from Burial's previous music. He samples Gavin DeGraw's "More Than Anyone," repeating the line "I'm going to love you more than anyone." The completely changes at the five minute mark, becoming a haze of static bass while samples of "this is who I am" and Lord Finesse declaring "You know my motherfucking style!" play. Seven and a half minutes in, everything goes silent, replace by ambient synthesizers and sample of a woman talking about looking at the night sky.
"Hiders" is the shortest song on the EP, but still manages to switch moods and tempos in its four minute running time. It's a song that conveys feelings of joy, empowerment, and overcoming obstacles, albeit in Burial's own skewed way. A triumphant piano plays over heavily filtered vocals. An 80s synth drum beat finally kicks in at the 2:40 mark, and barely sticks around for a minute before the song devolves into ambient noise and silence. It's a gorgeous, triumphant piece of music.



Burial makes the theme of coming out explicit by ending the song with part of director Lana Wachowski's 2012 speech to the Human Rights Campaign about being transgender (Wachowski is probably best known for making the "Matrix" trilogy with her brother back when she was Larry and they were the Wachowski Brothers; Her speech about what it was like growing up transgender and why she decided to transition makes a powerful argument for trans rights).

In a text to a British DJ, Burial explained "I wanted the tunes to be anti-bullying tunes that could maybe help someone to believe in themselves, to not be afraid, and to not give up, and to know that someone out there cares and is looking out for them." That's a lofty goal, and the EP largely succeeds. It is a moving piece, and transcends the confines of dance music. However, as good as "Rival Dealer" is, I personally hope that Burial starts to move away from these long-form epic tracks. He's released six songs that are all over the 10-minute mark, and I think he's taken the concept of a longer, more intricate track about as far as he can. There is a frustrating formlessness to "Rival Dealer" and "Come Down to Us" that takes away from impact of those songs. Burial has been moving farther and farther away from the physical joys of dance music into a more cerebral space. This more cerebral music is interesting and challenging, but it is missing some of immediacy of his earlier work. "Hiders" hints at one direction Burial could go in: making dance music that could get asses moving but also give you something to think about. That isn't to diminish "Rival Dealers;" but I do hope his next release sees him going shorter rather than longer.

Migos

Migos Young Rich N***s  Originally published on RapReviews


"Versace," the breakout hit by Atlanta trio Migos, could easily be a parody song meant to make fun of how stupid rap has gotten in the twenty-teens. The hook is just the word "Versace" repeated eighteen times in a row, and lyrically it doesn't get deeper than "shoes and shirt Versace/Your bitch want in my pockets/She ask me why my drawers silk/I told that bitch ‘Versace'." The video, which features the rappers hanging out in a mansion showing off their Versace clothes and jewelry with a bunch of finger-sucking models and a panther, wouldn't need too much to be a Lonely Island bit. It was one of the stupidest songs of 2013. It was also a hit that earned the trio a remix with a verse by Drake.

I was so put off by "Versace" that I wrote off Migos and avoided listening to "YRN." Then the mixtape ended up on a bunch of best of 2013 lists by people whose opinion I respect. I decided to give it another listen to see if there was some hidden genius in Migos that I was missing. After listening to "YRN" for a week straight, I think I understand the appeal.

One thing I have to say about the Migos right off the bat: when Quavo, Takeoff, and Offset aren't just repeating the same word, chirping like a bird, or using white pop stars' names as drug slang, they can actually kind of rap. In true Southern style, they rap in triple-time, dropping verses that are kept strictly to sex, drugs,  luxury brands, and occasionally giving shout-outs to dead homies ("R.I.P.").  Their flow alternates between chanting and sing-songy, adding a catchiness to the songs that works well with the melodic production. They may not have much substance, but they have an excess of style. They aren't going to give Earl Sweatshirt a challenge in the lyricism department, but they are a lot more fun to listen to.

The production is well-executed Southern trap rap. Gucci Maine collaborator Zaytoven produced six songs on the tape, including "Versace." The rest of the tracks are handled by Migos' childhood friend Juvie, Stack Boy Twuan, Phenom Da Don, Dun Deal, C4, Mercy, EA, and MPC Cartel. The beats are all mostly built around the synths, rolling hi-hats, and snap beats typical of Southern rap, but a little tweaked. The songs manage to hit hard but also be catchy, and the producers throw in trance and ambient influences on some of the songs. They know how effective minimalism can be, when to go all out and when to hold back.

How well you like the Migos depends on how much you can embrace their use of repetition. Most of the hooks on "YRN" are built around the group repeating the same word or phrase over and over again. It simultaneously drove me crazy and got in my head. I found myself cruising around chanting "Hannah Montana! Hannah Montana! Hannah Montana! I got molly, I got white, I got molly, I got white, and I been trapping trapping trapping trapping all damn night!" At their best, Migos are having so much fun that I forget just how the dumb what they're saying is. Then after the third song in a row, Quavo's unrelenting chanting becomes too much and I listen to something else.

Migos biggest issue might be that album-length mixtapes aren't the best way to showcase their talent. They don't have eighteen songs worth of material. They have maybe five songs worth of material, spread out over eighteen tracks. They are the musical equivalent of a fried Twinkie: totally devoid of nutritional value yet really satisfying in small doses. Taken in bites, "YRN" is a good time, but it is way more Migos than anyone should ingest in a single serving. I found myself alternating between hating it and loving it, then hating myself for loving it. That's a lot of conflicting emotions for uncomplicated music.

Ranting About Macklemore

Kenzo Shibata's article "Macklemore, the Peter Frampton of Hip-Hop" inspired me to write a ranty comment, which I've published below. I'm working on an editorial for rapreviews on the same subject. 

I have a couple issues with your argument.

#1. While Macklemore was embraced by the record industry when they realized he could make them money, he’s an independent artist. He and Ryan Lewis put that album out by themselves. He’s not part of the system trying to water rap down, man.

#2. Le1f, while gay and a rapper, doesn’t make amazing music, and certainly doesn’t make the kind of music that could be expected to resonate with tens of millions of people. I love Big Freedia but she’s not about to go mainstream either. It’s also not a zero sum game -just because a straight guy had the first pro-gay rap hit doesn’t mean that there can’t be a gay rapper with a hit as well. If any thing Brother Ali should be mad because he was white and pro-gay before it was cool.

#3. I love PE and NWA, but they haven’t been relevant for twenty years. The kind of hyper political rap that PE made was basically only made by PE. Most “golden era” hip-hop was about being a good MC. Even the Native Tongue groups like De La Soul and Tribe Called Quest weren’t that political. The idea of rap music as the African-American answer to punk rock is largely projection by people outside of hip-hop who want it to be something it never really was.

4. If Macklemore is Framptom, than mainstream hip-hop is Warrant and Poison. it’s become a self-parody where every other song is about strippers or getting drunk in the club or having sex with strippers while getting drunk in the club. There are outliers in the underground and indie scenes, but most rappers are heavily invested in rapping about partying. Even rappers criticizing rapping about partying, like Kanye, rap about partying. Which isn’t to knock Migos or Juicy J or whoever, but shit isn’t exactly deep. kind of like early rock n’ roll, which were mostly thinly veiled songs about sex. Or early punk, which was mostly songs about getting high and trying to get laid.

5. Maybe Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are popular because they are “safe,” but it doesn’t hurt that they every other word out of their mouth isn’t the n word or bitch. I love Kendrick Lamar and I think his album is amazing, but my wife will not let me play it in the house because she can’t deal with the language. And not because she is safe and middlebrow, but because she doesn’t like the fact that so much of rap is full of really offensive language. And not offensive because it’s challenging the system, unless using racial and sexual slurs is somehow anti-establishment now.

What hip-hop needs is more artists operating outside of the major label system, more artists challenging the bullshit that mainstream rap is delivering, and more artists who are able to take the genre in new directions and to new audiences. I don’t love Macklemore, but he is not hip-hop’s problem. Hip-hop is hip-hop’s problem. To paraphrase d. boon, hip hop is whatever we want it to be, and that can include white hipsters rapping about gay marriage and thrift stores.

Deftones

Listening to the Deafheaven album got me thinking about another band starting with "D" that mixed elements of metal and shoe gaze: Sacramento's Deftones. They were originally lumped along the rap-rock Nu-metal acts of the late 1990s, but they were a much different beast than Limp Bizkit.

My first exposure to them was their video for "Back to School (Mini Maggit)," which features Chino Moreno rapping like a Chicano Beastie Boy. It's a good song, but one that really isn't indicative of their sound. Their 2000 release White Pony got a lot of buzz, but I didn't get around to listening to it until I was stuck in Bulgaria in 2003 with nothing to listen to. Deftones were one of the few "alternative" acts whose music I could find in the bootleg record stalls of Sofia, so I picked up White Pony and their 2003 self-titled release.



While Deftones definitely had some of the aggression of their contemporary nu-metal bands, they also had other sonic elements. The band has stated that the Cure and the Smiths were big influences on them, and there is a softness and complexity to their music that you wouldn't expect from a metal band. I don't mean a softness in terms of having ballads, but in terms of exploring different sounds and emotions. They are sometimes called the Radiohead of metal, and I think that fits. Like Radiohead, they aren't afraid to experiment with different song structures and textures while still delivering solid hooks and melodies.

The result is music that often manages to combine the best parts of shoe gaze and metal without getting too cheesy or emo. It's a fine line to walk, and the Deftones do it well. I can't help but think that the fact that they are a multi-ethnic band from Sacramento,  a city that is not exactly the epicenter of culture, contributes to their ability to mix different influences and still sound unique. By all rights they should be another bro band, but they rarely delve into bro aggression.

One of my favorite songs of theirs is "Feiticeira," which opens White Pony. It's a driving song that alternates between heavy and pretty, and tells a creepy tale of being kidnapped. "My jaw and my teeth hurt," Chino sings, "I'm choking from gnawing on the ball." That's what I like about Deftones, at least in their White Pony and later incarnation. It's not music about fucking shit up and raging, brah. It's more complicated than that. They take that aggressive energy and feelings of depression and frustration and channel it in more creative and interesting ways than many of their contemporaries. 




They went even farther in that direction with 2003's self-titled follow up. That album was much more about swirling guitars and atmosphere. Partially because they were falling apart as a band due to a combination of drugs (White Pony was named after cocaine, their drug of choice until Chino discovered speed) and ennui. The end result is a powerful album, the sound of a band falling apart.

Which is why listening to Deafheaven and Liturgy made me dig up my Deftones albums. Like Deafheaven, Deftones make pretty metal. Unlike Deafheaven and their black metal brethren, Deftones music isn't as alienating blatantly off-putting. Which makes for better music.