Classic Hip Hop is Like Porn

I know it when I, uh, see it, and Inspectah Deck and 7L & Esoteric have made a strong play for classic status with their new album Czarface.

Actually, the Hip-Hop Classic Committee would probably deny me a vote.  I just haven't kept up with enough stuff over the past few years.  I needed a Google search to tell me that 7L & Esoteric were not some kids but veterans almost 20 years deep in the game.  Given that I lack the necessary credentials to be seated, I hope this amicus brief pleases the court.

Anyway, Czarface rocks the bells.  The emcees reminds me of Black Thought, not in style, but in the sense that you are in the hands of a consummate professional.  Not sure that either Deck or Esoteric deliver a whole lot of memorable verses or even lines, but the skill and craft are evident in every syllable.  Given than beats mean more to me that rhymes, a high level of competency is enough to satisfy.

And those beats?  Son.  SON.  Somebody got high honors on their thesis at the University of Shaolin.  If Ghost had his way and a good ear, he'd have dropped whatever money he needed to buy them all, dropped the Octagonycologist verses, and released the whole thing as Supreme Clientele II.  When I reviewed that Kendrick Lamar joint, I denied it personal classic status because the verses were just a wee bit too digital for my tastes.  Well, that's not a problem with Csarface in the least.  The hiss in the drums is there.  The boom bap is alive.  The martial arts samples and looped weird noises that sounds like martial arts soundtracks are there.  The ill scratches are there.

Son, I fucks wit the beats.  I fucks wit them completely and wit great vigor.

Yeah, so if you ever threw up a W, you need this shit.

Slang Rap Democracy

You don't know what cysage is, although you've certainly cysed a bunch of shit.  Maybe you're thinking about cysing this post.  It might not be a good post, but you like me, so you're going to share it on your wall.  Boom.  Cysage

Nor do you know what a cuban b is, which is really unfortunate, because you've ABSOLUTELY cuban b'd a boatload of stuff.  If I know you, I've probably done some shit to piss you off.  If we're still cool, you've cuban b'd my nonsense.

Both those terms come from Southeast DC.  I only know about them thank to the FiyaStarter Crew, hosts of the funniest podcast on the Internet.  Every Thursday morning, you can wake up and download three hours of unfettered opinion, presented by gentlemen not at all interested in how you think they should sound.  They're doing what groups of guys do every day: busting each others balls in language only they can understand

What's crazy is, these DC motherfuckers have absolutely changed the way I think.  I was reading something the other day that didn't make any sense, and I said, aloud, "man, what a cyse."  I called it a cyse because that's what it was.  It wasn't just bullshit, although it was that.  It wasn't just a pain in my ass, although it was that too.  It was someone writing something that they talked themselves into believing, and all my fellow FS heads are nodding right now, because if that ain't a cyse nothing is.

In other words, a podcast has changed my reality.  That was the squarest example I have yet seen of the Digital Age's direct influence on the deepest workings of my poor little brain.

I guess it surprises me every time I think of someone cysing or cuban b'ing some stuff, because some part of me clings to an antiquated view of the relationship between our physical and digital selves.  Often those of us who spend so much time on the Internet think of our real lives as separate from our online lives.  In my experience, that distinction is artificial.  There's not a whole lot of difference between Bryan Shelly, the entity who moves through the physical world, and the various bshelly logins I use in various corners of the digital world.  Really, the only difference is that bshelly is a little more prone to yelling.

What I find most interesting is, as what has happened with me and cysage, how my digital life influences my "real" life. For a long time I have realized the effects of, say, the choice the web sites one frequents impacts one's view of current events or even their evaluations of public figures.  But this was something different.  This was something akin to learning a word that has no counterpoint in my native language, like, oh, schaudenfreude.  Prior to learning the German word, I guess I could have imagined the concept, but the word itself distilled the concept to its essence and allowed it to be more fully integrated into my life.

Potential for good here?  As KBadd would say, "SURE!"  I find it kind of heartening that three regular dudes from DC can bring me into their world enough to change mine.  Maybe the loftiest dreams of the Internet as a place where people, rather than massive corporate entities, control the majority of the content are long dead, but my experience with Fiyastarter shows that normal people can reach out across time and space to shape other people's concepts of reality.

The Joys of Turntable

Homes, have you heard the Good News?  Old people can be cool again, all thanks to a little web site called Turntable.  

I know, I know.  Turntable is not exactly breaking news to a lot of you, and you've probably heard me sing its praises sometimes since I joined 7 months ago.  This message is not for you, however.

Old folks like myself tend to miss when new music technologies break.  I got in on Pandora about two years late (as Joni Klopp will be happy to remind you), and stuff like last.fm and Kaaza are still mysteries to me.  As a consequence, the new music I found was limited to whatever I could scrounge up from my friends' blogs and radio shows.  It is a very distressing part of getting older when you start to be not that good at the things that used to matter a lot.  There's only so many times a thirtysomething can talk about the new album by that band they loved in college before s/he feels lame.

But there is hope, and it's Turntable.  Turntable is nice in part because it's so approachable.  Instead of a soulless interface, you get cute little avatars like the ones pictured above.  When you DJ, if people like your song, they hit the "awesome" button, and you get a point.  As you get more points, you can get cooler avatars.  It's a brilliant idea, because it creates an incredibly positive atmosphere.  Everyone wants points, so everyone pretty much awesomes every song.  All that happens if someone doesn't like your songs is that they head over to another room with a different theme.  

So old heads, we can get on and play our My Bloody Valentines and our Gang Starrs, and we'll get head nods, and we'll feel good because we haven't lost it THAT much.  And because we're feeling good and listening to music theme that we like, we're hearing new stuff from the type of people who seek out and awesome MBV and the Foundation.  Combine that with Spotify or Google, and all of a sudden you're up on the new sh!t once again.  Once again, you will impress the cooler friends at your very adult cocktail parties.

Afterword: Right now I'm spinning hip hop in the Shaolin Temple, and the crew wants a shout out.  If y'all want to hear some real hip hop, come on in.  I'll awesome whatever you play.

Sci-Fi Jesus

I came up with one of my greatest ideas ever as I was falling asleep last night, and I am giving it to the evangelical Christian community free of charge:

Sci-Fi Jesus.

The concept: The Bible establishes Jesus has some pretty sweet powers.  He can turn water into wine.  Feeding the multitudes and alladat.

But, see, those are the powers we mere mortals can perceive.

You know that Jesus was on some behind-the-scenes isht.  

We already know that Jesus forbade physical violence but waged metaphysical war on the ideas of violence, oppression, sin, and the like.  So what if someone made a movie that showed that metaphysical warfare in terms we could understand?  You're telling me you wouldn't watch Jesus in a superhero movie where he brings the ruckus to the literal manifestation of evil using powers across all 11 dimensions?  That Jesus punching out Evil and saving the day with a punch that he conceals by delivering it through a pocket dimension wouldn't make everyone you know go see that movie 15 times?

And for the sequel, imagine that the Hadron is actually an evil secular humanist plot to rip apart the universe.  But, of course, they can't get that sh!t past Jesus.  From his physical existence 2000 years ago Jesus perceives the threat, reaches across time and space, and undoes the work of the Hadron Collider at every instant.  Hadron Collider always rips apart the universe, but Jesus simultaneously rebuilds it.  And he lets the evil scientists KNOW that they are constantly succeeding but failing, because that's all part of some OTHER metawar that we'll tell you about in the third film.

You'd go see that movie.

To my faithful Christians out there: don't be mad.  One, I agree that we have to do this right.  That means any filmmaker needs to demonstrate strong Biblical knowledge, and Michael Bay is not allowed within a thousand miles of the set.  Two, I'm pretty sure Jesus is down with this plan.  We know that Jesus is beyond our understanding.  We know that, in order for us to better understand some part of His infinite wisdom, He often spoke in parables.

Well, these would be parables.

Parables about KICKING A$$.

And all of a sudden, Jesus would be the coolest kid on the block again.  Batman would have nothing on Sci-Fi Jesus.  Church attendance would swell, allowing you to talk to the people about...whatever it is one talks about in church.

Thank you Sci-Fi Jesus!!