important development for historicizing this blog and also about turnin me on

like always ive been away for way too long and i apologize but i want to take this opportunity to perform two actions one of which ive been sitting on for quite some time and another that has just come to my attention the latter of which will go first and so as some of you know i took it upon myself to repost all of the previous blog entries a bit ago which effaced certain built in modes of historicization by which i mean say for instance one wanted to know how long i spent between my fourth and fifth posts at this current juncture there is no way to do it however with the surfacing of this picture anyone can now retroactively discover certain facts about the state that this blog existed in before the revamp now the second thing which i want to discuss is the song turnin me on specifically the opening lyrics and their repetition fly as hell swagga right brown skin poppin now the question of repetition itself is very important insofar as it accounts for a beautiful series of subtle turns and dips and almost balletic movements in the song lollipop off the album the carter iii but in this particular case the beauty is one of appropriation which is another meta interesting phenomenon as you all probably know by now but in it the repetition of that first line serves to indicate that the role is being assumed and it does so in a move apparently dissimilar but deeply related to the one in the song with t pain so that has to be taken into account but more importantly for my purposes in this moment the twisting out from under the falsely positive or empowering nature of the song preceding it one of many sung by female pop artists who are trying to align themselves more with alanis morissette than fergie but in adhering to the formula that it sets for itself limits the possibility of it saying anything interesting by circumscribing itself within a format which only allows her to express satisfaction in the non material or chivalrous and dissatisfaction in the grossly material which is repeated very often in cultural moments so being caught in both this formula and in the broader cultural circular logic seem to be the fate of this song along with so many others but that repetition that crystal clear moment of appropriation and insight slash dredging up from the interpretive to the immanent it is in that beautiful moment that the song escapes from that necessarily being its totality and instead becomes something rife with potential where meaning is made to splinter and reconfigure kaleidoscopically

people fucking with me

i have been told a number of times about some shit that went down in new york this past weekend the fucking knitting factory is shutting down which is a goddamn shame but fuck them for catering to some haters motherfuckers have been telling me there were two distinct instances of performers on stage talking shit about me first was some cat named alias from the rap crew anticon he got up there and was straight talking shit and fuck him and fuck his shitty little record label he made some reference to recording a diss track against me and fuck that i would tear him to pieces before he could even spit a fucking bar and id do it in autotune dont fuck with me kid and then the next night sacha jenkins was emceeing a rakim show which was the last hip hop show at the factory and he started talking some shit in order to get the crowd riled up against me which is some straight bullshit that guy needs to stick to the fucking white rapper show and his defunct ass magazine i mean how fucking dare he say some shit at a rakim concert about me that is just beyond comprehension that motherfucker shouldve got booed off stage i mean i know some of yall are still on some east coast versus dirty south shit but you got to show some fucking respect for the game as a whole when the god is in the building i just cannot fucking believe the audacity of these motherfuckers the two of you might as well form a fucking nazi hip hop collective called take the music from the black man

elitism

the elitism that seems to be all pervasive in hip hop these days especially in that place known colloquially as the internet is something that is in my opinion a more important perpetrator of the nasian hip hop is dead syndrome than any sort of issue one might have with ringtone rap or the perceived content of the genre as a whole being unimpressive to use a euphemism this idea that the only real hip hop is wu tang or public enemy and rakim or whatever is contrary not only to the spirit of hip hop in general but also to the basic ethos of those artists as well as their taste and so forth i cannot claim that any one movement is better than another but this post backpacker mindset takes such a holier than thou mindset that it seems only justified to respond in kind fuck all that turn the other cheek dont stoop to their level shit this is a question of the viability of hip hop in the future not just mine but all of it there needs to be a re education of sorts in the fringe hip hop communities i fully respect independent artists but some of them are a cancer on the whole of art i cannot be accused of hyperbole because this is pure truth that i am typing i am certainly no savior of hip hop but I will do my best to protect that which i love i know i have sort of talked about this in my first blog entry but i see it more and more as the months go by and i just cannot handle this shit for much longer

flow

probably the most indefinable aspect of the art of hip hop is the idea of flow that is used to define rappers or if not indefinable perhaps the least quantifiable this is also one of the most important pieces to the puzzle of successfully reinterpreting the genre into your own personal vehicle which is why it is so disheartening that so many of the same critics who will testify by my lyrical prowess which is undeniable will in the same sentence denigrate my ability to flow or will do something that is clearly intended to deny me the status as one of the greats because they are worried about being disagreed with too vehemently or because they have some valorized notion of artists that creates the idea that only the old greats were true greats and all contemporary artists are mere shadows of the former great ones and even i will admit that i might not be any sort of gift of gab but at least i am not a gimmick artist like twista and not only that but my ability to flow has been progressing with each album and there are intricacies which are by and large overlooked by people who think everything about my music is simply straightforward club oriented trashy pop or whatever which i can fully respect but i basically just wish that at some point people who are paid to do so would look deeper and inform the public thereof but bemoaning the critical state of the times will get one to no path that hasnt been tread a million times and i meant to talk about flow in general and the conundrum that it presents something that has been bothering me for a few years now and i guess i just wanted to ask for anyones opinions on what precisely it is since to me it seems to be something to the effect of an amalgamation of a rappers ability to maintain their percussive style of singing over a period of time but is also the particular tambre of the voice as well as any idiosyncracies of style that the rapper has and maybe even the uniformity present when someone raps over various dissimilar beats perhaps it is that constant that people speak about when they say someone has a good flow

accusations of ghostwriting

considering the fact that contemporary hip hop is built around certain ideas that stand as the way by which to judge the art form which are maintained by anyone with more than a passing interest in the genre inspired by the sudden burst in acceptability of rap in clubs and on television and mainstream radio there are certain things that can be brought to bear on a rapper that would be at worse entirely inconsequential in the rest of pop culture but which could be both the popular and critical death of a rapper and perhaps the most terrifying of these is the allegation of ghostwriting not only because these allegations need not be substantiated for the rumor to gain credence nor is it simply the fact that these accusations will stick around long after the rapper has become a popular legend or a critical darling and will always undermine even the most ardent of fan one thinks of the allegations of the ghost production that happened on nearly all eric b and rakim albums in analogy but the most terrifying thing about people believing that you are being ghostwritten for is that it an implicit criticism of the one thing that hip hop has had as its central tenet since the days of grandmaster flash and the furious five and which allows certain historians to trace its roots back to great orators like malcolm x and martin luther king jr that of above all else maintaining a reality which is exactly coherent with the reality which is prevalent among people on earth and since hip hop is a poetic form in which the narrator and the author are conflated if the narrator/author is revealed by way of ghostwriting to simply be the narrator then this central tenet is revealed to be indelibly blasphemed against making the rapper the equivalent of a christian who feels neither love nor fear but only malice toward his god and the fanbase which the rapper relies upon to carry forth his name after he is gone which is as i see it the true goal of all artists

the state of hip hop

for this second post i would like to talk about the relation of elitism to my fanbase i exist in a very strange place in the hip hop community it seems that there is no consensus to any criticism about me the members of the general public who hate songs by me who havent heard anything except lollipop and fireman and shit like that seem to be under the impression that i am just another rapper just some guy who sounds like every other ringtone rapper to them and who doesnt deserve all the praise given to him by the press whereas the hip hop heads who diss me tend to also complain about the praise i get and use this to somehow undermine my own strengths so i think that the weird thing about these two camps is that neither of them hate me so much as they hate my praise that comes from the greater majority of people and especially the people we call experts on the subject or professionals i guess either way the critical public and the critical elite agree with each other in that i am the greatest lyricist alive and yet there is a sizable subgroup within both of these groups that hate me for the very reason that the rest of their group is behind me in my artistic endeavour i think this is bullshit and can only wonder why it is that these supposed anti conformists even exist there is no reason to rebel for the sake of rebellion just because james dean was attractive and mythologized as a great actor doesnt mean that rebellion sans justification is a proper course of action from anyone that is like saying that objectivism is a feasible philosophy its nonsense as though solipsism was something other than something you ought to consider briefly to contextualize critical thinking speaking of which in nas new album he says break free of the matrix when he is spouting platitudes of empowerment and i must say that this is precisely what i was getting at with the james dean reference nas is unwittingly using the tools of a culture that he is trying to rebel against and in doing so is only revalidating it just like these haters who are attempting to denigrate my rap career and my latest album criticizing me for doing too many drugs while they spout off about how the best rappers of all time were biggie and pac like they were fucking sober or talking about how krsone is the best lyricist because even though they havent heard him they have heard that line being repeated hip hop is an art form and one that has yet to stagnate just because you prefer to accept talking points proffered by hip hop pundits doesnt mean your opinion will be considered relavent by anyone with any knowledge of the subject i am going to keep perfecting and moving forward the art form and maybe twenty years from now when someone better than me finally comes along your kids will be repeating the line that ive been promoting all along

lollipop

i know a lot of people love this song but there are a number of people with good reasoning skills who hate my new song lollipop and i would like to address this to them i truly believe this is one of the few times in life when the saying all naysayers be damned is a proper course of action to take because there is nothing in this song worthy of your hatred aside from the self assured elitist hatred of populist artistry i am not trying to call all of my detractors elitist but i would make it known that these people are unable to be reasoned with and that this causes me no qualms but as for the others who have a distaste for my song i would say that the most prevalent are those who may be offended by it which is to say those of us who have been conditioned to respond to any mention of fellatio with the idea that it inherently denotes some sort of sexist power dynamic which i very much disagree with in that this power dynamic is certainly easily arguable but nevertheless exists purely in metaphor i dont know about you but there have been plenty of times where i was getting head and it produced in me no desire to subjugate women or even a disdain for the woman in particular who performed the act the truth of the matter is that fellatio has a very distinct and confused place within our culture and that it is one of the sticky points which must be interrogated through roundabout means namely art and that is what i am trying to do albeit in such a way as to not preclude the average listener from both listening to and enjoying my music i have some of the undisputed best producers in the world behind me and have won numerous awards for my lyricism it seems to me that at this point in my career i might be able to create a work that plays with conventional understandings of broad cultural metaphors and not immediately decried as sexist lollipop is not exactly the culmination of art or anything but neither is it some thoughtless bit of anti feminist misogyny and i would just appreciate the openmindedness of my audience and hope that those who would level such heinous charges would not do them so lightly as to just name them as being true without proper analysis of the situation and the particularity and not just some broad generalization about the state of music or culture or rap or whatever next time i post i will aim my sights at another of these groups of haters thank you for reading