Das Racist,
Without getting into what I think of your music, let's tackle your response to Sasha Frere Jones' column on the state of hip hop.
Granted, it's probably unnecessary for any writing to signal the death knell of hip hop, much in the same way that it was unnecessary for any amount of ink to be spilled on the death of rock and roll. Because, let's face it, neither are going anywhere anytime soon. (I don't, however, recall any similar treatment of country music; is there a lack of race politics to be discussed there?) So if your main beef against SFJ's column went to its existence alone, that'd be something entirely different.
Also, thank you for acknowledging that publishing your response for Flavorwire was simply, as you put it, a "good publicity look" for your group. Because, quite simply, I don't think I would have ever heard of your group or your music otherwise. Chalk that fault up to my own; I don't follow the inner workings of Brooklyn.
However, your critique of a critique just falls deaf on these ears. From what I can tell, you're working heavy on applying what crit theory you've come across to basically say that SFJ, as a white journalist, probably doesn't have the credibility to opine on hip hop, presumably because the genre finds its sui generis from African-American culture (though your mixed bag its-the-peoples'-music-now explanation seems to claim the genre as, quintessentially, world music in its current form, devoid of an emphasis on any particular race as much as it encompasses all race)(thanks for name dropping all the permutations, btw: it's crucial for me to know that you acknowledge the influence of bhangra and reggaeton, though apparently not crucial for you to acknowledge that SFJ's comments were likely directed at American hip hop as Hot 97 would know it)(also, your examples seem to emphasize hip hop as music for the disenfranchised, though you then shrug off any bling-bling criticisms as a "party line" for "old (often white) journalists").
Or, on the other hand, you're bringing up that much-loved artist response to any genre criticism, whatsoever: the idea that these crazy genre labels were the critics' doing, or marketing, or whatev (thereby ignoring the sheer economics that exists, shock of shocks, in art as well). In the sense that any periodization or sweeping genre comments that SFJ may have must fail, because the idea of grouping art forms into genres itself must fail. Thank god you've spared us the whole writing-about-music-dancing-about-architecture bullshit.
(That point you don't trounce on as much, because much of the wordcount then explores how SFJ's barometer on the current state of hip hop is an inaccurate reading because what 'new' elements he points to existed in hip hop before. Yes, thank you for bringing up Kraftwerk. Thank you also for bringing up the fact that hip hop does work in a club. Thank you for negating the fact that most people that read SFJ would already have done time in Hip Hop 101 before. Then you hand the reins over to some haiku dude, because clever is clever, and disdainfully shrugging the argument off is the best passive/aggressive pose, whatsoever.)
What your response failed to do for me, then, is to defend hip hop in any real way whatsoever. Simply stating that white ain't right doesn't do the job. Passing off standard bling disses and upping the cred of rapping over another rapper's beats doesn't do it either (btw, all those hip hop skits really are of a lesser quality, not sure who you're kidding). Without copping the grad student attitude, just tell me: what is it about hip hop that still makes it crucial, now?
I'm not saying it isn't. And, despite your pointing out that SFJ only had one hip hop album in his best of 2008, his new list for the best of 2009, which has a host of hip hop singles/albums, in the globalized format that you push included, doesn't seem to either. But you haven't aided in clearing up any confusion that SFJ's column may have given rise to...the most confusing aspect being why SFJ would consider your response to be a "serious read" at all.
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hey i'm the guy who wrote the article in question and i think a lot of your points were brought up by a friend of mine in a blog entry he wrote. and my response to that can be found in the comments section:
ReplyDeletehttp://caughtintheweb.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/weighing-in-on-vazquez-vs-frere-jones/
but to sum up that and then address some other points:
my bad for writing in an unclear way that made it seem like sfj's paternalistic (white) music journalist voice was my main beef when it wasn't. the thing was written in an automatic reflexive way with little editing and i think that the fact that it's the first thing i say makes people read it as my thesis when it's just a side note to me really. it does bug me yeah, but so do most new yorker articles, so does a lot of shit. i'm not trying to tell dude what to do, i'm just saying what i don''t like about his writing. the main points i was trying to make were that the argument of whether rap is dead seems moot and that the terms of sfj's article were too vague and inconsistent.
maybe i didn't make it clear enough in the article that my position is that i don't give a fuck whether hip hop is dead or not. it's not an important question to me. i was not trying to "defend" hip hop, i was just critiquing dude's article, which i found to be pointless. i was asked to critique it and i did because it was, like i said, "a good pr look."
but to address some of your other critiques
when i say that the study of genre is largely the study of marketing, i am not excluding how artists respond to that marketing, how artists of the past few generations have grown up on that marketing and how that marketing effects how they make (and market) their art. i'm just saying that aesthetic categorization doesn't belong in some realm of objective truth but should be recognized as a historical phenomenon.
and the reason i brought up shit like bhangra and reggaeton was precisely because sfj's article seemed focused on that narrow hot 97 idea of what hip hop was that refused to complicate itself with a global perspective.
and if you read the thing again you'll see i wasn't talking about sfj's best of 2008, i was talking about some other dude.
also, re: skits, i was simply saying they can be seen as "part of the tradition." tell me you don't know every word to every skit on 36 chambers. if you don't then i don't even know why i bothered writing this to you.
Mr. Kool AD,
ReplyDeleteI suppose we've both got the benefit of re-posts, comments, etc. to keep this dialogue going - a benefit that I don't think SFJ gets the pleasure of, at least not in the NYorker format.
I don't buy the idea that you don't care whether or not hip hop is dead, or that you thought SFJ's column was pointless, because you obviously had enough of a reaction to keep this dialogue going, whether it be for self gain or not. Own up to that, at least.
I don't agree with your take on categorization or genre making - but, more importantly, I don't agree that there should be any emphasis whatsoever on 'objective' truth, unless you're taking SFJ's column as news reporting. It isn't - it's one man's subjective take on the morphing aesthetics of an artform. The categorization or tropes, as SFJ knows them, then become important as part of establishing his (not our) baseline.
So: I didn't actually mind your tip o' the hat to bhangra, MIA, reggaeton, because at least it gives me a framework of what you're working from. It didn't help as a response to SFJ's column other than to point to other standards or to supply other references. It didn't help to clearly establish why SFJ might be wrong about that 'narrow hot 97 idea', which may or may not have enough quality in it to garner a defense. Which is what I wanted to know in the end: whether or not you thought there is something there to defend. From what I gather from your comment, you either don't think there is or you just haven't thought about it (because, as you say, you don't care).
My mistake on the 2008 list. But the title to your column - telling SFJ to "stop trying to kill rap" - was just as much (if not more) of a mistake, whether it be yours or Flavorwire's.
And, on the skits: I'm happy to let that point rest, and I can probably try to re-enact the 36 Chambers skits, but that's more because they're super funny and I'm easily amused. They might be part of the tradition, but then again, so is all sorts of scat humour.