Heights By Great Men Reached And Kept

Ladies and gentlemen, submitted for your approval: the album Maestro  by the incomparable BEENIE MAN.

 I will not be giving you an "introduction to Beenie Man" course because it would take all damn day.  You have computers, feel free to wiki him.  Still, to sum up:  a career spanning 40 years, over 20 albums, international stardom, and collaborations with artists ranging from Sly & Robbie to Steven Seagal (yes, THAT Steven Seagal).  What's more, Beenie Man has achieved all this while performing music that, much of the time, is completely BIZARRE.

Maestro is a stellar example of this.  It opens with a quote from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow over a murmuring crowd and... bird noises?  There's a fake-classical flourish from some synthesized strings while the crowd claps, and Beenie mutters, "This is the maestro, I have the doctorate for all things".  He begins singing in his outsized, rubbery voice.  The fake strings are chased around by a strange keyboard tone, some skeletal drums start convulsing... and as Beenie Man starts rapping, it becomes clear that this ridiculous introduction is not going to resolve into a song... it IS the song.


The next track, "Nuff Gal" opens with a smooth-jazz sax and some gently swinging drums before some Manhattan Transfer-style backing vocals pop up, and then some twangs of electro bass and there  you are, listening to what is possibly the world's first smooth jazz doo wop dancehall track.  It tempts me to say "first and ONLY smooth jazz doo wop dancehall track", but Beenie Man will actually be delivering SEVERAL more of these as the album goes on.


The rest of the album keeps up this level of manic novelty.  You will get some straightforward dancehall bangers (which, of course, sound INSANE if you don't listen to much dancehall), a roots-style reggae track, a MONSTER hip-hop crossover featuring Da Bush Babees, and a track where Beenie Man sings about African History (with varying degrees of accuracy) over the tune to "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".  And yes, he does talk about O.J. Simpson in that one.

Even without the dizzying eclecticism of the backing tracks, there is still Beenie Man's voice to reckon with.   Generally a driving baritone bark, it frequently bends up into a SHRIEK that can read as fierce or joyous, as the situation warrants.  Add in a wide range of nonsense syllables, onomatopoeic shouts, and wry chuckles, and it becomes clear how a man can make a 40-plus year music career out of, basically, talking.


While I may, at times, despair at the homogeneity of popular music, Beenie Man's career gives me hope.  If music this odd and idiosyncratic can reach major success, then there will always be something to rescue us from boredom.


Here are a few tracks.  The whole thing is on the itunes, or possibly in the reggae section of your local record store.  Go on, treat yourselves.

There's a Coaster Right There

Okay, so... Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, right?  How fucking good are these guys?  I realize that what with the Spin article and the Billboard Cover and the SXSW showcases (they're playing, I think, seven shows over four days) and the life-changing Jimmy Fallon performance, they're not really on the ultra-underground tip anymore, but... fuck, you guys need to get right with this.  Like, yesterday.

If yr fingers aren't cramping up from googling these dudes, let me explain... no, is too much.  Let me sum up:  Emotionally disturbed honor student from single-parent household fucks shit up so successfully that he gets sent to the most "last chance ever" alternative school around.  Learns to use garageband to make beats.  Gets his little brother and the rest of his skateboard crew to spit mind-bogglingly intricate raps about rape, satan, murder, and other classic topics over his totally fucked horrorcore beats (to be fair, a bunch of other dudes in the crew start making equally fucked beats, so it's not a total dictatorship).  And then they GIVE TEN FULL ALBUMS WORTH OF MATERIAL AWAY FOR FREE.

So now, here we are.  A media feeding frenzy is kicking off, MTV sent Sway and the Inexplicable Headwrap to do a solid eight minutes on OFWGKTA, and it's time to start giving a bunch of antisocial satanic skate rats ALL YOUR MONEY.  Are they negative?  Yes.  Are they hateful?  Yes.  Are they, as the piece above suggests, a bit... rape-y?  Um, yes.  All of that said, I would ask you, gentle reader, to remember yr own adolescence.   It was fucked the fuck up, right?  You hated the whole world and everything in it, right?  I myself would have cheerfully bombed my whole school if it meant me and my friends didn't have to suffer any more, and I was pretty well-adjusted and privileged by most standards.  So imagine how it feels to be PAINFULLY smart, epically depressed, crammed full of hormones and adrenaline, and stuck in a single-parent, broke-ass environment where the only people who understand you are yr skate buddies.  Kill people, burn shit, fuck school, right?  That's what I THOUGHT you said.

Oh, and also, don't forget that these kids are hilarious, a'ight?  Sick jokes are still jokes, and don't pretend you didn't laugh at that "The body-bag is a book, and you're Fantasia" line.  Oh, you haven't heard that one?  You better get downloading, bitch.  And send 'em some money on the iTunes, or else Kanye West is better than you.

In closing, it is my sad duty to report that the aforementioned little brother, Earl Sweatshirt (who may be, at the tender age of 16, the best overall lyricist in the crew) has been sent to "wilderness camp" by his mom.  Apparently this is some kind of Mormon Jail for restless youth (these dudes are Mormons? I don't know if I belive you, internets).  This is what happens when you let yr moms listens to yr rap album (my demos will never see the light of day, and I'm old as fuck, so I should be safe). FREE EARL.

The Cross Breaker And Bible Ripper...

A word of warning, gentle reader.  If you are easily offended, or at all faint of heart, this is perhaps not the post for you.  Please proceed to the next entry down, in which that nice Fred Schneider fellow "thinks outside the box" and earns my praise and prose through the creation of a rather excellent "rock" recording.

Mom, GO TO BED NOW.

Everybody else still with me?  Good.  Let's talk about Smoothe Da motherfuckin' Hustler.

In 1996, this dude dropped an album (Once Upon A Time In America) full of icy, dark, drugs-and-guns rap (well, not exactly full.  Three of the tracks were weak-ass sentimental bullshit).  Smoothe's flow was head-spinningly dense and, while lyrically harsh, also displayed an almost gleeful sense of the possibilities of rhyme.  Yes, the subject matter at hand is almost SHOCKINGLY ignorant (this post's title is actually taken from one of the album's LESS appalling moments), but the virtuosity on display here is undeniable.  Also, fuck you, pussy.

Now, I'd like to think I'm sort of okay at this writing business, but no description I give you will adequately capture the vertiginous pleasures of Smoothe Da Hustler's flow at its very best.  To help illustrate my point, I have included the two tracks that best exemplify what America has to offer:  "Broken Language" and "My Brother My Ace".  Perhaps you should go download them NOW.

The first voice you hear is not actually Smoothe.  This deep, menacing voice belongs to his brother, Trigger The Gambler.  Despite declaring himself the "Funeral servin' church preacher, your black hearse coffin seeker," Trigger is NOT the better rapper on this track, for soon, so soon...

Smoothe starts to rap.  His voice is a harsh, rasping croak.  This is fitting, as he quickly declares himself "The Human Asthma" (this is possibly the finest bit of rap braggadocio I have ever heard).  He goes on to proclaim himself (MOM.  I TOLD YOU TO GO. TO. BED.  You will not be pleased with this next part, for God's sake, LOOK AWAY) "The white girl gangbanger, the Virgin Mary fucker, the Jesus hanger."  After each phrase, Smoothe sucks in a quick burst of air, a small catching noise almost hidden under the echoing snap of the snare drum.  These brief flashes of visceral function throw the verbal pyrotechnics on display into stark relief.  As the song nears its conclusion, you are probably coming to grips with the savage flow and the bleak imagery, which means you are just about ready to have your mind completely blown by the next track.

A few low, hollow knocks of bass and then... Smoothe and Trigger begin trading lines in a bleak, smothering torrent of language.  One minute into the song, the finest thirty seconds in hip-hop begin:

Trigger:  Fake frontin' faggots, soft like fabric, I got gadgets, my craft go static, pussy niggas get dramatic.

Smoothe:  Dramatic get niggas pussy static 'cos craft my gadgets got a fabric like soft faggots frontin' fake if ya backwards...

Yes, he really did just rap his brother's line backwards.  And yes, it still pretty much made sense.  Hurry up and get yr head back in the game, 'cos here comes Smoothe again:  "Threats I move with, bruise shit, mentally confuse and lose shit, shit lose and confuse mentally shit bruise and crews slip."  Damn. Then, the beat drops out for one second, the piano note that provides the song's bass line echoes like a funeral, and Trigger sneers, "God gave me a gift, I'm givin' him one back... that's a black bag with a ribbon, sealed tight with a tag."


And so on.  No, the rest of the album is not as good as these two songs, but most of it is still pretty goddamn good.  And no, Smoothe's career after this album did not live up to his potential.  He provided a bunch of stellar verses on Trigger's (unreleased) album, did a bunch of cameos for other artists (his verse on Public Enemy's soundtrack to He Got Game is stellar...), and then disappeared for twelve years.  His 2008 comeback is, um... somewhat LESS than some of us were hoping for.


Anyway.  One devastating album is one more than most of us get.  Maybe on iTunes?  I dunno.  Give the man some money, it'll help keep him off the streets.  And you WANT Smoothe off the streets.

I Just Saw God and/or Die Antwoord

For the unintiated, please view the above. The initiated could probably do with watching this fokken masterpiece again, anyway.

So, Die Antwoord were live in my town and I was really conflicted. This was, after all, an unabashed product of gross internet hype, a flash-in-the-pan bit of (shudder) comedy rap tarted up with some vaguely international cred. Culture tourism with rave beats. Comedy rap. Performance art intellectuals masquerading as sub-working-class South African slum dwellers. Afrikaans Ali G's. Did I mention comedy rap?

But the album was amazing and the videos were better, and the kind of people who sit on the internet wringing their (virtual) hands over "authenticity" are the lowest kind of scum, so I kind of wanted to go.

But years as a hip-hop fan have taught me one thing: rap shows fucking suck. Basically, if the performer is emotionally invested in their craft at all, you get some dude yelling at you while jumping up and down for an hour. If he's not invested, you get his weed carriers yelling at you while NOT jumping up and down. For twenty minutes. When the greatest live example of your genre is the Anti-Pop Consortium, you are in BIG FUCKING TROUBLE.

So I waffled. I thought about Cage, and how he sucked. I thought about Ghostface and how he sucked (yes, I'm white... how could you tell?). I thought about Mr. Lif and how even though he kind of ruled, he also pretty much sucked. But then I watched Die Antwoord's videos, and I wondered... is there any chance at all that I'm going to get this level of awesome? Is there any chance at all that this show will be a rave-rap black mass complete with hooded robes that have alien faces and horns on the hoods of said hooded robes? Can any simple stage show contain the Keith Haring Boner Party that is Die Antwoord's mis en scene? Will there be Prawn Hands?

So after much waffling, I paid my twenty bucks (more like conned my friend Bill into paying my twenty bucks, but I'll get him back later. IN THEORY.). I bought the ticket, I took the ride, as a wise man once said.

Alien face horn-hood? Check. Keith Haring Boner Party? Check. PRAWN HANDS?!?!?! CHECK!!!!

Also: Lesbian tit mouse-mask porn. Yolandi Vi$$er constantly threatening to display the lower half of her boobs but just not quite. Near-total Hipster Scum saturation. Epic five-minute intro of chanting monks droning while we stared at Leon Botha's face. "Portland, why are you so fokking cute?" Rave-rap tentacle sex armageddon. There were also two people jumping up and down and shouting at me, but since one was a four-foot-tall sex bomb, I didn't mind so much. Easily the best twenty dollars I almost spent.

Did I mention the mouse-mask porn? Fuck, I can't wait for the album to drop... and the album after that, etc.