NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE, DUNN

Before sizzurp went mainstream and molly became a rap meme, rappers generally disapproved of all drug use except reefers. 50 Cent went Ted Nugent on the game, claiming he'd never smoked weed beyond a contact high, while writing off "High All The Time" as a shrewd act of demographic pandering. Part of the reason 50 was able to shit all over Ja Rule's career so easily is cause he rapped openly about being a lovey-dovey sensualist rollin on X pills. Unless you was smokin L's with ya boys reminiscin on the trife life, getting high was generally looked upon as something for the Tommy Tuckers.

So considering the climate, I couldn't help but raise my Peter Gallaghers when an artist as big as B.G. was open about snorting dope. New Orleans is different like that. Under the names Lil Doogie and Baby D, B.G. and Lil Wayne would dis Partners-N-Crime, but they shared at least one thing in common: a love of opiates. "Herion," probably the only ode to shootin 'boy with an R. Kelly interpolation, is a G-Funk creeper in the vein of the Chronic interludes, juxtaposed with a sudden intrusion of the singsong bounce flow. Rap just a nationwide game of raquetball, ya smell me? The title is either a misspelling or a nonstandard phonetic spelling of heron, but junkies are better known for stealing hubcaps than their grammar. Their logic ain't much better. Give me some heron please / Cause powder makes me sneeze? Aight...do you, playa. So sterilize ya works, fix yaself a shot of somethin fire, and nod out to the PNC! Tell the methadone clinic RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA sent ya!

SPANISH GUITAR FILES: MEMORIAL DAY EDITION

I revisited The Carter shortly after I started writing about Spanish guitars.  As the mournful yet sultry notes of "I Miss My Dawgs" cut the air, I remembered that this was the song where I first located Spanish guitars as a common feature in a certain style of rap musics.  Although Spanish guitars can be potent signifiers of gettin arriba wit it, they are often deployed when a rapper takes a sensitive turn and acknowledges the ultimate toll of street life.  However, the use of acoustic guitar on such a track does not guarantee the guitar is Spanish.  On paper, Scarface's "What Can I Do?" is a Spanish guitar enthusiast's wish fulfilled, but its thug passion is of a different cultural origin, more Delta blues than flamenco.

2Pac is the ur-sensitive thug, and arguably the progenitor of Spanish guitars as a trend.  Perhaps his time in the Bay was his first exposure to Spanish guitars and their expressive potential.  In the initial log of my Spanish guitar peregrinations, Mr. Si Mane Price of The Martorialist recommended songs by The Jacka, Mac Dre, and Baby Bash as evidence of the Bay's contribution to the oeuvre.  Considering its formidable Mexican population, the Bay is a strong candidate as the ground zero of Spanish guitars in rap music.  The appeal of Mexican culture to the existential thug is easily understood.  The mutual preoccupation with death provides a natural affinity between Mexican art and gangsta rap.  The narcocorridos of today, the anointment of Morrissey as token Anglo amongst Mexican-American youths, only confirm death obsession as a continuing thread within the culture.

The Jacka made music for the thinking thug - arguably better than anyone ever has.  From "Innocent Youth" and "1, 2, 3" to "Gang Starz," he was an active participant in the Spanish guitars subgenre and an architect of its future.  Few rappers have availed themselves of Spanish guitars and integrated them so seamlessly into their artistic vision, as if the Spaniard who first plucked the strings of passion only did so to provide a worthy bed for the Jacka's future raps.

This Memorial Day, as you chug your Miller Lite and suck chicken bones and ribs like a sorry heathen, listen to Jacka rock some Spanish guitars and think about the dead.

SPANISH GUITAR FILES: GROWIN UP WAYNE

Can't front: I didn't start taking Lil Wayne seriously as a rapper until The Carter.  Mea culpa.  He was in my Top 5 from then until The Carter 3, and for a good 2.5 year stretch he was arguably the best rapper in the world.

Some consider the Dedication period to be his best.  It was a great era, before youthful hunger gave way to the excess and self-consciousness of success, but I find myself fuckin most with the wilderness years between the Hot Boys and mainstream respectability.  Maybe it's cause it bridges what was great about his Hot Boys incarnation and the rapper he would become; maybe it's because Pop Star Wayne has made such frustrating artistic choices that it's refreshing to return to the days when he was focused on rap.

Either way, here he is catchin wreck on a Spanish Guitar beat on the overlooked 500 Degreez, courtesy of the Great Man Mannie Fresh.  Wayne sips cachaça from a gourd he then passes to Breno Mello, a rapper and guitarist bearing their souls beneath a drafty veranda in some picturesque favela.