SILKK THE SHOCKER'S "THAT'S COOL": DEFT SELF-REFLEXIVE COMMENTARY ON THE EXESS-ERA RAP VIDEO OR WHIMPERING DEATH KNELL?

 

 Me and my goon was real lit one night, bottle-breaking drunk, swerving through traffic in a vintage Dodge Dart.  With a crooked smile and a long swig of Mad Dog 20/20, I put on an old CD-R mix of Clear Channel rap I'd paid $5 for in middle school.  SILKK THE SHOCKER and TRINA's "That's Cool" started rattling through the sound system.  "This is fantastic," saith my goon, as he located it on iTunes for the reasonable price of $.99.

When we awoke from the revelry we were locked in an uneasy embrace, our limbs flecked with scrapes and scratches of mysterious origin, the Dodge Dart lodged firmly in a ditch.  "Why did I download this garbage?" he whined.  I excused myself from the situation and left my buddy to his automotive difficulties, but the SILKK track still remained in my memory.

I found still more bounty in the video.  After an establishing shot of snow-covered mountains, SILKK smirks through a wink-wink nudge-nudge explanation of the video:  "No, not in Hawaii, not Cancun, not on the beach.  I'm bout to do this thing in Juneau, Alaska!"

The beat, a typical early-00s rap pastiche of vaguely Asian influence, begins as three desperados on snowmobiles tear-ass over a bend of snow.  They proceed to release Hell upon the slopes throughout the video, performing gnarly blowouts and perilous mogul carves, while SILKK joins them via green screen.  His looks are on-point: fur-lined parka, chic skarf, an impressive assortment of knit hats.

What defines this as a product of its era, however, are the goggles resting on his forehad.  We all remember the curious run of goggles as fashion accessory in mid/late-'90s hip-hop, but in this situation SILKK actually needs them.  What do we make of this?  Is it a knowing send-up of the uselessness of Rap Goggles, obligatory realist prop, or merely an off-the-cuff gag?

Intention doesn't necessarily matter, for the goggles signify multitudes, as does the video.  It's a fish-out-of-South-Beach recontextualization of the Bad Boy style rap video, just as much as it is goofy fun, just as much as it is an admission of the same style of video-making's exhausted possibilities.  The automobile and video hoe tropes have been done so many times that the only way to burnish them with some degree of newness is to place them in an outlandish locale.  The cycle continues.

Also, TRINA is a good rapper.

PEACE TO THE DJ: IN DEFENSE OF HE WHO YELLS LOUDEST

So yo, lately I been noticing an alarming trend in certain schools of Rap Music Thought: distaste for the DJ who be yellin all over the tracks.  You know what I'm talkin bout - the "GANG-STA GRIZZ-ILLZ" and "DAAAAAMN SON, WHERE'D YOU FIND THIS?" loudmouths of the world.  Really tho?  U really wanna go out of your way to find a version wherein those not-so-subtle joys are eliminated?  Yo, that's like eating a bunless burger, kid.

I'm sure smarter minds than me could argue that the DJ is a commentary on the multimedia cacophony of tha postmodern/digital age, but I ain't about that Ivory Tower fuckboy shit.  I'm sure more research-oriented minds than me could research the shit outta the bloviating DJ, trace the thread all the way to the precursors of hip-hop - catch me at the soundclash - and show how it's an essential part of the culture.  But yo, I ain't that dude.  I just think listenin to a DJ-free version of a rap cassette is anemic, and moreover, just a bad look.  It's like watching a 3D movie without ya specs.  Like rockin an tailored suit without the pocket square.  Like eatin French Onion Soup without the gratinee. Think about it.

LOL, WE BACK ALREADY? RICK ROSS ON THAT "BOUND 2" FREESTYLE

Lol, but this shit is funny, ain't it?  I was just chirpin bout MMG runnin the rap game in the mold of '90s BAD BOY, and ol fat-ass releases a HYPE WILLIAMS directed video.  Although it ain't necessarily up to par with classic era HYPE, it still stimulates the viewer in the same way that originally got his videos noticed, posing such brain-breaking questions as, "How can a ferris wheel possibly support the rolling fats of a RICK ROSS?"  I think it's either a studio set or some green screen wizardry.  I bin on ferris wheels, and them shits is rickety.

Because ROSS' verses ain't disrupting digestive system function or nothin, they are technically forgetable, but after "Devil in a Red Dress" it just sound right for him to rock over a YEEZY beat.  All hail the fat one.

OFF-BRAND MIGOS SURPASSES THE ORIGINAL? MEANWHILE, MMG COASTS AS THE FAIREST LABEL IN ALL THE LAND

Dearest Reader,

Recently I vamoosed outta Jax Hole for a weekend 'cause shit was gettin hot on the slopes.  I was boinkin some married ski bunnies, and let's just say their husbands weren't feelin my particular brand of sexual libertinism.  So I shunted down to the teeming metropolis of Cheyenne (Chey-Town, stand up!), where I indulged in certain urban amenities unavailable in even the grimiest corners of my beloved hometown.

I wents down to the Cheyenne ghetto and let myself bathe in the chaos and grit.  Methlabs exploding on every corner.  Skechers shoes.  Hooters girl's socks.  Terrifying stuff.  But like a year spent backpacking across Europe on yo parents' dime, it gave me some much-needed perspective.  I'll spare u the intimate details of my self-realization, but as I stood on tha block watchin flames engulf a trailer-home methlab, I heard TRACY T's "16" blarin from the tinny speakers of an Android phone.

I was like, "Yo, Cletus, this shit is bonkers.  MIGOS gwan run 2014 even more obnoxiously than they ran 2013."  To which Cletus, nodding mournfully, responded, "My friend, this is not MIGOS you hear.  'Tis a young scribe by the name of TRACY T.  Recently signed to the venerable MAYBACH MUSIC GROUP."

Sheeeeeiiittt.  You could've fooled me wit dat mouthbreather syncopation, the wack-a-mole repetition -- the conspicuous use of the word "migo."  Gotta say, though, this shit had be bouncin in my Rossignols.  Could it be that the facsimile was just as good - if not better - than the original?  Reminded me of 1989, the year punk broke, when TAD made the unlikely jump into the rooms of teenage girls and middle-America malls.  Soon there were imitators like CANDLEBOX, NIRVANA, BUSH, and CREED, many of whom were arguably better than the originators.  Will this be the case with the MIGOS sound?

Time will only tell.  In the meantime, it must be noted: despite the vocal disapproval, the borderline derision of the Rap Music blogtelligentsia, MMG has quickly amassed the biggest dynasty RAP MUSIC has seen since early '00s ROC-A-FELLA or mid-'00s DIPSET.  G.O.O.D. MUSIC?  Don't make me laugh, child, they some middle-management second fiddles.  Hate it or love it, MMG is on top!

2013 WAS A GAS: THE YEAR IN REVIEW!

Wussup to all my peepers, midnight creepers, and all my degenerates who masturbate into sneakers!  It's time for RPA MSUIC HISTERIA to wrap up the year once again.  Now I know my updates is sporadic and all, but I prefer to think of them as spo-radical!  Namean?  Like this post if u agree.

All in all, 2013 was a wack year for rap music.  But I am nothing if not an eternal optimist, and so I look to the raps that tickled my fantasy, the ones that made me laugh and cry, rather than dwelling on the raps that diminished my already threadbare hopes for the human race.  Shall we proceed?  I do say we shall!

MIGOS

Group of the year!  This is the shit the streetz was bumpin in 2013 (J-Hole, stand up!).  Bonus points for bein the whipping boy for every rap purist decrying the state of rappity rappin.  In short, their cadences were the illest; we will one day speak of them in the same reverential, slightly embarrassed tones with which we invoke the name of DAS EFX. 

RUN THE JEWELS

 

Mane.  Would you look at EL-P?  That off-kilter red skully, the black t-shirt terminating in white person tattoos, the Napoleon dynamite glasses frames - affectations that make him look identical to the articles of human filth who make their daily exodus at the Lorimer St. L stop.  For much of my youth I nursed an analogous distrust of the man, much of which was informed by SCOTT SEWARD's tone-deaf, yet devastating, review of FANTASTIC DAMAGE.  Like, that review was wack and all, but kinda cut to the marrow of what made EL-P irritating.  "Step Father Factory?"  That was some emo crybaby shit.

Then one day I realized: my distaste for EL-P was rooted in my own self-hatred!  Word!  EL-P was actually fairly dope if you could excuse all the pretension and self-indulgence.  And you know what he did this year?  He cut down all that artsy fartsy shit by doing an album with a REAL RAPPER (C) instead of one of those compulsive masturbator DEF JUX fags.

RUN THE JEWELS probably used the word "fuckboy" more than any other rappers this year; and for that alone, they make this prestigious list!

LIL SNUPE DIED :(



I ain't hear LIL SNUPE till I checked one of those wack HIP HOP TXL compilations that's always gettin mad downloads on Datpiff.  At first I was like, "Fo rill - his name is LIL SNUPE?  Why don't he just call himself LIL NOTJORIOUS B.I.G. or LIL LL KOOL JAY?"  I heard him again on the DJ MUSTARD Ketchup tape that came out this summer.  At this point I still wasn't sold, but I'd begun to accept that he was someone I'd be hearing from for a while.

Then he got shot over video games or some dumb shit.  SMH.  Anyway, like the death groupie I is, I revisited some of his old freestyles on the YouTubes and was pleased with what I heard.  In a lot of clips you can see MEEK MILL encouraging him to spit some real shit - dat roaches, rats, and poverty flow - and the dude came through with the squalidest imagery.  His freestyle prowess was a welcome atavism in these readin off yo Blackberry ass times.  Before he got capped over Super Smash Brothers, SNUPE was starting to remind me of another Louisiana spitter who never reached his prime.

EARL SWEATSHIRT

"Had a spark when thou started /  But nowest thou ist just garbage" - Jayson-Z, "Ye Olde Takeover"

ODD FUTURE was a breath of fresh air when they came out, but look at em now!  TYLER THE CREATOR is as used-up as a 30 year-old running back.  Dude has been wack and irritating since he got out of the Tumblr ghetto.  Fuck you, TYLER THE CREATOR.  I will fight you.

HODGY BEATS and all them other cats were always just some banal dickriders, so where does that leave us?  EARL SWEATSHIRT, kid!  The main event.  His Doris LP surpassed expectations to the same extent that TYLER's post-Bastard output has sucked balls.  Man, them bars is mad dense.  We need to exercise our close reading tools on some of them verses!

And da best part?  The album is short as fuck, totes catering to my generation's Internet-addled attention spans.  EARL is a true poet, the Tennyson of our times, a prophet of peace, and a beacon of

FUTURE & RICK ROSS

"Bugatti" and "U.O.E.N.O." was the songs of the year, and you know this wasn't 'cause of ROCKO or ACE HOOD.  Whether you like it or not, ROZAY's rape-y ass lyrics was definitely da bars of the year.  And as much as young men aspire to be fat, disgusting frauds like RICK ROSS, I don't think his lyrics had any appreciable effect on sex crimes this year.

Now would be the time to reminisce on the many occasions I woke up in new Bugattis this year, but I am legally required to remain silent on this subject (I may or may not have left some hot DNA on the seatz).

CHANCE THE RAPPER

White America's new favorite negro performer!

SUMMARY
2013 was highly, highly wack.  I could sift through some of the chaff - the also-rans and kind-of-were's - but I'm tired and quite obviously lazy.  See you in 2014, bitches!

IS RAP MUSIC RELEVANT TO MY JUICE HEAD LIFESTYLE?

SO YO!

Everyone who knows me knows I'm an enormous juice head.  Raging.  There's nothing more I like than taking a shot of testosterone to the dome and working out my deltoids, my quadriceps, perhaps my serratus anterior or some such vanity muscle.

But when it comes down to it?  Hip-hop is terrible for pumping that 'ron, the Fe if you fancy huh.  Why?  I dunno.  Maybe it's the fact that so much of it is weed driven.  The most cursory example: I been listenin to PROJECT PAT as I pondered this question and remembered to exert my "critical faculty" (I was drunk and high) on the song "Ridin on Chrome."

I thought, "Yo, maybe I could listen to this when I'm riding all reckless on the slopes of Jackson Hole.  But at da end of the day?  Nah.  I can listen to some WAKA (any LEX LUGER beat, really), maybe MEEK, some LIL B, probably a lil more when I'm gettin my fitness on, but overall nothin be makin me hit the elusive area known as "the douchebag's reverie."

What get me hype?  All da dope jams.  Nah mean?

GUCCI BE REVELATIN, WRITIN IN HIS DIARY LIKE PETEY PABLO

 

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!  Sup bitches.  Anyway, let's cut to the quick.  First of all, what's up wit alll da songs about "young niggas" these days?  Is old rappers really feelin that old and out of touch that they gotta write paeans to their young fans?  Shit is mad homo imo.

But yo, 4real, I was not expecting anything diaristic about Diary Of A Trap God.  Thought it was just  a catchy name GUCCI conconcted to keep da Trap God series movin, yamean?  But there are a few revealing moments on the mixtape, in particular the track entitled "Show A Young Nigga."  Besides showin love to his youthful harem, he also touches on some real shit dat the rap public been pondering as of late.  First off, he touches on da beef between him and JEEZY and T.I.  The beef wit JEEZY been broiling for years, but he gives a little new insight into the situation.  "I heard Tip and Jeezy say that they don't like me," GUWOP raps.  So all dis beef is cause he thinks these cats don't like him?  That some grade school shit, GUCCI.  Didn't know he was that sensitive.  Who cares what other ppl think of u?

Then he say, "They say I'm bipolar but my diamonds they sure live."  Now there been some chirpin bout GUCCI bein bipolar, but there ain't been no proof cause none of these rap bloggers been readin the DSM-IV, and I know they ain't wilin on that DSM-V tip.  This armchair psychologizin got some legs when GUCCI had his infamous Twitter meltdown a while back.  But yo, dis the first time he actually address this shit in song and adds credence to the idea that it was all a publicity stunt, or more accurately, a private-becomes-publicity stunt.

Is GUCCI bipolar?  Does this explain his erratic behavior?  Will GUCCI do for mental illness what FRANK OCEAN did for gayness?  Or will it all get swept under the rug like so much mental illness in aMURIKKKA?  I dunno yo, i just be sittin back and observing shit like my mane Alexis de Tocqueville.  Chuuuuuuuuuuuuch!