"It Has Been Said"

          My first Rap Album was  Eminem's Marshel Mathers LP, followed a few weeks later by NWA's Straight Outta Compton. I was twelve yeras old. I remember finding it in my brothers room, waiting till my parents were asleep, then listening to it on repeat for hours. This stuff was intense, more intense than any of Eminem's radio singles, any of the classic rock albums I owned, or, well, basically anything I'd ever heard before, ever. Probably too intense for a twelve year old (lets be honest here, the first track on the album is "Kill You").In fact I don't think I really understood the album for another six or eight years, but it remained/remains one my top ten favorite albums of all time, hip-hop or not. It struck a chord with me, which is no surprise, as it struck chords with several million other suburban, middle class white kids with teen angst who'd never heard a hip-hop album before.
         Fast forward nine years from that first album. I am in a short fiction class in my final year of college, and our professor is giving his spiel on criticism: "The point of criticism, for both the critic and the reader of the critics, is that it is fun. Good criticism should enhance your experience, your joy with the text." I've done a lot of literary criticism but I'd never thought of it as something that brings real joy, but this is the truth. Art is always more fun when you approach it, when you delve in and get in between the sinews and figure out just what the hell its all about.
     But to be honest, literature really just isn't my bag. It doesn't get my juices flowing like putting on a Ghostface album does, or even Jay-Z when he's actually trying. And its sad because so much of this music people write off.. Hip-hop really isn't given the same credence as, say, a Beatles album, or something by Bob Dylan, which is really a shame, though not a surprise with all the complete garbage out there.
    But I think most of the problem lies in the fact that the features of rap are not something people are used to analyzing. The want to break down the lyrics like you would a poem or Beatles song and it doesn't really work, so their turned off from the art forever. Take Lil' Wayne for instance. This guy is one of the prolific artists of our time, and he freestyles every single one of his tracks. Most of lyrics don't even make sense (just what does it mean if something is "tougher than Nigerian hair?"), but I defend him anyways (most of the time) and even some of my smarter friends are shocked by this. Let me explain why.
   Go find the album The Carter II and put on the track "Shooter." Listen to it. Really listen. Notice how Wayne doesn't come in with a verse until like, a minute twenty. The entire first minute builds tension. The baseline is slow, but funky. Robin Thick's verse creeps by as well, his lyrics describing someone robbing a bank or store of some sort that he's occupying. Pretty calm for someone in a robbery. Then Wayne finally comes in,

 " I think they want me to surrender
But no, I can't do it [2x]"

And the whole time, we're waiting for his verse. The baseline has us moving along with the synths in the background. waiting, wainting, untill out of nowhere, accompanied by Thick on the piano

"So many doubt 'cause I come from the South/
But when I open up my mouth, all bullets come out/
BANG!"

 By now, you should be dancing. Damn. Wayne is known for his punchlines, and even the haters who this song is so conspicuously about have to admit that this one is pretty good.  The man's words are bullets, he is indeed the shooter. His next verse essentially tells us who is being "shot:"

"And to the radio stations, I'm tired o' being patient
Stop bein' rapper racists, region haters
Spectators, dictators, behind door dick takers
It's outrageous, you don't know how sick you make us
I want to throw up like chips in Vegas
But this is Southern face it
If we too simple then y'all don't get the basics"

    Wayne is famouse for the aesthetic he creates in his music. In the beginning its that dramatic build up of tension in the first minute, Robin Thick's smooth verse with Wayne whispering "I won't do it..." to that first explosive punch line, then back and forth metaphors that he carries from sentence to sentence. In this verse its his back and forth hurling of insults, alliterating  here and there while internally rhyming nearling everything.  This is the type of style that makes Wayne one of the greatest of his time, because in each verse, in each senteance he crams about fifty different types of hip-hops "tools," whereas most rappers are satisfied as long as they plop two words that rhyme at the end. But what pisses people off is that all he has built with this mountain of metaphors is that Wayne is the "shooter" of haterz, that he is the greatest. For the most part, all his lyrics ever do is reinforce Wayne. But to say that is all his music ever does isn't giving him enough credit, because a rapper is always more than his lyrics. This track is fun, and Wayne is fun. When I listen to this I feel like I'm the coolest motherfucker on the block, even though I rock it in an old GMC Jimmy with blown out speakers on the way to church or mow my neighbors lawn. If you're dancing, all the better--you won't give a damn that this track amounts to nothing more than "fuck haterz," because you're too busy rocking out to the baseline and Wayne screaming "Call me automatic Weezy bitch I keep spittin', POW."

    And did I mention that all of this was freestyled--as in he didn't write any of it down? Wayne certainly wasn't the first rapper to do all or most of his verses this way, in fact Biggie and Jay-Z are two powerhouses who did almost everything on the spot, but he is the first rapper I've heard of that essentially records everything entirely fucked up. If you've seen the documentary the documentary The Carter,you know what I'm talking about. Before every recording session (which, for Wayne, is essentially 24/7) he smokes  fat blunt of the finest chronic, then swigs down a few gulps of "purple drink," alcohol and codeine. Then he steps on the mike and spits out something like Shooter. Its understandable why it works--as Wayne has said himself, he bases his ryhmes on feeling. He listens to the beat, thinks about what changes it makes inside of him, then rhymes. It also makes sense as to why he's recording 24/7. If you make everything up on the spot completely fucked up, then surely a lot of the stuff you put out its going to be garbage. And if you've listened to one of Wayne's full albums, you can attest to this--on every album you'll find some verses here and there that are really, really stupid.
    
   
    But there are other rappers out there who take this style even farther. And by style I mean creating an aesthetic, with very little lyrical substance. For instance, listen to the track "Cold Outside" by Raekwon & Ghostface, on his album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II. This is quiet possibly one of the sickest tracks ever laid down in hip hop, by far one of my favorite of all time, and its essentially *about* nothing more than the world being cold and dangerous. Thats really it. But the entire song works to create this aesthetic. The intro is even longer than "Shooter," and starts in typical Wu-Tang fashion with a sample from some long lost kung-fu movie, which has nothing really to do with the song other than create some drama and remind us that this brand Wu-Tang, even though its on Raekwon's album.
   The beginning centers on the smooth, soul style harmonies from someone named "Suga Bang Bang," who, has far as I can tell, has done nothing other than sing smooth, soul style backdrops for the Wu-Tang Clan. In the background we hear trumpets that are remiscient of a Sergio Leone flick. Suga's verse, which is essentially the chorus, goes as follows:

"Ohhhhh, ohh, ohhh, ohhh
Ohhhhhohh
When it's cold outside
And the rain turn to ice (x4)
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Said mama's out here flippin' now
Shots just goin' off
Somebody laid out
Little kids smokin' weed
Drive-bys every day
Wonder what's goin' on
Here outside wit my muthafuckin' A.K.
Woaahh, what I'm gonna do when it's cold outside?
Haahahhhhh, ohhh, wooahh
It's co-o-o-o-ld, hey"

   This chorus is so dramatic, so serious, that everytime I hear it I'm torn between spitting up my fruity loops in laughter or reaching for my heat on the dresser (if it existed). We're one verse in, no one has spit a rhyme, and already there is complete chaos--someone's been shot, drive bys all over the place with kids smoking marijuana, mama's flippin out, we're wonderin whats goin on, and in between it all there is Suga, sitting outside with his muthafuckin AK. Its inspiring, its dramatic, and even tense, but also hilarious,  probably much in the same way that Ghostface and Raekwon found those old kung-fu movies their so fond of. The drama continues to build, horns in the background, when suddenly there's a drum break and Suga goes silent. We're almost two minutes into the song, without a single real verse. Then Raekwon comes in.

"Religious wit hammers
Fakes get jammed up, cakes get battered
Comin' through to get it through transactions
Blood, stinkin' fiends
Machine guns, cannons and teams
Bakin' sodas, gold Rovers and gophers
Land in every project
Sex, lies, murderous reps
Back to cassetts
Vets dyin' on steps
What's really takin' place in them hoods?
Heads get clapped or trapped
Don't fuck wit my mind, I'm strapped
Off wit your dome for frontin' on me
Last two L's, I seen visions of dead males and more sales
Real life stories is made
And candles got blazed for little young soldiers shot by dem strays
Pidgeons and goons survivin' them prisons
Corest divisions, that separate and lay in cocoons
And they can't wait to come home soon
While bodies get found in lobbies, chopped up decayin' in rooms"

    If I gave you this passage and told you old you to read this, summarize it and come up with a central narrative of what this is about, what would you say? I'd say its not really about anything, its concepts just thrown together one after another.  But these words aren't meant to be read, their meant to be rapped. When their listened and not read the meaning changes entirely, something I think most people miss with hip-hop. Raekwon strings these together so quickly that on a first listen you can only pick up pieces, which is entirly the point--"religious wit hammers..."Blood, stinkin' fiends,/machine guns, cannons and teams...sex lies, murderous reps." This is chaos, its madness--in a word, its an aesthetic. You're not supposed to digest everything because the point is that these are pieces.
   Then Ghostface comes in, and with his first line I nearly lose my lunch again laughing--

"
"They found a two-year-old strangled to death
With a Love Daddy shirt on in a bag on the top of the steps"

   This line is just too over the top. The trumpets, Suga, its all too much for me. I laugh nearly every time. As the verse goes on though, I always get caught back up int he drama:

"Police blowin' niggas, narcs and judges
Me and son had beef, I had to murk him we supposed to be brothers
'Cause he came home frontin feelin' like I owe him somethin'
'Cause I'm getting' money, drive a lil' somethin' somethin'
Lanay got AIDs, 5 kids smoked out
House is brick, bills haven't been paid in days
Her Brooklyn man's a molester
Court case and the crime's raisin'
Swastikas on the church, they Satan
Holiday season is here and I'm vexed
Who the fuck made Christmas up and fuckin' broke it?
Ain't makin' no sense
Newports is $7.50, a box of Huggies is off the meat rack
She's back, thirty days, she relapsed
Our troops need to leave Iraq
And rap niggas need to go on strike
So we can get more cash, 'cause"

   Like Raekwon, Ghostface's verse is again all stream of consciousness. The difference is that Ghostface plays his lines out longer. the "sex lies murderous reps" are now drawn out to fully formed descriptions of the environment--  police are blowing people up, swastika's are all over churches--while " What's really takin' place in them hoods?" is explained as well--necessities are overpriced, drug addicts relapse, and holidays like Christmas just bring more anguish than they alleviate. Where Raekwon gives us ideas and feelings, building a mood of pain, violence, and fear, Ghostface describes that mood. And he ends with two punchlines that rally his audience more than the entire song put together. If you didn't understand a word Raekwon said, or made sense of anything Ghostface put together, you'll at least get behind--

"She's back, thirty days, she relapsed
Our troops need to leave Iraq
And rap niggas need to go on strike
So we can get more cash, 'cause"

Word. Like I said, its an aesthetic, one that's both wholly dramatic, and because of that very drama, a little campy. I love it.