If you don’t read Total Chaos in its entirity you must read Adam Mansbachs essay “On Lit Hop“, the conversation, “Its All One” by Juba Kalamka and Tim’m West’s, “Black Talk and Hot Sex” by Danyel Smith.
In reading this book. Then reviewing it for this post, then skimming it because I was waiting in a LONG A_S line this summer, I realize how appropriate it is.
Its like Stakes is High, in that, each time I picked it up I noticed something that I didn’t peep before.
My favorite part of Mansbachs essay “On Lit Hop” was actually in his foot note. This doesn’t mean that the essay wasn’t good because it was delicious. But the foot note was right UP IN the gristle. He writes:
On paper, I am totally one of those guys, a white Jewish ovelis with an MFA at Columbia. Iv’e never activated my membership thin tht club though. Nor have I made a conscious decision not to; I’ve just always been a hip-hopper, and the sensibilities, artistically and politically, that followed form that have dicatd my path since I was eleven. , memorizing criminal minded, and beginning to understand the subjectivity of whiteness, as hip hop was wont to make a white boy do back then. Im relegating this to a footnote because I think us white folks tend to centralize ourselves and our issues way too much when we deign to talk about race or privilage or access. Is it the role of yet another overeducated white guy to point out elitism of the state of the Novel convo…To me this is proper use of privilage: to sat things for which people with less privilage might face knee jerk recrimination.
When talking about homosexuality in Hip Hop, Tim’m sets forth talks about the being a backpacker equals automatically gay. He writes:
You said inappropriate faggotry.” Lets not get it twisted. Moreover, for men with worries in their erections, viagra cialis achat can help them in any respect. Not many sportsmen can bounce back so readily after making huge mistakes which very nearly cost him the rest of his career. cheap viagra canadian Your cialis levitra viagra penis will start gaining its erection again in a proper way for sexual intercourse. About 70 percent of erectile dysfunction cases are due to medical conditions and the pump mechanism suffers a detour. cialis cheap generic Hip Hop relies heavily on the inappropriate faggot in order to even exist. IN a really twisted sort of way, hey rely n the verbal bashing of fags in order to substantiate their manhood. Which backpacking, love peace and justice MC’s have ever been regarded as “hard”? None. In fact, may of them are so often suspect of being “fags” that they go to sometimes great awkward lengths to say: “Hey, I’m for peace and love but fuck a faggot.” Its really funny actually.
When discussing the connection that hip hop lit writers have with their audience, Danyel states:
I crave the connection that street lit authors have with their readership. I crave their sales. I crave the thing in their souls that makes them in many cases, not give a f_ck about grammar. Most of these authors, I’m sure, are as bidialectical as me, but chose not to check and cross every sentence they write for the kind of grammatical perfection that rings like a glass bell at one of John Cheevers gin soaked soir?es.
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The book is $20, and its paperback. And lord knows, all kinda $5 an $10 on amazon.
So.
Go spend some cash with ya’ cuzzo Jeff.
(Typically I would place a Jeff [I am saving an Egg for him] Chang [comment here], but because your boy SJ, is positioning himself to put Ms. M.dot on lock D, imma try to be
respectful. *Wink*.
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What do you think of the above quotes? I have been saving them for yall since about, mmmmmmm, February.
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I nominated you for best writing and best personal blog.
http://www.blackweblogawards.com/
adam mansbach is a berkeley boss. ‘angry black white boy, or the miscegenation of macon detornay,’ went like twenty-thousand leagues deep into the perspective of a white kid who’s always a little too down. he captured so many angles of the outsider’s perspective: the dude’s encyclopedic knowledge of a tribe called quest’s repertoire, the tims and cross trainers, the bizarre dreams about ol’ dirty bastard playing santa in the living room…
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this was thick reading for me; a white kid from marin who gigged his way into college at ucsc, NA meetings, and a psychology/fem studies double major. so why am i paying to see immortal technique this friday at The Cat, when his lyrics get as problematic as Nas at Virginia Tech?
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living in sf, gay people were just part of the environment. i saw the pack debut the vans remix with fab (short was conspicuously absent) at The Crib in SF on gay night last year; i got three free drinks and i saw two dudes with grills sucking face. shit was a ball.
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people who listen to ‘conscious’ rappers are usually the most conscious of how they digest rap music. but ‘alternative’ rappers are just as concerned with staying gully as everyone else in the rap game, so you see some vitriolic shit being poured when it comes time for them to quit the peace n love and act-a-oppressah.
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so why’d my fabbulous friend keith ask me to buy him a ticket for immortal technique? cause he so very badly wants to smoke a blunt through the length of ‘dance with the devil’. that song gets white people going harder than ‘ayo for yayo’, i swear to god.
i got three free drinks and i saw two dudes with grills sucking face. shit was a ball.
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Man Listen. There are so MANY PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO idea that this is reality for HELLLLLLLA FOLKS.
hat song gets white people going harder than ‘ayo for yayo’, i swear to god.
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What is with it w/ Immortal Tech and WHite Folks?
My folks in Dallas was pleasantly surprised at HOW HAWWWRD they went at Rock the Bells in Dallas.
I am personally not up on them jawns. BUT I CLEARLY need to be.
They get fools hyped on some PE ’89 type shit.
Yo, your boy Alberto?
Wowzers.
Sometimes i wish i was older and had a greater perspective of the Reagan years, just so i could know ruthless these cats are.
****
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2007/08/14/AR2007081401707.html?nav=hcmodule
Some Democratic lawmakers have questioned Gonzales’s judgment about the death penalty, including his refusal to hear the concerns of a federal prosecutor in Arizona, Paul K. Charlton, who argued against pursuing a death sentence in a case in which no body had been recovered.
Blood.
Its called texas justice for a reason.
Not that this case occurred in TX.
But that Al has some hang ’em high/TX tendencies.
From Wikipedia:
In 1994, he was named general counsel to then-Texas Governor George W. Bush….
As Governor Bush’s counsel in Texas, Gonzales also reviewed all clemency requests. A 2003 article in The Atlantic Monthly asserts that Gonzales gave insufficient counsel, and failed to second-guess convictions and failed appeals. Only one death sentence was over-turned by Governor Bush[.]
see.
case closed.
For some people.
Forever.
?Which backpacking, love peace and justice MC’s have ever been regarded as “hard”? None. In fact, may of them are so often suspect of being “fags” that they go to sometimes great awkward lengths to say: “Hey, I’m for peace and love but fuck a faggot.” Its really funny actually.?
Ehhh I dunno?..Take a look at the ?Who got the Props video? circa 93
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve8OVVsmImY
“Baggy black jeans, knapsack and my beeper??..”
Them Brooklyn niggaz are known to rob lol
The term backpacker has morphed into a soft connotation following the over /under ground split?.in the late 90?s, but I would argue that perceptions of and actions towards those he describes would better describe Emo ish (can?t believe I typed emo) rappers like Atmosphere Slug and there fans, not some of the under gronds hero’s which backpackers stood for
His point on degrading others to increase the level of ones manhood, is on point and sadly a staple of hip hop that many engage in including the ill one?
Always room for improvement I guess
Thugs wear grillz.
That ice grill marketing is dope.