what's wrong with this picture?

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

As Wu-Tang Clan producer Robert "RZA" Diggs notes in the promotional bumf accompanying the rap collective's fifth album, hip-hop is in dire straits. In the US, its stock has tumbled to the point that its primary function seems to have become the production of hits based around novelty dances: the chicken noodle soup, the krumping clown dance, the Aunt Jackie. This is the genre once known as the Black CNN reduced to the level of Black Lace's Agadoo.

From today's Guardian.

• Obviously this is the frame for his argument, i.e. AP has to raise the stakes in order to turn a mundane album review into a 'state of modern culture' think piece.
• The rapper said it, so it must be true. Huh? Hasn't the 'hip hop is dead' line been used to sell pretty much every big hip-hop album for the last few years? Why not analyse that instead?
• 'primary function'? Wow, you mean the primary function of a type of music is to make people dance?
• But the real issue I have is with 'reduced to the level of'.  So things change, and the ways things change might involve new patterns  of visibility, different musical 'product', and I'm sure the way people use or respond to Agadoo is different to the way they do 36 Chambers. Yet as soon as you say 'level' you place yourself in the position of the person who grades the levels. Your style implies an alignment of your judgement with my judgement, a consensus world in which we all agree to look down on the schoolkids youtubing their dancing and the wedding disco DJs. (But this position is the editorial style of the paper in general, so meh whatever).
• WILL THIS SORT OF SILLINESS EVER GO AWAY? Or will I just learn not to get irritated by it?

Comments

[lastclearchance.livejournal.com]

I think in this case the artist's conception of and approach to hip-hop informs the art and therefore is worth mentioning in the review. Notably Raekwon and Ghostface among others within Wu-Tang resisted the direction RZA was taking Wu-Tang with this record. (As far as I understand, they think that the group has lost much of its populist sound and appeal and is retreating further and further into "art-rap". So maybe it's heartening to see challenges within the group?)

I wonder what the actual press packet quote is. Wu-Tang was certainly always aiming for something they thought was "deeper" than what has now become youtube rap, but I never equated them with the "black CNN" idea, which predates them (and which would be a better point of reference for Nas in his use of the same argument). Not to mention that the list of dances includes two from New York and one from LA, completely excluding the South from discussion (which is pretty significant when one is making this argument--not only are the dance-rappers denigrated, but the most popular among them are excluded from the discussion).

But I also think that "this sort of silliness," while it will always exist, is having a last gasp of prominence within hip-hop, largely from older acts who came up listening to the rap-as-movement music they champion (and claim to be making). An underground vs. mainstream false dichotomy will continue to exist, and false high- vs. low-culture lines will continue to be drawn, but calling a rapper a "conscious" rapper is sort of a backhanded descriptor, so while this type of argument will continue to manifest itself, it won't reflect this weird "politics vs. dancing" idea.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Good points. I half agree about the artist's conception of the project - but sometimes it would be nice to see someone take stuff off in another direction altogether, but yeah, this is a broadsheet review so there are constraints. The press packet thing is a real pet hate of mine and a little unfair I suppose - I mean I'm happy to see the press bumf as an extension of the artwork, and so obviously it's a valid thing to do to evaluate the artwork against what it claims to do. (This album wants to make me dance like a bastard, and it has or hasn't.) But my mark s side is saying that a better review would be one that re-framed the record and made it work for ME the reviewer, or me the reader, or whatever rather than simply buying into the tacit frameworks of agreement about what counts as serious / silly.

[lastclearchance.livejournal.com]

The press packet thing is a real pet hate of mine and a little unfair I suppose

No I'm with you on that, coughing it out as truth is one of the most annoying lazy reviewer tropes.

[zenith.livejournal.com]

I don't think that sort of silliness will ever go away in the Guardian - they've done it with artists far more "mainstream" than the RZA (pretty much EVERY r&b/rap interview or positive review says that the singular artist in question is good and the rest of the genre is shit, without really explaining the points of difference). It will never stop annoying me, but I've stopped being annoyed by artists I like being quoted on it, unless they say something really specifically irritating. I've kind of accepted that, as someone said years ago when we used the term, "all pop stars are rockists" - that is to say, all of them will say that their own stuff has meaning and is authentic and so on. It's not the job of the artist to comment intelligently on the genre (except in their sound!): it's fine for them to just say "they're all shit, I'm great!" It's the job of the critic to look at the wider picture and see past that.

[zenith.livejournal.com]

In terms of hip hop in particular, and the Wu-Tang even more specifically, there has always been this contradictory tendency to say everyone else is shit but then a) collaborate with almost everyone you could possibly be refering to, and b) blatantly indulge in all the things you said were bad that other people do. Great example of this being the beginning of Wu-Tang Forever, in which RZA complains about people trying to make hip hop into r&b or funk. He then ends that album with an r&b tune, essentially.

ted turner is the white ll cool j

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

for me (mr "politics of form" or in this case format), the great crashing wtf here is:
i. hullo i am a guardian critic
ii. my opinion of the actual real WHITE cnn is therefore [insert fairly guessable opinion of rolling tabloid tv news station]
iii. ???
iv. "look at pasty me i'm down with the clan"

Re: ted turner is the white ll cool j

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

ha ha I never thought of 'black CNN' as meaning 'commodified' (LOL) news before. Which makes it a LOT more ambiguous!!

Re: ted turner is the white ll cool j

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

And yeah, the real use of the Rza quote is 'black guy says this too so it's ok to continue believing in all your lazy stereotypes about that place on the map viz. it is stagnant pools and rotting fenlands'.

Re: ted turner is the white ll cool j

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

thias is probbly slightly unfair to the RZA -- i don't know much about em -- but there was a definite element w.public enemy (who came up with the "black CNN" quote) that they were much-favoured by critical quasi-undergrounder whitey exZACKly bcz they let CW off the hook of having to think/care much abt the rest of black music/culture

Black Resonance FM moar like

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

As lastclearchance sez about, the Wu-Tang have never done CNN-ey stuff anyway. Some of the solo stuff (not that I'm a great expert here either) is complex dramatic storytelling to "Black HBO" might be more on the money!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I've heard the new Wu-Tang and while it's by no means a bad record it's not as good as Chicken Noodle Soup, Watch My Feet, Soulja Boy etc etc. It's also not as good as the silliest danciest Wu Tang track ("Gravel Pit"). It's definitely a record that I'll like the more goes I give it, so maybe it'll come to overtake Soulja etc - but I doubt it.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

'the Wu-Tang have never done CNN-ey stuff anyway'

the videos for Triumph and I Can't Go To Sleep do actually have a strong element of this in them i would say but i guess they may be exceptions to the norm.

People love 36 Chambers so much because it's got a similar weighty worthiness and visceral aggression to the PE albums whilst being a recognisable shift from that production-wise and conceptually, i thought. but i can't help but think of the first Wu-tang album as more melancholic and dour than the PE stuff which always sounded angrier, funkier, maybe even funnier (ODB aside).

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Er, I love 36 Chambers so much because there are some fantastic basslines and lots of kung-fu noises.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

how did you get into Wu-Tang kat? for me it was seeing their early vids on Yo MTV Raps and thinking 'wow these guys sound awesomely creepy (in good way)' - next step from Cypress Hill i guess

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The General Khaki lads had a tape of 36 Chambers - said cassette got stuck in our car stereo and wouldn't eject, so I ended up listening to it quite a lot. It's very good music for driving up the M6 at 3am.

I never liked 'Gravel Pit' at the time.

[koganbot]

I have never heard "Agadoo," much less danced to it!

(To answer your question, no this type of bad argument will not go away for a long time, if ever, but unfortunately or fortunately [note ambivalence] it is not silly; it contains the very potent idea that the writer and reader have the strong potential to be phony and must be ever vigilant in their tastes not to fall for the fake.)

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

johann strauss