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.