Chuck D and Flava Flav

[mos dan]

Did anyone else who was at the show on Friday find Flav's closing 15-minute political speech a little bit forced? 'Fuck George Bush' seems a little bit negative and backward-looking, considering the very real possibility of the first black president being elected in November...

oh bollocks, i left a tiny bit before the end, which sounds really shameful i know but i HAD TO get to the egg in king's cross and it would have taken about four hours on night buses. bugger. was it really 15 minutes? were the audience into it?

i thought they carried their age, and the age of the material, extremely well. they were flying around the stage, so much energy - really exceeded my expectations, i thought it might be a bit pantomime.

the big question for me is, given that i was surrounded by so many middle aged p.e. fans (i went for a drink with some of them beforehand) who were claiming 'rap's lost its edge, it's all commercial now, it can't change things/minds the way it used to' - well, are they right? it's self-evident to me that hiphop=commerce, or as hank shocklee said, "Black culture has been replaced by hip-hop culture. Black culture is not representing you anymore-hip-hop is."

but i still found these middle-aged guys' it-were-edgier-in-my-day attitude both predictable and short-sighted. particularly since they're all quite powerful music industry types. and particularly because, when i (predictably) said 'well, you know what's edgy? grime is edgy' they all sneered a bit as if to say 'what, seriously?'.

 

[crackerjack]

was it really 15 minutes?

Yes.

were the audience into it?

No.

 

[noel emits]

but i still found these middle-aged guys' it-were-edgier-in-my-day attitude both predictable and short-sighted. particularly since they're all quite powerful music industry types. and particularly because, when i (predictably) said 'well, you know what's edgy? grime is edgy' they all sneered a bit as if to say 'what, seriously?'.

What would qualify as 'edgy' now then? Radioactive AIDS Rape Peado Jihad Suicide Step?

 

[Mr. Tea]

What would qualify as 'edgy' now then? Radioactive AIDS Rape Peado Jihad Suicide Step?

This summer's crucial sound (as I read in Vice). It's well weapon!

 

[mos dan]

What would qualify as 'edgy' now then? Radioactive AIDS Rape Peado Jihad Suicide Step?

i think the point is that nothing will ever be edgy again, as far as they're concerned. but then when you work at a middle-aged glossy music mag, that's a pretty predictable attitude isn't it?

 

[noel emits]

i think the point is that nothing will ever be edgy again, as far as they're concerned. but then when you work at a middle-aged glossy music mag, that's a pretty predictable attitude isn't it?

Yes absolutely. I would say that while it's good to have experience and perspective sometimes people do need to be able to get past mythologising and idealising their own first flush of teenage rebellion or whatever and engage with the present etc. But that's a bit of a predictable and cliched attitude as well Beyond that I was wondering what the hankering after 'edge' actually meant? Do we want Viennese Aktionism to go mainstream? Is a culture only worthwhile if it obviously and loudly transgresses boundaries? Or can there be other modes of moving forward, or even values other than always moving forward. I dunno, it's just about assumptions.

 

[woops]

'weapon' is better than most real slang i reckon.

gumdrops, how was busta?

 

[elgato]

i think the point is that nothing will ever be edgy again, as far as they're concerned. but then when you work at a middle-aged glossy music mag, that's a pretty predictable attitude isn't it?

edgy is one thing, but surely this isn't just about edge? is the question not about the potential impact that that edge has?

unless i am much mistaken and its always been like this, the world is so so different now than it was 20 years ago, and where more so than with regard to the way that dominant ideology and power absorb apparently and explictly subversive expression?

 

[elgato]

Is a culture only worthwhile if it obviously and loudly transgresses boundaries? Or can there be other modes of moving forward, or even values other than always moving forward. I dunno, it's just about assumptions.

very very on point

but is this not specifically about cultural value in terms of its ability to affect or stimulate change?

 

[mos dan]

edgy is one thing, but surely this isn't just about edge? is the question not about the potential impact that that edge has?

absolutely. although tbh, with regards to these middle-aged music biz types specifically, i think they were sadly too jaded to care about either aesthetic or functional radicalism really. they were friends of a friend and i found their cynicism pretty distasteful.

unless i am much mistaken and its always been like this, the world is so so different now than it was 20 years ago, and where more so than with regard to the way that dominant ideology and power absorb apparently and explictly subversive expression?

sadly, i suspect you're right. but are we not in a difficult position to judge this, you and i? i feel like we need to ask someone older

as an aside, i doubt that it's new for people to mythologise and elevate their teenage rebellions (i never thought i'd tire of reading about 1968, but this year it's really fucking happened). i'm just surprised they weren't aware of how cliched it was, when they were lamenting the fact that 'hiphop is all shit now'.

 

[gumdrops]

busta was good. easily one of the best live acts in hip hop for my money. never seen him before and some of the people i was with said theyd seen him better before but i still thought he was great as a performer, even the set itself could have been a bit tighter. had a few too many lags like many hip hop shows. but im glad i went. hes a lot of fun and really wild/unruly. sort of like a hip hop jammer (but before jammer obv).

glad PE wasnt a panto gig, thats what it was like when i saw them in stratford last. middle aged hip hop fans are always going to say raps lost its edge. its predictable, but i think its got an element of truth. i do still like a lot of hip hop, ill never stop liking it, but its not what it was - which is one good thing about it. even if you think its not 'progressing' per se, its never stopped changing. but it is pretty much just 'pop' now. there are underground artists worth checking, and im glad theyre doing what theyre doing, even if it is very old school - hip hops big and old enough now to accomodate retroism without people taking easy pot shots at them for being 'trad', but i think grime has the edge. or should that be HAD the edge?

 

[elgato]

absolutely. although tbh, with regards to these middle-aged music biz types specifically, i think they were sadly too jaded to care about either aesthetic or functional radicalism really. they were friends of a friend and i found their cynicism pretty distasteful.

yeh, i can easily believe it. but i guess it seemed like a good springboard from which to launch a more interesting discussion

sadly, i suspect you're right. but are we not in a difficult position to judge this, you and i? i feel like we need to ask someone older

yeh, i definitely agree. i imagine it has always been difficult to see how culture might affect some kind of displacing shock until it happens, unless you're a particularly gifted or insightful thinker... and perhaps i am tempted towards the even more depressing conclusion, that culture has always been this impotent or inert, and that it is just eulogising in the pursuit of self-satisfaction (or idealistic hope) that raises it above that

it just seems like there is something so assimilative about capitalism and its current ideological form, that true subversion seems completely impossible

 

[noel emits]

i think they were sadly too jaded to care about either aesthetic or functional radicalism really.

I figured that was actually the case from what you said. They're not really looking for anything, possibly the opposite.

sadly, i suspect you're right. but are we not in a difficult position to judge this, you and i? i feel like we need to ask someone older

20 years ago? I don't know - there may have been a slightly bigger window of apparent opportunity and more (positive) naivety about 'mass change' or whatever but Acid House was co-opted, absorbed and resold pretty effectively. Changed a few lives though and I think that's what counts and what still happens. Things aren't that different.

But I wonder if what this indicates is that the function those ideals of revolution play is actually on a personal level. Viewing it as big change in a wider sense might be a necessary step but ultimately not real and this is born out by how easily it is dispersed. If it was real it would work. So if you want actual revolution it's about changing individual minds and that isn't necessarily done by directly confronting dominant ideology, although that kind of charged rhetoric is useful too. So as we learn to better understand the process by which progressive ideas are absorbed by the mainstream we can become smarter and more subtle in our efforts to challenge old ideas. I think that's happening, and I think if older music industry bods can't see that then they've probably allowed themselves to stop thinking.

 

[noel emits]

it just seems like there is something so assimilative about capitalism and its current ideological form, that true subversion seems completely impossible

People say this alot around here

But maybe it's just that we see through the process better now? Maybe I'm being hopelessly naive. But then people like Guy Debord and Raoul Vaneigem were saying that sort of thing in the strongest possible terms in the 60s and before. Well except they were looking for ways to be actively subversive.

 

[elgato]

But I wonder if what this indicates is that the function those ideals of revolution play is actually on a personal level. Viewing it as big change in a wider sense might be a necessary step but ultimately not real and this is born out by how easily it is dispersed. If it was real it would work. So if you want actual revolution it's about changing individual minds and that isn't necessarily done by directly confronting dominant ideology, although that kind of charged rhetoric is useful too.

this is a very attractive idea, but while its not about directly confronting the dominant ideology in the art, from an analytical perspective i feel like the dominant ideology, and capitalism, is capable of co-opting anything - personal revolution included - how much 'personal' space do you really feel you have?

 

[elgato]

People say this alot around here

sorry, i know, but i feel it to be true

Maybe I'm being hopelessly naive

maybe im being hopelessly cynical (and/or perversely hedonistic, and of course in no way subversive)

 

[faustus]

nice posts.

to go back to public enemy - when jason transition played 'welcome to the terrordome' at third base on saturday i was thinking at least three tunes i really like reference or sample that tune:

1) kode 9/ spaceape - spit
2) bug & daddy freddy - run the place red
3) some wicked desi tune by specialist and tru-skool which samples the intro

don't quite know what my point is but it's nice to see some people still paying attention (because arguably public enemy haven't actually been that influential, at least as they should have been. feel free to disagree with that)

 

[noel emits]

this is a very attractive idea, but while its not about directly confronting the dominant ideology in the art, from an analytical perspective i feel like the dominant ideology, and capitalism, is capable of co-opting anything - personal revolution included - how much 'personal' space do you really feel you have?

Honestly I think you have as much as you allow yourself.

What I was wondering about was that while there might not be an obvious revolutionary / forward moving / barrier smashing cultural process, there can be a sideways / inwards moving evolutionary one.

I mean, I do think it's good and necessary to conceptualise and model the world and politics in the most radical terms and that in itself is the revolutionary act. There's not really much difference between the thought and the action. Free your mind and your ass will follow.

But then we can't know what it is to be truly free and happy until all people at least have their basic needs met, so notions of hedonism and self interest aren't at all unrelated to the bigger picture. Pleasure is a very good guide though, if you are doing what's right the end result should probably feel good, right?

 

[noel emits]

don't quite know what my point is but it's nice to see some people still paying attention (because arguably public enemy haven't actually been that influential, at least as they should have been. feel free to disagree with that)

Interesting. Do you think sonically they have more in common with music outside hip-hop? I think that might be the case. Welcome To The Terrordome makes me think of The Young Gods or 'ardkore more than anything else.

 

[elgato]

apologies for the delayed response on this, it slipped my mind and then i have been pondering a little

so i suppose really what we are missing to make this discussion worthwhile is an explicit / shared understanding of what now constitutes 'the oppressive status quo' as it were.

I mean, I do think it's good and necessary to conceptualise and model the world and politics in the most radical terms...

so if i'm trying to conceptualise in this context, i think there are two main issues for me which are distinct but very much connected

(a) All actions, ideas, expressions are contained by the capitalist profit motive.

i.e. you can create what you want, it can be as expressly ideologically subversive as you like, but if you sell it, it sells, and it has exchange value, capitalism embraces you. Things like pirate radio, independent music communities etc for a while subverted this, but now surely they have been co-opted

(b) The increasing spread of the language and ideology of capitalism to all experience

Increasingly I see terms like 'social capital' being used, and I think this is indicative of a general shift in our understanding of the world to an econometric ideal, that all things can be valued, and calculated to decide the 'best' outcome. That all aspects of experience, and any kind of value (personal, social, etc) can be calculated. Perhaps one could argue that a very basic instinct of cost / benefit analysis and rationality are being incorporated into a sophisticated system to process these analyses.

But is this a desirable ideal? One of mechanical calculation and quantifiable experience?

And regardless of desirability, does it not represent a tyrannical grip on the possibilities of our understandings of the world? A world in which truly subversive acts and artistic expressions are simply impossible - they can all just be plugged into the calculation

...and that in itself is the revolutionary act. There's not really much difference between the thought and the action. Free your mind and your ass will follow.

is it though? im talking about a tyranny of thought, not necessarily of action. how can those thoughts be in any sense revolutionary if we were to accept my arguments? they are not new thoughts, and have not contributed anything to any kind of change, and even if they were, they can simply be plugged into some model.

What I was wondering about was that while there might not be an obvious revolutionary / forward moving / barrier smashing cultural process, there can be a sideways / inwards moving evolutionary one.

i dont know if we've gone too far away from this to make it relevant now, but i didnt understand what you meant by this, and im intrigued...