DISPATCHES: Post Malone - Congratulations ft. Quavo

Post Malone is the ugliest girl I’ve ever seen. His physical appearance wouldn’t matter if he had talent, but all he does is ape the movements and inflection of a million other almost famous white rappers. Watching this video elicits heavy despair and sullen contemplation. Within a single viewing, I can feel how distant, far and unreachable the righteous path has gone; I can somehow also smell his breath through the moving images.

Austin Post “Malone” should be a mistake. Three-hundred and ninety-million views, and only one out of every 12 people watching, slam the dislike button. That is a deliberate conspiracy against the good, perpetuated by villains behind curtains I know not.

As the confetti flies over the sound of descending trap snares, I give thanks for the happy accident that he is he and I am me. I would bear the whips and scorns of time a millionfold as a peasant girl in the Middle Ages of Europe to not be this rap hippy soft Drexel Spivey Kid Rock in vocal blackface. His lyrics? An ode to winning the corporate music lottery. His flow? Expertly crafted to cater to the label overlords, so much so, that I have to assume this dude was probably a teacher’s pet, an A+ plus student in school; that is, if he did, indeed, write this piece of shit. He may have searched for originality at one point in his life but it is evident that he’s come up empty.

Wikipedia writes that his vocals have been described as laconic, but I feel that to be imperially merciful. They are distilled banality, pure purposelessness save 21 year old hedonism, on a level that could only come from a place where the sterile mathematics of profit over content control it’s subjugates; stringless, wooden-brained meat marionettes vibing with people who may have had talent at one point, hoping that they can cover up the shame and embarrassment of being walking dead. Thrust forward into life without entrails or pithe, hanging on Instagram or Twitter like life-sustaining IV drips, for a check that will dissipate faster than their momentary fame. YO POST! Congratulations.

How long do we let it slide? How long before it all falls down and there’s no time left? Do not let the The Thing Behind Your Eyes become a ghost. If you are reading this, you do, in fact, deserve better, for you are now with the gods. Brush your teeth, grab a molotov cocktail and start running. As always, the power to do and be better is microcosmically and macrocosmically dependent on you, and you alone.

DISPATCHES: Blac Youngsta - "Hip Hopper" ft. Lil' Yachty

This is almost undoubtedly some executive coffee boy’s idea of a “retirement home for rappers”, a first grade play layout with unfunny comedic relief; a Sony-Exec ideas man idea probably, of old black people in an underfunded government golden years project building. I bet they were laughing over lattes in the 42nd story at iHeartRadio over this shitheap concept.

My opinions on Lil-Yatchy don’t matter just like none of this all ultimately matters. The old guard is dead. This is what tens of millions of people now want. Let them eat shit. The cake is in the freezer, it’s fatty but damn good. No advertising can make you open that door though. You have to either stumble upon it by accident or pay way more attention to things than mostly anyone else does.

My opinion on this type of rap is like the opinion of those who chided me for liking the type of rap I liked when I was coming up; nothingness, meaninglessness, verbal vibration with an intended effect that will never, ever actualize. I could stand here and wail like the town crier until I collapsed and it wouldn’t ever change the mental, automated inertia of the average commuter consumer with a 9-5 and kids to feed, bills to pay and alcohol to drink. I could write for the New York Times and have Mark Zuckerberg posting this article, hyperlinked on the side of Elon Musk’s next interspatial projectile and still not marginally effect Lil Yachty’s numbers.

In spite of all that, I stand here as a single blade of grass left untouched by the lawn mower that all of you, reading this, fuel. There is nothing here, in this video, for any of you but a rotting, abandoned shopping mall, another corridor that you think reads solace but amounts to angst and you whipping out your phone to check Facebook.

I implore you to shut it off, run away, and think your own thoughts in a more conveyable format. As a human being, you’re privileged enough to be afforded the opportunity to engage in the miracle of language, whether by accident or design. For the sake of those who you love, If you have something to say, look me in the eye and say it as if you understand and accept that.

DISPATCHES: Nocando - "Severed"

Nocando, I've seen his name a couple of times on Twitter I think.

I really appreciate his honesty on this track and I can identify with him on some inane, banal, nice-weather-today type level.

That's about it. This is a cathartic lamentation about a relationship, or relationships, gone awry and forty-five seconds in, I'm already seeing red. Being by myself as I watch it, I jump up from the computer chair and bark "no can do", as I jolt backwards like Paul Allen when Bryce asks him to play squash in American Psycho, but he can't because he's got an "8:30 'rez' at Dorsia"; swinging my arms in like manner as I back pedal into the wall because my room is not nearly big enough to get far enough away from this track.

Plain and simple: I'm not going to type up a laudatory article about how it's great and never been done this way because he's got an ill voice and can rhyme with multies once in a while. That is a prize few earn, but when they earn it, they DO earn it; RYR is the farthest thing from a participation trophy you're going to find in our sewer rat culture.

So, you know the whole story front to finish without even needing to listen to the song. And, oh buddy, when the chorus kicked in, I almost put my fist through the ceiling plaster. This dude is softer than warm butter and this grab ass sing-a-long, twittering hi-hat fuck show can get grouped in with all the other forgettable YouTube fodder we pass through when we're looking for venison.

New rule, from now on, if you're going to tell me about your love life run amok, I want you to take the knife yourself, jam it into your thorax, and rip out your beating heart in front of me. Anything less than that and I'm going to treat your song like the empty beer can that it is, crush it, then chuck it the fuck off my rooftop deck.

Love,

Louis.

DISPATCHES: Denzel Curry - "Ultimate"

I respect the raw style of this type of video and, believe it or not, I watched​ the whole thing. The intro had a dirty groove, but I saw where it was headed with the easily hateable master of ceremonies wasting camera time right up front. This isn’t an entire set, you’re not Miles Davis with legendary backups, bro, just rap. Your perceived self-importance is also going in your folder for my reference when I sit through this sure-to-be barnburner music video.

Then the song began: and by jove, Watson, this motormouth reggae rapping windsock has got the multies. He's so good with them that it doesn't matter what the fuck he's saying. As sure as we will all be dust one day, you'll be relieved to find that it wouldn't matter even if you could understand the English language he's threading together so beautifully​.

I am the one, don't weigh a ton
Don't need a gun to get respect up on the street
Under the sun, the bastard son
Will pop the Glock to feed himself and family
By any means, your enemies my enemies
We wet them up like a canteen
The yellow tape surrounds the fate
Don't have a face so now you late, open the gates

You don’t need a glock to get respect; but in the next line you're completely unhesitant to pop? What's the point of saying the first thing then? No sooner than the next bar over and you're completely ready to wet people up “like a canteen”.

All the non-sequitur and cringe aside, that's just a really tired and shitty simile; also not my only complaint but I want you to continue reading so I'll stop it there.

The rhythm, the groove and the instrumentation on this joint are all fairly ill. Unfortunately, that's all the nervous system of the track, the rapper, can afford to be on this attempt; his voice serves only as another musical element, yapping quilted bars of loose meaning, boring quarter-erect battle rap and banshee turd-bobbing bluster. I also feel like the engineer didn't do all he could to sweep out the screechy, unflattering frequencies of his voice. I almost hate the tone as much as I hate my own.

I give this song and video a 4 out of 10, which, knowing me, is magnanimous. You caught me on a good day, when walking through this momentarily golden and emerald city of orchids and summer dresses makes it worth all the days of ashen grey decay, verdigris spires and weather vanes, and traffic koans.

DISPATCHES: Kendrick Lamar is Not That Good

I can’t review a video. I think on them too much and some unidentifiable source of guilt forces me to underscore the apologies I make with more detailed justification. That’s what happened here. I set out to review Kendrick’s “Humble” video but what you read below is what I feel I had to write.

Liking Kendrick Lamar has been fashionable since he rose to fame. Thinking otherwise is treasonous even in the hinterlands of rap country. Disagreeing with the statement that he is excellent at what he does would probably make you an asshole, at minimum, in the eyes of everyone who listens to rap. Objectively he's a megastar in terms of financial success, listenership and, shit, even critical approval. Merely mention hip hop and his name follows soon thereafter. But we at RYR don't play the same game you all do; and I'd sooner kick myself in the nuts than not give my honest opinion. Here, I’d like to note that I do not own contradictory views of things for the sake of attention or to be a contrarian; having thought about this for many months, years even, I feel that it maybe time to reconcile my discordant opinion. K-Dot needs my stamp of approval a googolplex less than he needs garageband bedroom producers emailing him beats; so out of respect for the democratically elected rap president, I will not offer fealty as if I were a subject, but my opinion as if I be a citizen, though it may displease the majority of you reading this at this very moment.

With each new release, I keep giving Kendrick Lamar an honest listen, reading along with his lyrics and waiting for that fire to be lit in me. I see the younger generation of kids watch his videos on the bus on their phones and smile ear-to-ear, nodding along gleefully, having found their salvation or, at the very least, solace. New video, new reviews, more praise and further edification of him as an institution in hip hop make me feel as out of the crowd as ever, as perhaps I ought to feel, when it comes to understanding and appreciating him. I’m beginning to think I’m incapable of getting “it”. How much data will I have to gather before I admit that I cannot feel what he has to offer? His passion, stage performance and, from what I can gather, mission all resonant with me on a political level, for anyone resisting the imposition of the State is kindred, but the structure, the style, the tone and the overall aesthetic of this video and what he does as an artist wholly, fail to appeal to me.

When I saddle into a Kendrick Lamar song, what I hear is often off-beat stream-of-consciousness lyricism, inverted word order, a style reminiscent of spoken word. It sounds to me like old school freestyle level writing with awkward sentence structure and unclear meaning; that critics like Anthony Fantano and your buddies from high school on Facebook and Twitter pass off as deep and profound. Perhaps it may very well be. Their justifications for their conclusions are not entirely unsubstantiated. His wording, his voice, his draw don’t appeal to me the way they seem to appeal to swaths of Kendrick heads. I’ve heard it called poetry. Poetry is the mirrored apex of math and science to the human potential for abstraction. No one understands all of it and few understand any of it. I am certainly no exception. I respectfully submit, having incurred his discography and everything he has had to offer to date, that I do not believe Kendrick Lamar to be as good as “they” say he is. There are at least 44 other rappers out there that deserve his spot more. But then again, that’s just like my opinion, man; and I’m just an angry man in an attic.

DISPATCHES: Cthu Lou Speaks

Allow me to remove the mask for a second and say this: I talk a lot of shit and none of it matters.

If any of you artists​ that we feature on RYR happen upon one of these articles in which I discuss you negatively​, remember that. These are just my thoughts at a particular place and time; and from a psychological standpoint one might remark that everything one says corresponds to a state of affairs inside their own head; that everything negative I have to say about somebody's art is rooted in my own self-hatred and inner-turmoil.

If you really want to do what you're trying to do, let me be perfectly clear; the articles and dispatches behind this curtain are all sizzling static distractions​ from your path, floating filigree that will be swallowed in the void. Into the trash it all goes, they say. Do take honest advice, yes, but please do not let anything said here maim you. It is my sincere hope that the the ratio remains one hundred to one of those humored and entertained to those hurt and affected. Talking shit​ is what we do and just because we're good at it, doesn't mean that it means anything.

DISPATCHES: Dizzy Wright & Demrick - Got It Good

Dear whichever of you is speaking first:

Damn, you do got it good. The second I saw that sexy tatted lady paying attention to you, I was instantly jealous. I may have forgot she was a paid (hopefully) actress for a moment, but none the less, I had high hopes for your video; the bass line is super funky, the drums snap and could be a lot worse.

Then, of course, you opened your lie-hole; the usual catalytic event that makes me fly to the edge of my desktop monitor to close out the screen.

Let me explain:

We know you’re aggravated but if the loud doesn't mellow you out, and you're already in an unfavorable situation, why further escalate it by smoking? Am I misinterpreting the chronological order of events? The banging lady with the tats appears aggravated too! But I bet I know, judging from your lyrics, why she hates you so much: you’re too fucking stupid to do or say anything interesting or funny, and getting high probably makes you even dumber. On a positive note, I do like how your flow switches, how you pitter-patter around an original style; but your ornate and, at times, inventive delivery gives us absolutely nothing but a brain dead, popcorn verse about weed and silly, ungrateful hoes to whom you reluctantly give your hard won stacks.

Really though, you should be so lucky to have someone's so smoking hot bullshit to put up with, because if you spit that verse to me I'd pretend like I didn't hear it and then leave the area as soon as possible like I do with kids performing impromptu rap shows at bus stops and train stations. Oh, and is that the money you've acquired pursuant to a drug hustle? Sure it is. Such an integral and interesting aspect of your character should undoubtedly be promoted on the internet where local and federal officials have ready access to evidence showing other forms of your income. I’d say nobody cares because it's all play pretend rap fantasy, but some cops are really fucking stupid and they actually might! But over here at RYR or even the people in the video though? Nah; not even that model … and she's getting paid to act!

In regards to the second guy who raps:

I accidentally sat through one of his sets a month ago because he opened for someone I was there to see. His verses seemed inspired by the Greek god of sleep himself, Hypnos, dropping forgettable, incessant allusions to, surprise, weed and something else I think, maybe, but really, I can't be sure. I've listened to his verse four or five times now and I've earnestly tried to pay attention but keep getting distracted by anything and everything else available to my conscious attention. I would yawn after snorting a bump​ of Walter White's perfect crystal meth formula if Demrick came on right afterwards. If you said I had the choice between getting my urethra swabbed for STDs or sitting through another Kendrick set, I'd have to think about it and can’t at this moment say exactly what choice I would make.

If I didn't know how the game went, I might actually be upset that this video has a few hundred thousand views. But I've seen The Way and know that there is nothing for me there in that fight.

Sometimes it may seem like I hate rap. This, of course, is not true. I've seen the true potential of it exacted from the toil of tireless chaps who have intelligence, heart and vision; and each piece I write I hope is more or less steeped in the underlying eternal truth that the doors to Valhalla are wide open to all, and any may enter at any time.

DISPATCHES: "Everything's On Me" - Franz

Many months ago, this video was forwarded to me from the submission folder and I gave it a onceover, didn’t think it was spectacular and forgot about it. Now that the hate is strong again, I’m drawn back to the INBOXXX, if only to give these hunks of space-age internet turds one more listen.

Thus, enter Washington Heights rapper Franz’s “Everything’s On Me”. So let’s party. If everything’s on him, then I’m gonna need a case of Veuve Cliquot and some oxycodone in hopes that it will demagnetize my temporal drive, thus cleansing me of the listens I had to endure to write this fucking critique.

This guy really isn’t a bad rapper at all. He’s also nothing special either. Sometimes he raps a little bit faster, weaving what I’m sure he purports are lyrics into an indecipherable wall of vocal noise; a stylistic choice that I’ve never understood from the top of the rap game all the way down to this dude. He does “go in” at times but not really in this lazy, lethargic video which centers around Franz yammering about what I’m sure is a fabled prosperity from which we can only get the eponymous charitable title.

When I moved further into the armpit of the country back in the early aughts, I found myself dick deep in a culture of high school kids who loved Triple Six Mafia (and other early trap rappers from the south and west), drove nice cars, lived in ridiculously expensive homes and mostly had never worked a day in their lives. As such, everything was generally “on them” in those days. I was just lucky, I guess, but it baffled me; a Black Flag, Wu Tang and Gangstarr fanatic, how anyone could like the obnoxious high hat patterns, the low quality, bass heavy, caveman tapping keyboard production of that trap shit; whose lone topical themes were bodily dismemberment, abusing women and heavy drug and alcohol abuse. I always thought these kids were some sort of what I would now call hipsters, who revelled in the irony of enjoying, quoting and, for even some, poorly attempting to mimic the lifestyle of the cats behind the Triple Six (lots of DUIs, lots of drug arrests back then for those poor players). I’ve only come to respect Three Six recently due to my realization that their sound has almost entirely proliferated the rap genre (shit, Yasin Bey even ripped a trap beat). You can track those early trap, dirty south-Memphis Triple Six tapes all the way back to the early, early nineties.

So, I can’t tell if “U-Dub”, the producer of this masterpiece is, but Franz definitely looks old enough to have heard of Lord Infamous, Three Six and their posse tapes. I bring that up because the loop is just like what I remember old Three Six sounding like; and Project Pat could have definitely held his own against our rapper Franz here, hero of climbing street crossing signs. I wonder if that’s the bat signal for summoning “Everythings On Me” to his yes boys bouncing behind him throughout the video. But in this unbeknownst, trillionth tribute to them North, North boys, we get something much less entertaining than voodoo dolls falling on your bed while hearses circle your house. We get the same old same old but worse. Franz is, ugh … charitable.

God, I’m going to get shot for one of these critiques someday.

DISPATCHES: "Apocalyptic Preacher" - AC Killer

Submission #6788 comes from Los Angeles based (rapper?) AC Killer, whose bio reads as if he fell off the fuck-me-in-ass tree and hit approximately 80 percent of the branches on the way down, including the one that may or may not have lodged up in him when he was 10. Sometimes these gimmicks are true, or have tinges of truth sprinkled in with them. Most often they’re not. Most often they’re just prefabricated preludes to the video, that swelling cyst of their musical labors. I’m putting all my imaginary (all $100 chips) on gimmick.

Either way, moving on...

Really, these PR pitches we receive are too good. Eternally plentiful mediocrity from Funhouse Earth, a distilled and excellent crystal clear kaleidoscope of the human race’s sissy throw attempts at creativity. I have to wonder if some of these dudes even really try. I know they act, like they physically move and speak, but are they trying? And why do I care?

This video looks like a bunch of dudes preparing for a neighborhood Halloween trick or treat walk up that might send shit streaming down the legs of every 8 year who passes by, but would never break a 1000 views on the TubeYou’s without top-notch PR. The rapping, of course, is something that I could get a coke head friend of mine to do, who only listens to CCR, and the visuals have about as much thought put into them as your average McDonald’s Fish Filet.

It’s the worst of us. The I want the fame of video without working to develop my content and my craft. It’s literally the worst thing I can say about a piece of attempted Art: It’s not even worth checking out. Not even for the laughs. But you can click the link to watch it die.

DISPATCHES: Through the Ira Glass Dimly

But, if there be, or ever were, one such,
It's past the size of dreaming

Antony and Cleopatra



I hesitated to originally write this piece because it addresses a topic that really stands perfectly fine alone: William Shakespeare’s legacy. A month or four ago, I don’t care when actually, public radio’s most recognizable name took to Twitter casting doubt on the legitimacy of the coronation of the King Bard, the number one draft pick of poets (sorry Tip, but you’re still only number 7), writing that he is "unrelatable" and "unemotional." In his two microtweets, Glass praised the actors but not the playwright, wedging his criticism between the actors performance and the impetus. With one sycophantic and obsequiously lauded tweet, Ira brought into question his intellectual authority on quite a bit. His pessimistic, probably wine cooler induced critique availed us of this side of the publically apotheosized journalist: the uninformed, whimsical and rash commentator he may be in his absolute worst hour.

Since my undergraduate days in the muggy backwater Garden of Eden paradise that is Southern Illinois, I’ve never been able to comfortably stomach Ira’s voice on a cosmetic level, but I don’t want that to be at issue here, just a petty aside that I can usually table: the issue is people in the public at large claiming that Willy Shakes isn’t worth his weight in gold---and the unwritten statute that they have to be brought to task. (although, his querulously toned draw and liberal leanings make the thrill of the kill all the better) I’m no liberal or conservative generally, so I’m constantly amused by the air of superiority NPR affiliates exude when they broach regionally specific or national news coverage with this presupposed fairness and unfiltered “journalism”.That’s not to say that it’s in any way as ignorant or as lopsided as say Fox News or any of its demon acolyte offspring, but since it’s less egregious in its outright lying and dishonesty, we’re prone, as rational and reason seeking primates, to let the libs slide more often than the irrational, clearly psychotic conservatives. I’ll even admit it, I am not as critical of NPR and Ira Glass as I might be of Fox and Sean Hannity or Bill O’Louffah O'Reilly. It’s a visceral and probably genetic reaction for me.

Simply put, there’s no doubt that big loud, obnoxious bigots are just easier to hate. But the flame must be applied equally to all who offend. What separates a thinker, a modern user of organic, sweet white-mattered brainpower from the the seemingly pervasive sports team tribal-like mindset is his or her’s ultimate and perpetual cognitive mutability. To not stick to ideas as if they are sacred team maxims or unassailable truths; to allow the passage of new revelation to go unimpeded into their mental set. We hold this truth to be the only holy truth: That the circle may always be outdrawn.

Like everything ever, this has been thought, debated and said before. Glass isn’t the first to have cast aspersions on the Bard’s status as pre-eminent poet/playwright. Among probably many more than I couldn’t discover with scant internet searches and armchair research, Tolstoy, Wittgenstein, Voltaire, Dryden and George Bernard Shaw all thought his work contemptible. Though Glass is a decent journalist, he’s never written a Candide or a War and Peace or a Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. It’s fair to say that he would not do well to stand shoulder to shoulder with the literary giants that share in his Shakespearean critique. Not even close. Candle to the Sun.

Up until now, I’ve read a good share of articles both praising Glass for his honesty and deriding him for his naivete, but a dearth explaining why Willy Shakes is the number one poet. Why should we revel in this dead cracker’s yellow papered lines, archaic allusions and incalculable references to death and drink? If you can’t answer this with quick retort or quoted verse, it’s suggestible that you let Ira have his tenuous opinion; though I will attempt to do the antithesis justice here.

When Shakespeare came to the festering urban shithole that was London in the 16th century, the underpinning narratives of many of his plays already existed; done on a weekly scale, in a manner which modern copyright law would never allow. These plot basics, Caesar, Troy, the kings of old, what have you, were sure winners, crowd pleasers that tugged on the drunken heart strings of all plebeian and patrician attendees of the Wooden O; they were also largely common property and tracing their origin is nearly impossible now. It was, in modern parlance, general public domain (for the theatre) and all the canvas he needed to lay out an unlikely corpus of unprecedented work. It also serves as somewhat of an answer to the charge that Shakespeare couldn’t have written on what he didn’t know about; the basic skeletal structure of many of his works had already been assembled before he arrived.

Some four hundred plus years later, it’s easy to take for granted his cognitive originality and magnanimity of thought. But if we read the greats before him impartially, Marlowe, Kyd, etc, it’s evident to any novice reader that his predecessors lack the flow, the communicative ease and linguistic potency that we find comes uninhibited from a Shakespearean monologue or repartee. The universality in his writing, an ability to relate to and feel what the characters are conveying, with relative ease, is something even a bad or mediocre actor can accomplish by simple memorization. It doesn’t take much to notice his distinction from his contemporaries and most the poets even in the history of civilization, saving Milton, Chaucer, Homer and Dante. Soren Kierkegaard once commented:

"The art of writing lines, replies, which express a passion with full tone and complete imaginative intensity, and in which you can none the less catch the resonance of its opposite --this is an art which no poet has practised except the unique poet Shakespeare."

And the jowly, somehow un-wizened Howard Bloom follows:

"How can a poet think their characters into their own freedom? Shakespeare, with little precedent beyond Chaucer, practices an art of surprise, in which characters can be as surprised as we are. When Milton’s God says of Adam and Eve that he made them “sufficient to have stood but free to fall, “ I reflect that, for just once, that irate Schoolmaster of Souls is being Shakespearean. Othello and Macbeth are certainly sufficient to have stood but also more than free to fall. Shakespeare endows his people with the capacity to change, either through the will or with involuntary force. Either way, there is surprise as the selfsame overhears itself and alters irrevocably."

This praise is religiously repeated in most scholarly work from the time of Ralph Emerson to the present day internet-sage scholar. Interestingly, there were few writers before Emerson who really appreciated and took to the bard’s genius before he was apotheosized in the late 19th, early 20th century among scholars and the theatre alike. Emerson had this singular observation, at least for his time:

"Shakespeare is as much out of the category of eminent authors, as he is out of the crowd. He is inconceivably wise; the others, conceivably. A good reader can, in a sort, nestle into Plato's brain and think from thence; but not into Shakespeare's. We are still out of doors. For executive faculty, for creation, Shakespeare is unique. No man can imagine it better. He was the farthest reach of subtlety compatible with an individual self,- the subtlest of authors, and only just within the possibility of authorship ... He is wise without emphasis or assertion; he is strong, as nature is strong, who lifts the land into mountain slopes without effort and by the same rule as she floats a bubble in the air, and likes as well to do the one as the other. This makes that equality of power in farce, tragedy, narrative, and love-songs; a merit so incessant that each reader is incredulous of the perception of other readers."

Taking this side in the debate isn’t difficult. It’s actually probably the easiest argument to make and ultimately win. But I am not going to expend effort for the sake of trying to be Wittgenstein or G.B. Shaw. Though, I urge anyone reading this to do more than to watch a movie based on a Shakespearean play. Read the material, rap the poems or listen to the lines read aloud by a good rapper. Christ, get the Cliff Notes if you have to, I did for much of it; and don’t feel bad for looking up the archaic word vomit that appears every line or so. Disagree with me and dismantle everything I have to say. Please, the world is counting on you.

For now, preach on Willy:

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit
of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our
disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
if we were villains by necessity; fools by
heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
disposition to the charge of a star! My
father compounded with my mother under the
dragon's tail; and my nativity was under Ursa
major; so that it follows, I am rough and
lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am,
had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing.

Shit.

DISPATCHES: Still Life with Vinnie Paz

I woke up this morning with a weird inclination to browse some rap videos. This is not the sort of thing I usually do. For some reason I happened upon a couple of Army of the Pharaohs tracks, a battle rap type group of somewhat well known and other relatively unknown rappers who probably have known Vinnie Paz or Vinnie Paz has thought them worthy of featuring on various songs. Fairly quickly, I found myself belting out laughing louder than I usually do on a hungover Saturday morning...

But first a bit of backstory.

I discovered Jedi Mind Tricks, Vinnie Paz’s first successful enterprise with Jus Allah and Stoupe the Enemy of Mankind, a long, long time ago on the advice of a mall Sam Goody employee who had an uncharacteristic knowledge of good underground hip hop. I think I was 13 or 14 and buzzing off of recently devouring the classic Wu Tang catalog (Enter, Swords, Cuban Linx, etc), and was thirsty for more. But what existed was lackluster, entirely unlistenable off brand Wu syndicates and weird as fuck wannabes. One fortuitous afternoon somewhere between 1998 and 2000, I happened upon Violent by Design by this cd store employee’s recommendation. They actually had the album in a mall in Akron, OH before music had gotten so easy for a 14 year-old to download that purchasing it was out of the question and before they were even really known outside of Philly. My grandparents bought it for me and I bumped it in their car on the way home. Pops was not pleased with the lyrics but I nevertheless completely fell for the undeniably perfected formula of raps and beats interspersed with eerie, cinematic and sometimes insightful voiceovers from what I would later discover were classic films or vocal samples taken from a slew of sources as random as the Undertaker's theme music.

So there’s that, I have to give Vinnie Paz a portion of the credit for that revelatory moment in my life though I was a much bigger fan of Jus Allah’s rapping because he had some of the best lines on Violent By Design. I now get that 98% of that album is priapic and ignorant nonsense, but it appealed to me at a time in my life when I perceived rapping as an action whose goal was to beat the universe into submission and to make damn well sure everyone on the planet knows you’re the best of all time. So in turn, I am also grateful for him showing me that way which was not mine.

Digression and credit aside, I found myself uproariously laughing at the ridiculousness of the lyrics in some of these AOTP videos. I probably shouldn’t be, but who really cares? I can laugh at myself and can take a joke, shit, I can take The Joke, which is the absurdity of my own existence, so I feel it necessary, or rather cannot help it, when I laugh at others who seem to take themselves so goddamn seriously; rapping about absolutely nothing but inflicting pain on the listener or the importance of their own existence. I did it for years and am probably not immune to slip up once in a while in the future. I’m okay with that because I do not ever take it seriously. The below comes from a track entitled “Bloody Tears”:

I shoot my biscuit in the air until the sky is gone
A 16 of mine murder your entire song
9M submachine is long like your entire arm
I'm a loud mouth fucka not a quiet storm
I don't believe in an afterlife so once you die you gone
Never nothin soft, everythin' a violent song
Kanye West, gay rapper, thats when lines are drawn
Qwest hit me with a beat like he Italian mob
It ain't even beef no more, its Hillshire Farm

Pretty cool, huh? Let’s examine what’s at play here: Vinnie Paz, inflated fat fuck Patton Oswalt with a set of teeth a homeless cat might sport after an episode of Bumfights, is so viciously and uncharacteristically inhuman that after he murders you for no reason he will not allow your family to mourn your passing; all the while, prefacing the entire event with his New Fucking Fact that he no longer believes in the afterlife, thus it’s all over for you, forever. But maybe we can forgive and second guess his seriousness with the beyond belief comedy that is the last line posted above. (Side note: I first heard the “Italian mob” line as “Qwest hit me with a beat like he a tired mom”) The icing on the cake of the entire song is the Castlevania sample. Genius, guys.

This video has nearly half a million views. HALF A MILLION. Someone is going to remember this in 50 years, which may be more than I can say for anything I’ve done or will do, but is that honestly how you want it all to be remembered? Vaguely clever musings on how brutal you could conceivably be to other people? And I’m not shitting on the entire culture of rap because there are plenty of people out there each doing their singular, inventive and novel thing. I will go out on the fickle limb of conjecture and state that he’s faking the fucking funk too. What are the odds that the Pazmanian Devil, the short fat kid from the Philly suburbs, packs a cannon in a taxi cab? (He says that in some other terrible song I was listening to that now I can’t track down)

Moreover, I’ve seen Vinnie Paz in interviews. He seems like a genuinely nice guy and occasionally makes dope and scholastic references in his raps. I bet that he has a whole bunch of shit he could rap about that would be interesting and insightful. Admittedly, he has a good enough grasp of wordplay and structure to be able to probably be pretty good at it. Perhaps this is a glimpse of the real Vinnie Paz in “Before the Great Collapse”:



You can’t deny that that beat is absolutely nasty and that Vinnie might be speaking from the heart. Perhaps he should do that more often and take a cue from Stoupe’s intro sample, sourced from the 1995 film, “The Addiction”:

“To face what we are in the end, we stand before the light and our true nature is revealed. Self-revelation is annihilation of self.”

DISPATCHES: "Curse of the Kennedys" - Apathy

Uncle Hump Sez: We're bringing in some new blood for Real Yeti Rap, starting with rap curmudgeon Louis Mackey. What follows is an unadulterated transcript of this Thinkingses. Bon appetit.



Being a rapper for over a decade now, I’m usually turned off by 98% of the stuff I hear and see garnering praise. I don’t think I’m bitter (though I may be), I just don’t have the stomach for it anymore. I’ve heard it all, and when someone new comes along, I most often see the old and a bunch of kids who’d never known about the source of the schtick or people my age who’ve forgotten. But for some reason, I’ve always been really drawn to Apathy’s impossible, somehow unique cocky approach to writing and lyric delivery. The fact that his fanbase has skyrocketed in the past 4 years affirms that I’m not alone in this appreciation. I don’t think he’s as unique as say, Kool Keith, but he’s really damn good.

Apathy is the golden child of 90s east coast rap (though he claims to have been influenced by the West Coast as well). His hubris has always been so perfectly ironically detached while he remains seriously, completely there. One of the most apparent things about it is the sonically pleasing syllable symmetry; he doesn’t always employ polysyllabic rhyming, which is a mortal sin in my personal holy book of rap transgressions, but he’s unusually interesting and most often possesses that above average poetic ability to say something in a way you’ve always imagined but never been able to make effable: To stand up in front of a crowd, speak and have them look back at you in wonder, actually interested in your next line. Or maybe if you could translate some of Kubrick’s or Welles’ most sublime scenes into print (or not), See from “The Curse of the Kennedy’s”:

Heavenly Father... please wash all of my sins
While I wash away my pain
With this tonic & gin
While I vomit in the sink
And think of ominous things
Like Atomic bombs
Never let the communists win
Live from the Bay of Pigs
It's obvious lies
When anybody denies
All the mafia ties
You surprised?
It's Jack, it's Bobby, it's even Teddy
Reversed on my enemies
The Curse Of The Kennedys…

As far as concept songs go, that’s a damn solid closer. I’m reminded of the photos that accompanied some of my junior year history class lectures on John Kennedy of him staring out of the White House windows during the Bay of Pigs, thinking about how absolutely fucked we all might be. Thus I can appreciate this conceptual angle and the arc of the entire narrative, though the above quote is my personal favorite.

I’m sure someone somewhere has tried to be the rap John Kennedy, in fact I’m certain of it; but what Apathy does seems original, whatever original might be, where he creates a somewhat random melange of various ideas and themes (ahem, see the Dioscuri, ahem) centering around the entire Kennedy family, going in and out of 1st and 3rd person while always reverting back to his comfortable and natural unapologetic braggadocio. And while his multi’s aren’t always perfect, they’re close enough because we’re compensated by the imagery of his verses and the noir feel of the video.

If I had to complain about something, it would be the stupid fucking chorus with the Jay-Z chopped vocals. I love Hova but goddamn Ap, you can do better on your choruses.

Nevertheless, in my opinion, as a whole, Connecticut Casual might prove to be one of Apathy’s best works yet, if he can just stop talking about wearing fucking Sperrys.