Thursday 24 January 2013

THANK F**K ITS FRIDAY: 2ND EDITION

REDMAN: DARE IZ A DARKSIDE (1994)

 
Like the somewhat juvenile spin on words would suggest, this album brings a jovial side not often associated with the grave messages found in most rap. That said, who doesnt like the oppertunity to every once in a while take their mind off the trifles that seemed so important throughout the week with something as simple as Dare Iz A Darkside.

The album is far from being sloven when it comes to production quality however, with a team that included Reggie Noble. Struggling as they may be economically, it still takes some prowess to grab the attention of Def Jam and Redman held it with this playful ensemble in 1994.

The album peaked on the Billboard chart at 13, with key tracks including the smooth Rocafella (by far the lyrical highlight), the hilariously surreal We run N.Y and Cant Wait.

Redman will never answer your unsated questions on Existentialism in working class areas of Harlem, nor will he preach to you of the destitution every young youth had "selling rock" for them brand new pair of Timberlands. How the album resonates with it's audience is through drawing (possibly unconscienciously) on the desire within each one of us  to have the inocuous "lovable character" to maintain our bright spirits.

Dont expect the album to change any of your fundamental views. Just relax, safe in the knowledge that you will feel slightly more upbeat having listened to it.

Monday 14 January 2013

Where Morals Resurrect

Death lingers around the Rap industry like a phlegmatic nihilist to his unjustified sense of the world as a dark abyss.

While the graves of urban intellects such as Big L, Nate Dogg and Big Pun flake with moss, the nay- sayers they depart from all too easily revert to the pedantic ideology that some sort of moral justice has been done for the corruption they brought to our world.

I shall now step out of my taciturn comfort and give voice to the blatently obvious fact that elements of rap encompass fundamental moral messages in strict contradiction to those so eager to soil the legacy of our genres great names.
Without getting complex ( after all stupidity, which I adore, is guiless) the best place to start is with a familiar dilema of racism.

In a 2009 interview on Oprah, Brooklyn's very own Jay-Z was asked the inevitable question by the corpulant (sorry Oprah) lady as to why he uses the "N" word in his songs.
Without any hesitation the man with 13 albums to his name gave her an answer that to this day still resonates with me. He said (not verbatim) that the people who use such a word for negative connotations need it in order to feed their idea of superiority over a person therefore by taking such a word and featuring it in his lyrics he was eliminating any sort of evil power it had the potential to create.

If Prometheus stole fire and brought it to earth without Zues' authority, similiarly the wisdom of Jay-Z's  work brings with him the water to douse the inferno of racism, whether the boffins agree with it's method or not.
The song Punish Me by Big Pun contains the lyrics "A boy needs a father that's the most important part of his life. It comes from the mouth of an overweight Peurto Rican and it holds about as much credibility as Kid Cudi-Soulja Boy collaboration. However take the basis of the same idea and put it in the writing of one Sigmund Freud, who described how a boy will always base his image around that of his father, we are suddenly facing a world renowned philisophical argument (given by it must be said a most indecent man in his own regard, but people tend to cut and paste the facts to render their choices appropriate).

There is also the idea amongst many that Rap has a dependancy on swearing in order to express itself and to that I would tell them to begin by sitting down and opening their ears to an infamous little song called Express Yourself by N.W.A, which was purposely written in order to prove this teory wrong and contains not a single swear word. In addition to this any idea of swearing being "the lowest form of vocabulary" often comes from people with the lowest vocabulary anyway, so they can f**k off!

Any idea of doubting morality within rap should begin with a look at the same element within yourself. It is easy to take something that breaks from the linear such as rap and question its morals when in actual reality it is aversion from your own personal demons harboured within.
Even the immoral lyrics of someone like Tupac such as "I wonder if heaven has a spot for drug dealers?" carry some credibility. It shows more sincerity in its repentance (and later in the same song its self deprecation) than any of us care to admit about ourselves.

So came the wise men to hear his call and duely he delivered, that was not a quote more a false sense of grandeur I hope I may have partially obtained through the writing of this brief articale!