Why the F*@K Would You Listen to Rap Anymore?

I am a man of many hatreds. When Russ asked me to write a lil' sumn-sumn about music from time to time, I thought about all the things I wanted to say about music. Then I realized that a lot of what I have to say is about what's wrong with music. Like I am the only person that knows how music should be. So I decided I wouldn't be that guy. You know, the guy that tells you that this generation of kids is screwed up, how music doesn't mean what it used to. The back-in-my-day guy. The kids-don't-know-real-music guy. Basically, the get-off-my-lawn guy. I used to hate that guy. But what if that guy is right? Is being a bitterman justifiable when your bitterness is tangible? Or does that just make you a hater?

Well, I'm both. What makes it worse, is that I hate that I'm right. Not all the time, but I especially hate when I'm right about the destruction of the things I love. Like when the Verve broke up. Or when At The Drive In broke up. Or when the MotherScratchin' Bulls eliminated my Bad Boys in 4 games in the last Eastern Conference Finals that Zeke, Joe D, and Laimbeer would ever participate in. Now add to that list the destruction of hip-hop.

See, the rap game has been under siege for years. Rap has closely mirrored the meteoric rise of computers and the internet in the 90's. Once it proved that it was commercially, and therefore financially viable in the mid 90's, it was only a matter of time before the effects of big business stripped from it everything that gave it soul. Now look at it. After 15 years of assembly line rap production, replete with regurgitated misogyny, doctorate-level knowledge of narcotics, and idle threats from wanna-be thugs, rap has completely lost its edge. When is the last time you heard a rap song that had an original thought? An original beat? An original concept? When was the last time you you winced from the realness of the lyrics? Or felt compassion after hearing the criminal's side of the story through rap? (On a side note, I completely remove The Roots from this argument. That group is the antithesis of everything negative that I say about hip-hop in this blog entry.)

So, the question is why the f*@k would I listen to rap anymore? Why would anyone, when the radio waves are saturated with unimaginative drivel? I hear songs now and I feel disconnected from the genre. Maybe it's that I'm 36 years old with a steady job, a family to be responsible for, and obligations like bills and taxes. I think that we as music lovers forget that music is a medium of the moment; it's only relevant to the feeling of the artist at the time the artist feels it. Ice Cube railed against all things caucasian in his first album Amerikkka's Most Wanted and his collaboration with Da Lench Mob on Guerillas In Tha Mist. A quick listen through either album and you can hear the most hateful, dark, xenophobic language in any album. At the time, it was dangerous. Dangerous because it exhibited not hatred for whites, but the underlying feeling of helplessness against forces out of your control. Seeing the "American Dream" all around you and not being given the tools to obtain it. Being defenseless against a system built to strip you down and make you conform to ideas, lifestyles, and cultures foreign to anything you've experienced. But that was the way Ice Cube felt in 1992. That is not the Ice Cube of 2011. In a quiet moment, away from cameras and voice recorders, I'm willing to bet that even Ice Cube would admit that his lyrics were the bullshit babblings of an ignorant twenty-something. The same establishment he raged against is all of a sudden his ally. He has been lucky enough to see certain breaks and favorable situations while simultaneously working hard to make sure he was in the right place at the right time with the right skills to take advantage of it all. While complaining about never seeing the American Dream, he was realizing it. Now, much like Ice-T, he enjoys a career greater than he ever imagined by leaving behind the things he did to start his career. You know, my kids, until this year, had no clue where Ice Cube got his start. They only know him as a movie star! Damn, I'm old!

In the 80's and 90's rappers at least tried to stand for something, however uninformed they might be. Rap served as the megaphone and the mirror for young, black America. In rap, we saw how other blacks lived throughout the nation. we stood in awe at our similarities and took pride in our differences. Rap was an audible black bulletin board. A place were we could discuss why we were what we were and where we should be headed. Quite often our pontifications on what it meant to be young and black ranged from narrow minded (Paris), to do-you-even-know-or-believe-what-you're-saying (Digable Planets, X-Clan, Camp Lo). But rappers at least wrestled with expressing their varying realities of life in America. Rap was always evolving; finding ways to better itself through sharper lyrics, more innovative sampling, even live instrumentation and singing.

Now, rap is stuck on stupid. Everything is party rap. The formula is simple: take some kid that is barely literate and borderline retarded, let him/her spew forth nonsensical gibberish for a catchy hook, insert generic synthesized beat and/or autotune, purchase airtime and advertisements. Wash, rinse, remix. The artists are too stupid to realize that they are dooming themselves to one-hit wonder status because they never developed a sound or style all their own. This is most desirable to record companies, because rappers aren't capable of sustaining their meteoric success, and thus never have leverage to get bigger contracts based on a consistent track record. Of course Jay-Z and Kanye seem to defy this logic, but they are exceptions to the rule. They provide the bell curve that everyone else gets graded up on.

So tell me, why do you listen to rap anymore? I still listen because I know where to go to get the good stuff. I haven't listened to the radio for an entire song in approximately 8 months. Don't need to. But every once in a while I'll test the waters and let the fm tuner do its thing, only to be disappointed to hear horseshit flow freely from my speakers. However, the further hip-hop slides away from anything worthwhile, the harder it gets to justify the effort it takes to wade through the pile of manure in order to get a smidgen of gold.

3 artists I'm listening to now:

Jay Rock - Follow Me Home - 4 stars

Phonte - Charity Starts At Home - 4 stars

9th Wonder - The Wonder Years - 4.5 stars

Jani Lane 1964-2011

Jani Lane 1964-2011

Last night we got another story of rock n roll tragedy. Jani Lane was another star musician who lived a life in the tabloids as much as he did on stage and though he always seemed like a nice guy to fans he never seemed to be able to overcome his many demons. My feelings on Jani vary in many ways... I hated Warrant's first record but still saw them live 6 times because they opened for everyone in the late 80s, I thought the record was bland and very "paint by numbers" though it was a big hit, I became a fan after the 2nd single on the 2nd record "Uncle Tom's Cabin" which was followed up by the equally good "I Saw Red", Two songs that lyrically different and had a musical emotion that was rarely found in that day. Then I became angry at the industry because of this band as they put out 3 great records that no one heard because they weren't the cool band anymore and the industry can only push one style of music and at that time it was grunge. Then I lost some respect when Jani left Warrant to be a solo artist. Why? Because when you are the chief song writer then you have no need to leave... The band is your sound and a solo record will most likely be indistinguishable. Then he became another 80s reality show guy, that group of 80s stars that showed up on all the "I'm fat and on drugs" shows that VH1 got popular on recently and to many he became a punchline.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on Warrant's early years. If you recognize the man then you know about the first two records. They put out singles that were very pop oriented and safe and sold millions and toured a lot. That's the story. More interesting is the next three records. The band put out some great music at that time and Jani was the reason.

Warrant's 3rd record was "Dog Eat Dog" The record went gold, it did OK. They had a hit with

"Machine Gun" but they went from arena's to theaters. I had seen them at the Fox in Detroit with some good friends and Jani had a rep of going into the crowd and singing, this time he grabbed my buddy Eric to do a verse of a cover of "We're An American Band" and Eric was star struck as one of his heroes was standing there with his arm around him goading him into singing a song with him! Here is a guy who sings in his own band and he can't say a word... Frozen... And still loving it! We still talk about that night and I doubt Eric will ever forget it. This was early on in the tour for "Dog Eat Dog" and later we would read (and see) how the record company just forgot this great record and they were not going to promote it at all. The record was heavier for Warrant and really stretched the band. They were dropped soon after the tour.

Eric and Jani

Their next release was "Ultraphobic". It was a dark record as far as lyrics were concerned, but it was another good record. Songs like "Undertow", Followed", "Family Picnic" and "Stronger Now"were certainly not the happy hair band type songs that made them big. Another tour, but now it's the club scene. But Jani didn't care. He still went out to the crowd and in Detroit he started breaking out his Barry Sanders story (his favorite running back he would say from the stage). We also saw the beginning of another tradition... Jani would sit down with a guitar on a stool with a cigarette in his moth and no lighter. From the stage he would ask the audience for a light and be pelted buy hundreds of them, lol. Years later it would seem a little cheesy, but looking back now it was all in good fun. I hope Jani wasn't too hurt, lol.

The 3rd record was "Belly To Belly" and it has my favorite song by Warrant "Letter To A Friend". It was an angry record lyrically but still very good. It had strong songs like "Indian Giver", "In The End" and "A.Y.M.". The band was still playing clubs and they still had good crowds coming out, and the crowd was into the newer songs as much as the hits. We got the Barry Sanders story, we got the lighter barrage, we got Jani in the crowd and we got a fun show. But there were some signs of tension as guitar techs were yelled at from stage and at times Jani did look angry. It was the beginning of the end.

After that you saw Jani on "Celebrity Fit Club" were he really seemed to make an impression on people as a sweet guy with problems, after that was all the rumors... He was too drunk to preform, too much a mess... I didn't see any of his solo shows, but I heard the stories and it was sad. I have heard he was going through a lot at the end.... The loss of his band, a divorce and a parent dying. He even lashed out (Regrettably) at one of his biggest hits saying he regretted being the Cherry Pie guy. He later retracted the statement but it obviously bothered him to some extent.

I know this look like a Warrant post more then a Jani Lane post, but Jani was Warrant, period. The saddest thing to me is that most of his best music still goes unheard because the band wasn't trendy enough so most people only know 3 or 4 songs of 2 records and it's not fair. Jani deserved better then to be a hair band, reality celeb punchline.

I'm going to add 2 songs that you should check out from their later work. two of my favorite under appreciated tunes