(no subject)

[pantryslut]

White boy moves from radio hip-hop to rock to underground hip-hop, then tells us why.

"It is interesting that as rock music continually reinvents itself, no one bats an eye. But if hip-hop strays from the Mad-Lib-style "insert pop culture/bitch reference here" mold, all of a sudden it's too weird."

Also from PopMatters, why straight white men can't dance.

Comments

[imnotandrei.livejournal.com]

Several things:

1) I've conjured up two main ways to explain the music's intricacies to my dad. As he listens to the soothing sounds of The Kingston Trio, I can remind him of how, exactly, poor Charlie came to be stuck on the MTA. As Mos Def might tell him, it's because the DAMN MAN raised transportation costs and spit on the working class once again, leaving the poor worker to toil in the underground for the rest of his waking days. Obviously, Charlie is black. Hip-hop is simply another form of protest music, though perhaps one not as conducive to growing long hair and lying on McGovern '72 blankets strumming a banjo (I have pictures).

Sometimes, great ideas just hit from different directions. I was on the drive into work today when I thought -- all those people now complaining about the violence in hip-hop, and yet we have that glorious paen to sweetness & light, "Mack the Knife", as sung by Louis Armstrong or Bobby Darin.

And, yes, the Man screwed over Charlie. (Vote for George O'Brien!)

2) With regards to the language of physical expression -- that *so* resonated, down to the level (not really addressed, but definitely present) of appropriate presentation on the sports field. I recall being rather taken aback at the exuberance of my friend Luis Millan's goal celebrations when I was in high school -- admittedly, as a sweeper, I didn't get many of my own, but I was of the school that the appropriate response to the brilliant tackle or the perfect block was to nod satisfiedly, and get back to business -- because that's what the role-models I had had done.