The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Know The Ledge

Re: Know The Ledge

Jeff Hess — Sat, 23 May 2009 05:46:38 -0000

Shalom Brian,

Point taken.

Science Fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon once remarked that "ninety percent of everything is crud."

We get better at what we do.

B'shalom,

Jeff

Re: Know The Ledge

adamnvillani — Fri, 22 May 2009 19:18:24 -0000

You listen to Kenny G and Wynton Marsalis

With your de-caf latté and your withered phallus

Your girl is a gimp and a bitch and a pain

My woman's a goddess, she digs Miles and Trane

- Stale Urine

Re: Know The Ledge

odub — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:02:19 -0000

Or Dionne WARRICK for that matter.

Re: Know The Ledge

odub — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:01:13 -0000

I love how writing on Asher Roth seems to be equated with "knowing hip-hop pretty well." [Insert your "hip hop is dead" joke].

Re: Know The Ledge

odub — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:00:15 -0000

This is the difference between hip-hop on the page vs. as part of a sonic experience. On paper, Jeezy's chorus does seem, indeed, kind of backwards and crass. But in listening to it, what resonates is that opening line: "MY PRESIDENT IS BLACK."

Try it: just speak the line in Jeezy's cadence (do it with rap hands for added effect). It's an observation, a statement, a proclamation, a mantra, all rolled into one. The song's tension is built in the first three words and when you reach "Black," it all gets released. Jeezy could have followed that with "my Lambo is blue" or "education is the tool" or "my chimney has a flue" and it wouldn't dent the power of the first line.

Re: Know The Ledge

JMoney — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:23:06 -0000

This is a really interesting post. Thinking about hip hop "scholars" and who (or, which race) has the legitimacy to talk about black culture and/or hip hop.

I read this review of a hip hop/academic book, written by a white guy, that brought up some interesting points that complement what you said. Basically, he says that this hip hop academic didn't discuss whiteness and white hip hop heads correctly. It's worth a read, since it relates in the authenticity, legitimacy kind of debate.

http://socialsciencelite.blogspot.com/2009/05/book-review-hip-hop-wars.html

He's written about Asher Roth and he seems to know hip hop pretty well.

Re: Know The Ledge

Buddy Toledo — Fri, 22 May 2009 10:57:53 -0000

"Rhyming is a part of my life. I'm gonna die with rhyming kids and a rhyming wife. I don't let nobody judge me who can't do what I do, so if you don't like it, then fuck you."

Like other commenters said, the quotes and videos indicate that hip-hop is still a big enough part of TNC's life that I think he'll always have a relevant voice, regardless of what's new. I really appreciate the way he writes about how a hip-hop verse is relevant or meaningful to his life. I don't think it matters if that verse is fifteen years old or from a newer artist.

On the other hand, I'm more than happy letting TNC choose what he writes about. And I understand the perils of canonization and not wanting to do that to hip-hop. I don't think we should let Marsalis and Crouch try to do that to jazz either, but I think Butterfly said all that best on Reachin' almost two decades ago.

Re: Know The Ledge

CitizenE — Fri, 22 May 2009 10:56:26 -0000

Robert Johnson. Bessie Smith. Muddy Waters. Big Mama Thornton. Howling Wolf. James Brown. Albert Ayler. Ornette Coleman. Sun Ra. Wilson Pickett for God's sakes. People were saying the same thing about those guys. Has there ever been a more beloved voice than the gravel bucket of Louis Armstong? Music is not just harmony. Like rock and roll, hip hop may not be all that its adherents crack it up to be, but that doesn't mean one should confuse personal taste with the truth. On the other hand young ones, remember that no less than the great Charlie Parker thought that rhythm and blues was nothing more than a bunch of commercial cliches.

Re: Know The Ledge

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Fri, 22 May 2009 06:11:19 -0000

On a slightly related note, it's always nice to hear someone drone on about inarticulate thugs, and then lecture us about "Lew" Rawls. Snobbery is ignorance with a veneer of class. But it's still ignorance.

Re: Know The Ledge

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Fri, 22 May 2009 06:04:37 -0000

They're all long-time hip-hop fans. What other "cultural affiliation" do they need?

Plus, did anyone mention Jeezy's "My President Is Black"? Equating the election of Barack Obama to how fly your car accessory is...well, that just says it all about hip-hop in 2008/9. Ignorant and genius all at once.

You should read the convo.

Re: Know The Ledge

halfamazing — Fri, 22 May 2009 05:03:20 -0000

ANYONE discussing hip-hop from the perch of the Atlantic feels kinda funny, regardless of race. TNC admits to not being up on new stuff, so that immediately takes him out of the convo. And the other writers might not have the cultural affiliation (except HH), so that undermines them to some...so the whole thing just seemed silly.

Plus, did anyone mention Jeezy's "My President Is Black"? Equating the election of Barack Obama to how fly your car accessory is...well, that just says it all about hip-hop in 2008/9. Ignorant and genius all at once.

Re: Know The Ledge

TKOEd — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:48:18 -0000

Let me put two quotes out there:

1st Sammy:

"Rap is not music. It is plain and simple, just garbage, spouted by barely articulate and unattractive thugs and women of low self esteem."

2md TNC:

"One way to add to the pile of ill-informed opinion out there is to presume to know more than you do."

Now that's period. End of story.

Re: Know The Ledge

odub — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:04:38 -0000

There needs to be some Godwin's Law equivalent to the complaint that "hip hop is the lowest form of music."

Maybe we can call it Crouch's Law.

Re: Know The Ledge

sporcupine — Thu, 21 May 2009 22:51:33 -0000

Sammy,

My brain won't let this music into my head. It's stuck on Springsteen and Joan Baez. But I didn't need TNC to tell me that's my loss: my children make the case steadily, and they're wise people. Sounds like you're stuck like me, but it doesn't make us right. It just makes us old.

Re: Know The Ledge

gordon gartrelle — Thu, 21 May 2009 22:36:13 -0000

Well, since Sammy has spoken, I guess the matter is resolved.

You realize that the guardians of black respectability said the exact same thing about blues, jazz, rock and roll, and r and b as those genres began to captivate the youth, right?

Re: Know The Ledge

Sammy — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:58:11 -0000

We use to aspire to the likes of great talent like:

William Warfield Martina Arroyo

Shirley Verrett Robert McFerrin

Leontyne Price Jessye Norman

Kathleen Battle Grace Bumbry

Indra Thomas Leon Mitchell

Roland Roland Denyce Graves

Simon Estes Paul Robeson

Billy Eckstine Lew Rawls

Al Green Andrea Dawson

Abbey Lincoln Etta James

Betty Carter Dionne Warrick

Ella Fitzgerald Shirley Scott

Nat King Cole Sarah Vaughan

Now so many of use choose the lowest form of music, rap, to obsess over.

What is wrong with you people? Can't you want better for your children and grandchildren?

Rap is not music. It is plain and simple, just garbage, spouted by barely articulate and unattractive thugs and women of low self esteem.

Period. End of story.

Re: Know The Ledge

Incertus(Brian) — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:41:12 -0000

I'm going to dispute this a bit. Most letters and diaries from that period are as boring as 90% of the Myspace pages and LiveJournals out there today. The ones we read are the ones that are interesting, but they're the exception, not the rule. I'm getting a taste of that right now, because I'm transcribing a diary from my great*3 grandmother from 1895, and what's interesting isn't the writing. The interesting stuff is the ubiquity of death, the importance of letters as communication, the daily aches and pains that don't have any real treatment--those are the things that make me glad to be living in the early 21st century rather than the late 19th and early 20th. But the writing is often tedious--no one's going to be knocking down my door to publish this stuff--and that's about par for the course when it comes to that sort of writing.

Re: Know The Ledge

gordon gartrelle — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:05:37 -0000

When I wrote "people like you," I didn't mean black people; I meant heads (or at least people who care/respect the genre enough to learn about its history, rather than dwell on the surface and make authoritative declarations about the music as a whole). White folks who have an understanding of and respect for hip hop are also "people like you." I certainly don't think that black people have some inherent insight--I was implying that a number of the critics in group 2 are black.

My problem with the critics in group 1 isn't that they're white; it's that they typically hold rock/pop as the default and only have a cursory knowledge of hip hop, thus their assessment of hip hop is on rock/pop terms. It seems harmless, but it's informed by a kind of white critical privilege that allows the critics to feel comfortable making authoritative judgments on a predominantly black genre without bothering to learn about its aesthetic conventions, canon(s), and history. To me, the blackness of the genre is a big reason why this is allowed to fly.

The "rock/pop" part is the key; I used the parenthetical "(mostly white)" as shorthand. A bit sloppy on my part.

Re: Know The Ledge

WesGibson — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:03:38 -0000

It's almost methodical, education is false assimulation

Building prisons is more economical, so your niggas in gang modules

Be giving more head than hair folicles

And niggas like myself know the ledge and still jump like Geronimo

Huh supreme mathematics and bad habits

Cause chasing cabbage keeps a nigga savage

Blame it on the disease, we all got the symptoms

Most of us niggas wanna be pimps but Uncle Sam really pimpin' them

--Ras Kass

Re: Know The Ledge

Delroy — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:03:06 -0000

Maybe its the research geek in me but lately I've been going back and finding original material from which my favorite hip hop takes its samples from. Gives much of it a 3rd/4th dimension.

Re: Know The Ledge

Jonathan — Thu, 21 May 2009 19:12:45 -0000

*punches self in face*

*syncs Nikes to new De La Soul mixtape*

*starts jogging*

Re: Know The Ledge

odub — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:49:26 -0000

"There is probably more decent writing about black music by white authors simply because there are probably more white authors writing about black music, due to there being more white authors in this country."

That presumes all other things being equal, which, of course, they are not.

Re: Know The Ledge

odub — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:32:44 -0000

That quote always makes me think of this movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119778/

Re: Know The Ledge

odub — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:29:24 -0000

"Ahh, there's gotta be a way for 30-somethings to age in hip-hop. The alternative is just too depressing."

is that what De La Soul is for? :)

Re: Know The Ledge

Sorn — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:01:46 -0000

not a problem. I've been a fan of Emerson since I read him in high-school too. The soul of one transcendentalist philosopher often merges into another.......:)

The first part of it is something I have taken to heart for a long time and in a way it sort of sums up a certain way of thinking:

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

We should never let dogma over-ride our curiosity.