97. Blackalicious - Nowhere Fast (MCA/Quannum Projects. 2002. From the LP Blazing Arrow)
Raven Mack: I used to think Blackalicious was awesome and Gift of Gab was like this great lyrical innovator, and I played this song fairly often at this point in my life. I thought I was gonna see them one time at a big stupid hippie music festival, but Gift of Gab was in some sort of diabetic coma or some shit, so it was just the DJ dude spinning records instead, and that was enjoyable enough to build Blackalicious as even more awe-inducing, since I hadn't actually seen them.
Then last year, they played locally at the safe club (meaning it wouldn't be so thugged out that I would potentially be grazed by bullets), and I went to see Blackalicious. Of course, plenty of alcohol was filtered into my bloodstream, as it was with most of the others in attendance, and it was a Saturday night and I'm most likely was wearing some sort of Saturday night fresh customized football jersey, and it all meant extra-sensory stimulation as in LET'S ALL GET DRUNK AND BE HAPPY CRAZY ROCK-N-ROLL RAP FANS AND CELEBRATE THE GOOD THINGS IN LIFE LIKE INTERCOURSE AND INSOBRIETY AND CALCULATED RECKLESSNESS!
And out comes Gift of Gab and Blackalicious, who's rapid-fire jazzy delivery, sometimes acapella, eventually gave me a raging headache and killed all sensual desires inside of my body. I realized that for me, the rap music has to be somewhat sensual, and Blackalicious is more like painful jazz music along the lines of Coltrane's crazier shit, which is great respectable music, but good lord, if you're looking to get loose, it will not help you get loose at all. If The Cosby Show had been made twenty years later, Blackalicious is the type of shit the kids would be lip-synching to bring a smile to Cliff and Claire's face on their anniversary night, including little Rudy pretending the scratching sounds were coming from her mouth so cutely and comedically. And then that fat white kid from next door would run through the family room and go hide in the clothes hamper in Cliff's room.
If someone would set up a Sunday afternoon, grown folks dress code, soul food buffet, and have Blackalicious play at that, I'd be all over it. It is a high society type of rap music, and I'm afraid I'm just not high society enough to always enjoy "Nowhere Fast" no matter how spot-on Gift of Gab's commentary can be, at least from what I can tell from the pieces I've picked out from his jazzy metaphysical linguistical jibber jabber.
Mike Dikk: I had a similar bad live experience with Blackalicious. I went to go see them a couple months ago at Skidmore College which is this rich boy type of college for very well off people. Needless to say, it was all young artsy types. Not the tight pants shotgun haircut hipsters Da Rill Hip Hop Internet Fans bitch about the most. More like the artsy type that would have been thrown in a garbage can on a daily basis in public school, but I doubt any of those kids saw the inside of a public school unless it was Bayside High and they were watching Saved By The Bell.
I didn’t care about that. I mean, they all seemed to be having A LOT of fun, and I’ve never had any idea what Blackalicious’ target audience was in the first place. The only reason I listened to them to begin with was because of Raven raving about them when ‘Blazing Arrow’ came out. I like the CD well enough, but live Blackalicious was a completely different beast from recorded Blackalicious. Gift of Gab does every song in a double time rap auctioneer style and it’s not even close to being good. I couldn’t understand any of it. I do admire that he could emulate the Micro Machines dude that long without passing out, but it definitely wasn’t pleasing to the ear.
About this particular song: I do like it a lot. Especially the end part about the procrastination, because it’s pretty fitting for me. Then again, I’m sure anyone who listens to it, related to it, since this is America, land of procrastination.
Even though this song was lowly ranked, I don’t know if it should have made the list. Not to dis my fellow EWA posse, but I don’t know. Maybe it’s because the live show just left a bad taste in my mouth, or maybe it’s because I’m a cranky bastard who thinks everything is wrong and horrible all the time.
Download: Blackalicious - Nowhere Fast
"Nowhere Fast" was never a single so there's no real video for it. Youtube didn't have any made up video for it either, but there is definitely no shortage of people doing real dumb shit set to Blackalicious. So much in fact, it was hard to pick the best one. I settled on some girl who made some sort of Teen Angst filled "Video Art Collage" set to a different Blackalicious song. If you don't like it, you can watch the video that came in second place, which features a white kid and an asian kid interpretive dancing to Avenged Sevenfold and Blackalicious in the backseat of a car.
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