(1st round match-up 13 of 27)
Last week, I was just chilling at the grocery store checkout
line, talking shit with people in front of me, the checkout lady, and this dude
got in line behind me – classic white dude, getting wine, shrimp, and sweet
potatoes. When I say “white dude”, I realize that race is a social construct
and under those social constructions I am deemed “white man” by that system. I
was bullshitting with the couple in front of me (who were not deemed “white” by
this system) about whatever. You know, just talking shit with people around
you. The guy behind me though was already like, “How come the express lane’s
never open at this store?” “I don’t know,” I said, “Looks like she’s opening up
another lane over there.” Other people jumped from that side and he goes
“forget it!” and stands behind me. At this point I tuned him out because the
dude was obviously unloungin’. But by the time I was getting rung up, I saw
another worker point the guy out to the manager, who walked over apologetically
and talked to the guy, who was asking what the number for corporate was. What
the fuck? Because he couldn’t get out the fuckin’ store in five minutes? I
interjected, “She’s got a line open right over there,” but he wasn’t hearing
it, just talking to the manager.
Grocery store managers are always people who still want to
believe in the meritocratic structure of our society, but also have not fared
too well thus far on that system, thus they end up at the grocery store managing
a bunch of middle aged crazies and also weird teenagers galore. But they have
to kowtow to fuckers like this.
Afterwards I almost looked up the corporate number myself to
call and explain that if they got a call, that the guy that called it in was
not cool at all, and in fact, a real dick. But that would’ve required me doing
things, which also is unloungin’. But as we continue with this stupid Xpert
Whiteboy’z Analysis of shit previously well-regarded by Pitchfork, it is
important to both acknowledge the realities of social constructs, and how they
affect our world every fucking day. But also, with regards to that asshole at
the store, and Pitchfork, I’m not that type of white. Never will be either.
Fuck that.
Kendrick Lamar – Section.80
(released July 2, 2011; #45 on 2011 Pitchfork Albums of the
Year list)
Kind of crazy that this only was regarded as a #45 for the
year by Pitchfork, because you could – on this first official mixtape release –
already hear the cadences and flows and lyrical punches that were gonna become
Kendrick’s signature style. In fact, in revisiting this mixtape, I was shocked
at how many of these tracks I knew so well. My previous iPod method has been
survival of the fittest, where a batch of songs get thrown on there from new releases
mixed in with the old, and I did battle of eliminations where weaker songs got
eliminated. Thus, to have so many tracks that got high circulation in that Lord
of the Dork Flies method meant this was strong shit then. And oddly enough,
even though later Kendrick became more famous, there’s something nice about the
lack of non-TDE crew features, the lack of high profile appearances, the lack
of corporate polish. It’s somewhat raw as fuck (even though this was
preliminary mixtape, not for-real mixtape – part of an artist’s build towards
that corporate release).
Kendrick was so fucking good. Sadly, around the same time I
was listening to this again, I heard that he’s got a song with U2 coming up.
Thus, the wolves have gotten to his soul completely. Kendrick is lost to them
now. They will take all that they can, and either spit him back out in a few
years, or more likely due to the high profile nature of his successes (plus
feature illuminati performances at the Grammy’s), he will become one of them, a
neoliberal corporatist to fall in line once the Dr. Dre/Jay-Z corporatist
generation starts to retire into part-time exploitation of the masses. Still
though, this mixtape is SIX STARS (******) easy.
Kanye West & Jay-Z – Watch the Throne
(released August 8, 2011; #21 on 2011 Pitchfork Albums of
the Year list)
After listening to Kendrick, this shit is literally
irrelevant. It’s wealth management shit talk. It’s devil shit. And that’s
questionable, as previously acknowledged, in this social construct we live
under, I’m white man. But seriously, there’s no way one can study the Nations
of Gods and Earths literature and not Venn diagram these two and this album
deep into the 10% devil category. This is devil music (not the good kind
though), straight up. IT’S EVEN GOT A FUCKING FAKE GOLDFOIL COVER! It’s
actually sad as you watch Kanye chase these Renaissance dreams, and to watch
Jay-Z morph into the old Jewish guy from The Sopranos. I absolutely do not
accept the false empowerment tale of people from poor backgrounds or non-white
environments entirely become filthy rich as a form of empowerment. The system
itself is corrupt, and if you are making limited run of $850 bottles of
champagne (as Jay-Z just announced), then you are fairly removed from helping
the larger masses of people that you became rich from. How do you forget them?
How do you overlook them? Do people really justify this shit that they are
somehow amazingly special and not just lucky, and that they deserve to be
wealthy beyond three lifetime’s needs just because of this? Fuck that. The
Illuminati may not be real, but if it was, this is one of its favorite albums.
ONE STAR (*) but only because I decided arbitrarily to start doing that
parenthesis with the star inside thing.
Danny Brown – XXX
(released August 15, 2011; #19 on 2011 Pitchfork Albums of the Year list)
Danny Brown is known as a party rapper, which is sad,
because it overlooks the full character, as seen on this tape. There’s this old
thematic pull in roots music between Saturday night devil impulses and Sunday
morning spiritual callings. The first half of XXX is all party rhymes, Danny
Brown getting in his blunts and Adderall, and sexing mad sketchy chicks. But as
it wears on, he hits that introspective portion of late in the night/early in
the morning, when you start hearing the city buses running again for the next
day when you haven’t finished the previous night, and shit don’t feel right to
you (even though you enjoy it) and you want to make some changes (but you know
you can’t). As the twilight starts to lighten the outside beaming through the
old bedsheet you’ve stapled up as a curtain, you internally contemplate
changes. But there’s another body on the bed (mattress) across the room, and
other bodies orbiting daily that all don’t line up the same way as you do in
that moment, and it ain’t gonna happen. Shit, Danny Brown pretty much lays all
this out in “DNA”. The final three tracks on this – “Fields”, “Scrap or Die”,
and “30” – might be the best one-two-three of real as fuck introspective rap
ever done. EVER. This is why the simple party style Danny Brown (which actually
is not so simple, and entirely unique, and likely what people want to pay him
to do most) is so bothersome to me. Do we have to be wrapped up in
self-medication forever? Marx was wrong, opiates are the opiate of the masses.
Still though, FOUR STARS (****).
THE WINNER: If the whole Danny Brown was as strong as the
end of Danny Brown, it might’ve challenged. The Kendrick mixtape is strong
throughout, yet also makes one feel sad about the wrenching of profit that will
come (likely this summer) from Kendrick. And you worry will he end up like this
Watch the Throne crap? That shit is completely irrelevant to normal human
beings. Kendrick wins, but it is sad that to become successful we are asked to
abandon completely our normalcy and connection to regular people and become
these alien cyborgs, because we lose a lot of our feedback when we lose those
regular connections, and we become completely fucked. But Kendrick wins, at
least at that point he did.
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