Insert coffee to begin.
THOUGHT BUBBLE: The Art of Going Viral – On Spekulation’s “Bout That Action” and Seattle’s Existential Super Bowl Angst
As I sit in front of my WordPress stats page, bewildered at the rapid increase in blog hits as a result of Spekulation’s now gone-viral remix of Marshawn Lynch’s charmingly glib Q&A session with Deion Sanders, two thoughts enter my mind: 1) Why the fuck didn’t I think of that? And 2) What, pray tell, is actually the perfect recipe for a meme to go viral? (It then dawns on me that if I truly knew the answer to #2, I wouldn’t be asking myself #1. So it goes…)
Going viral on the internet is as unpredictable as forecasting the weather. It’s something akin to opening a massive restaurant with a menu containing millions of items, and for some reason the grilled cheese with anchovies sandwich ends up being the most popular one. As the proprietor of said restaurant, all you really know is your customers are coming hungry, but for what exactly is unclear.
Sometimes the viral-ized captures the zeitgeist — like Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop” or Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”. Other times, it fulfills some sort of emotional need: The internet is so full of horrible news and horrible people commenting on said horrible news, it’s no wonder a tumbling sequence of adorable cat pictures with misspelled captions steals the productivity away from millions. And, yet other times still, going viral is simply a case of the blind squirrel finding the proverbial you-know-what.
My take on Spekulation’s “Bout That Action (Beast Mode Remix)” has nothing to do with dumb luck and everything to do with the Restaurant Corollary (terminology mine) I described above: There is a large community of Seattle sports fans that have no grand tradition(s) to fall back on in the lead-up to this weekend’s Super Bowl*. We — and I’m definitely including myself here — have rushed full-speed, head-on into a pre-Super Bowl state of celebration and agonizing anticipation, clinging only to our bankrupt estimations of what might — what could — possibly come to be. The emotions of a post-Super Bowl XLVIII universe where our favored team is inexplicably crowned the victor, is as unknowable and alien as life is on Mars.
“Bout That Action” is simply our gravity. It is the drum beat keeping regular time for our racing hearts. Hearts that threaten to destroy us by pumping lethal doses of anxiety into our already alcohol- and caffeine-saturated blood streams. Rapper Prometheus Brown seems to understand this. He cut a version of Spekulation’s track called “This Ain’t A Seahawks Anthem”, complete with precise, fastidious raps, and then followed up the song with these tweets:
Glad yall fux w the non anthem. Shout @spekulation for posting the rapper friendly version. This Super Bowl needs to just happen already b
— Prometheus Brown (@prometheusbrown) January 31, 2014
and
My opportunistic non-anthemic Seahawks-related rap crafted out of Super Bowl anxiousness using @spekulation‘s beat https://t.co/Q5Wej12a4f
— Prometheus Brown (@prometheusbrown) January 31, 2014
The confluence of professional sports and hip hop in Seattle isn’t new, but the grand tradition of excellence has been fleeting. Until now, it’s existed just this side of a theory (1978-79 Sonics and present-day Macklemore notwithstanding). We are currently in a state of existential angst over these Seahawks. We are hungering at the door of an establishment we don’t truly know the inside of. There is a menu of items at our disposal, yes, but all we can really tell you is that we’re “bout that action”. That is, until the barriers guarding virtue fall on Sunday, and the mysteries of sports deliverance are solved in front of our very eyes.
*Yes, I realize the Seahawks have already played in a Super Bowl, but I contend this year feels different. Seattle fans have been able to stake a claim to having the best team in the NFL all season. The 2013 version of the Seahawks is an intense microcosm of what we’ve desired since the ’80s. It’s a little bit like the 2001 Mariners when they were the best… Until they weren’t.
THE TRACKMEET: 1.31.14
206UP.COM’s The TrackMeet is a regular feature here on the blog that pits three relatively new or unknown local hip hop artists against each other in a battle-of-the-songs style competition. If you’re a reader, it’s easy to participate: Just listen to the three featured tracks below and then vote for your favorite in the online poll at the bottom of the post. Voting lasts for one week. Each winning entrant will be featured on an upcoming TrackMeet Mixtape (the first edition of which you can download here). If you’re an artist looking to submit for an upcoming competition, click here for submission guidelines.
Somehow we’ve been off The TrackMeet for a minute. And by “a minute” I mean since last July. SMH. Anyway, submissions have yet to dry up because everyone and their grandmother’s bridge partner is trying to rap in the Town nowadays. Below are three such rappers trying to get a buzz. They put in the work and now it’s your turn, dear readers, to click, listen and vote! As always, links to download the tracks are provided.
LANE 1: “Wasted Time” – Mojo Barnes
LANE 2: “Summertime Shoppin” – Coop
LANE 3: “Untouchable” – Loc Saint
VIDEO – “Yvette Glover” – Fearce Vill (feat. Davey Jones)
Dyme Def’s Fearce Vill and his Yuk The World partner, BeanOne, made this love song to mothers. Yvette Glover is both the track’s namesake and Fearce’s real-life madre, and accountability and food for the body and soul is what this strong single mother brings to her table. You can find the song, and others, on Fearce and Bean’s latest full-length, Let It Be. Grab it on iTunes here.
(h/t to Larry Mizell via The Stranger.)
NEW MUSIC: “Bout That Action (Beast Mode Remix)” / “This Ain’t A Seahawks Anthem” – Spekulation (feat. Marshawn Lynch, Deion Sanders & Prometheus Brown)
The Super Bowl story that’s not really a story: Marshawn Lynch and his (now trademarked) understated press conference appearances. Somewhere in here lives a thought piece on Marshawn’s brilliant upending of our country’s expectations of how Black athletes should present themselves to the public — the counterpoint to Richard Sherman’s outspoken cries of excellence. Why in God’s name aren’t we wringing our hands over this?!
Town rapper and producer Spekulation gives us the soundtrack for our rumination: “Bout That Action (Beast Mode Remix)” subverts our complex reactions to Marshawn’s curious behavior by employing a singular telling statement made by the man himself. The simple repetition of his sampled words, “Bout that action, boss”, are matched by the equally rudimentary drum pattern of the song, thereby distilling Lynch’s message to its fundamental constituent elements: He is, simply, ’bout that action, boss. And we should be, too. God bless everyone. And God bless the United States of Super Bowl America.
Update, 1.30.14, 4:45pm PST:
And the inevitable remix to the remix: “This Ain’t A Seahawks Anthem”, featuring Prometheus Brown rapping from what sounds like a busy sports bar lobby or the non-business end of his cell phone.
THOUGHT BUBBLE: Macklemore’s Kendrick Tweet
Before we get to my thoughts on the tweet that nearly blew up the rap internet:
I’ve been enjoying this series of documentary shorts that followed Macklemore and Ryan Lewis around the globe last year during their Fall World Tour. The clips have been insightful, entertaining and, at times, even uplifting. Episode five (above) went up yesterday and concludes the series. It’s worth spending the 22 minutes to watch.
And now, because I can’t leave well enough alone…
Regardless of how you feel about Macklemore’s success — recently manifested in the four “gold sippy cups” he collected in Los Angeles this past Sunday — the big takeaway from the Kendrick Lamar tweet is that the man’s life has become one massive no-win situation. Being white, and a rapper, and blah blah blah, leaves him open to unique criticisms that otherwise aren’t applied to many of his pop star peers.
Having said that, I think most of the critiques are warranted — the smart ones, anyway — and, ultimately, valuable in the grand scheme of things. The fallout from Macklemore’s success, as it pertains to the non-white and non-heterosexual communities especially, is a messy business. There are bigger societal concerns at play here that have nothing to do with Macklemore the person, and everything to do with our culture’s frustrations and fears. It seems Ben Haggerty has become America’s favorite proxy for its grievances which is spurring mass conversation.
I don’t know Macklemore personally. I shook his hand and spent about ten minutes in a room with him a few years ago, but we never shared a conversation. But by all second hand accounts from people who do know him, he sounds like a good guy. Even when he participates in stunts that draw a raised eyebrow — editing down “Wings” in order to fit the NBA’s All Star Game marketing agenda; playing a role in the dubious mass wedding at the Grammys; the curious tweet to Kendrick Lamar — I never really doubt his honesty. In these scenarios it seems like he’s either being earnest to a fault, or led to participate by the sort of denial that could only be catalyzed by a sudden and disorienting amount of fame. The machine that he’s chosen to dance with is unforgiving and dispassionate and cares nothing for an artist’s personal principles.
With regards to the Kendrick tweet specifically, what was probably meant as a generous and heartfelt admission came off as an awkward and ill-advised form of damage control: a way of diffusing some of the anger “real” hip hop heads may have felt about Kendrick not winning the award. But if we’re being honest here, those so-called “real” heads already know what time it is. They don’t need Macklemore to tell them Good Kid M.A.A.D. City should have won, and they don’t need him to explain the function of these awards which are handed out annually in what essentially constitutes a magical pop culture vacuum. To make his message to Kendrick public was to insult the intelligence of the hip hop literati.
So consider the tweet a simple misstep in a career that will likely continue to be filled with them. Macklemore is a white rapper who was just certified as the best in his field by the biggest music awards show in the world. He will stumble again because the field he’s playing on is the slipperiest slope of all.
[Update, 1.30.14, 7:15am PST: Kendrick’s even-handed, democratic and existential response.]
NEW MUSIC: “Don’t Shine” – Raz Simone
The rap internet’s been buzzing the last few days about Raz Simone’s don’t-call-it-a-signing creative partnership with Lyhor Cohen’s new label, 300. That’s pretty big news for a Town rapper who’s seemingly been on the cusp of stardom for a couple of years now. Here’s hoping Raz continues to be the vital counterpoint to Seattle’s current national — and international — hip hop envoy, you-know-who.
Raz’s team recently made his latest single, “Don’t Shine”, available for free download. Click here for that. And click play below if you missed the accompanying video which dropped a couple weeks back.
THE SIX: Featuring Harry Clean of Detooz Films
THE SIX is a regular interview feature on 206UP.COM with a simple format: One member of the local hip hop community and six questions. For past editions click here.
If you watch Seattle hip hop music videos with any regularity, then you already know Harry Clean’s work, even if you don’t really know Harry Clean’s work. That telltale piercing sound of glass shattering into a million high-definition shards adorns the intro to dozens of music videos branded with the Detooz Films logo, Harry’s production company.
Dude first hit the 206UP inbox in late 2010, eager as all hell to get his burgeoning collection of video interviews up on our humble outlet. Since then, his eye for sharp angles and smart concepts have blessed the videos for virtually every major name in Town rap. Harry is one of a few talented and innovative videographers lending their creative energies to Seattle hip hop — Zia Mohajerjasbi, Stephan Gray and Ryan Hills are a few others — but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone more prolific.
Thanks to Harry Clean for taking some time out to answer THE SIX.
NEW MUSIC: Everybody Needs A Lil Mo’ Money – Mo’ Money
In case you missed the video for Mo’ Money’s striver’s anthem “Off The Block” from a couple weeks back, here it is again for your viewing pleasure. The track appears on the rapper’s new Everybody Needs A Lil Mo’ Money, available for free at DatPiff.
Mo’ Money is part of the LakeHouse Entertainment collective, a ragtag bunch of MCs, producers and skaters who ran a delightfully low-budget shop out of a lake-front home that has since gone the way of the mortgage foreclosed. Shout-out to RoofDogg who has generously kept 206UP in the loop about LakeHouse Ent’s whereabouts and who ensures the New Year will bring a grip of new music and videos from the crew.
VIDEO: Do The Math Podcast – Episode 2 with Deven Morgan & Jake One
There has been a recent movement in the Town toward documenting, both aurally and visually, the rap-related things happening inside the bounds of this fair area code. From the good folks at Mad NW who are responsible for the excellent local rap documentary The Otherside, to blogger Jack Devo’s online vault of Seattle music rarities, and finally to the burgeoning Do The Math podcast, created and hosted by 206 hip hop superfan Deven Morgan.
Meant to be a StoryCorps of sorts strictly for the Seattle rap nerd set, Deven is both honest and earnest in his love for Town hip hop. Episode 2 features the vital producer Jake One waxing nostalgic about creating records in the former heyday of Seattle hip hop. Do The Math seeks to highlight the so-called “second wave” of Seattle rap, the time and artists just after Sir Mix-A-Lot’s apex, but before the rise of Blue Scholars and Macklemore. These are the typically forgotten artists, best represented by the loose collective known as Tribal Music whose Do The Math compilation album, released in 1996, is both the namesake and spiritual foundation for Deven Morgan’s podcast endeavor.
I can’t claim any amount of authority over Tribal or Do The Math other than what I’ve read — and heard — since starting this blog in earnest four and a half years ago. I will say, though, that Tribal’s brand of hip hop is the type to which I’ve always been most drawn in life. DTM is a Golden Era revivalist’s wet dream, created on the tail-end of that movement’s waning years* a time when rap music, it seemed, was less about singular identities and more about the movement. That’s fairly nebulous, I suppose, but so becomes history when the great windshield wiper of the mind blurs and distorts your recall over time. Thank the rap gods, then, that someone is committing these things to permanent record.
*Technically it’s post-Golden Era, but things arrive late in Seattle. So be it.
A SEATTLE HIP-HOP BLOG 