Seattle’s King of Multimedia, Chase Jarvis, facilitates a meditative discussion on hip-hop between Seattle’s King of Liberal Highbrow, Charles Mudede, and the King of Self-Righteous Rap (in a good way), RA Scion.
Tag: chase jarvis
VIDEO: “Director’s Cut” (Head Like a Kite f/Tilson)
From Caffe Vita’s GIVE project, and directed by imagineer Chase Jarvis, comes this hyper-creative music vid for “Director’s Cut”, a track by electronic outfit Head Like a Kite and Saturday Knight-liver, Tilson.
Electro piano licks + Familiar breakbeat + Tilson’s addictive flow = A party-starting neck-breaker of the most danceable variety.
Check out Chase Jarvis’ blog entry here for a dope making-of write-up.
REVIEW: OOF! EP (Blue Scholars)
So this is what it sounds like when Blue Scholars go on vacation. The highly-anticipated and much locally-hyped OOF! EP dropped on Tuesday and, much to the unsuspecting ears of this listener, surprises abound on this mostly-fresh bite of Hawaiian-style 206-rap.
For a short six-tracks (plus accompanying instrumentals), producer Sabzi breaks out his happy-vibe synths and basslines, and emcee Geo sets down his copy of The Socialist, straps on a pair of board shorts and flip-flops, and, with drink in hand, reminisces on his formative years spent in the nation’s 50th, and most beautiful, state: Hawaii.
OOF! is truly a vacation for the local rap duo, an exercise in departure, both for Sabzi’s normally thick, boom-bappish beats and Geo’s political and progressive rhymes. It’s only because the disc contains two of the best Scholars songs to date (“Bananas” and “HI-808”) that they’re excused from taking it too easy on this outing.
Even the most highly-respected artists sometimes casually digress from their normally esteemed routines. Think Brando in The Freshman; Hitchcock directing Mr and Mrs Smith; Michael Jordan when he played for the Wizards; etc. In Blue Scholars’ case, last winter’s set of performances in Hawaii combined with Geo’s history in the islands resulted in the perfect circumstances for assembling this set of party-rocking tracks that qualifies as an official departure from the group’s normally heavier-handed musical discourse.
Mix in an abnormally hot Seattle summer and a local hip-hop scene that is bubbling over — as of this writing OOF! currently sits at #2 on iTunes best-selling hip-hop albums — and it’s enough to have this blogger, and other fans like him, scrambling around The Town trying to get their hands on a copy of the limited-edition disc (supposedly only 808 were pressed). I was one of the lucky few to get one and, once I set to bumping it, I was more than a little surprised at what came out of my speakers.
On OOF! we hear the group do things we’ve never heard them do before. All of a sudden, they do dance tracks! (The cheesy and nearly unlistenable, “New People.”) They do reggae! (Excuse me, jawaiian music, on the tropical, “Cruz.”) They even do sexy! (Geo and Sabzi take turns saying “wassup” to the ladies in their best nice-guy voices on “Hello.”)
Thankfully, they also find time for real hip-hop on the spare but still bumping “Bananas” (with a verse previously spit by Geo at Chase Jarvis’ Songs for Eating and Drinking party), the back-in-the-day hip-hop appreciation anthem “Coo?”, and the totally knocking “HI-808,” the crowning achievement of OOF! and possibly the most addictive beat the crew has ever put on wax. It’s an eclectic and unexpected collection, for sure, and it doesn’t all go down smooth like a pina colada, but it does the job.
Normally, Blue Scholars is telling us to put our fists up, to stand for social justice and political change. On OOF! they’re letting us keep our hands down, inviting us to sip a fruity drink, and groove to the music however we see fit. Actually, I’m pretty okay with it — sometimes my arms get tired from all that hand-waving. I do, however, expect the duo to carry on previous tradition with their next full-length. Come 2010, it will be time once again to take up arms and mics for the revolution.
For now, though, I can get down with OOF! But perhaps Geo himself sums up my feelings best: “It’s cool…But it’s not what I’m used to.”
OP-ED: I Think I Hate These Guys
Before I get into this rant about Mad Rad, I suppose I have to confess that I’ve never actually seen them live, nor do I own their album, nor do I have any idea about their level of respect for hip-hop culture, how they came to be involved in the art form, who they are as people, if I am actually distantly related to one of them, etc.
I just know that whenever I see one of their videos or listen to their music, I can’t help but think they’re a bunch of f*cking tourists. I get the whole white-boy rap sub-genre that exists in the music, and I understand the need for white kids to express their jones for hip-hop and that that expression sometimes manifests itself in the form of a collage (bastardization?) of less-than-awesome styles (Limp Bizkit comes to mind). What doesn’t sit well with me is when I feel like the culture is being exploited at the expense of an artist or group’s personal gain, and this is where my own personal hypocrisies come into play. For example: I hate Fred Durst, but not Kid Rock. I hate Vanilla Ice, but not Eminem. I hate MC Hammer, but not P. Diddy. Who should be performing hip-hop at this stage in its history is a matter of complete conjecture, so who am I to question someone’s right to participate in the culture? I’ll try to explain myself…
Hip-hop, to me, is like your grandfather’s old Chevy. Whenever he lets you drive it, you should treat it with the utmost respect because, ultimately, it is not yours to keep. You shouldn’t eat in your grandpa’s Chevy; you shouldn’t drink in your grandpa’s Chevy; you shouldn’t make out with your girlfriend in your grandpa’s Chevy, unless, of course, you ask him for permission to do so, and he says that it’s okay.
Everything I’ve been told and read suggests that Mad Rad puts on a hell of a show. I understand they really get the crowd hyped, they have actual skills on the mic, and their production is on point (as much as a rap/punk/electronic collage of sound can be “on point”). I also know that they often behave like complete jackasses, getting themselves banned in local clubs, nearly destroying Chase Jarvis’ beautiful spread at his Songs for Eating and Drinking event, and generally causing hundreds of hipsters to lose their skinny-jeaned, coked-up minds in the streets of Capitol Hill.
So why must I hate? Probably for these reasons:
1. I’m not a member of a rap group, and they are. I can love hip-hop as much as anybody, but it doesn’t mean that I’m a particuarly active participant. I’m a consumer of the music, I pay for albums and shows, and I can hop in a car, put a CD on, and rhyme alongside my favorite emcee and think that I sound pretty damn dope (especially when the volume is turned all the way up). But I have never been in the studio, gotten in front of a mic and dropped 16 bars over a Jake One banger. And that will probably never happen. So why do I hate Mad Rad so much? The number one reason might be because I will never get to do what they’re doing.
2. I think hip-hop music ultimately belongs to the African-American community. If hip-hop was patented, it would be owned by the pioneers from the South Bronx. Of course, that would never happen because hip-hop, by its very nature, is a collaborative effort, and many non-African-American folks have come along in the game and done it well. In fact, arguably just as well, if not better than some of the music’s earliest founders. But that doesn’t mean true ownership has ever been transferred. I’m sure there are some pretty amazing Japanese chefs who can prepare Coq a Vin just as well as a French chef, but just because you’re Japanese cooking French, doesn’t mean you don’t have to be qualified.
And are Mad Rad qualified to be doing hip-hop the way they are doing it? Who am I to say? I guess my point is that when I see Mad Rad performing for their fans (who are majority white, hipsterish and presumably not the most learned fans of hip-hop culture), I get upset. Especially when Mad Rad is dropping lines like “smoke the dro/choke a ho.” Not that anyone should be able to get away with saying that and have it be okay, but when it’s coming out of the mouth of a white dude wearing ironic sunglasses and a gold chain? It sounds more like disprespectful parroting than a conscious attempt at what I can only presume is sarcasm.
In the end, I suppose the point of Mad Rad is to bring a different perspective to the genre. They appear to simply be a group of white men expressing their creativity and points of view as honest fans of the music. And, inherently, there is nothing wrong with that.
I guess I just wish they’d been required to attend a sort of Hip-Hop University where they first had to study the origins of the culture and earn a diploma before being able to release their first album. Come to think of it, the curriculum at Hip-Hop University would probably be useful for a whole gang of other hip-hop artists in the game today.
Probably the most important tool in helping propel the art form into the future, is a knowledge of the roots of its past. Mad Rad, in my opinion, haven’t properly traced those roots. They need to go back to Hip-Hop University. They need to ask their grandfather if they can ride in his Chevy.
A SEATTLE HIP-HOP BLOG 