TRP as Wu-Tang Warrior

[Ben Freeman]

> Whatever. I don't remember TRP assaulting any journalists who said things he
> didn't like. The Wu-Tang clan are a bunch of fuckin' worthles thugs who have
> nothing to say, like most of rap nowadays. "Whatever happened to the
> MC's?..."

I was just rereading this and I disagree on some levels. Sometimes
great artists (consider Sean Penn) have difficulty with the press. 
The whole game of rap is *about* channeling violence, isn't it? murder
in rap is a way of channeling the tensions of street life into a
fictional context; at least that's how I think Afrika Bambataa
probably envisioned it when he and Debbie Harry cooked the whole
thing up. So the Wu-Tang Clan raps violently, i think some of their
shit is fairly clever. And as for whatever happened to the old mcs, a lot
of old school rap was the same cheeze with no skills "mother hubbard
went to the cubbard" with the worser-than-worst vanilla-ice gap jeans
posse flows... and yet somehow its revered cause its on sugar hill.

the promotion on the wu-tang album has been pretty frightening,
admittedly. Cheezily enough, the RZA referred to himself as "Mozart"
in an article
I read in the Providence Phoenix. But i'd like to suggest that comparisons
like that, and the wu-tang style in general have a bit of the
post-modern technique to them, taking low/high art and abolishing the
arbitrary distinctions between them. i was disappointed that such a
great rapper had to go invalidating himself by comparing himself to
Mozart, some trite cheezy standard of excellence in music that means
about as much to me as the rousing chorus to that song "into the
night." 

And then there's the whole difficulty of black artists assimilated
Borg-like by an overappreciative white press. "Its good... heck, i'm
proud when those black people transcend the St Ides and crack we've
surreptiously pumped into their hoods and make ANYTHING." 

And while we're in white-guilt terroritory, you know half the power of
GR is for its white guilt. 

one more thing in this rant: hiphop is so nice because it practically
accomplishes the aims of a lot of these books we all love so much on a
level that can be appreciated by large groups of people. it "works"
and is "accessible." i like gravity's rainbow but it just wasn't
written for mass consumption. a lot of rap samples *are* chosen with
the same "ig-farben/mare's nest" eye for detail, and guess what?
chicks dig it.

you'd be more likely to pick up the ladies with the brand nubian one
for all shirt than mason and dixon. mason and dixon is about as hip as
kraft macaroni. in ny probably the best you could hope for would be
a tattered copy of v. seen by some nubile owlglass-type walking by
trying to miss the holes in the pavement.