TRP as Wu-Tang Warrior

[MantaRay at aol.com]

And I say Goddamn you're Toofless!:

>I was just rereading this and I disagree on some levels. Sometimes
>great artists (consider Sean Penn)

Eh, what?

> have difficulty with the press. 

I believe there's a difference b/t having a difficulty with the press and
beating some reporter up. Esp. since he was just giving an interview, not
questioning their manhood.

>The whole game of rap is *about* channeling violence, isn't it? 

Not really. That is one of the facets of rap. Like De La said, whatever
happened to the MCs? After NWA, every two-bit fool (like KMC, like Geto Boys)
with a graphic imagination found rap as their outlet. But it was never
strictly about violence, or channeled violence itself. It was street
reportage (Last Poets, KRS-1, PE, NWA etc.), straight-up skill (Eric B &Rakim
[the smoothest rapper ever] etc.) and innovation (the incredible De La Soul,
Native Tongues, Tribe Called...), as well. But violence sells (like fucking
crazy) and that's why Gangsta Rap has vaulted to the top. Wu-Tang are a bunch
of thugs who want to LIVE their own press. I've heard their shit and find
nothing skillful, innovative in their rhymes and nothing really attractive in
their beats. But that's just me. 

>murder
>in rap is a way of channeling the tensions of street life into a
>fictional context

Scott La Rock, Biggie Smalls, Tupac, many many more who are nonfictionally
dead...

>; at least that's how I think Afrika Bambataa
>probably envisioned it when he and Debbie Harry cooked the whole
>thing up. 

What the fuck are you talking about?

>So the Wu-Tang Clan raps violently, i think some of their
>shit is fairly clever.

We're not talking about their violent raps, we're talking about their
violence

>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.

You have totally lost me here. Old school rap was definitely not cheeze,
however: Grandmaster Flash, case in point, were real DJs whose raps were
clever and relevant. I think you've listened to Rapper's Delight too much
(which, by the way, is not the touchstone of rap). 

>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.

Thios is nothing new to rap. The Bomb Squad had already blown those
distinctions apart on It Takes a Nation of Millions. Wu-Tang are not doing
anything new sonically; plus, we're talking about their violence, right?

>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." 

Assimilated? Those kids want all the press they can get. And they're getting
tons. 
They're getting shitloads more than PE or ICE-T of AFRIKA ever got. I
wouldn't say it's a difficult transition at all. 

>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.

This not address the question of Wu-Tang's contrived reporter-bashing. HipHop
is not in question here. I've been a fan of rap since it came into being. But
that does not translate into all rap being worthwhile. Some bands, like
Wu-Tang, just don't make the cut. They don't bring anything new to the table.

MantaRay