hip-hop & Pynchon

[Phil Wise]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Millison" <DMillison at ftmg.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2001 4:44 AM
Subject: RE: hip-hop & Pynchon


> I've read some rather flowery claims here about hip-hop's political and
> literary signficance, it's place in PoMo discourse, etc. Political content
> aside, and for the moment ignorning whatever they might share in terms of
> being part of a larger PoMo phenomenon, one big difference I see between
> hip-hop music as practiced by Eminem and Pynchon's work -- Eminem is
> unrelentingly commercial, while Pynchon elaborates his art with little
> apparent attention to market realities.
>
>
> "David Morris" re Eminem:
> It's called entertainment.
>
Definitely a difference, as are many things only starting from the fact that
one's an artist that signifies aurally the other with writing.  The who can
compare? brigade definitely have a point.  Pynchon's one of the greats of
our age, eminem's made one album worth talking about.  I wouldn't necessary
say that commercial ought to be a prejorative, though - em's entertainment
value is definitely half the point: I think his text supports my contention
that Slim Shady can be read as a personification of the commodity, and the
commodity aims for the widest distribution possible, right?  Not saying
that, once you get into them, P's fictions aren't entertaining, of course...

Phil


>