...and what happens?
if your anything like me, you're ususally found passed out with soft tacos spread about the coffee table.A Dr. Pepper glazes a nice water ring from condensation on your nice coffee table in the near distance. A dvd of nightrider season 1 (tv) AND tribe's low end theory(stereo full blast) plays at the same time, as you have given a modest attempt at removing your clothing without unbuttoning anything...dreaming of the good life....ahhhhhh.
Well...my dream patterns took a turn off of the normal path of naked women giving me new dj gear for free when I made the mistake of passing out to Kevin Fitzgerald's FREESTYLE: the art of rhyming, the most popular documentary on emceeing to date.
I pondered a situation of certain peril. Me...and 3 legendary emcees at table preparing to enjoy a game of scrabble?
Yeah, its defintitely not a good dream...
Supernatural, Rakim, Kris Parker( better known as KRS-ONE) and me. Now, while its important to state the obvious ( I suck at scrabble and would lose to just about anybody), I would like to explain to those of you who are not in the know of these great men and their work...that to see these men playing a game of scrabble would bring men bred from the finest ivy league academia furnished with an exceptional grammactical and linguistic knowledge, to their soft skinned knees.(urban myth leaning toward fact: the 3 aforementioned emitted enough power from their intellect to juice the city of Las Vegas while the Hoover Dam was undergoing maintances for a couple of hours....swear, it was like 89'.) Their vocabulary, lyrics and poetry are both memorizing and ridiculously powerful(hiroshima powerful.)
Why? Because these three are damn near royal examples of what Hiphop provides to an individual and his/her community. One of the many lessons of HipHop ( if not the most important) is self teaching. All of the elements of HipHop(breakin'/emceeing/graffiti/turtablism) are a product of self teaching...and many young men and women over the last 25-30 years have devoted themselves to an education necessary to the survival of themselves as well as the culture of HipHop. Reading a dictionary is something I' m sure we have all fathomed in amazement, but you imagine reading consistently for years? The emcees aforementioned are endowed in reading the Mirriam Webster's dictionary in conjunction with rhyme dictionaries and thesauruses. News or current affairs are also mainstays of ammunition for the classic emcee. These men are partially responsible for the elevation of eloquence in lyrcism. I also must note that these emcees stand amidst a gob of their HipHop peers who also deserve praise for their enlightenment and contribution to HipHop on the count of teachings of the self driven.
Making HipHop music in the early days was/is a batlle just as Jazz, America's first artform was.
Musicians in New York, would stroll up to Minton's, a popular harlem nightclub in the 30's-40's, to test their skills against the likes of a Dizzy Gillespie or Fats Waller. Many amatuers would leave with instruction to work at their skills by fellow musicians, while a few dozen would often stay jam on into the wee hours of the night. The hereditary strain in both artforms, is that preparation is necessary for evolution...in plain view of many adversities and obstacles set forth to inhibit or undermine the efforts of impoverished young men and women of assorted minorities in pursuit of a modest success within their community by a contrasting middle to upper class demographic who sorely misunderstood what was happening and consquently ended up mocking. My point? Simply put... things aint just what they used to be...but they really should be?
The art and eloquence of emceeing is not dead, though it is rarely tapped as I'm sure you will hear if you listen to the radio these days (which I don't). The commercialization of HipHop has taken a turn for the worst in certain respects, i.e. the decomposition of originality, innovation and quality of the emcee being one of them. One solution possibly, is a reflection into the origins of the rap game and its pioneering. The assessment and transparent recollection in the elements of success that furthered us on down the HipHop timeline to make clueless, uppity record executives embrace what was once consistently mocked, is necessary.
The quality of HipHop music, epicentered at emcees making a run in the HipHopolis of today, in comparison to HipHop that men of the Cold Crush/Fantastic Crews, Supernatural, Rakim and KRS help to create, is in the words of my man, Jon Bibbs, " is like comparing chalk to cheese."
Historically speaking, one would obviously need to say rightfully so to such a contrast. Example? How many people do you know when asked of the greatest basketball player ever grace a court say something other than Micheal Jordan? ( sidenote: ...and if they did say something oter than that, they likely stared at the sun too long as a child.)
They'll never be another Supa'nat... nor a KRS... nor a Rakim. They will always be legends in the eyes of many and to question otherwise would be about as obsurd as punching a baby with a meatcleaver. If we follow the history of HipHop, we know that it ends where it starts...and i pray for the emcees of today to display an intregity, individuality and devotion to the movement that opened the possiblities for them in the first place.
I'm not saying you gotta' be a freestyle dj. I' m not saying you have to be EXACTLY like these guys... I'm not even saying that these guys are the greatest examples. Many emcees could be named but frankly, I don't have that kind of time and neither do you.
I AM saying that i want something new to hold on to but the thought of aquiring something so attainable is disheartening. Im saying that i want new wax to stack next to my other timeless masterpieces of HipHop. I want a low end theory for 2009, a criminal minded...a 36 chambers....a grandmaster flash's- the message or even a paid in full by eric b. & rakim. Some new ish...for the masses...all of em'. don't let it always be about the benjamins...its ok if you want put some heart into it.
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