Reading the Rhymes: Death of Auto-Tune

Song: Death of Auto-Tune

Artist: Jay-Z

Date: 6/2009

To my knowledge the debut of "Death of Auto-Tune" came via radio, Hot 97's Funkmaster Flex and Mr. Cee. Nearly immediately after, you had FWMJ on the scene. Miss Info followed up, and the net was off to the races.

It's odd to me that even in this micro-analyzed cultural landscape, we still don't have a basic blog/tumblr whathaveyou doing a run-through on the lyrics for all the major-release hip hop songs. Something that gives a quick, intelligent meta-analysis of the content and sizes it up strictly on lyrics. If I'm missing out, shoot me a link. But it feels like this is where the audio-literary impact of hip hop is slipping through the cracks; of course the alternative is maybe there's just nothing there.

well, only one way to find out. to the lyrics, Batman!:

Lyrics (italics)

Only rapper to rewrite history without a pen
No I.D. on the track let the story begin…
begin… begin...

So most should recognize Jay's trumpeting of not writing his lyrics down. He talks and rhymes about it all the time. I suspect this investment in "spontaneous genius" might be one of hip hop's tragic flaws; but it's definitely one of Hov's.

For hip hop: between the ongoing argument of "Freestyle vs. off the dome"; and the "Biggie wrote that song in the booth" t-shirts; and "Jay wrote this album on the toilet taking a shit" hand-warmers, and "Weezy ain't never wrote nothing down ever." OMG, dude is a genius! Huh? What??

Daddy's Little Girl: 5 Songs Jay-Z Will Regret

I've heard it said nothing transforms a man like having a baby girl. So news that Jay-Z and Beyoncé are having a daughter could mean we will never see or hear from the old Shawn Carter again. Old Jay-Z: "hard dick and bubble gum". New Jay-Z: poopy diapers and baby food.

It’s the beginning of a new era in hip hop. The Old Man Rap era. And a lot of emcees are gonna have some ‘splainin’ to do. Hov, to his jeweler’s credit, has always talked more Maybachs and ice, than about his sidepiece and wife. So he won’t have as much umm, err, umm stammering to contend with as, say, Kanye. But here's five songs we still expect to be removed from Lil Hovita’s iPod.

CONTINUED ON GRANTLAND

Jay-Z Songs He Doesn't Want His Daughter to Hear [Grantland]

Hov's Blueprint 3 Leaking, Might Be A Little Watered Down

If the world is made of two people, artists and executives. animals and zookeepers. or somesuch. I've long thought Jay-Z's legacy might be most interestingly framed as testament to an executive pushing the artist envelope as far as possible. A zookeeper jumping around with gorillas, hunting with lions, and pulling it off, for a while, with great success. The Black Album might be where he even blacked out and ate like some raw carrion or some shit before puking out Kingdom Come on some "raw, uncooked flesh does not agree with me" ish. Hov is technically brilliant, and knows his *brand* inside-and-out, but he lacks the stomach for the risk required of the most brilliant, soaring, time-spanning art[ists].

The Blueprint 3 looks like its fitting the same formula. Recent leaks from nahright and the NMC:

Reminder (prod. Timbo)
Off That (w/ Drake (on hook))

of course DOA makes airs of ambition, but ends up staying a solid song.

Run This Town bumps, but the vid is conceived in a much airier space; the song itself is much more dense, inert. It's a solid song.

Jay-Z |MTV Music

that's 4 of 15 or so. 25%-ish for the lazy mathematicians in the building. suffice to say, there's probably some decent music coming- we hope. which is nothing to complain about. but for jay, if he really cares about such matters, it's clear The Chase is still on.

Got Beef, The Game Vs. Jay-Z: Satellite Just Went Down

"A wise man once said don't argue with fools/ cause people from a distance can't tell who is who"
-Jay-Z

So a couple days ago, somewhat surprisingly, the hegemonic Jay-Z did actually speak out on the whole beef with "The Game", and he wasn't particularly stately about it saying bluntly, "tell groupie, get over it".

The Game, who when not barking in front of the Hov estate has been tussling with Bow Wow in ALL CAPS, was probably delighted to get wind of Jay taking notice, and subsequently gave an *exclu-clu-clusive* to the Boodah Brothers where he fires back.

It's more of the same, which is to say childish blather from someone not playing in the same league really. Like if the kid who dunked on LeBron recently started talking to the press about how he is a better all around ball player than James. ...As I'm writing this, I sort of feel like I'm too biased to Jay, but Game calls Jay ugly, old, and wonders why he doesn't have a child "is he firing blizzanks or somethin'". It's like, come on, really? For 15 minutes, that's all you got? Firstly, ugly, besides being childish when repeated ad infinitum, is irrelevant when this guy is marrying (married?) a girl widely considered "the hottest chick in the game". Nextly, hello, we're all gonna get old. Thirds: Game's bio talks about a history of child abuse, from presumably too-young parents, ... so the final stab seems particularly short-sighted.

Jaydiohead: The Encore

Max Tannone, the DJ behind the Jaydiohead (Jay-Z + Radiohead) mashup that got some buzz late last year, and eventually landed a twitter shout-out from Mr. Carter himself, has released a 5-song encore.

When I unpacked the concept a little bit in January i said:

Jay and Radiohead seem complementary on the surface but are actually antithetical artists in sensibility. Jay in his own words, "is a business-man." "He's not trying to do numbers like The Roots." The Roots, of course, are artists. Maybe the closest thing to a Radiohead of hip hop. Also, the Obama of hip hop bands.

Jay is an artist as well, of course (my word choice is/was lacking); but this also ties in with the DOA critique. Hov's flow, presence exudes a bottom line sensibility that prioritizes business over "artsy" impulses that could potentially expose him, i.e. artist vulnerability is lacking. Mr. Carter plays it smart/safe as an emcee. Which is why I think the *concept* of Jaydiohead strikes more than the actual execution (though as toure and jay attest, there are definitely a couple joints that really cook). Radiohead's ethereal vibe/sensibility is more befitting abstract poetry, not matter-of-fact smooth criminality; hence my RadioNas suggestion.

I haven't gotten to marinate with the 5-song additions to really dig in on those, but I'm glad Max is still experimenting. It's all good-culture in the hood.

Jaydiohead: The Encore

Previously:
5 Fingers on Jaydiohead [TAN]

TAN-Pack: Death of Auto-Tune

Jay-Z's Death of Auto-Tune video dropped this week. I might comment on it, maybe not. Sort of like Drake's "Best I ever Had" video, it's a little disappointing. The potential conceptual upside outweighs the physical execution (like how about something more macabre than italian gangsta, with Jay snuffing famous auto-tune artists in a gruesome grisly way?). But so it goes with making videos and songs, whatever, it's not "bad" by any means. And there is a lot of wine-drinking, and it will be so hilarious if rappers start talking about pinot noirs by way of Mr. Carter's trend-cue...



AnyJay, these "TAN-Packs" might be how I brand and package thematically-related content once the new site is up and all dat. So just starting a janky ghetto beta version here. Ghetto Pass, Negro Bowl, and other stuff like that could be called TAN-Packs. (Hmmm, actually that might be sound too much like a certain brand of female menstrual flow inhibitors, soooo, we'll see if that sticks ...)

If I had to tweet this, it's simply: the shit TAN's written about about/related to DOA recently.

Previously:
Jay-Z/Superstar hunger
Reading the Rhymes: Death of Auto-Tune
Negropedia Brown: The Case of the Undead Auto-Tune
Will "Keeping It Real" Ever Go Right?

Will 'Keeping It Real" Ever Go Right?

One of my favorite sketches from the popular and missed-more-every-second Chappelle's Show was called "When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong". The sketch basically satirized the whole sensibility of "Uncle Tom" and "Keeping It Real" and "Politics of Authenticity/Identity" that can lead to denying your come-up in the world, i.e when success = sellout. And ... well let me not explain when we can watch it; it's only a couple minutes and well worth it:

[quick aside: in my first days at college i was a little notorious for breaking out animated-recitations-of-hip-hop-refrains as non-sequitur answers to normal class conversation, aka rapping in class. so for example, in my freshman seminar, i don't remember if this was the exact line, but imagine something to the effect of:

Teacher: "So, Patrice, what do you think about the summer reading? Could you relate to the protagonist's struggle in Manchild in the Promised Land?"

TAN: "I'LL THROW IT DOWN YOUR THROAT LIKE BARKLEY. YOU SEE THE CAR KEYS??? YOU'LL NEVER GET THESE!!" and then just look at the teacher like nothing out of the ordinary happened. it was pretty much the mid-90s college version of "when keeping it real goes wrong."]

So as with most good comedy, there's some other darker stuff lurking underneath.

Negropedia Brown: The Case of the Undead Auto-tune

Mr. and Mrs. Brown had one child. They called him TAN, but everyone else called him Negropedia. One day he opened a Blog Detective Agency to solve Media-Mysteries resulting from Ethnocultural-dissonance.

This episode, Jay-Z and the Case of the Undead Autotune. Can you solve the mystery before Negropedia???



The Case of the Undead Autotune [Gawker]

Death of Auto-Tune: Wow, Jay-Z Is Looking Pretty Hungry

I've got more coming on this front, but here's a theme/narrative I'm not seeing in the hip hop conversation: Superstars being HUNGRY!

Eminem just returned after 4-5 years. Hungry. Real hungry. No matter how you parse the end results, dude is obviously on his grind.

Now, per this clip below, we've got Shawn Carter, Jay-Z, looking pretty damn hungry/earnest/eager to earn your respect.



These are two of the best to ever do it. Both talent-wise and as corporate entities. Skills and resources. And it's interesting to see how they play their cards.

Jay's been swinging and missing since Black Album, or at least that's the public perception. But he's clearly looking to return to his roots -- the release before this "Brooklyn Go Hard", was another east coast hip hop headbanger with little mainstream/autotune ambition, --so he clearly feels he just needs to go back to ill lyrics on hard beats.

But I think, per the video, he's clearly amped about the song-as-manifesto; rocking this song, at a Hot 97 Summer Jam, with T-Pain on stage, Kanye on co-production, if you go along with the spirit of it all it positions Jay as the sole steely [life preserver-ish TK TK TK] in a sea of pop-autotune-inauthentic-blahblahblah that's drowning hip hop.

What's being missed here in terms of relevancy (I think, I still have to turn it over a few times myself) is hip hop's unique position in giving us this window into passion's relationship to artistic product and subsequently commercial product and success. Which is to say: it's easier to spot an angry rapper, as opposed to an angry actor or politician or athlete through their product. Hip hop transmits talent/creativity more transparently, and this is part of its still not-fully-understood value. (?)

Any Chance that Elzhi is Deeper than John Updike?

The wikipedia, for all its flaws, has become an iconic testament to this Information Age. The depth of its reliability can be strained, but it works as a get-everyone-on-the-same-page knowledge depot/resource.

1. The wikipedia on John Updike says "Updike was widely recognized for his careful craftsmanship, his unique prose style, and his prolific output."

Updike is a wonderful example of one of these American literary lions that often does not translate for people not of his generation, or, possibly more importantly, his purebred American background. We shouldn't forget the missing modifiers in David Foster Wallace's essay on "the end for Magnificent [White, Male] Narcissists".

Updike is a legend for his prose. One of Slate's assimilateds, Troy Patterson, says,"Updike's most enduring legacy exists at the level of the sentence." Even in Wallace's previously mentioned takedown he concedes love for "the sheer gorgeousness of his descriptive prose."

I was talking with a friend of mine who recently had a book club session on one of the "Rabbit" books. They told me how the group started talking about the book until everyone admitted they were bored/distracted/frustrated by the elaborate prose; stripped of the pretense, no one cared or related enough to make the effort to appreciate the flourishes and "getting every word and rhythm right". In the Patterson piece he mentions an example of Updike spending ten pages discussing the character's penis. It's an indulgence that ultimately makes Updike niche; if you're expensively educated like Patterson or Wallace, you've likely cultivated an appreciation for this strain of mental acuity. But as the fields level, it's easy to see other ways to flex your brain muscles.



2. The wiki on Detroit rapper Elzhi identifies Jason Powers as "a solo rapper" and also a member of the group Slum Village.

A few weeks ago a new single from Elzhi began making the rounds. It was called "Deep", and in an era of fractured opinions i was struck by the near universal love/appreciation for elzhi's skills. This given, of course, by those who gave the time to check it out. Deep isn't a pop song. It's the underground hip hop that your white girlfriend might appreciate, but you're pretty sure her parents won't. Not that they won't listen, they just won't get it. Or will be bored by it. White-black noise, if you will.

So as i bumped the Elzhi track on loop, i realized the same effort, the same niche-nerdiness that is demanded of someone who loves elzhi is also required of Updike apologists. Fans of El will mention his wordplay, meticulousness w/ rhyme schemes, his imagery. Here's Patterson on Updike again, "The precision is painterly in the way of photorealism, except when it's cinematic."

Here's the start of Elzhi's first verse in "deep":

i'm the bell ringer
shell slinger
hiding bodies until the smell linger
until they pale as renee zellwegger...

Worth noting rhat last line works orally, not on the page.

3. There are obviously a lot of difference between Updike and Elzhi, but that seems to make the similarities all the more striking. Most critique of underground hip hop will use terms like narcissistic, ponderous, overly indulgent in minutiae that no one cares about.

I hear/read a lot of academic talk about hip hop lyric appreciation, processing it as literature, but that sensibility is not embedded in the pop cultural zeitgeist yet. The difference in mainstream perception between Elzhi and Updike is the gap yet to be bridged. Obama can't do it alone. Or in 100 days. Only time and a history of multitudes will condition us to think in different ways. Until then our wikipedias, our informational home base, will be slanted. One that places updike and that white male narcissist on a pedestal, while barely making a case/argument/entry for 'zhi. elzhi = updike?, maybe not totally equal, but we have to raise one or lower the other a little.

This is mostly a rough thought exercise. the analogy might not be perfect. a more apt comparison, for example, might be: a John Updike is to Dave Eggers as Jay-Z is to Elzhi. That one seems to work in a few ways, including J and J both being "bigger" artists. While eggers and elzhi are master craftsmen operating within the constructs of genre limitations. by choice.

Five Fingers On Jaydiohead

Finally got to peep Jaydiohead, pushed into action by Toure's piece for The Beast (ed: Jaydiohead is a 10-track mashup of Jay-Z lyrics over beats sourced by Radiohead).

It's a strikingly profound combination, this "Jaydiohead" project, especially for those of us interested in the science of assimilation; two mainstream/popular artists who also pack a lot of ethnocultural baggage. It's also one of those ideas, as many reviews note, that makes you slap your head and/or wonder how this didn't come about five minutes after Danger Mouse's "The Grey Album".

In this case, it's also sorta perfect to have Touré speaking on it. Touré is like the Obama of music-writers (i'm thinking every black person will be described here on out in terms of Obama; Jay is the hip hop Obama, Radiohead is a heroined-out indie-rock Obama etc.) and he's currently rolling as the Man-O-Melanin for a site competing for that coveted Obama of the internet-media position. If anything could alert us to the profundity seeded in this ode to biculturalism, 'twould be this perfect storm of Obamadom!

so.... i don't know, have i written enough intro yet?

1. The Jay Cameo is the best part: "Even Jay-Z knows about it. In an email, he told The Daily Beast, “Heard OF it but haven’t actually heard IT. (The gate squeaks as I close it back!)”

Yo, that parenthetical is straight fire! best lyrics from Jay since The Black Album. did he really write that, or does he have ghost mailers? does Jay use exclamation points and caps to deliver his e-jokes? holla! But yo, it was worth grooming (you gotta groom, y'know!). I'm trying to think of who I could use "the gate squeaks" line on ... are there only a handful of people who can do that?

2. Touré thinks Radiohead is funky: I was reading the piece and feeling like my afro was growing and the James Brown was getting loud in my ear, and other random cultural minutiae to indicate i was in the 70s and I was wondering why? Was I thin-slicing Touré as a bohemian neo-retro-soul dude who thinks everything is funky? Nah, I wouldn't want to do that to an Obama... but then everywhere I looked I would see him barking at the band:

give me a funky bass line! -- "But it has the advantage of Radiohead’s heavy, funky grooves..."

hit me with the funk again! -- (they’re a bit of a funk-rock band to me—the delicious bass lines on Kid A is what first drew me into them)

can you feel it?! -- "It’s fun listening to the puzzle coming together, and there’s a deep funkiness to this mixture of gangster tales and intellectual rock."

I said, can you feel the funk?! -- "Or on “99 Anthems,” the heavy, danceable funk of Radiohead’s "National Anthem" meets “99 Problems”..."

ok, now take me home to funkytown! -- "but Jay-Z gives us clearly delivered vocals that fill up the musical space and show you how funky Radiohead really is."

Now that's FUNKY. I can dig it.

3. The Problem with Jaydiohead: Here's Touré's nut graf, worth italicizing: "If this were just a good idea but not actually good music—just a thought exercise—then it wouldn’t even be worth commenting on. We’ve heard lots of mashup albums and they’re not news in and of themselves. But this is interesting because most of the songs cook."

Unfortunately, Touré is off on this one. It succeeds specifically as an idea, not as music. The first track "Wrong Prayer" -in the be-froed parlance- cooks, but the rest barely simmers after that.

I can see the falling in love with it though, the concept is so hot, and the first track validates the concept (in an interview the producer Minty Fresh Beats said that was the first outburst, then he sat on it and massaged it out over time. Classic blueprint for a great initial burst dragged out into an overwrought idea), any music writer positioned as an ambassador of assimilation would want it to work, like real bad. Like Obama bad.

It feels like a music analogue to the Pacino/Deniro combo; there are notable moments, but in general the execution falls well short of the seemingly epic possibilities.

I don't know how the third track "No Karma" got by Touré's sniff-check. It makes Jay sound like a white guy, and impossibly ruins the groove for Karma Police. Now that's impressive! If and when Jay listens to this, he won't get past #3.

All respect to Touré -- I'd still vote for him to write the piece -- but if he didn't avoid the "thought exercise" of it all in order to rely on "funk" as lazy code for all the ethnocultural baggage wrapped up in the artists, we'd have had some commentary that was, for lack of a better term, more Obama-ish.

"Wrong Prayer" -- hot


"No Karma" -- hmmm


4. The Problem with Jaydiohead, Part II: Further unpacking... part of the reason for the dissonance in Jaydiohead, I suspect, is that Jay and Radiohead seem complementary on the surface but are actually antithetical artists in sensibility. Jay in his own words, "is a business-man." "He's not trying to do numbers like The Roots." The Roots, of course, are artists. Maybe the closest thing to a Radiohead of hip hop. Also, the Obama of hip hop bands.

Jay's most artistic piece is The Black Album, and it's awesome fodder for mashups, but it was exhausted years ago. And the rest of his oeuvre doesn't jibe with Radiohead, who have a commercial frequency, but sacrificed numbers for art after OK Computer.

Again, if Obama ditched the skin tone, did some drugs, started making beats, playing guitar or whathaveyou ...he'd be radioheadish. More artsy. broad strokes, i know, but ...

The real mashup that would scratch the itch the Jaydiohead idea creates would be Radiohead and ...... Nas. RadioNas. Both Jay and Nas craft lyrics like artists, but Nas's content speaks to that artist disposition. More abstractions and emotivation. Valuing the thought exercise of making music more than the bottom line. Nas is sort of the Obama of thug poets, dontchaknow.

5. The Commenter Addendum: I'm too exhausted to do all the linking now, but the comments of both the Beast's post and other reviews 'round the net on jaydiohead provide a great testament to the value of an intelligent commenter community. In this case, their presence helps fill in the blanks a little bit, making it less of a he-said he-said.

Introducing Jaydiohead [The Daily Beast]
Jaydiohead Home Site

Why Obama Might Drop A Freestyle On The Nation's Domepiece For Inauguration Day

This video is making the internet rounds. Specifically for the "Naw [homey], we straight [my niggy]" a little after the one minute mark. Also more dap at the end:



This was sent to me with the line "a study in code switching", and it's true, Obama does make a fascinating case. I have an old line in a rhyme somewhere, "writing for the man my vernacular switches, with my n's, I say n, more than Michael Richards..." The Barack slang/code switching reinforces the notion that, perhaps, the purpose of african-american identity politics is to help us all more easily reconcile the universal [existential] dilemma of having two selves. The "real" you, and the *you* in your brain. No one is more familiar with saying/doing something in their head, then having it manifest as something different than an Ethnic-American in the US. Eventually we'll all be spiritually calmer for it....

But speaking of rhymes, based on this coding analysis I think Barack must have some hot 16s. I suspect he's just young enough to have written some verses while he was in school. He's 47, which means when he was 25 (unofficially the age when you write your hottest lyrics, provided you've paid some dues to that point) it was about 1986. I would prob draw the age line at 45, i.e. every hip hop appreciating black person under 45 has at least one verse they wrote, but Obama is so precocious I bet he has a whole album and an array of aliases and a myspace page for his demos and all of that.

I'm not going to the Million Man Inauguration, but if Jay-Z or TI ask "The President" to grab the mic and spit something, and he does, remember you heard it here first.

I Don't Know If He's "Back", But A Relapse Is Definitely In Effect

Looks like Eminem has gotten over that whole "IT'S GOTTA BE PERFECT!" thing all creative folk deal with (the good ones tend to have that issue, at least), and is returning to the hip hop landscape.

Mp3's are starting to leak, video snips are starting to spread, and the publicity machine is revving up as only it can for the blonde hip hop wonder. And his return is a two-prong attack...

Officially: His book/memoir, The Way I Am, written with Sacha Jenkins comes out next Tuesday. Music aside, Marshall and Sacha are two of the most creative, smart, compelling minds in hip hop so I'm looking forward to peeping that.

Even more intriguing, however, is the "long-awaited" album, Relapse. There isn't an official release date, but looks like it's definitely coming out before the year's end.

For the most part Eminem's recent appearances have been skillful, but lethargic and not particularly entertaining. What one might expect from a once-hot rapper now dealing with fatherhood and the rest of the world that doesn't care about a hot 16.

Jay-Z dropped The Black Album, his best album, then retired (technically), and has since been fading into old age and diminished relevancy.

But Em is an artist who gives hope for countering that loss of edge. And unlike Jay's Kingdom Come it sounds like his mind is in the right place. From Detroit Free Press:

"I can tell you this much: Slim Shady is back. Not Marshall Mathers," he said. "Slim Shady, that jackass everybody fell in love with? Yeah, he's back."

Glastonbury Gets Assimilated

So apparently the Glastonbury Festival was the scene for some contemporary cross-cultural hotness yesterday. As an appetizer we have Amy Winehouse punching fools on the set of her first show in 7 months. Can't blame her, I'd be pissed as well if everyone was saying I had emphysema from going "back to black", so to speak, from the crack and the menthols, but really it was just pops hating. That's even before getting into heads lining up to win a free ipod by predicting when you're gonna die. So yeah, she let someone have it after Rehab. This was followed up by Jay-Z executing the assimilated coup de maître: apparently Noel Gallagher of Oasis -- a group that hasn't been popular with black people since, I don't know ... nineteen ninety-never? -- was hating on Hov headlining the festival. So what does President Carter do? Opens his set by strolling out with a guitar singing Wonderwall, followed by 99 Problems. Holla!

Peep the opening below (and the rest of the 38 minute set, if so inclined):




Now he's just gotta work on getting Cat Power to do it with him, and we'll really be cooking.

(vid via: WSHH)

Chasing History: Jay-Z & Charlie Rose

"Chasing history" has been Jay-Z's driving mantra basically since The Black Album, which is to say since Kingdom Come flopped (for him). I think we're going to be digging into J and his legacy/plan sometime in the near future (in a good way). But in the meanwhile, in between styles, if you have 60 minutes to kill here's video of Charlie-Hov doing the talking thing. It gets good about the 55 minute mark. No, I'm kidding, that was a joke, and a damn good one at that .... if you like Charlie or Sean or hip hop or interviews the whole thing is pretty good. They talk slow so you can run it in the background while doing other stuff too .... I don't understand how Charlie resisted the temptation to hold up the "Roc" sign for the whole interview though. That's disappointing.

Who Is America's TAN? Jeter vs. Jay-Z

A friend of mine and I were debating who we'd rather be, Derek Jeter or Jay-Z. And somehow it seemed there was merit in going through the pantheon of assimilated negroes and determining who you prefer. So on occasion, we will do just that. Consider it the search for America's Top Assimilated Negro. Here are some of the key variables in the matchup of "The Captain" vs. "The President"


Physical Attraction
Jeter is younger and certainly more of the model type. As the pro athlete he's also in better shape, and the better bet to live longer. Jeter looks like the product of a fancy multicultural marriage, Jay looks like he's from the projects. Granted he's cleaned himself up nice, but it's telling that when it came time for battle Nas immediately went for the jugular with repeated attacks on Jay's questionable physical appeal. Jay does sometimes comes across as the late blooming ugly kid who wasn't treated nice by the girlies, but now is rich so it doesn't matter.

Edge: Jeter

Professional
Jeter got the 2nd richest contract in sports history, and he's the face of the game, but he's not going to match duckets with Jay. Jeter's got Gatorade, Jay's got Budweiser. Jeter has Driven, Jay has Rocawear. Sean Dot is clearly just more aggressive with the business plan.

There's also an interesting difference in lifestyle. Both are public performers and gain a lot of celebrity from their profession. But Hov has the 24-7, 365 job while Jeter's work is concentrated between April and October. Sort of a tough call, but ...

Edge: Jay

Ladies
Jay's got, perhaps, the hottest chick in the game wearing his chain. And if he's hitting Rihanna pon de replay, that's not a bad mistress. But still, who's really effing with Jeter? He lives in the average man's fantasy world: Biel, Johansson, Minnillo, Alba, Brewster. Those come after he broke in with Mariah when she was young and hot, and former Miss Universe Lara Dutton. Simply an impeccable resume. We're not even gonna talk about it anymore.

Edge: Jeter

Steez
Jeter comes across a little jockish, and he hasn't looked good during the ARod fiasco; seems like he can be an asshole sometimes. But also seems like he's trying to protect his personal life. If he could poke fun of himself on SNL (in one sketch Jeter says of himself, "Jeter looks like The Rock had sex with a Muppet") Jay always seems cool, though sometimes his coolness reaches to the point of pretense.

Edge: Jay

Conclusion
All in all this feels like a classic matchup of Model/Jock type versus Cool Everyman. Jeter has natural looks and physical stuff going for him, but Jay may be the guy you'd rather chill and have drinks with. That said I think Jeter wins his categories by a more decisive margin, so he gets the overall victory in a close matchup.

The Ass-Ex: Devil Worship

I mentioned The Assimilated Exchange in the context of discussing the Eminettes and the everyone-can-rap-now pandemic. The idea was to point out that in the assimilation process, you win some, and you lose some. Hip hop culture has assimilated, and while there are jobs and commercial profit, you also have to tolerate silly looking weather-women making a mockery of the art-form you used to hold so dear. On the flip side, caucasians may get a kick out of the Chappelle Show, or getting to pop their collar. But they have to suck it up when Tiger takes over the golf course. Or Diddy forces another rock classic into a hip hop box that doesn't fit.

Point being there's an exchange, and not every exchange is even. That's the first thought. Then the next thought was while going through my itunes (i.e. the itune swatches that serve as a form of identification), I'm always thinking about here's a song caucasians jock, and it's hot, but negroes probably aren't up on it. And vice verse. Here's a hip hop song, that caucasians might be overlooking, because they don't quite understand the science behind it. Or how it might relate to their worldview. And perhaps, that's what TAN is all about. Translating worldviews.

So, I'm going to begin an official The Assimilated Exchange (Ass-Ex) feature, where I will post two songs, one representing for my caucasian peeps, one for the negro side. We'll do some sort of analysis compare/contrast. And I'll also try and include the mp3 link, so you can add these must-have songs to your collection.

We're going to start with perhaps the most official representatives for either side. The Rolling Stones for my c-peeps. And Jay-Z for my negroes. And I'm going to look at two songs that tackled the same subject/concept. Sympathy for the Devil, by the Stones. D'Evils, by Jigga.

I decided on these two cause I was just reading the XXL issue celebrating the 10th anniversary of Jay-Z's debut album Reasonable Doubt. And it was the third or fourth time I've seen Jay talking about how much the song D'Evils means to him. The songs themselves aren't on the same level. But it occurred to me that Jay might be the hip hop equivalent of The Rolling Stones. Not musically, of course, but in terms of status and importance to their respective genre of music. The Rolling Stones are touted as the greatest rock-and-roll band. Jay as the greatest hip hop artist.

Now, in a battle of the beats, Sympathy wins hands down. Granted it might be comparing apples and oranges, the Jay-Z song is a sample-based beat by Primo, basically a two-bar loop and vocal samples for the hook. The Stones song is a fully evolved musical composition with solos and all that. When you get people talking about hip hop music as lazy, repetitive, boring ... this compare and contrast really highlights that. Especially when you consider Premier is one of hip hop's classic producers.

Of course the caveat here is that Sympathy might be the Stones best song, and D'Evils is not likely to be on the top ten list for either Jay or Primo, aside from sentimental reasons. But if you look at them as song archetypes, you can see where there's just a lot more to build off of with the Stones song.

Moving on to the lyrics, I give the writing team of Mick Jagger/Keith Richards the nod over Hov on this as well. Again, it's a tough comparison, but I take it from the angle of what they tried to do with the devil concept. Jagger takes a first-person perspective, and sort of goes through history as the devil. Jigga goes third-person, and sort of translates the devil not as a person but as a connection to "The-Evils" in the world, particularly on the streets. Both are well executed lyrically. But since Jagger maintains a cohesive narrative flow, and Jay is three separate verses on the subject, it sort of feels like the difference between a good movie and a good documentary. The good movie, draws you in, and immerses you in a story. The documentary tells you about all these things more matter of factly. There's less magic. It's a classic case of the writer's mantra, "show, don't tell."

The comparison here also does a good job of showing how hip hop is still in its early years in terms of creatively expressing these universal themes. A song like D'Evils viewed solely in the context of hip hop's history is a lot more significant. There aren't a lot of songs that try and take on the subject of evil, or the devil, with this sort of twist. But in the context of all the genres of music, it's going to fall short. It's sort of basic. Certainly worth doing, but not a classic song that can resonate across the board. So it shows how hip hop's catalogue overall might still be a little shallow. D'Evils is a big fish in a small pond.

It's also a good demo of how emcees can lose a mainstream audience by being tricky with the wordplay, instead of just telling a good interesting story. Slick Rick was great because he just told the story, he didn't get stuck on maintaining an intricate rhyme scheme over eight bars, or tricky wordplay that has nothing to do with the theme of the song. If he would have dealt with heavier subjects, he might have written a Sympathy for the Devil. As is, Nas would probably be the best bet for a good narrative along those lines.

So to wrap this up. I think comparing these songs, and the stature of the artists shows a lot of what hip hop is lacking. Musicality and creative storytelling with universal themes. Sympathy is a classic song, while D'Evils is a classic hip hop song, limited by the boundaries of its genre at the time. If you're an A&R or producer or manager with a good hip hop artist, you might ask them to take a stab at doing something like Sympathy for the Devil. Get some hot production, and you might very well have a timeless hit on your hands.

Actually take Kanye on production. Add Nas. Tell them to do a hip hop take on Sympathy. That would be a classic.

Sympathy For The Devil - The Rolling Stones

MP3 File

D'Evils - Jay-Z

MP3 File

"Y'all Wish I Was Frontin', I George Bush The Button"

The quote in the title is courtesy of Jay-Z, on the song "Threat" off The Black Album.

And it's referencing this link I'm about to provide (via nicolemart)

Today's been hectic, so if you don't want to dig in the TAN archives for something entertaining (I recommend October) ... you can probably adequately pass the time pressing not pressing the red button:

http://img252.echo.cx/img252/8159/006wo.swf

I didn't have the time to see if there's actually a pot of gold (or some other prize) at the end of the sequence, but still found it amusing. And there has to be an end right? Good luck. And if you get to the end let me know the results in the comments.