Icy On Purpose

7.2

Macaroni and Cheese

Simple Favorites (Lean Cuisine/Nestlé)

Here’s a couple things I’m not

1. Caught up in politics
2. A black activist
3. On some so-called scholar’s dick

Now that we’ve gotten all that mess out of the way, I will cop to being caught in a deadly video game with just one man.  That’s about where the similarities between GZA and myself end, unless he also thinks putting back-to-back skits on Beneath The Surface was a terrible idea even by second-wave Wu solo album standards.  But if I really wanted to demonstrate the difference between us two, I’d just bring up that Heathcliff Berru got GZA a sitcom, whereas all he got me was a beer and a ticket to see How To Dress Well in concert.  I moved to L.A. and got heavy into indie rock, and yet I’m less successful at avoidingphilosophy students doing half-rate karaoke than I was in grad school.

Point being, as I was discussing with Jayson “I’m In The Pains of Being Pure At Heart’s Liner Notes” Greene, I pretty much have no idea how the politics work for music criticism as a whole outside of the publications that I actually write for.  He joked about taking a potential thinkpiece on Rhyme And Punishment to the Huffington Post if the Village Voice wasn’t interested and I couldn’t even tell if he was being sarcastic - I was wondering if maybe they had a shit ton of AOL money to throw around until I remembered what I made for a Fanhouse post could hardly pay for an AOL subscription.  And by the way, I hope to have a longform roundup of Rhyme And Punishment in the near future, but I first gotta find out if it’s got 20 minutes of Hell Rell freestyles from a prison phone; otherwise, it can’t possibly call itself the definitive article on rappers in jail and I guess I’ll have to wait for it to check it out from my local library.

Big shout to Chris Ryan for coming up with “the Rakim of jail-phone freestyles”

And I suppose it really is my lack of awareness of music criticism’s Marquess of Queensberry Rules that prevents me from having more than five people give a shit about this particular Tumblr, or more pointedly, prevents me from ever participating in EMP in a deeper manner than being the dude at the reception eating all the grapes.  No offense to anyone involved, but the only thing I really learned from my time there was that  and that the only difference between parking at UCLA and parking in Westwood is that at least UCLA tells you upfront how much they’re gonna bust that ass with fees.  

But ultimately, my lack of ground rule awareness prevents me from having the ability to generate the lingua franca of non-review music writing: the thinkpiece.  I don’t know what makes me less qualified to be an indie rock writer, the fact that I haven’t dedicated a thousand words about how my ownership of Korn’s Life Is Peachy on cassette plays into the Jalen Rose/Grant Hill beef, or that I’m not really attracted to Asian women.

It’s not like these things are hard to write, considering that your average Rolling Stone review distills the predictability of your average thinkpiece into a single-paragraph that will surely contain a misinformed comparison or a Rob Sheffield joke that makes Rick Reilly look like Louis CK by comparison - usually they’re both the same thing.  

A big one these days is that the brilliant aspect of Britney Spears’ music is her utter lack of personality, whereas every single white band with guitars that isn’t Phoenix or the Strokes sucks because they have no personality.  Shit basically writes itself, no?  And yeah, I get it that her production has advance sinced the late-90’s iteration of her music involved a lot of really hilarious Timbaland knockoffs (though that new single sounds an awful lot like YACHT and I thought we finished 2009 assured we’d never overrate them again), but then again, if I wanted to be annoyed at a couple of Swedish guys on some supposed next shit, I’d rather match wits with some indie kids about Tough Alliance.

Gotta admit that “Miami” is the sound of what was going on in Bez’s head during the entirety of the 90’s

So I guess that’s why I manage to rarely go more than three days without having a Pitchfork review to post on my Facebook now that my parents’ knowledge of its existence has lessened my ability to post the kind of late-90’s rap I spent their hard earned dollars on during college - while y’all are trying to wring one last drop out of the Odd Future orange without involving Gravediggaz in a roundtable discussion, I’m cleaning up on all of Pitchfork’s reader polls favorites and of course, as Jess Harvell put it, quasi-mainstream shit.  Such as, say, Lupe Fiasco.

Every time I think I remember a Lupe lyric, it’s a Wale one.  What’s up with that shit?

I mean, if you have any taste in worth-a-shit hip-hop whatsoever, it’s strawman season on Lasers and you’ve got a blowtorch. The problem isn’t that it’s clearly designed for maximum commercial appeal.  It’s certainly weird, if you really think about how many rappers would’ve fell in line without throwing a bitchfit in perhaps Complex Magazine’s first entertaining non-list.  What’s weird is that I had no idea Lupe wasn’t actually popular.  

I haven’t purposely listened to the radio or watched MTV/BET for video purposes since damn near 2006 and still I felt like “Kick, Push” and “Superstar” were inescapable.  Dude played Coachella which is probably the best case scenario for any rapper in terms of career arc.  You have no idea how forgiving these crowds are - we had to wait for post-Attention: Deficit Wale to start his set for damn near twenty minutes while Belle & Sebastian and Sufjan Stevens piped over the PA, and he still got a reception equal to that of, I dunno, Annuals or Cage The Elephant.     

I’m not one of the bean counters at Atlantic, but I have a hard time believing that the sort of money you could cop off mad singles downloads of “The Show Goes On” (when reached for comment, Isaac Brock glowered for a solid three hours) is worth sidetracking this sort of career.  Not to mention pissing off the sort of ryde or die fanbase that is so invested in the idea of this guy as some sort of bulwark against commercial pressures that they would protest outside the Atlantic Records offices in October based on, what, “I’m Beamin’”?

 

Any given Sunday, gunplay’s optional

It was just so hard to figure out exactly who you should be rooting for in this situation. It’s particularly difficult to reckon with Lupe as a whole because Food & Liquor was pretty much the first new record I heard upon arriving in L.A. nearly five years ago, and as with Cisco, my relationship with that record ended in 2006 (no Yancy Thigpen).  AndThe Cool…I’m pretty sure not even Lupe can competently explain the concept behind that joint. Fast forward a couple years later and at this point, Lupe’s persona is some sort of Frankenstein of the least likable aspects of Phonte, Wale, ?uestlove and Nas.

It’s really not all his fault, though.  What really fucked him more has more to do with Jay-Z, at least in my mind.  As much as I admire the guy’s catalog, he’s undoubtedly damaged hip-hop in three tangible ways.  The first is convincing rappers that just so happen to not be Jay-Z that not writing your lyrics down is a good idea.  Then again, I read Decoded.  Jay-Z’s lyrics really don’t look that hot on paper, come to think of it.  Maybe that would change if he did the right thing and broke down “30 Something.”

 

I go to parties to party with nice girls

Anyways, second on that list is how he refuses to style in the same gear he rocked in his videos with Foxy Brown.  Seriously, Nas - is going down on Ill Na Na a worse offense than being convinced that his “I’ll Be” glasses or “Sunshine” suit or even his acting skills in “Ain’t No” are acceptable?  Damn, lil’ homey.

Nah, we gotta go back to the Black Album to really discuss the absolute most insidious and diabolical contribution Jigga’s had to the game, and no, it’s not “Justify My Thug.”  Tell me if this rings a bell: “if skills sold, truth be told…”  Yeah, that right there. 

At least in my mind, by 2003, we had all come to acknowledge that Phrenology was lame as fuck and that guys like 50 Cent and Jay-Z were putting out much better music than any of their “conscious” counterparts.  The good guys were winning.  And then, everyone took that line as a license to make hip-hop about what “deserves” to be popular, which has about a 100% success rate of making the most boring hip-hop possible.

Even if you’re willing to believe that Talib Kweli had skills other than superhuman powers to bore the living shit out of people, can you pinpoint a single point in Jay-Z career where he actually rhymed like Talib or Common Sense?  Did Jay-Z overhear Nas’ name being mentioned in a circle of faggots?  He’s rhymed like the Fu-Schnickens more than he’s rhymed like those guys, for crying out loud.

I bring the diesel, won’t see the Fu-Schnickens

Anyways, Lupe never really shied away from playing himself off as some sort of hip-hop savior, restoring it to its core elements of anime, advocating against alcohol and blazing wax with dudes like Mike Shinoda and Jonah fucking Matranga.  While I might be one fo the few hip-hop fans who can tell you what “Onelinedrawing” means and fucks with Far because if “major influence on the Deftones” doesn’t move the dial, you really have no place in my life.  However, this is a dude who wrote “Livin’ Small,” which somehow ended up being the worst song this guy has ever been involved with.  And that’s no mean feat for a dude who recorded an alt-rock cover version of “Pony.”  In 2010.  

But once again, I almost condone Lupe taking such advantage of his fans, in large part because Lupe came along in 2005-2006 and was thrust into a pretty untenable situation.  It was a dire time for THAT kind of rap fan.  The rap fan that needed Lupe.  You know what I mean: the kind of rap fan who still uses the word “bling” when describing WHAT’S WRONG WITH HIP-HOP, the kind of rap fan who still assumes that Pitchfork is indulging is acting out of irony when we go to bat for something a little more street hip-hop than De La Soul.  The kind of rap fan who will undoubtedly end up writing for PopMatters.

Just think back to that time.  There was no Q-Tip album in sight.  The last we heard from either member of Black Star was, what, Tru Magic?  Game Theory was still a bit away and it was a hard-as-fuck negation of everything a lot of critics and fans wanted The Roots to stand for.  Be was the best Common album in years, mostly because he ditched that Soulquarian shit for Kanye.  MF Doom was like having his Kool Keith ca. Dr. Octagonecolygist moment, freaking out about how he somehow ended up with a mostly white fanbase after doing an album with Meatwad.  It got to the point where “real hip-hop, son” fans (yours truly included) had no choice but to latch onto Fishscale as our exemplar, Ghostface’s third-best album and admirable on the account of being an LP that you could like and still look like you’ve at least tried to get into stuff like Jeezy.

Who the fuck bought me this chocolate shit?  I said a Rold Gold!

But it wasn’t anywhere near the “coffee shop chicks and white dudes” milieu that Common rapped about on one of the monumental documents of such a descriptor.  Hell, I wonder if Trent Reznor wifing up that fly-colored Asian in West Indian Girl was a result of having his own album called Things Fall Apart.  If you’re looking to go ethnic, that title gets you places. 

Where the fuck was I?  Oh, yeah…you know what?  As supportive as this sort of fanbase can be, I’d bristle too if I were Lupe.  I admire someone who goes against what his listeners presume and admit they aren’t feeling Tribe all that much, and I’m not all that keen on Jews either.  But during 2006, Lupe was all the Sublime cover band-types would talk about.  And yeah, some of his shit was pretty fly, but then you got the feeling he was already figuring out how to preach to the choir with that “let’s make cocaine cool!” verse in “Daydreamin’,” the rare song that gets to say it shares a title with a superior Cam’ron “love song” and a sample with a superior Beta Band song.  You can already call it a career at that point.

On the other side, Atlantic is the esteemed record label that dominated the mid-90’s with such releases as Come On Feel The Lemonheads and Fairweather Johnson, so when they’ve got ideas on what it’s gonna take for you to move units, you better listen.

“On the block slangin’ that Evan Dando/I fucks with the Jews, but pockets goin’ Marlon Brando”

But then again, this sort of pop gamesmanship is not like prior situations like when the Shiny Suit era was seen as the death of hip-hop as if Def Jux was ever responsible for anything as awesome as Harlem World.  Fuck, I’ve probably listened to the actual Harlem World posse record as much as Cannibal Ox in the past five years; at least the former dudes had Kanye’s first beats and Cooter Love.

 

In light of how Blinky Blink and Cooter Love are no-shows on Google Image, here’s Cardan instead

Just think about that for a second: backpackers and underground types were able to establish careers proclaiming hip-hop’s death in 1997, and all the while, Jay-Z, Wu-Tang Clan, Biggie (oh, man the shit people said about Life After Death), Busta Rhymes, the Fugees and god knows who else were in their prime.  Which I suppose isn’t quite as egregious as “I Used To Love H.E.R.” being released in the same year that brought us Tical, Dare Iz A Darkside, Southernplayalisticcadillacmuzik, Ready To Die and motherfucking Illmatic. 

The problem isn’t that this is trying to be mainstream rap with a wack motherfucker taking a loop thinking it’s going to be the sound of the culture.  Lupe is not a Cat In The Hat, Dr. Seuss, Mother Goose, simple-minded dude.  He’ll be the first to fucking tell you that.  The problem is with current rap isn’t that it’s hardly even rap.  You could say that about anything that fell short of KRS-One’s standards, although I’m not sure in light of the badass By Any Means Necessary album cover what Scott LaRock would have to say about Tha T’cha embracing Photoshop with a Greivis Vazquez-to-David Stern bearhug.  

The problem is that it’s the first time I can think of where mainstream rap is undeniably bad and it’s actually robbing us of what could possibly be entertaining acts.  Say what you will about B.o.B. or Nikki Minaj or Wiz Khalifa or Kid Cudi, but hopefully, you’ll say that you enjoyed them more when they were actually rapping.  I mean, it’s cool if Eminem is smart enough to realize Disturbed and Hinder records still go #1 every time and is looking to co-opt their shtick in order to revive his career - god knows the last thing we need is him trying harder to rap.  That Relapse hasn’t undergone a massive critical reevaluation in light of the internet turning into Odd Future’s RSS feeder is an act of monastic restraint. 

But what exactly did Lupe have to do in order to get himself pumped up to do these sessions, look in the mirror on some “B.M.F.” pep-talk shit and repeatedly shout “I think I’m B.o.B.!  Eminem!”?  I can’t think of any studio sessions that resulted in more emasculating hip-hop, unless Memphis Bleek actually was the ghostwriter for Jay-Z’s “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” verse.

Per Jay-Z’s instructions, chillin’.  Somewhere

But what’s really shitty about this record is that even the songs that song like Lupe’s bright ideas are arguably even worse.  My mans ‘n ‘em Nate Patrin said, just reading the lyrics to “All Black Everything” is cringe-worthy.  As far as what I think?  Look, if a bunch of kids out there who were convinced slavery was a good thing until “All Black Everything” blew their minds, I’ll owe it a round of applause.  Until then, it’s the sort of post-racial fantasy that’s so convinced of its bottomless depth despite saying absolutely nothing at all that I’m amazed Nas hadn’t written it already.  

What exactly is this guy capable of when truly left to his own devices?  Is he going to follow his heart and revive not only rapping like Do Or Die but dressing up like them too, ol’ fake Jodeci-suit wearin’ ass dudes?  Or is he just going to rap an entire album from the perspective of a Happy Meal?  I wouldn’t put either past him.

But until then, yeah…everything I said about Lasers, especially the part about how if Nate Dogg were still around, he’d have backhanded at the very least the highest ranking male working under Julie Greenwald for thinking these are the kind of people actual rap fans want to hear on hooks.  And that desire to be succinct about the whole situation is why I haven’t bothered to do the typical think piece on fallen soldier Nathaniel Hale, aka, Nate Dogg who died at 41, which was really only a shock in that I thought he was damn near 50 at this point.

 

As if Mos Def knows jack shit about wearing the same clothes for seven days

I suppose people did like “Empire State Of Mind,” what with it winning Pazz & Jop and aligning itself with Arrested Development and Modern Times and Dear Science, i.e, shit we can all agree held up amazingly to this day.  Even if it wasn’t a showtune to begin with, I’m not feeling how it was used against the 2009 Phillies as some sort of retribution for Sixers fans booing Beyonce during the 2001 Finals because she was dumb enough to wear a fucking Kobe jersey during their halftime performance on our home court.  I file it in a similar spot as Toxicity, an album I was listening to when my car broke down in the middle of Maryland during the dead of the winter and “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” a song which was an integral part of my fraternity hazing: to think, I might have loved these songs under different circumstances.  

But as far as Nate went, necessity is the mother of invention - in a related note, did Frank Zappa make three good songs ever? - and it was more pressing in the case of Death Row.  I mean, you heard “No Vaseline,” right?  ”And now I see you on the video with Michel’le?!?!?!”  No wonder the only females who got involved with Death Row for such a long time were Lady Of Rage (has anyone ever seen her and Mia X in the same room), that conciliatory woman from the end of “Bitches Ain’t Shit” and whoever did the hook on “Keep Their Heads Ringin’.”  I’m sure she’s gone on to bigger and better things. 

It’s no secret that hooks are probably the hardest fucking thing to write in hip-hop despite seeming like the most simple.  It’s why Canibus can spit five hundred words within the span of two bars and yet, his inability to come up with eight memorable ones is why we last heard about him joining the Army as some sort of guinea pig for experimental drugs (subeditors, plz check the second half).  It’s not unlike me explaining to my old boss that sampling and making beats is in fact way fucking harder than coming up with the lead riff to “Machinehead.”  

But even if you’re a rapper who’s particularly good at doing your own hooks, such as 50 Cent, Snoop, I suppose Kool Keith if you like the title of a song being repeated over and over, there’s still a need for dudes to put on the sticker adorning the front of your CD and it’s no surprise that pretty much all of the guys who could do it themselves loan out to Nate Dogg, and the reasons are fairly simple: he’s pretty much the only R&B dude who made it a point to carry himself like a rapper at all times without actually being a rapper.  

First off, it’s crucial that Nate Dogg’s voice isn’t actually good in a technical sense.  Would “Ain’t No Fun” or “Regulate” attain legendary karaoke status if that basso profundo wasn’t within reach of pretty much any post-pubescent male?  You’ve heard that falsetto he tries out towards the end of “Deeez Nutz,” right?  Having just listened to Life After Death at the gym and not skipping “Playa Hater,” I’d wager that Biggie was every bit as adept in terms of hittin’ the high notes. 

But most important, he never had to break character on the street shit.  Yeah, you can fucks with the likes of Usher, John Legend and Chris Martin on the sensitive thug shit, but you never quite believe they’re truly invested on the stuff that goes a little harder in da paint than “Sky’s The Limit.”  Which is odd considering that hella R&B dudes get caught in real life doing rapper shit, whether it’s  (real talk, people sort of chuckle at Mystikal and Lil’ Boosie’s imprisonment, and have a chuckle at Ike Turner and Dr. Dre backhanding women while Chris Brown is treated like history’s greatest monster), brandishing iron or an instance where “pushin’ weight like D’Angelo” doesn’t just refer to the fact that he’s probably halfway to Big Pun at this point.

I just gained 100 pounds!  I’m tryin’ to live!

Of course, you also have the option of having a female R&B singer on the hook, and I’m fairly certain Mary J. Blige is the only one it really ever out for because she plays the role of wise Greek chorus instead of someone in on the fun.  If the latter’s the case, you end up with whoever was on “Oochie Wally,” and let’s face it, that sort of genius can only be achieved once.  Just look how you listened to Stillmatic, wondered how the fuck “Braveheart Party” got on there, and next thing you know, it actually got removed.  If Nas is reading my mind in order to make creative decisions, I’d rather him just rap like he did on “It’s Mine” for a whole record.  No way that wouldn’t top Illmatic.  

So really, Nate Dogg sorta fits the mold of Lean Cuisine Mac & Cheese for its ability to be something of a perfect iteration of an imperfect being.  Also, in addition to me subsisting on a steady diet of that stuff when I was 13, is knows it role.  It practically begs for collaboration.  Yeah, I know some people for whom Mac & Cheese is a meal.  I also know some people who paid legal tender for a 213 album, but before I can go about and judge, I have to remember there was a point in my life where I’d rather have Da Game Is To Be Sold Not To Be Told instead of $18. 

So unbelievably awful, it only got 3.5 mics in The Source

Much like every rap coterie needs a go-to hook guy, every frozen food line requires some sort of Mac & Cheese, and almost none of either gets shit totally right.  I can see why that would be the case - your “higher end” stuff like Healthy Choice or South Beach Cuisine knows full and well that the Mac & Cheese racket can be outsourced if need be, much like how Jay-Z realized that Rell was a pretty silly luxury item when you can afford Alicia Keys and that dude would be way happier laying down tracks on Jim Jones records.

And on the other end of the spectrum, your Michelina’s and Banquet Mac & Cheese is just beyond the pale in terms of what you should really allow yourself, sorta like Sons of Funk or whatever.  I’ve always wondered why homeless people in frigid parts of the country don’t just scrounge up whatever change they can get in order to take a Greyhound all the way to, like, Miami or something.  Likewise, if you’re between paychecks and you’ve got $2.00 budgeted for daily respite, why wouldn’t you just hit up the McDonald’s Dollar Menu instead of that Mac & Cheese you can eat in the box you cooked it in?  I imagine your electric bill is in arrears too, so it’s not like your microwave’s working.

Sadly, Nate Dogg and mac & cheese align in what it takes for me to realize how something that was such an integral part of my youth no longer plays much of a role in it anymore.  Of course, one of the outstanding things about living in a city like Los Angeles where nearly anything southern can be fetishized, comfort food like mac & cheese can be perverted into a whole lot of freaky offshoots that sound fantastic in theory but not “$10” fantastic.  Look, it’s cool that there’s a place like Mac & Cheeza in downtown L.A. where the food is supposedly like crack, but then again, if I’m going to brave that drive on a weekend evening, I’d better end up scoring some actual crack for about the same price.  

That said, as nice at it is that they’ll throw some wild shit like ostrich or “real cheese” up in the mix, I’m a simple dude who fucks with the kind with breadcrumbs that gives you the nicely baked crust on the end and leaves it at that.  But I also harbor resentment that they’ve somehow stolen my “mac & cheese on toast” recipe I developed as a fat 12-year old.  If they’re looking to develop a line of butter sandwiches, I’ve got the hook-up.