Playing Catch-Up

Two distinct things happen when I say I'm going to do something and don't:

1) I feel guilty/disappointed for not having done that thing

2) If I later decide to get my butt in gear and do that thing, the moment has often passed and I'm left in an awkward game of catch-up


Both of these apply to my resolutions for blog-writing a couple weeks ago, so in an effort to ease the guilt and make the awkwardness shorter and less painful, here's a quick update.

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Article 1: 'Rose Garden' by Shad
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Actually made some progress on this one, but i'd like to do a pretty complete breakdown. In the meantime, here's a couple of phenomenal lines to consider:

I'm not in the zone, there's too much in the way
I weigh two bucks and if I had two slugs to spray like 'Raa Raa'
Glenn Beck better duck like foie gras

The 'weigh'/'way' usage here is wonderful - he uses a homophone pair to end the first line and (almost) begin the second, tying the two together in a very natural fashion. Next, the 'uhh' vowel sound in both 'bucks' and 'slugs' are assonant, and help the repetition in the lyrics feel stronger. Similar word orders are paired with similar phonetic sounds and it flows great to the listener - but Shad isn't done here. The rhythmic pattern of this verse so far has been very on-beat:


I'm not in the zone there's too much in the way
I weigh two bucks and if I had two slugs

All the bold lyrics here hit with the on-beats of the tempo - even the words 'too much' are spoken like 'twomuch' to give this part of the verse a very pounding, grounded feel. However, instead of continuing this pattern, Shad extends the line longer than what we might expect and adds:

to spray [] like 'Raa Raa'

The bold here still represents the on-beats, and in this case that falls in the silence after the lyric - meaning that 'spray', which we would logically anticipate falling on the 1 beat of a new bar ('weigh', 'bucks', 'had', and 'slugs' being the 1, 2, 3, and 4) instead falls on the 4-And off-beat of the same bar. This is rhythmically different from what has come before, and sets us up perfectly for what will be lyrically different: The 'Raa Raa' onomatopoeia.

Now it is not uncommon rappers make use of sounds effects, and some marvelously (See Lupe Fiasco's 'Kick, Push') but i'm hard pressed to find a more joyous and clever use of onomatopoeia in current hip-hop than rhyming 'Raa Raa' with Foie Gras. The punchline is clever, the sound is ear-catching and words are a playground in which gunshots and fine cuisine join in the same exuberant game.

Check back for more later!

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Article 2: Withdrawing Sexual Consent
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There was a (semi)recent article I read in the Globe & Mail about a woman who retroactively withdrew her sexual consent after later finding things out about man she had slept with that bothered her. Though giving her full consent at the time, she now considers the sex 'rape'.

I'll dig up the article in question and write on it properly later, but here's my thoughts in brief:

1) Feeling guilty about sex after-the-fact is unfortunate. Feeling heartbroken is unfortunate. Feeling like a sucker is unfortunate. None of these things are rape.
2) This is an insult to social justice, intelligent people everywhere, and most importantly survivors of actual rape

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Article 3: The Calgary Mayoral Race
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Over 50% of Calgary voted, and Naheed Nenshi is the new Mayor. BAM.

Hip-Hop, Deconstruction, and the Importance of Critically Engaging Art

Hip-Hop is poetry. Not 'poetry for the 21st century', not 'a kind of poetry for urban youth' - poetry. Some of those things may have bearing on the history of Hip-hop in the right context, but often comments like those are used to marginalize and separate Hip-hop from other examples of poetic expression.

I'm going to make a concerted effort on this blog to never attempt to 'justify' Hip-hop as legitimate poetry, because to do so would be to fall into the same trap that video game activists plunge every time they try to defend video games as art. Talking about why something should be taken seriously does not legitimize something - taking it seriously does. At this point, Hip-hop does not need our campaigning, it needs our minds and our critical consciousness. The public at large is aware of Hip-hop, but it doesn't get the same intellectual engagement as other forms of art, and Hip-hop fans have themselves first to blame. Devotion to an art needs to be a deep and rewarding process. What starts as appreciation needs to progress towards engagement and criticism.

Scholars of Shakespeare may well begin their conversation with his work by enjoying a witty line or respecting a clever plot-twist, but they would never leave Shakespearean analysis on such a surface level. Even in 2010, Hip-hop enthusiasts rarely reach that second, crucial level of engagement with the art they enjoy so much. Common's Dooinit is a dope track? Yes!

Why?

How does it fit into the overall context of 'Like Water for Chocolate'? How do we reconcile the genre self parody and anti-misogyny of A Film Called (Pimp) against the troubling depictions of masculinity and homophobia in Dooinit itself? Hip-Hop is full of smart, opinionated people that are ready to start answering these questions.

As much as time allows (hah), i'm going to start doing my part to engage with an art that I love. I will try and post semi-regular analyses and critiques of whatever track has been kicking around my brain, both in terms of scansion-type rhyme and meter and also lyrical content and social connection.

I'm going to post these under the banner of 'Deconstructing ____________'. Look for the first segment with Shad in the next few days.

Things to Come...

In the spirit of getting back into things, I'm going to set some tangible posting goals for the next 7 days. Doing so might mean not going into a subject in quite the detail I would like, but I do love revisiting topics.

Look this week for:

Breaking down Shad's 'Rose Garden'
The legality of retroactively withdrawing sexual consent
More on the Calgary Mayoral Race

and....nope. That's it. If I do that, be a better man than I was all of last year.

Kinda scary really.

TEDxCalgary - Naheed Nenshi - Calgary 3.0

Some really interesting things here. A little scattered perhaps, but he gives some fascinating (and scary) demographics about our fine city, as well as advocating for urbanism.

...ummm Nenshi for Mayor?

Redesign!

I've never actually made good on my desire to blog, and honestly, every time I looked at the old layout it just depressed my in a very livejournal sort of way. I think the odds of me actually doing something here just increased tenfold. :)

Finally!

Bout Damn Time.