What We Mean When We Say...

...devilin.'

The role model Andrew Noz put up his thoughts about The Big Payback up over @ his spot on the corner, CB. We take his point. It's not that Charnas book is, well, OK. It is that there is no master narrative for hiphop (or for that matter, much of anything but the masters). Noz long ago earned his way to the status of role model because he pays rigorous attention to the historical details that differentiate. In other words, he offers respect.

As we think about our work here, we think we are offering our respect to him and our other rolemodels, and to the music to which we can't stop and won't stop listening.

They Reminisce?

We have mad respect for those who pay attention to the devils in the details because they have the power of the rzarection. So we holla @ chaboy sfan @ the T.R.O.Y/Philaflava conglomerate. He works that archival cut, loading up clip after clip.

At this moment, we must call out his saga about Baltimore and DC. We recognize with full respect the steady view of Al Gov'tname, too. But sfan has posted up a box full of devilin' tunes and when you play 'em out, you have a history in your ears.

We look at this example and light a cigar, let the smoke go to the loa.

We don't work on fresh...

...but we call out the blues when we hear it.

Chaboy Fennesey, who earns muchlove, put some time into OFWGKTA, and you should too, so visit.

We put you up to this last month, remarking that the shit was more like Stan Brakhage or than the other homemade hiphop out there. It's as real as the 7th 8th and 9th strings on Big Joe Williams homemade axe: the realness of "I can't help myself. I need to hear that more a little more." To make it clear: this hits me up like AEC's "Barnyard Scuffle Shuffle," or Bert Williams "Nobody," or put something in that is out on the list.

In a recent exercise in tapping, chaboy Coates, who also earn his love and has the privilege of dropping science on the somewhat lacking and in need over @ The Atlantic talks about this, as he is wont, in autobiographical terms. "I am, it seems, always bidding adieu to the formative music of my youth. I am not bitter, but in the long kiss goodnight I hope to soon understand why and how I came, so powerfully, under the sway of two turntables and a microphone. Now, I am pushing past 35, and I offer these thoughts as a man who almost surely will never buy any of Big Sean's work. And this is as it should be. The music no longer belongs to me. Likely, it never did." Sentimental, but truetrue. He calls it hiphop. Over @ this house we call it the blues.

Let us be clear, though. This is not about the youth, or the fresh or any of that. It is about being displaced from what we do when we grind, and the subsequent illusory sense that we can return to where we used to be. Makes you want to holla, the they they do your mind.

What we love most about the Odd Future crew is how easy it is to see that they are taking the music away from us. And they got so much to take. We were lissening to Earl Sweatshirt @ the office the other day, letting it boom the 'buds while we ground our nose on this and that. The note is simple: blew the shit up outta the workplace. We hadda get a cup of coffee and regroup. Just took it all away w/ the holla, "It never was yours and it never was."

Get over there. Dwell in their house for a while. Pick up a few of the joints they leave around for you. Yours for the taking, right?

Got it.

How to Work in the Archive

Let's cast a spell of much love when we say the name one of our role models, brovah O-Dub. We were gleaning fresh over @ Soulsides, when we came across his discog post on Joe Bataan/Pete Rodriguez, and were reminded that Professor Wang knows how to do scholarship. Ain't enough of it either way. From the top to the bottom.

:: makes small circle of dried red peppers ::

:: places votive candle in blue glass @ center of the circle ::

:: lights candle @ noon ::

:: keeps candle lit 'til midnight ::

Sources: The Lineage of Riddims

As we already noted, Criminal Minded was on the tables w/ our coffee. We found ourselves caught up in a giant syncretic tangle in the fabric.

It goes w/out saying that the rekkid makes its mark in part by slanging a dancehall vibe loosely around the room. All good. All good.

But we got "Remix for P is Free," and we were reminded of brilliant work by Wayne over @ Wayne and Wax, one of our role models. He pulled the Madmad/Alton Ellis/Zunguzung/Yellowman thread out of the tune and used it as a way to chase the local references all over the hiphop/dancehall house. From our perspective, Wayne's work grants the material with the seriousness it deserves: it is a way of being in the world, and, as such, deserves the kind of 'spect we give breathing, painting, eating, givingthankstotheloas, etc. It is how we make our place in the world. It is the creolization of other peoples' musics into something else and something at the same time rooted in its similarities. and And while it is by no means exclusive to the tradition the AEC calls "great black music, ancient to future," this kind of syncretism, this kind of signifying, is something that makes that tradition into a tradition.

Word.

As we dug the crates, we found some interesting sources of the same kind of energy:

• Riddim Guide. There're some people out there who got the time to roll up stats like this on the Mad Mad riddim. We are compelled to 'spect the pages of connections that remind us just how high and low is so high you can't get over it, so low you can't get over it.
• Jamaican Riddimdirectory. A bit more one person's work (we think),and a bit harder to work around, it still is another important reminder of how much is in the locker.

This is relevant to the pile of stones that we are building in 'spect for OB4CL. Most important, that rekkid is a much much brilliant example of the same kind of syncretism that Wayne/Riddim Guide/Riddimdirectory all document. The challenge w/ OB4CL, though, is that it has spread its being over so much more territory. For us, the primary pleasure of OB4CL is the mapping of that territory.

Keeping the Faith

Let's call it an honor to point in someone's direction. We got nothing but mad props for the man w/ the Funky 16 Corners plan. Go. Bring your respect. He's a master archivist.

Where the Crates Are

We have much respect for the people who run Hip Hop is Read. They have a clear and simple focus, and we go back anytime we need the real answers on who's zooming who.