Listen to the words of NWA's "Gangsta Gangsta" from the seminal Straight Outta Compton not as parody but as a first-person tale of the whole vibe of ELLIOT ABRAMS, OTTO REICH, JOHN NEGROPONTE, OLIVER NORTH and the downed pilot EUGENE HASENFUS, produced not by DR. DRE but by BILL CASEY and DICK CHENEY. Doesn't sound so pretty from that perspective, eh? THIS is just one reason why Straight Outta Compton was important.
8 comments:
Damn - the LBC in the streets of CPT, rolling on dubs.
FranIam has had a long and complicated relationship with rap and hip/hop.
You should see my iPod. And although it is a different era and different music, do you know how many people of color got turned on to Dangermouse's Gray Album mix of JayZ because of moi?
What a weight for a then 46 year old white woman to bear.
It all started in 1979 when the Sugar Hill Gang laid down the phat beats and she's been a goner ever since.
Criticize me if you will(i know you won't kelso)... haven't we all eaten fatty food, had risky or at least ill-advised sex, smoked, drank too much? It is like that for me.
Over the years I drift in and I drift out. I've drifted out a lot in the last year. Sometimes the anger and the language and the rage are just too much.
But no motherfucker, you had to go put this up.
And you are right- the space between EasyE, Dre and the whole LBC is not so far from the names you mention in the rogues gallery.
Good post Kelso, good post.
We are 100% in accord on this. I don't listen to much rap anymore. It's frozen in place. I don't want to hear more braggadoccio. I don't want to hear denatured sex from Foxy Brown and Lil Kim. I don't want to hear soft shit like Black Eyed Peas. I don't want to hear quasi-religious stuff like Kanye West. Leaves me Nas and Eminem and they aren't doing much these days.
I feel like a dinosaur listening to NWA, Cube, Wu, Paris, Geto Boys, Disposible Heroes/Spearhead, Public Enemy....
"Criticize me if you will(i know you won't kelso)... haven't we all eaten fatty food, had risky or at least ill-advised sex, smoked, drank too much? It is like that for me."
I'M 46 TOO AND DIDN'T GROW UP WEALTHY EITHER, BUT WHATEVER ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I HAVEN'T DONE ANY OF THOSE THINGS. JOE LIEBERMAN IS MY MORAL COMPASS.
Oh of course, the guiding light of the Yids... Lieberman!
Sorry, shikselah made an error in judgment.
Cuz' is dat you?
Dese mugs ain't never right. I say murk'em all.
Hell, I don't know.
Great song.
Great song. Great side. The CD which shoved the stubborn Kelso off onto rap. Before STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON, Kelso was like "Vat's mit der RUN-DMC? If I fucking wanted to listen to disco, I'd take Donna Summer or Polly Brown in a heartbeat this crap." It sure was hard to separate RUN-DMC from NEW EDITION or MENUDO for that matter.
PUBLIC ENEMY and BRAND NUBIAN were OK as it went but it was just a little too soon to have to deal with bow-ties and bean-pies telling me I was oppressing them when THEY LIVED A ZILLION TIMES BETTER THAN I DID. But NWA? The wasn't just gin-rummy, this was Hollywood/Oklahoma-style Gin and a triple schneider. And what was the difference? It was the first rap record Kelso heard that only required listening. A listening that paid political residuals and cultural dividends. Rhythm, dancing? Jeez, Kelso's white. So, that's tourist shit to him. STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON made Kelso think. The beats?
Who gave a crap. They didn't have to be perfect. They just had to be GOOD ENOUGH because the lyrics spoke. Christ on this same record, NWA makes FUN of DANCING. ICE CUBE's later solo work showed his pure loathing of dance culture and perfect production values. Which was why Kelso had picked THE SEX PISTOLS over SUPERTRAMP or SISTER SLEDGE to begin with.
Yes, LA was way out in front of NY on this. Turned the whole thing around on its head. Back in the day, NY (the "authentic" place) had a rap that was about dancing with a sprinkling of politics and a dollop of the MSG of anti-semitism, while LA (the "inauthentic" place)had a rap was about the meaning, the stories, the anger. The beats were secondary and whatever anti-semitism there was had a material basis -- a bad contract and so forth. And the LA pioneers never failed to draw the distinction between White and Jew. All NY gave us was a bunch of rich Jewish clowns doing the Elvis Presley thing, leading "Professor" Griff to drone on about how THE JEWS ran the slave trade. Gee whiz, "Professor" was I your "oppressor"? You grew up better than I did. Nice, well-manicured 1-acre lot, with a ranch house in Roosevelt. When we were both 9 would the "Professor" have swapped with Kelso? Not on your life.
Fuck, if I were any member of PUBLIC ENEMY I wouldn't like to be outsold by The BEASTIE BOYS either but the LA sound was far more evolved and intelligent. It was NEVER "party" music. So, let's be happy that Chuck D has matured. "Professor" Griff is a footnote to a footnote. LA rap changed Kelso's life. And this particular tune gave him a chance to add some real finesse to this paricular post.
LA rap was punk. NY rap was "Cabaret" if "Cabaret" were really pro-Nazi and not satire. NY got a little better as time wore on but we still had soft shit like DE LA SOUL and the loathesome Jesus freak, LAURYN HILL. OK, ok, the WU were the balls. No argument.
That's all in the way back past, though. Bygones are bygohes and not Saigons. "Gangsta Gangsta" fit Kelso's Nuts on this particular day's post. We'll do our official rap post when the Voice poll comes out next year.
Frederick: If only, if only. I am afraid there will be no run on the linkage bank. It never works that way around Kelso-ville. Over 10 comments and I'm over the moon.
But thanks for noticing a lot of elements in a gread rap song, most of which I missed. And please keep coming back. Only way i'll escape Ice Cube's curse of only being a gnat on a dog's dick in the blogosphere.
I cannot stand rap, hip-hop, whatevers. Just not my flavor, flav. But I have an enormous amount of respect for those old school LA dudes, especially Chuck D when he stood up and told artists to quit whining about free music downloads. In fact I'll hafta Google that editorial he wrote about it - very impressive with unflawed logic that said, "Shut the fuck up, Madonna."
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