Manic Monday
Again, from Angry Black White Boy:
"Hip hop is not talking to your parents, but talking over their records. Hip hop means trying to knock your idols out of the box, hearing a rumor that your favorite MC's new record is wack and not even buying it, you fickle motherfucker. Hip hop moves so fast that new jams are outdated by the time the last snare snaps, but hip hop recycles everything, so it all evens out. Hip hop finishes your sentences for you because you talk too goddamn slow, and rolls its eyes at any and all attempts to define, explain, categorize, or even celebrate it. Hip hop knows what it is and who it's in and has no problem with leaving all that shit unspoken, but secretly it wishes somebody would hit the nail right on the head and so it half-listens to everybody's overwrought, emotional, esoteric, poetic, theoretical bullshit and is always disappointed."
Tough crowd to write for. I grew up in a house (apartment, actually) full of everything described in that paragraph. My brother is a rapper and our living room was always packed with DJs and graff artists and b-boys, busy debating weeded-out conspiracy theory tomes, random rhymes, every hip-hop artist under the sun, plus all manner of beef (local, national, international). And dissing wack newspaper stories, wack magazine articles, wack books, and wack TV segments on hip-hop.
When I started writing (about four years ago), the living room cyphers/critical beatdowns didn't stop. Some writers have to sift through piles of nutty mail to get a sense of their readership. Others occasionally get approached in the club with comments. For me, feedback has never been more than a phone call away. (My bro: "Yeah, so we were all talking about your Outkast review today and you should know that you are on some bullshit with that one. Sorry. But what do you mean "The Whole World" has a corny singsong chorus?" That shit is amazing. Sorry.) Trial by fire. But you learn how to defend your opinions pretty fast, that's for sure. Work hard for your r-e-s-p-e-c-t.
For some reason, I have been thinking about all of this as I put my book together. And, like Danyel, I have been thinking a lot about ambition. I've got it too. Bad. As in chronically restless, always wanting more, never quite satisfied, a million and one ideas, high on pure energy, perpetually scheming about the next big plan, sometimes can't sleep at night, BAD.
Don't know if ambition is a gift or a curse. This girl that I met in a hostel in Bangkok asked me why I want to be a writer in New York (work for the big magazines and publish books and all that jazz). She wanted to know why I'm not satisfied to just chill and hold things down in Vancouver. I want to be at the top, I told her, not to be better than anyone else (although I don't mind winning a lil battle here and there), but because I want to be around the best. I need the stimulation. I need to be around people that work the way I work, talk as fast as I talk, think about the things I think about--and are in the process of wading through the same shit to get where they want to go. And those people are in New York. A lot of them anyway.
"Hip hop is not talking to your parents, but talking over their records. Hip hop means trying to knock your idols out of the box, hearing a rumor that your favorite MC's new record is wack and not even buying it, you fickle motherfucker. Hip hop moves so fast that new jams are outdated by the time the last snare snaps, but hip hop recycles everything, so it all evens out. Hip hop finishes your sentences for you because you talk too goddamn slow, and rolls its eyes at any and all attempts to define, explain, categorize, or even celebrate it. Hip hop knows what it is and who it's in and has no problem with leaving all that shit unspoken, but secretly it wishes somebody would hit the nail right on the head and so it half-listens to everybody's overwrought, emotional, esoteric, poetic, theoretical bullshit and is always disappointed."
Tough crowd to write for. I grew up in a house (apartment, actually) full of everything described in that paragraph. My brother is a rapper and our living room was always packed with DJs and graff artists and b-boys, busy debating weeded-out conspiracy theory tomes, random rhymes, every hip-hop artist under the sun, plus all manner of beef (local, national, international). And dissing wack newspaper stories, wack magazine articles, wack books, and wack TV segments on hip-hop.
When I started writing (about four years ago), the living room cyphers/critical beatdowns didn't stop. Some writers have to sift through piles of nutty mail to get a sense of their readership. Others occasionally get approached in the club with comments. For me, feedback has never been more than a phone call away. (My bro: "Yeah, so we were all talking about your Outkast review today and you should know that you are on some bullshit with that one. Sorry. But what do you mean "The Whole World" has a corny singsong chorus?" That shit is amazing. Sorry.) Trial by fire. But you learn how to defend your opinions pretty fast, that's for sure. Work hard for your r-e-s-p-e-c-t.
For some reason, I have been thinking about all of this as I put my book together. And, like Danyel, I have been thinking a lot about ambition. I've got it too. Bad. As in chronically restless, always wanting more, never quite satisfied, a million and one ideas, high on pure energy, perpetually scheming about the next big plan, sometimes can't sleep at night, BAD.
Don't know if ambition is a gift or a curse. This girl that I met in a hostel in Bangkok asked me why I want to be a writer in New York (work for the big magazines and publish books and all that jazz). She wanted to know why I'm not satisfied to just chill and hold things down in Vancouver. I want to be at the top, I told her, not to be better than anyone else (although I don't mind winning a lil battle here and there), but because I want to be around the best. I need the stimulation. I need to be around people that work the way I work, talk as fast as I talk, think about the things I think about--and are in the process of wading through the same shit to get where they want to go. And those people are in New York. A lot of them anyway.
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