Soundscapes

Some of you may love hip-hop. Like me, you may be elated that De La Soul recently decided to abandon major label support and release their masterpiece. You may marvel at the infinite creative potential of a single funk tune from decades past such as "More Bounce to the Ounce." Do you recall how in the early- to mid-1990's, an entire nation's youth danced to this song, not even knowing that it existed? Take the music from its origins in Zapp, loop the first nine seconds, slow it down, pin it up against Cool and the Gang's "Jungle Boogie" at strategic moments, and have a couple of former boy scouts from Brentwood, NY trade boasts, one with a speech impediment, and you have "You Gots to Chill" by EPMD (Erick and Parrish Making Dollars):

"I be the personal computer informational rap
Like the B-I-Z my pieces will make your toes tap
I format the rhymes, step by step
Make them sound def
to maintain my rep
Prepare to come off
In case of a diss
Don't worry about a thing
Cause we can do this
Cause we can turn the party out just be standing still
Make the ladies scream and shout
While the brothers act ill
Take total control of your body and soul
Pack a nine in my pants for when it's time to roll."

Speed up "More Bounce" a tiny bit, add reverb, a Yes guitar lick every 16 bars, and Brother J speaking about the Blackwatch movement and the red, black, and green, and you have "Heed the Words of the Brother," by X-Clan:

"Great blackness brought from the Genesis
We'll exist till Armageddon is a witness
The originals built the earth
Why must there be aggression to learn a basic lesson?
Quite majestic, stern within reality
A juggernaut when you tamper with mentality
Or with a crown, extension and dimension of a brain cell
Bringing hell to the sellout
The ever-tangled web we weave
Always trying to obtain, no attempt to achieve
Descendants of kings and queens act like jesters
Never potential
Quarter of the measure
Jealousy
of what are we
becomes tendency
for their thievery."

Loop 4:04-4:08 of "More Bounce"'s high-pitched wail and the bassline, skip it rhythmically, deconstruct a whiney tone several octaves higher during the chorus, and pass the mic to a simple-minded pimp, and you have MC Breed's "Ain't No Future in Yo' Frontin'":

"This sound hard
Somethin funky people gone dance to
Give the record a second and a chance to
Hittin people like a scene of amazement
While they slippin back my feet is planted in the pavement
Crumple I could never do
So now I'm lookin dead at you
What are you gonna do
You're listening to the knowledge of a scholar
You say how Breed, tell em how I holla
I'm the E-double, and I proclaim my name
Straight up, good game, peeps all gangs
I'm like a rhino runnin through the roughest pack
They figure I'm a trigger happy brother so they step back
BREED, the microphonest, who lasts the longest and who's the strongest
It ain't a game it's plain to see
You're listening to the sounds of Breed and the DFC."

This endless take on "More Bounce to the Ounce" lasted for years, spanning east coast, west coast, expansive gangsta rap and claustrophobic east coast hip-hop alike. Then, a few weeks ago, De La Soul unleashed "Relax." See, in hip-hop, imitation is a form of flattery. For example, MC Breed, above, called himself the "E-double," which was actually Erick Sermon's nickname when he was with EPMD and made "You Gots to Chill." In "You Gots to Chill," Sermon also says "Relax your mind, let your conscience be free and get down to the sounds of EPMD." In turn, De La drop "Relax," complete with sample of that line during the chorus, an inverted "More Bounce" beat, and a loop of the few seconds before the splice used by MC Breed. As De La trade "relax your mind"'s with the sample, it just works. As Guru once said, "the rhyme style is elevated, the style of beats is elevated," but it's still More Bounce to the Ounce...and something completely different at the same time. And then you progress to "Wasn't for You" and other classics, and all is right with the world.

There are two primary reasons why people won't listen to hip-hop: they can't hear the lyrics for what the artists are trying to communicate, or they think the sounds are too repetitive. I actually believe that the latter is a source of strength for the art form. To prove it, let me invite you to participate in an experiment. If you want to understand why people live for this music, purchase Mayday's "Nothin." Load it onto your mp3 player, and press play. The song rises to its feet from a deep slumber, bass drops stretching, hand claps shaking off the hours of stillness, a distant guitar chord morphing into a random-walk keyboard, reverb slinking in and out of this seemingly barren landscape, until the beat drops.

There's something about a steady 808, bassline, keyboard progression, and dueling, obscure treble samples that lulls you into a peaceful ponderance. The music gently hovers you above the known world, a presiding mind, and the continuity of it all gives your mind a canvass upon which to weave complex thought tapestries. Inverse biomorphic concretism. There's nothing like it. Instead of the elements of a piece, at first seemingly disparate, snapping together in the mind in a moment of gestalt, the monotony slowly deviates from itself in how it's perceived, meaning every time you hear the beat, it's not entirely the same as when you last encountered it.

Mayday enters the stage, singing the chorus, and then he begins:

Nothin's really real
Nothin's what it appears
Nothin's what I feel
When I'm wiping the tears
Nothin is somethin here
An inner space where the gravity is gone
Where the weight is not so strong
Far
Still it all amounts to nothin
Nothin in your ears
Nothin I can do to not disappear
Nothin is somethin here
So I repeat and dissect the prior years
Smokin weed drinkin beers
Gettin numb, let it breathe

And then the bass meanders, and you breathe easier. Your mind is more alert, filled with images and concepts. You begin to listen to the song in your headphones as you walk down the street. As you slink into a chair at the end of the day. As you drift to sleep. The world seems different as the beat plays and shifts and weaves through your mind. It is your drug. And its only known side effect is the desire to hear it again. I've known people to leave their apartments in the middle of the night, before there were mp3's, in search of a friend with a particular beat. They could not sleep without it. I admit I have shared this addiction and I'm not ashamed of it.

If you have any doubts about the power of this medium, you need simply stick around for verse two of "Nothin'." If you aren't choking back a tear by the end of verse two, before the chanting begins with "Mayday, save me," then you are a hopeless case or have no soul. The world is vast, and perhaps another genre will suit you. But hip-hop is not in your blood.

You should listen to "Nothin'" for the first time not knowing the lyrics, but I reproduce them below for your records:

Rhyme-wise, I drew the figure eight
There's nothin I regret nothin I won't make straight
She told me save those tapes
Cause my life is logged in 'em
Hidden within the words
Buried inside the rhythm
I said "sure,"
Not knowin that's the last we'd speak
She fought it hard
But eventually just chose to sleep
Back to nothin
But somehow somethin lingers behind
Imprinting my mind
Broken bloodline
Time
And I can still see her there
Cooking in the kitchen
Feeding us with all her care
But now there's nothin there
It vanished into air
So will I
Say goodbye
Let her go
Let her die
Mother please don't cry.

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence