Way Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Not to be trite, but there are many facets to the art of hip hop. Obviously, the actual music is a large part of that, but anytime a person utters words to an audience other than his or her own mother, a bazillion connotations attack said audience like buckshot. A good rapper doesn't use a shotgun though, he precisely snipes the listener's mind, circulating the intended emotional reaction throughout the body. This emotional experience is why we as humans create and consume art. The conveyance of the artist's emotion is especially difficult in music and spoken poetry, the two things that combine to form hip hop. But on that rare occasion when an artist hits the mark and the listener feels a sensation foreign to everyone but the artist, it is a beautiful thing.

Take, for example, Jay-Z's "Friend or Foe" from his classic album, Reasonable Doubt. Like Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..., Reasonable Doubt is a loose concept album starring Jay as the mob kingpin that you shan't fuck with. Now, at that point in rap history, this mobster concept was still in its infancy, but of course today it is almost laughable if a rapper puts out a record claiming to be some sort of kingpin. And as we sift through history's hundreds of rappers who are all 100% positive they are God's gift to hustling, the Jigga Man circa '96 stands out above the rest. It's not because he's the hardest or he's fucked the most bitches or killed the most people; he doesn't tell you how badass he is, he makes you feel his badassery.

The song opens with a short plot-setting skit in which we meet an ambitious drug dealer ready to teach Jay a lesson about the streets. Cocking his gun and brimming with confidence, we follow the anonymous thug to his confrontation with Jay-Z. As he crosses the threshold to claim his turf, DJ Premier, who produced the track, sets the mood immediately with smooth, confident, intrusive trumpet blasts and a laid back funk guitar. Primo sonically paints a picture of HOVA, chillaxin with his cigar, his crew and his cash, turning his head as he notices some punk enter the his territory. There's no introduction, there's no hostility, Jay is strictly business:

"Friend of foe, yo, state your biz/Hmm, you tend to dough? Ah, there it is/Me, I run the show, oh and these kids/Don't like no one comin' round fuckin' with their dough for shit"

Notice how Jay doesn't whip out his Glock, he doesn't confront the intruder, he simply informs him that this is not the place to start any trouble. Shit, Jay probably isn't even strapped, he's badass enough to use his posse as extra appendages ready to fuck someone up at his will; he keeps his hands clean and stays out of the dirty work. Like a general orders soldiers, so does Jay control his henchmen.

"You enterprisin' though, and I like it/Fuck with the big dogs though, I gotta bite ya"

Jay is condescending, relaxed and supremely confident as he brings this kid back down to earth. He lets him know that he likes where his head is at, he appreciates the entrepreneurial attitude. He says this as a Hustlernomics professor would say to his student: good try but you get a C+, better luck on the next exam. But the consequences of his brashness are much more than a bad grade, Jay has to teach the kid a lesson in respect: he's gotta bite him. He continues,

"Look, it's out of my hands/And you gettin' money round here, it's not in the plans"

Once again, Jay is strictly business. He sympathizes with the kid and if it were up to him he would send him on a way. But it doesn't have anything to do with him, it has to do with money. Jay shows that he is not the type of gangster that physically beats you but, like Ghostface in our previous post, he mentally dominates his opponent by premeditating the plans and following them precisely, not acting on a whim. Being in control of one's emotion shows much more strength and wisdom than the biggest gun anyone can wield. The condescension continues later in the song:

"Let me guess, they said it was money round here/And the rest is me stoppin' you from gettin' it, correct?/Sorry to hear that, my guess is you got work at the hotel/I'll take care of that, you'll see/Now please give me the room key"

Sorry to burst your bubble, Jay says, but you ain't getting shit from me, in fact I'm taking shit from you. We, as listeners, are flies on the wall in this scene as we witness Jay engage in politics as usual. We are in position to arbitrarily judge the hustling battle that is going on between Jigga and his opponent and it has not been much of a fight. Jay possesses the confidence bordering on arrogance to get under his opponent's skin and gain the mental edge, a very powerful thing.

Jay-Z bagging Beyonce: believed to be man's greatest achievement in hustling.

In the next few lines, Jay-Z displays his ability to express his gangster through words, not actions. After he breaks the news to this kid that he's about to get fucked, he notices him reaching for his heat:

"You're twitchin', don't do that, you're makin' me nervous"

Notice the stammer between the words don't and do. Jay has given this kid a chance to save some face, but when he sees him go for his gun, Jay gets fed up. He doesn't tell us this explicitly, but he acts out the scene as if in a movie so the listener can draw the conclusions on his or her own. We see his character develop as he reacts during a tense situation and he has about had enough of this kid.

"So would ya, please put your hand back in sight/They don't like to see me nervous you can understand that, right?/You draw, better be Picasso, y'know the best/Cause if this is not so, ah, God bless"

Jay doesn't jump the kid when he reaches for his piece, he doesn't even order his muscle to jump him. Always cool and confident, Jay maintains his composure and strongly suggests that he not fuck with his boys. He shows further sympathy and humanity when he sighs before he says "God bless." Should the kid draw and get some peepholes added to his frame, Jay wishes him the best and is sorry that it turned out the way it did. But this sympathy never gets in the way of business for a true hustler. Moreover, he encourages him to draw and if he is Picasso, then that's good for him, he has outhustled the king.

"You leave me no choice, I leave you no voice/Believe me, Son, I hate to do it just as bad as you hate to see it done"

Jay understands the Darwinism of the game but is certain that this kid is no Jay-Z. His business isn't killing people, his business is getting money and he'll do whatever he has to do to accomplish it. The beauty of Jay's character in Reasonable Doubt isn't that he's the hardest gangster, it's that he is the best at what he does while still being down to earth. As listeners we can imagine ourselves in the anonymous thug's shoes confronting Jay-Z. Yea, we could try to be hard and walk in strapped, taking on the role of foe. But we could also just as easily walk in, admit defeat, be his friend, smoke a blunt and crack a 40 with Jigga. An artist cannot express this notion through explicit statement, language cannot encapsulate the feeling of arrogance mixed with humility, they are antonyms. It is an indescribable character trait that can only be discovered through experience. After listening to "Friend or Foe" we now know who Jay-Z is and how his brain operates. Jay is not exposed, we do not gain a mental advantage over him because he admits his traits, he delivers them to us in that spot of the brain that deciphers a person's actions. He is in total control of his audience and that is what makes him one of the greatest MCs to ever grace a mic.

A Press Rewind Line

Artist: Aesop Rock

Song: Daylight

Album: Labor Days

Line: "All I ever wanted was to pick apart the day/Put the pieces back together my way"

The sing-song chorus of one of Aesop's more commercially successful songs is a deep exploration of the nature of freedom. Of course, this is hardly a new idea but the way Aes formulates the song's (and album's) thesis is. The album revolves around the laments of the working class in America's cities and Aes acts as the voice of an overlooked demographic.

The first thing to notice is that this is all he wants. Moreover, it is all he ever wanted. This means that from the beginning, Aes has only ever hoped to be able to pick apart the day and put the pieces back together his way. Right after the basic needs to keep him alive, freedom comes next on the hierarchy of needs. But he does say "wanted" which suggests the he knows he can survive without said freedom, as he has his whole life if he is currently still wanting it. It is interesting that he uses the term "day" to describe his life, which could mean two things: either he has freedom outside of his workday, or there is no life outside of his workday. Either way, he sees his day as a structure that is made of different pieces. When he says that he wants to put them back together his way, he emphasizes that his day has been constructed by someone else. This immediately strikes the listener as irrational, why should someone else construct one's life?

Straighten your goddamn hat. Fucking practical hippies.

The analogy that he is playing off of is life as a puzzle. Someone has put the pieces of his puzzle together and presumably they fit together perfectly, like a jigsaw. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this on the surface, who doesn't love the flawlessness of a jigsaw puzzle? But Aes destroys this notion as he says he wants to take his puzzle apart and put it back together any damn way he wants. Of course, the puzzle pieces won't fit together perfectly and chaos within the structure will ensue. But to Aes, this chaos is beautiful, it creates asymmetry and illogical meaning outside of the norm. As long as he creates it, that is all that matters; no one else has to understand it. He wants control of his life as an artist has creative control of his or her work. This spawns another analogy of life as a piece of art in itself, which is a central theme of El-P's music, Aesop Rock's frequent collaborator. The suppression of creative instinct and individuality is, Aesop argues, a form of homocide. This is a striking critique of modern industrialized society that builds upon the ideas of western poets from the past few centuries.

Dr. Starks, Ph.D.

After our previous douche-centric Lil' Wayne post, we now turn our magnifying glass towards one of the more classic verses in rap history: Ghostface Killah's verse on Raekwon's "Criminology." Of course, it shouldn't need to be noted that this track comes off of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..., Raekwon's 1995 solo debut and possibly the greatest hip hop album ever. Ghostface is notorious for indecipherable, stream of consciousness lyrics that are not exactly listener-friendly. This post will be the scalpel that slices Ghost's brain in half undoubtedly revealing an infinite knowledge of Wallabees, Iron Man, strip clubs and crack spots.

Cuban Linx is a concept album of sorts in that it tells the story of two drug dealers, Tony Starks (Ghosface) and Lex Diamonds (Raekwon), that attempt to break out of the hood by pulling off one more big move. The "plot" is set up on the opening track, "Striving for Perfection" when Raekwon says,

"I'm not trying to just be sitting on motherfuckin two-hundred thou and acting like I'ma just be a drug dealer all my life, Son, I got bigger and better plans, Son"

"Striving for Perfection" lays the ground work for the album, then track 2, "Knuckleheadz" opens the action by depicting a heist. Track 3, "Knowledge God," is more or less an autobiography used by Rae to build up his character so we know what he's all about on the album: hitting bitch-ass store owners named Mike Livonia. This leads us into track 4, "Criminology."

The song opens with dialogue from Scarface, the main point being don't fuck with Tony Montana and in turn, Rae or Ghost. Then after Raekwon gushes about his desire to make CREAM like that nigga Julio Iglesias, Ghost jumps in:

"Yo, first of all, Son, meet the arson/Many brothers I be sparkin' and bustin' mad light inside the dark"

Before you say or do anything, Ghost would like to introduce himself as an arson that sparks and busts fire in the dark. This is a rather creative way of saying that he will not hesitate to blow your fucking head off as he has done so to many brothers in the past. But sparkin' light in the darkness is a powerful metaphor that has been explored numerous times in literature, most famously in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Heart of Darkness deals with British imperialism into the darkness that is Congo and questions whether it is morally justifiable to impinge on another's blindness in order to satisfy a goal. Ghost answers Conrad's question by implying that he will give sight to the blind and if they should protest, as mentioned above, he'll blow your fucking head off. Moreover, a major part of Five Percenter philosophy, which, at least during Cuban Linx, Ghostface follows, deals with "giving sight to the blind." This warns the listener that Ghost is about to give sight to your blind ass with his lyrics and you better fucking like them.

"Call me dough snatcher, just a brother for the Rapture/I hang glide, holdin' on strong, hard to capture/Extravagant, RZA bake the track and it's militant/Then I react like a convict and start killin' shit"

Not only will Ghostface splatter your goose and scatter your feathers, he'll snatch your dough like Jesus snatching up believers during the Rapture. This Jesus reference goes along with him sparkin' light in darkness; he will dominate you physically as he shoots you and robs you, but also dominate you mentally as he shines a light on the proper path within the darkness. The next line is a perfect example of Ghostface's eccentricity as all of the sudden he's holding on strong to his hang glider. What the fuck, Ghost? The key to understanding this dude lies in the word "Extravagant." Eleven years after Cuban Linx, on "Be Easy," Ghost says that he's "Flossed ill robes since 'Criminology'." His verse on "Criminology" is the beginning of the Ghostface Killah of today that we all know and love. The one that has his own fucking $500 doll. The one that can only be described as utterly ridiculous. When Ghostface robs and murders you, he's not frantically fleeing the scene and throwing his Glock in some dumpster, this motherfucker hang glides away from the god damn scene. That's some James Bond shit and RZA is the Q to Ghost's 007. RZA supplies the pulsating beat and Ghostface reacts the only way he knows how, killing his verse like he just killed that dude a thousand feet below him and his hang glider. It's interesting that he uses the word "react," as if he is the Manchurian Candidate and as soon as he hears RZA's beat, he snaps into verse killing mode.

"It's manifested, the Gods work like appliances/Dealin' in my cipher I revolve around sciences"

Here, Ghost flaunts his supreme grasp on the English language. The meaning of the line is rooted in Five Percenter empirical philosophy, but that is secondary to the pure sonic genius of the rhyming of "appliances"and "sciences." The "iances" syllables that the words share is a distinct sound in English not found in a whole lot of words; this search, for whatever it's worth, only found a few matches. Let's pretend we are a flies on the wall when a presumably hammered Ghostface is writing this line (in San Francisco, according to this disappointing but still fucking awesome read). Ghost discovers the rhyme, tries to finagle a way to connect the two words then shouts, "Eureka, muhfuckah!" as he realizes that appliances are machines that operate predictably and science is the empirical evidence used to predict the operations. Brilliant. On top of that, there is something fantastic about a line that rhymes the two most significant words of the lyric and something lame about a line that doesn't. Just off the top of the head, a lyric that comes to mind is off of Nas' Hip Hop is Dead from the song, "Hustlers." Hip Hop God, The Game, spits:

"Illmatic on the top shelf, The Chronic on the left, homie/Wanna cop both but only got a twenty on me"

The addition of "homie" to the end of the first line is a lazy excuse to finish a rhyme and is absolutely non-essential to the information he is trying to convey. Arguably, the two most significant words of the lyric are "both" and "twenty," we'd have to check with our sources but those words don't seem to rhyme. So if anyone ever says The Game is a better rapper than Ghostface, kick them in the balls then show them that lyric.

"The ninth chamber, nigga trapped inside my hallway/You try to flee but you got smoked up by the doorway (blaow! blaow! blaow!)"

A seemingly standard "I'll fucking kill you" line from Ghost, here. But upon further inspection, the imagery presented is tense and downright scary. Ghost imagines an enemy desperately attempting to escape Ghost's chamber to avoid certain death. A chamber in the context of kung fu is a place to practice the art of fighting. Wu-Tang typically uses the term as a metaphor for a closed off area reserved for battle such as an individual song or an album. In this case, if you trespass into Ghostface's domain, your violent death is inevitable. Even worse, he will taunt you and let you get close to the exit before he smokes you. He continues his threat by saying,

"No question, I'll send your ass back, right to the essence/Your whole frame is smothered in dirt, now how you restin'?"

There is no doubt, Ghost says, that he will return your ass back to your maker upon your entry into his chamber. But at the same time he sends your bitch-ass back to the "essence," he smothers you in dirt. Ghost is making the distinction between soul and body, stating that he will send your soul to the essence while disposing of your frame in a graveyard and to top it all off he will mock your dead body by asking it how it is enjoying its eternal rest. The key to understanding the line, though, is in the words "essence" and "frame." A frame is a tool, an instrument used to aid the existence of something; a picture frame creates an easier way to view the picture by holding it in place, thereby aiding the picture's existence. The picture is the essence of the picture/picture frame combination, after all you don't just display a picture frame in your house without a picture. Ghost is saying that a body is but an instrument to aid the soul in its growth. While threatening your ass, Ghostface simultaneously reveals his personal ontology about abstract and concrete objects. But then Ghost switches from implicitly admitting his beliefs to explicit autobiography:

"While I be trapped by sounds, locked behind loops/Throwin' niggas off airplanes 'cause cash rules/Everything around me black as you can see/Swallow this murder one verse like God degree"

He's trapped by sounds and locked behind loops in a kind of mental dungeon relating back to when he said that as soon as he hears RZA's beat he starts killing shit. In fact, he throws niggas off airplanes which is probably more insane than escaping Jakes on a hang glider. Ghost once again displays his extravagance as he fantasizes about fucked up methods of murder that only happen in Hollywood, which is to say they don't happen at all. Of course, he throws niggas off airplanes because C.R.E.A.H., but notice how "Everything around me" starts off a new line. A very clever transition to a new rhyme as well as a double meaning because "Everything around me" also refers to what you can see: pure blackness. That is, as you take your last breaths and look up from the ground at your assailant, Tony Starks, everything around him fades to blackness for all of eternity. A very entertaining, terrifying and creative way of letting the general public know that it is best that one not fuck with Ghostface. Then he goes meta on our asses as he steps back for a moment to tell us to digest this verse like one digests food("God degree" means food in Wu vocabulary, apparently). He continues,

"Then analyze my soundtrack for satisfaction/You adapt like a flashback chain reaction"

Unbelievable assonance and rhyming ability put on display right here; the equivalent of watching Jordan in '91: the best, doing what they do best, at the time in which they did it best. The soft "a" sound is repeated in analyze, soundtrack, satisfaction, adapt, flashback and reaction. Assonance usually serves as an alternative to a standard rhyme at the end of each line, but Ghost uses the technique to supplement the flawless rhyme of "satisfaction" and "reaction." The repetition of the "a" sound is particularly effective as it highlights his high-pitched, borderline obnoxious, New York accented voice. All this beauty and we haven't even gotten to the meaning of the lyric.

As mentioned above, Ghostface is stepping back from his Tony Starks persona and imploring us, the consumer, to digest his raps. The question is what he means by "You adapt." We apparently adapt like flashback chain reactions, by this he means a rapid series of associated mental images triggered by his lyrics. Unfortunately it's pretty unclear what he means when he says we adapt, perhaps he is saying that the listener's is mental state invariably controlled by whatever Ghost spits. Or maybe it is the first hole that can be found in the impenetrable fortress of "Criminology."

What we must remember is that Cuban Linx is it's a concept album, a piece of fiction with characters and a plot. Ghostface's character is Tony Starks and he is indeed a professor of Criminology. Go back to the lyrics, Tony commits at least seven or eight crimes in this verse alone. Crime is his job, he doesn't make money by sitting in a cubicle, he makes money by sticking bitches for their riches. Ghostface Killah, of course, makes his money by rapping, it is doubtful that Ghost has thrown anybody off of an airplane at any point in time in his life, although word is he's an avid hang glider. "Criminology" is the autobiography of a hoodlum narrated by an ironic facilitator that understands the mind-set of a criminal. Tony Starks' twisted internal logic is parodied by Ghost throughout the album as he pin points the very character traits that lead to his demise. Ghostface glamorizes the grimy underworld of crime to highlight the stupidity of ghetto youngsters looking for a way out. He weaves in and out of character and breaks the fourth wall at the end of the verse in order to shape the listener's ghetto experience as well as the naivety of Tony. All this while being hella easy on the ears.

Lil' Wayne's Universe

Lil' Wayne's Da Drought 3 has been beating the shit out of our iPod's battery lately and we are trying to figure out why. Weezy F.'s rhymes aren't classic in a Rakim way, they aren't clever in an MF DOOM way, they aren't even bat-shit insane in a Ghostface way. They are what happens when Weird Al pledges a frat and has a little too much syrup. How else do you get lines like,

"How come every bad bitch with a pussy wanna fuck him?/But I just feed 'em drugs and just watch 'em fuck each other"

This is just one piece of evidence on Da Drought 3 that unequivocally proves Weezy is a porn fiend and it comes from "Put Some Keys On That":

Like nearly every song on the mixtape, "Put Some Keys On That" has no semblance of a goal other than for Wayne to show that he a) is the fucking shit, b) is funny as hell, c) is drunk/high and d) as mentioned before, enjoys hardcore lesbian pornography. He enjoys said porno almost as much as a good simile, which is of course a comparison between two things using the words "like" or "as."

Reading the lyrics to "Put Some Keys On That", we counted at least 12 similes. Wayne uses himself as half of the comparison a number of times; this means that he claims to possess the same properties as things like Dunkin' Donuts, Tonya Harding, a magic carpet, a pack of Orbit and a bookbag. He uses these things to emphasize the fact that he does donuts in his Lambo, breaks bitches down, is fly, fresh and strapped; all of which effectively convey the same meaning. After about the first 15 seconds of the song, you may find yourself saying alright Weezy we get it, you are the President, CEO and Official Lil' Wayne Fellator of the Lil' Wayne Fan Club, do you have anything else to say? To this, Wayne replies no, good sir, I have nothing important or worthwhile to proclaim, other than the fact that I am a douche.

But Wayne is in the same douche class as Will Farrell and the entire San Antonio Spurs organization: you hate the way they go about their business, but they're damn good at what they do. Wayne is cocky, arrogant and a piece of shit--a hood Ron Burgundy. But what Wayne does on Da Drought 3 is snap one sporadic punchline after another over a number of stolen beats; in "Put Some Keys On That"'s case, he uses the beat to "Throw Some D's" by rap legend, Rich Boy. His rapping philosophy is best stated in "Sky's the Limit (Ride 4 My Niggas)" when he says,

"And when I was five my favorite movie was the Gremlins/Ain't got shit to do with this but I just thought that I should mention"

His favorite movie as a kid clearly ain't got shit to do with him riding 4 his niggas, but it has got shit to do with him syncing up two bars perfectly with every 16th note of the beat. This is the poetic genius that comes from Weezy F.'s retarded mind and its straight up stupidity gets under the listener's skin just like witnessing another god damn charge drawn by that asshole Ginobili.

The problem with Wayne's raps aren't the shear retardedness or the I-could-have-done-that attitude that the listener inevitably develops, its his perspective. The world in which Weezy spits sporadic isn't the NO or the hood, it's his own fucking head. There are no boundaries to his raps, he teleports form one side of the universe to the other with lines like,

"I bulletproof the ride now I feel like armadillos/And fuck your hospital, Young Money we the illest/And I ain't gotta lie when I tell you I'm the illest/My flow is nasty like C.Y. Phyllis".

Wayne abruptly jumps from his ride getting shot up, to a precocious little rodent, to a hospital, to his crew's rhyming ability, to an STD. Of course, he plainly admits his ADD when he says,

"Buck Ten in the coupe and your bitch loves it/Switching lanes faster than I switch subjects"

Although Weezy tries to ride 4 his niggas and hold down the streets, he can't ride 4 anything but himself. Like everything else in Wayne's universe, his raps revolve around his massive dreadlocked ego. We don't believe him anymore than we believe Ron Burgundy when he says that San Diego translates to a whale's vagina. Thus, we take every rhyme of his with a gigantic boulder of salt laced with apathy. Incessant braggadocio can only go so far in rap (see: Rule, Ja) and Lil' Wayne either has a lot of learning to do or a lot of rappers to kill before he actually is the best rapper alive. The dude's still funny as shit, but a metronome wouldn't turn Mitch Hedberg into a good rapper now would it?

A Quick Introduction

Dear Valued Blog Patron,

Hello and welcome to our new blog. The following posts will serve as a forum for us, Your Facilitator, to explore the nature of the art of hip hop music. Hopefully, you are an appreciator of hip hop who understands the beauty of a well-formulated lyric or a thunderous boom-bap. If not, get the fuck out. Just kidding, you can stay, as long as you click the ads. Oh, there aren't any ads, you say? Then click where you'd expect to see an ad, then get the fuck out. Please.

We will spend our time around these parts investigating the aesthetics and significance of the best, and occasionally worst, works of hip hop. Any and all input is encouraged and the discussion and topics should be shaped around the readers. After all, any good learning experience should be a give and take. Good times should be had by all, if not perhaps you are a deaf, sober, male who has no criminal record--or you just don't get the title. Either way, sit back, relax and enjoy a mediocre joke or two, enough cursing to burn down a small convent and some fucking sweet music.

Yours Truly,

The Roaming Stone