Towards the end of Clipse's "Wamp Wamp" Malice delivers a line you won't find transcribed correctly online - or at least, if you can, Google can't.
"Deep like the Hutu, you cockroaches."
It sounds like a throwaway boast - I didn't even realize he'd said it until my third or fourth listen - except, of course, for the fact that it is powerfully vile.
It isn't merely, though, an attempt at bad-guy shock value, nor is it quite part of the gangsta tradition of taking the name of historical villains as your own . (Kadafi, Noreaga, enemy of the state romance, etc). It is invoking a group of Rwandans who slaughtered another group of Rwandans in madness and cold blood just over ten years ago. So yes, it's vile, and it is vile perfectly in keeping with Clipse's vile unifying theme: black on black crime. The strong wielding power over the weak, but in a context ultimately, tragically, stripped of any meaningful power, because it is contained to one (poor, black) community. Fucking over your own people.
Malice put it this way on Got it 4 Cheap 2: "Got the block looking like the dawn of the dead."
This is why Clipse seem to restore the irruptive shock to gangsta rap better than anyone else: they are loathsome. They make a person of even passing morality deeply uncomfortable. But they precision-engineer the shock: it's honed and deliberate and thought-out, like their voices, so clinical and clipped. And by staying villainous through and through - never apologizing, never justifying - they don't give us an easy way out, a way to reconcile their profound nastiness.
If you are going to claim a retirement, turn it into a fake retirement that lasts far shorter than the in-between album breaks of several non-retired contemporary stars, and then come back, and say "I'm baaaaack," come back harder than this. Come back with a beat that doesn't push that "Change Clothes" brassy bullshit to overstuffed Vegas levels - maybe one that sounds, oh, you know, like nothing that's ever been done. Come back with rhymes that don't drag out the same played Michael Jordan 23 etc brags, that don't spend a lot of syllables saying nothing, and - moreover - saying nothing dully. And please come back with a video that DOES NOT INCLUDE A SPEEDBOAT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.
Related: SHAWN ‘JAY-Z’ CARTER COLLABORATES WITH ANHEUSER-BUSCH AS CO-BRAND DIRECTOR FOR BUDWEISER SELECT TV Ad Featuring JAY-Z, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Danica Patrick to Debut Tonight
NEW YORK (Oct. 16, 2006) – Anheuser-Busch and Shawn “JAY-Z” Carter are joining forces; Carter will collaborate with Anheuser-Busch as co-brand director for Budweiser Select. This association brings together the nation’s No. 1 brewer and entrepreneurial urban icon to collaborate on strategic marketing programs and creative ad development. In this role JAY-Z will participate in Budweiser Select planning sessions to provide his unique spin, thoughts and insights on various brand programs. This deal marks the first time Anheuser-Busch has signed a celebrity to actively participate in the development of one of its beer brands. This new relationship kicks off tonight with TV ads scheduled to air during the National League Championship Series on FOX and Monday Night Football on ESPN that will promote the launch of JAY-Z’s new CD, “Kingdom Come.” “Collaborating with JAY-Z on marketing our Budweiser Select brand presents an opportunity to work with one of the world’s great entrepreneurs and draws upon his expertise with pop culture, music and business,” said Marlene Coulis, vice president of Brand Management, Anheuser-Busch, Inc. “His approach to reaching people in creative, groundbreaking ways that transcend cultural boundaries makes this alliance particularly exciting.
The first 60-second spot captures the essence of JAY-Z’s latest single by incorporating scenes from his video recently shot in Monte Carlo and Nice, France. Set to the track of his new song “Show Me What You Got,” the spot features JAY-Z, Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR’s most popular driver and Danica Patrick, open wheel racing’s most famous woman driver. The closing graphic reads, “JAY-Z is back, coming Nov. 21,” in reference to the date JAY-Z will release his new CD. The 30-second spot focuses on the rhythmic energy of a house party high atop the cliffs of Monaco. St. Louis-based ad agency Cannonball, collaborated with JAY-Z and the Budweiser Select brand team on the ads. JAY-Z also will be involved in providing direction on other upcoming Budweiser Select television ads, radio spots, print campaign and several high-profile events. “Show Me What You Got" is the lead single from JAY-Z’s highly anticipated new solo album, “Kingdom Come.” Scheduled for release on Tuesday, Nov. 21, the album marks JAY-Z’s return to the rap game since retiring in 2003 and being appointed president and CEO of Def Jam Recordings. Shawn Carter (a/k/a “JAY-Z”), has solidified himself as an entrepreneur, performer, trendsetter, spokesman and philanthropist. Since the formation of his own record company Roc-A-Fella Records and the subsequent release of his 1996 debut album, “Reasonable Doubt,” Carter has cemented his reputation as one of the most formidable icons in both business and entertainment. He is currently the president and CEO of Def Jam Recordings, where he has signed platinum and multi-platinum artists such as Kanye West, Rihanna, Young Jeezy and Ne-Yo and NAS .
In addition, Carter overseas multimillion dollar clothing company, Rocawear; is an investor in Carol’s Daughter beauty line; and is part owner in the New Jersey Nets. He is also responsible for the Shawn Carter Scholarship Fund (scholarship fund for high school students) and The Annual JAY-Z Toy Drive. On his international, Global Express tour, Mr. Carter has teamed with the United Nations and MTV to bring awareness to the world’s water crisis.
Launched nationally in February 2005, Budweiser Select offers consumers a bold taste and a full, distinct flavor that finishes clean. For more information, visit www.budweiserselect.com . Based in St. Louis, Anheuser‑Busch is the leading American brewer, holding a 48.8 percent share of U.S. beer sales. The company brews the world’s largest-selling beers, Budweiser and Bud Light. Anheuser‑Busch also owns a 50 percent share in Grupo Modelo, Mexico’s leading brewer, and a 27 percent share in Tsingtao, the No. 1 brewer in China. Anheuser-Busch ranked No. 1 among beverage companies in FORTUNE Magazine’s Most Admired U.S. and Global Companies lists in 2006. Anheuser‑Busch is one of the largest theme park operators in the United States.
October 11, 2006 -- TALK about torture. Blender magazine editors chose Starship's 1985 hit "We Built This City" as the worst song of all time. Now they've assigned contributor Russ Heller to set a world record for repeatedly listening to the worst song ever. He'll sit in a plexiglass booth at the Best Buy in NoHo starting Friday at 8 a.m. and grit his teeth as "We Built This City" is played at least 324 times over a grueling 24 hours.
I went to see the new Vik Muniz show this weekend, expecting more to be dazzled by craft than anything else - stunning as his images are, there was a sense of conceptual re-tread and exhaustion to the prospect of another series in which Muniz re-creates iconic images using unlikely materials, be it chocolate:
Or spaghetti:
Or bling to put Hov to shame:
The latest series consists of massively scaled re-creations of paintings of mythological scenarios - Caravaggio's Narcissus, Goya's Saturn - rendered in junk. Tires, bricks, spokes, gears, sprockets, trash cans, jeeps, refrigerators, paint cans, traffic signs and so on. For instance:
after this:
Or this:
And this:
(notice the military jeep top left, one of several instances where the junk at hand resonated with the painting being copied, in this case Diego's Mars, God of War).
The scale was stunning. Were the prints 15 feet high? Erin & Huffa noted that Muniz probably wouldn't be doing stuff this big if it weren't for Andreas Gursky, and that these pictures resemble Gursky not only in their size but in the chaotic landscapes they capture and impose order on to, indulging the eye's desire to discern patterns where there are none, etc.
Muniz's work has always been about forcing an oscillation in perception - are you looking at a splatter of chocolate or a Hans Namuth print? - that toys with photography's status as a 'pure document', and its classic redheaded stepchild status, as secondary in stature to painting: each picture is a representation (the photograph) of a representation (the 'drawing', 'drawn' in whatever medium) of a representation (the source image) of a thing (the original referent). There's a bit of Jasper Johns to this ladder of signifiers, of course.
With the new work, we were happy to find Muniz's themes elaborated upon and complicated. His picture of Caravaggio's Narcissus, Huffa pointed out, was classic Muniz: We peer at photo of a trash Narcissus peering at his trash reflection, all of which is a reflection of the original painting. I was most horrified by Muniz's Saturn - largely because of the visceral way it communicated a sense of decomposition: Saturn is eating his son's head, and his eyes suggest that the experience is eating at him - in Muniz's photo, it's satisfyingly hard to locate the contours of the source image, except for Saturn's tormented upwards gaze - in other words, he makes it intriguingly difficult to see past the junk toward what it represents. The image decomposes - is eaten up, turned into dead waste - echoing the decomposition in Diego's painting. In another photograph, a scene of wine-spilling debauchery is illustrated by junk that includes an old refrigerator with - of course - empty wine bottles tucked into the door. This sort of playfulness blurred the mimetic levels of each photograph: it was not a mere vertical stacking (photo - junk - painting) but one that tugged in several different directions at once.
Suffice it to say: shit was incrodunkulous. Up until October 14th. Very highly recommended. And, if you have an extra $32,000 lying around, the receptionist told me, you can even take one home.
On Friday, October 13th, starting at 8 a.m., Magnum Russ will be in an isolation chamber at the SoHo Best Buy, breaking the world record for most consecutive listens of Jefferson Starship's "We Built This City." Yes, this is a Blender stunt.
It matters not one bit that the record is currently probably three or four. Magnum has committed to do this for "at least some overnight action." Will you not show up for a bit and root him on?
Magnum has decided to forego any exposure to the song in the run-up to the 10/13 challenge, so if you happen to be around him when you are reading this post, make sure to mute the sound before watching the video:
