​March, 2015

The Retrographer: Issue Three

Starting five or ten years ago, rap establishmentarians’ laments of the “death of real rap” reached a fever pitch. Jay-Z, bloated and past his prime, chastised rap’s younger generation for using auto-tune and popping mollies. Nas laid a flower at hip-hop’s grave without acknowledging he had spent the previous decade or so digging it. Radio hosts like Funkmaster Flex and E-Bro, assuming their airwaves still held the keys to the castle, demanded bars from rappers. “But can he rap?” They asked of artists like Tyler, the Creator and Chief Keef, who looked back with some combination of quizzical bemusement and pure disregard. They spoke for all hip-hop heads, or so they thought. All this end-of-days clucking from the genre’s conservatives could only mean one thing: these young rappers, they were doing something right. And indeed, the outpouring of talent, from places like L.A., Chicago, and, most prominently, Atlanta, looks something like another Great Awakening for rap. Starting in 2011, artists like Danny Brown, Rich Homie Quan, and Drake emerged by rapping in a way that didn’t much feel like rapping at all. This turned a lot of people off. Charlemagne the God, of Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club, looked at 21-year-old Chance the Rapper, who listened only to church music until he was 7, came to rapping through slam poetry in Chicago’s teen art scene, and considers the first great album he ever got to be Kanye West’s genre-busting College Dropout, and told him, “This is why you shouldn't come to assumptions about people, because when I saw a CD called Acid Rap ... I wasn’t interested. I didn’t want to hear it.” It took actually sitting down with the guy to reconsider his thinking. “But now I’m sitting hearing you talk…” You know what’s another way to hear Chance talk? Listen to his mixtape before the interview. This kind of dismissiveness is endemic to old heads wrapping their old heads around new rap. But even if you’re holding out for rap that sounds like Funk Flex Tunnel, you won’t be waiting long. Classicists like Joey Bada$$ and Your Old Droog nail that familiar sound; YG and Action Bronson transcend it. And you want bars? Listen to Azaelia Banks and (if he ever returns from her new gig as a journalist) Mykki Blanco. But to get a sense of what rap matters today, holdouts have to stomach Future, ILoveMakonnen, and Young Thug’s autotuned warbling; Drake and Earl Sweatshirt’s confessional vulnerability; Vince Staples and Run the Jewels’ by-any-means-necessary protesting. Let them try to claim rap’s best days are behind it in the shadow of Kendrick Lamar’s novelistic To Pimp a Butterfly. In the last month, half a dozen excellent rap records came out, and not one sounded like the other. Most of them dropped with no warning, leaving listeners to dig in and listen without preconception. More loom on the horizon, most tantalizingly Chance the Rapper’s Surf, and his idol Kanye West’s So Help Me God. In the meantime, listeners get to follow where the genre goes next, and watch who’s coming with. 

Ten Songs for March, 2015 Stream this playlist on Spotify here.Earl Sweatshirt, “Faucet” (Spotify / YouTube) – Incredible, really, that only five years ago audiences around the world were practically chanting “Fuck Earl’s mom!” for sending the brilliant young rapper to a rehab clinic in the Pacific, and now he’s penned a complex, thoughtful song examining their rift.Father, “Back in the ‘A’ Freestyle” (Spotify / YouTube) – Here’s the litmus test. Some of you are going to think this song is unsophisticated trash, the other half will find it hilariously droll. Either way, you’ll be rapping “On me” over and over after hearing it.Susanne Sundfør, “Accelerate” (Spotify / YouTube) – When I mention Norway, you may think of five million friendly blondes eating lingonberries and playing in heavy metal bands. Turns out at least one of them makes dark, bracing dance pop.Kanye West, Theophilous London, Young Thug, Allan Kingdom, and Paul McCartney, “All Day” (Spotify / YouTube) – The video explains it all. The self-hating hedonism that consumed on 808s, rotted on MBDTF, and exploded on Yeezus has now crystallized into a fiery amalgam of styles, painting Allan Kingdom and Paul McCartney alike in his synthesizer war paint.Songhoy Blues, “Soubour” (Spotify / YouTube) – Like Samba Touré, these Malians use the blues to tell the turmoil that has riven their nation. This time, however, grief is supplanted by serrated guitar lines and trooping handclaps.Kendrick Lamar, “King Kunta” (Spotify, YouTube) – Where 2012’s Good Kid, m.A.A.d City restaged the pitfalls of urban adolescence through a 25-year-old’s eyes, To Pimp a Butterfly wrangles with a survivor’s guilt, lashing out a society that cursed him with odds that said he’d never even make it that far. “Aw yeah, fuck the judge; I made it past 25, and there I was,” Kendrick gloats, oozing with resentful sarcasm. “Life ain’t shit but a fat vagina.”Grimes, “REALiTi” (Spotify, YouTube) – I loved “Go”, but apparently Claire Boucher didn’t. So that, along with a whole album of presumably similarly appealing music, was trashed. This metaphysical escapee, a wistful demo, leaves us to fill in the blanks.Courtney Barnett, “Depreston” (Spotify / YouTube) – It’s been said elsewhere, but bears seconding: no one finds more profundity in the mundane than Barnett. Her breakout song was about having an asthma attack in a garden; this, her next ascent, recounts a house hunt in a dodgy neighborhood. Yet both open a skylight to peer at human empathy and togetherness.Action Bronson, Chance the Rapper, and Mark Ronson, “Baby Blue” (Spotify / YouTube) – Bronson’s most appealing quality – vivid, absurdist self-mockery – has given way in recent years to puerile sleaziness. But he’s behaving here, possibly after being outwitted by a salty-sweet Chance, who wishes the ex who dumped him “Never gets off Fridays, and works at a Fridays that’s always busy on Fridays” before sighing, “I hope you ruined this shit for a reason – I hope you’re happy.”Tobias Jesso Jr., “Can We Still Be Friends”, (Spotify) – Calling someone Beatlesesque is dangerous, and not just because they’re so hard to convincingly ape. But Jesso, who has neither Macca’s pipes nor his bar-torn soulfulness, comes as close as any, channeling “She’s Leaving Home” in chord progression and “Eleanor Rigby” in lyrics, while Ariel Rechtshaid’s arrangement steps in to harken “Penny Lane.” 

 One Historic Album for March, 2015Bruce Springsteen, The Wild, the Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle (Columbia Records) (Spotify / YouTube) 

If you come from where I come from – i.e., not Jersey -- the opinion is actually split about Bruce Springsteen. See, for people of the generation that watched Bruce rise to prominence, The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle was actually the red pill or blue pill moment where he could've chosen to be an international superstar who defined the mainstream more than anyone else (including Michael) in the 70s and 80s, or the Bob Dylan clone hippie stalwarts pined for after the mellow of the 60s got seriously harshed. And with Jon Landau’s superlatives and the earthy Village poesy of its predecessor, Wild might've given boomers false hope. Bruce sounded like he sprouted clean from Highway 61's earth. But like Dylan before him, Bruce couldn't quite stand the thought of being Dylan. So in his last moments before he fully transformed into Born to Run's Tony-the-Jet, and long before Nebraska's card-carrying holder of the working man’s mandate, there was Wild. This is an album that strains between a joinder of 60s right answers and the crooning, melodious, bleeding heart that never really passed with the already old-school folks of 1967. Waiting to be washed away are great songs like "Circus" and the Allmans-y "Kitty's Back." but on "Innocent 57" the refrain is for "Those romantic young boys." And that's what Bruce really was, is. For those who care about that, this album is a moment in time, a clear vantage of comparison, a front seat to Bruce shaking off the husk of his influence and rocketing, beautifully, to his future. Check Out: “Kitty’s Back” / “Incident on 57th Street” / “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”  

 Best-of Playlists Though these playlist are all on Spotify, not every song (including many of my favorites) is available to stream. Best of 2014 (Honorable Mentions)Best of 2013 (Honorable Mentions)Best of 2012Best of 2011