Random Acts of Journalism

But first, i had the opportunity last night to attend the Mos Def concert in Brooklyn. When i heard he’d be playing in his home town and i would be nearby i knew i had to go, but i really had no idea what to expect. My friend Mark used a few connections and a few well-placed bribes to get us in and as we made it to our seats, we realized we’d be in the 8th row. A piano player comes on stage and starts playing, then a DJ, then a bassist and guitarist. Three Saxophones come in stage left and a tuba, a souzaphone, and 2 trombones come in stage right. Then a drummer, then three horns and then Mos himself. So to recap, i saw Mos Def in his hometown of Brooklyn at a 500 capacity opera house in the 8th row in front of a 17-piece live band. It would suffice to say that this was one of the best concert experiences of my life. More on that later.

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Alright, a few weeks back I posted some less than kind words about George Bush’s favorite rapper, Kanye West. Ron took this opportunity to A. ask why I didn’t like Kanye’s second CD as much, and B. to unveil his theory on hiphop which claims that almost every hiphop album is 1/3 good, 1/3 guilty pleasure and 1/3 bad. It would seem that Kanye’s albums fit this philosophy to a T so while on a flight to New York (my plane smells like Cat pee…seriously, don’t fly ATA) I took the opportunity to listen to both of them straight through and make some notes and see if I couldn’t explain why I liked the first CD so much and why I hate the second one. Here goes:

The College Dropout album has a few things that make it great. First, it was a novelty. It was a happy sounding, feel good, non-thug sounding album. I say non-thug because there was no rap feud, no fabricated story about the artist having been shot 9 times, there wasn’t a ton of buzz about it, it came out of nowhere, it was kind of an underdog story. This was especially prevalent when the first single released was Through the Wire. I first caught on to this song because the video told the story of Kanye’s car accident and he actually laid the vocal track down with his jaw wired shut, which you know, is just a little bit impressive.
But the more important thing was that you had an artist wearing LaCoste shirts and sweater vests, rapping about jesus and making fun of the normal rap video, which – and I’ll go ahead and get this out of the way right now – appealed to white people. Now I’m not saying this is the only reason that the CD is good but am I going to identify more with a rapper who at least tried to go to college and dresses a little preppy or Akon? Maybe you don’t want to admit it but I think you know the answer.
OK and now that we have the race issue dealt with we can just talk about the music. The beats on this CD are epic. Spaceship, Get Em High, The New Workout Plan and Breathe In Breath Out are hot. There’s just no other way to explain it. No matter what he’s saying in the lyrics, the beats pop and gets you to nod your head and as Saul Williams says, if you’re nodding your head back and forth that’s the universal sign for “Yes, I agree with this.” And nothing gets the head nodding more than Jesus Walks. I mean, put your head phones on, put this song on and tell me that you’re not walking in stride to this beat and nodding your head to it. I used to pump this song walking from class to class at ASU and it just felt good. There’s something to be said for that. That beat is just epic and that song, no matter your religious affiliations, just feels like something higher.
Also, the College Dropout theme is mentioned in almost every track…I mean, this is as close to a rap theme album as I think we’ve ever had. It pervades the entire album and gives it this kind of cohesiveness that most albums (even rock) don’t have.
In addition to Kanye’s rhymes, which are really, really, really good, he throws in cameos from Jay-Z, Common, Jamie Foxx and Talib Kweli, who, if you don’t know, are some of the hardest hitters in hiphop today.
There was just a passion and cohesion to College Dropout. The whole thing fit and it made sense and it was completely catchy from song to song. And there were some stupid skits but they at least made sense in the theme of the album. (What these skits did to affect the higher education aspirations of thousands of African American students remains to be seen and won’t be discussed here, but it deserves mentioning.)
One of the last tracks, Family Business, almost feels like an extra effort on the CD but it does a decent job of ending on a high and optimistic tone after an album that despite being fun and poppy, actually dealt with some pretty heavy issues. And then Last Call is a little cherry on top with Jay-Z laughing in the studio and my favorite rhyme of the entire frickin album, “I went to the malls and I balled too hard, They said, ‘oh my god is that a black card?’/ I turned around and replied why yes/but I prefer the term African American Express. “
Top notch.

Moving on to Late Registration. I have to admit that I was seriously looking forward to this CD and I had such huge expectations for it that maybe there was no way it could satisfy me. But when you hear that first few minutes with another Bernie Mack intro and the super-sick echo of the “Mr. West!” part and it breaks into that beat, well I just thought that maybe lightning had struck twice. But for some reason the first song drags…the beat is really hopping and then the piano comes in and it just slows the whole thing down. I felt like this CD just had to come out rocking track one, side one, and it didn’t. Even Kanye’s lyrics seem to lack enthusiasm on this song. But still, I was willing to keep listening.
So then you hit next and Touch the Sky just flies out of the box and rolls along and it’s almost like this song should have been the first track on the album. He gets Lupe Fiasco (who is awesome) into the mix and everything should be kicking ass. Well it doesn’t. It’s a self-congratulatory, self-absorbed, egotistical, product-placement driven club track. That’s it. And then pulling out the Evil Kneivel reference with Pamela Anderson (and I can’t believe I’m saying this but Pam was the token white girl in the rap video here…Maybe I’m reading too much into it but the video seemed to be saying, I’m the hottest black musician in the world and I’ve got all of your white girls loving me too…I don’t know. Seemed weird at the time.)
So then we move on to Gold Digger which is a great track. Great beat, great hook, tongue-in-cheek subject matter, Jaime Foxx, all the crucial ingredients to another good Kanye track. And I really did like this song but bottom line is that it’s a club track, plain and simple. If this song had some good tracks around it then it would have lasted a lot longer, but it’s carrying the whole album at this point. (Total Guilty pleasure)
One of the worst parts about Late Registration are the skits…they’re absolutely awful and appalling and appealing to the very lowest common denominator. They bug me. Let’s move on.
Let’s see if Ron’s theory holds up here:
Good Songs: Drive Slow (I’m being generous), Touch the Sky, Bring Me Down
Bad Songs: Crack Music, Heard Em Say, All of the skits, My Way Home (sorry Common), Roses, Addiction, We Major, Hey Mama, Celebration, Gone, We Can Make it Better
Guilty Pleasure: Gold Digger, Diamonds From Sierra Leone

So by my count, that’s 3 good songs and 2 guilty pleasure songs out of 21 …sure doesn’t add up to even thirds in my book, but I’m being hyper-critical and I do see where Ron was coming from on this philosophy. I’m interested to take a look at some other albums that I like and see how it applies.
In the end, Late Registration just lacked continuity, took itself too seriously and tried to do too much for my taste. Some of the beats start out great and the some other sound or track gets added in and it messes it up. And it’s not that the subject matter was any lighter in the first CD, because it wasn’t. And I applaud Kanye for tackling topics like the diamond trade (although making a song like this and then having a huge blinged out chain around your neck is more than a little suspect) and Kanye’s sarcasm and facetiousness about topics like gold digging and video ho’s make him endearing. But this CD was just slow and boring for me. Maybe it was out of order a bit but you can’t blame anyone but K. West for that either.
Sophomore albums are tough, especially when your first album was as good as it was. Hopefully Kanye will bounce back in a big way on his 3rd (I’m not holding my breath…I think the success has gone to his head and he may be lost for good.)