"This is anti autotune, death of the ringtone, this ain’t for itunes, this ain’t for sing alongs" - Jay-Z, D.O.A.

Jay-Z’s first released single from The Blueprint 3 (listen to it here) does so much more than take shots at the rise of the auto-tuned voice in hip hop.  It drops bombs on an entire sector of the music industry that has been producing music that betrays a recession of creativity.  Hopefully, H.O.V.A.’s new album will prove to be the stimulus package that averts a creative Great Depression.

Now, I think auto-tune, like all musical technologies has its place.  Kanye West used it wisely on 808s and Heartbreak, turning his voice into a series of staggering icicles that reflect both the coldness and sharpness of loneliness when a relationship hits an iceberg.  And I enjoyed the first few singles from T-Pain and Lil’ Wayne simply because of the sheer fun of hearing bright and shining auto-tuned harmonies coated like frosting over a hearty beat.  I use auto-tune myself.  As a musician and songwriter who doesn’t have the time or money to spend on perfecting my voice, I enjoy the subversiveness of auto-tune and how it allows me to be creative on my own terms.

But I agree with Jay-Z—the industry has stuffed too much of this sugary stuff down out throats.  His critique could have come from the best writers at Pitchfork or Rolling Stone, although these publications might feel comfortable with challenging the mas

So tatsy, but not very nutritious

culinity of rappers who use auto-tune (“All ya’ll lack aggression put your skirt back down, grow a set man … you boys jeans too tight”).  At the heart of his critique is the idea that the bright melodies that auto-tune are turning rappers away from one of their key duties: to use their voice and words to establish a solid beat.  Sloughing off this important duty, rappers and producers have been able to produce a slew of mediocre songs, which have moved hip hop away from its roots.  So who better to lead us forward (while looking backwards) than the Sinatra of hip hop?

Jay-Z also aligns the rise of auto-tune with the over commercialization of hip hop, using auto-tune as a symbol for the ringtones, itunes, and other “sing a longs” that have made a lot of money by jumping on the coattails of the hip hop that Jay-Z helped reform during the late 90s.  Although making money has always been an important facet of hip hop, these methods of generating income saturate the songs with an irony that all but paints over the gritty street realism that Jay-Z’s work has brought to the table.  So let’s put away the candy, say Grace, and have a moment of silence for autp-tune while we wait for the release of The Blueprint 3.

Lyrics:

“Only rapper to rewrite history without a pen,
No ID on the track let the story begin, begin, begin” (chorus)

This is anti autotune, death of the ringtone, this ain’t for itunes, this ain’t for sing alongs,
this is Sinatra at the opera, bring a blonde, preferably with a fat ass who can sing a song, wrong,
this aint politcally correct, this might offend my political connects,
my raps don’t have melodies, this should make jackers wanna go and commit felonies, ahh
get your chain tooken, I may do it myself - I’m so Brooklyn.
I know we facing a recession, but the music y’all making going make it the great depression.
All y’all lack aggression put your skirt back down, grow a set man.
Yeah this just violent, this is the death of autotune, moment of silence.

(Chorus)

This ain’t a number one record, this is practically assault with a deadly weapon,
I made it just for flex and Mister CEE I want people to feel threatened
stop your bloodclot crying, the kid, the dog everybody dying, no lying,
you boys jeans too tight, you colors too bright, your voice too light
I might wear black for a year straight, I might bring back Versace shades
this ain’t for z100, Ye told me to kill y’all to keep it 1 hundred,
this is for hot 97, for Khalid we the best’n,
yeah this is just violent, this is death of autotune, moment of silence.

(Chorus)

This might need a verse from Jeezy, I might send this to the mixtape weezy,
get somebody from BMF to talk on this, give this to a blood let a crip walk on it,
50 thou to style on this, I just don’t need nobody to smile on this,
you rappers singing too much, get back to rap you t-paining too much.
I’m a multi-millionaire so how is it I’m still the hardest here,
I don’t be in the project hallway talking about how I be in the project all day
that sound stupid to me, if you a gangsta this is how you prove it to me.
Yeah just get violent, this is death of auto-tune moment of silence.

la da da da hey hey hey, goodbye
hold up
the only rapper to re-write history without a pen
no i.d. on the track let the story begin
this is anti auto-tune death of the ring tone
this ain’t for itunes this ain’t for sing a longs
this is sinatra at the opera bring a blonde
preferably with a fat ass who could sing a song
wrong this ain’t politically correct
this might offend my political connect
my raps don’t have melodies

“When these metaphors converge, we see “paper trail” as being a juxtaposition of money, fame, personal reflection, conflicting narratives, and consequences.  T.I.’s paper trail shares all the meanings of America’s paper trail.” — Part 3.1: Paper Trails

My dog hates paper trails

Like many Americans, T.I. seems to have embraced the multifaceted capitalist fantasy individualism.  The myth goes something like this: personal effort creates personal wealth, money grants one deserved power, and this power should be used to support the capitalist ideology that supposedly enabled this entire narrative of individual success.  The song “Whatever You Like” celebrates T.I’s ability to give his “chick whatever she wants,” as it simultaneously commands those “other broke n*ggas” to be quiet.  If we take this song literally, we would have to conclude that it indeed endorses the ideology that I outlined above.

However, the music video for “Whatever You Like” challenges this literal understanding of the song and encourages us to question our own understandings of socioeconomic ideologies (how money and society shape each other).

The video starts with a mashup of the capitalist fantasy and the sociological understanding of capitalism’s sturdy class structure.  After walking through the kitchen of a fast food chicken restaurant (complete with audible laments of a tiring, busy day), the camera reveals T.I. and his entourage asking a shocked female cashier for some hot wings.  Then the fantasy kicks in, as if it is meant to silence an exploration of the stark contrasts between the two characters’ sociological situation.  T.I. claims that the woman is too cute to be working at a chicken joint then drops his phone number, launching the woman and the audience into a “behind the scenes” look at–and participation in–T.I.’s extravagant lifestyle.  The images speak for themselves, but in a nutshell, T.I. takes pleasure in using his material wealth to lavish her with luxuries, erase her boyfriend, and revel in his own economic power.  This seems like a logical representation of the song.

However, the end of the video suggests otherwise.

The fantasy is revealed to indeed be purely fantasy when the woman’s boyfriend wakes her from a daydream just as T.I. is pulling out of the parking lot.  Instead of leaving his phone number, T.I. actually left a crumpled one hundred dollar bill.  A bit hung over from her daydream, the woman agrees to help her boyfriend braid his hair again, although we’re not sure if she’s going to do it for free or charge him.

T.I.P.'s tip

The video leaves it ambiguous as to whether T.I.’s fleeting presence encourages her to do it for free (and pass on T.I.’s generosity) or charge him (and play the role of the individual capitalist).  Like the citizens of America, the woman must decide between unselfishly contributing to the common wealth or embarking on an individualistic fantasy.

Or maybe the video suggests something in between… something more pragmatic… something, perhaps, more similar to Obama’s plans. (I’m not say’n that Obama’s plans are perfect.  They have many flaws, but they’re a step in the right direction)

T.I.’s presence in the video suggests a middle ground upon which individual success goes hand in hand with contributions to the general welfare of a community.  Although T.I. used fantasy to entertain the cashier, he also gave her something very real: a Benjamin, or should I say, a piece of paper worth one hundred dollars.  If this is representative of how T.I. tips all of his servers, we should be encouraged to see his actions as a form of community development rather than a moment of personal boasting or a simple “hand out.”  With the hope of a better life (one closer to T.I.’s) combined with a material investment in a life outside of a fast food joint (the C-note), the woman might now have both the psychological and material impetus to start her own hair saloon.  Maybe she will still charge her boyfriend, but maybe not as much as last time, and maybe one day she will be able to walk into a chicken joint and do for another what T.I. did for her.  This is the type of balance that Obama’s economic rhetoric and policy initiatives have been striking when they are at their best, and we would all do well to explore and support this balance in order to get out of the current crisis.

With some thoughtful participation in our political and economic institutions (both local and global), maybe more of us will be able to sort out our paper trails by the time T.I. is released from prison.

“I work for myself and no one else cause I’m too smart too,

Put one of my partners right through culinary art school,

Now he my personal chef so that bread he get it,

Put them all in houses, cleaned up all of my friends credit.

And now they witness all the glitz and the glamor,

Catch us eating at straits Atlanta with women with table manners,

Order in Singapore and lobster,

Celebrating coming from nothing to winning Grammys and rappers winning Oscars.

And they say rappers shouldn’t act, naw suckers,

We see Samuel L. Jackson like: ‘What’s up mother fucker!’”

–Ludacris in “On Top of the World,” Paper Trail

...and everyone else

The Battle of the Budget Begins

A few weeks ago, President Obama discussed and answered questions about his budget proposal, arguing that it will move the economy towards recovery and growth.  The goals make sense: get people back to work and get the banks lending again.  Although most people understand that you have to spend a little money in order to make a little money, there are some politicians who want to play the “debt card.”  They claim that spending billions of tax dollars on things like public works and, yes, bank “bailouts” are unfair to both the taxpayer and the taxpayer’s children.  But who is this taxpayer?  Who in America doesn’t need banks, healthcare, and schools?  Generating a large national debt is most likely a sacrifice that we must make at this time, more so than at any other in recent history.  It will certainly anger our imaginary taxpayer—an individual so disconnected from the political and social fabric of American society that he or she seems to be living “offshore,” perhaps running a corrupt investment bank and hoping to avoid the end of Bush’s tax cuts—but it’s a sacrifice that we all make for the good of everyone.

We know the creators of this imaginary taxpayer will be theatrically angered by such progressive policies, but will President Obama’s economic plan anger hip hop too?  Mainstream hip hoppers definitely seem to live a life apart from mainstream society, in their private jets and yachts.  They might not enjoy handing over more of their hard-earned scrilla anymore than Dick Cheney would…

"(Ay, who I be?) Rubber band man, Wild as the Taliban, 9 in my right 45 in my other hand. (who I'm is?) Call me trouble man, always in trouble man, worth a couple hundred grand, Chevys all colors man"

Indeed, mainstream hip hop seems to be obsessed with the private accumulation of wealth.  50 Cent claims that he’s not investing any of his money in public companies, but instead going “straight to the bank” with his cheese (hopefully to an FDIC insured bank).  Lil’ Wayne needs a Win-Dixey grocery bag to carry around his pocket Benjamins.  Jay-Z loves to remind us of how he came from the bottom of the block to the top of the charts, accumulating as much lettuce as he could along the way.  Scrilla, cheddar, gouda, any type of cheese, Benjamins, lettuce, dough, stacks, cake.  For a music genre that is obsessed with being “real,” it is odd to see how much hip hop likes to see money in the abstract.  But maybe seeing money in the abstract (using mostly metaphors of food, oddly enough) is more reflective of recent financial reality than seeing it as some concrete material.  Most of the people who got us into our current financial crisis have had a similar conception of money.  Derivatives, speculation, loan swaps.  Somehow the people holding most of the money in the world, the policy makers who aided their disastrous financial “recipes,” and most of the uninformed public embraced abstract conceptions of money—readily edible representations of money that suggested that dollars were indeed like seeds and trees, like so many ingredients to be used to magically bake up a financially sound future.

Break that bread, chop that lettuce, bake that cake, cut that cheese

However, most of us are now changing our conceptions of money.  Instead of enjoying the careless comfort of edible metaphors, we are now seeing money as the most inedible of substances: paper.  Maybe it’s the paper that shows how much money is in your bank account or mutual fund.  Maybe it’s the electronic and tree-made paper that held information regarding ill-advised loan-swaps and uncontrolled speculative gambling.  Maybe it’s just the paper that we try to keep in our wallets in order to pay rent and buy food.  Regardless, we’re all confronting the paper trail that has been piling up around us over the past decade of deregulation, accelerating global trade, and two expensive wars.

"Stacks on deck," better get some "Petron on ice"

The confusion of the paper trail might have helped cause the problem, but unraveling the paper trail will inevitably be a part of the solution.  In order to get out of this economic crisis, we’re gonna have to read through the paper, understand it, and write policies that prevent us from authoring another crisis.  Although T.I.’s latest album Paper Trail most obviously is a self-reflective work that showcases T.I. pondering the motivations, causes, and effects of his illegal gun purchases, it also has some lessons for how America can remedy the consequences of its own paper trail.

In the context of T.I.’s album, the metaphor “paper trail” has many meanings.  It refers to the stacks of paper upon which he penned his lyrics while under house-arrest.  It refers to the consequences of all the paper, or money, that he gained and spent under the eyes of the public.  It refers to the lack of paper documents that made T.I.’s weapons purchase illegal.  It refers to the court documents that coldly silenced the context that surrounded T.I.’s crime, arrest, and trial.  It refers to the document that proclaimed T.I. should be put in jail for a year and a day.  It refers to how all these forms of “paper,” or lack thereof, have constituted T.I.’s identity, as suggested by the album’s cover art.  When these metaphors converge, we see “paper trail” as being a juxtaposition of money, fame, personal reflection, conflicting narratives, and consequences.  T.I.’s paper trail shares all the meanings of America’s paper trail.  Let’s continue along this thread tomorrow. (Part 3.2 Here)

Image From www.globalgraphica.com

A Parade Through Downtown Phayao; Yes We Can

So, I’m back in the unusually stressed states of America.  Au Revior “mai pen rai” (translation: “it doesn’t matter”; the national motto of tourists in Thailand and of some Thais (not including those who are protesting in Pattaya and Bangkok).  Hello/Hola “back on the grind”  (translation: I’m just being dramatic).

It’s good to be back.  I kinda feel like I never left.  There’s still an Ed over in Thailand.  I’ll have to go visit him some time.  Or write about him.  I can’t say I’ll miss the Thai maxim, but I can definitely say I’ll be missing Mr. Brian, Nam Waan, Phii Noi, Zhilan, Tawat Chumchob, and the students of The Princess Mother School, Phayao.

Here’s some things that are coming your way:

• A new post in the continuing series on the economic crisis
• A discussion of hip hop as metaphor and model for my first-year comp class, which I haven’t taught yet :>
• More much-deserved coverage of M.I.A. and the violence in Sri Lanka
• Definitely gotta change the banner pic at the top of the pages
• Maybe a memoir post of my time in Thailand should be in order.  Hip hop definitely made some appearances…

W.E.B. DuBois

February 23, 1986 - August 27, 1963

(check out Vibe’s tribute)