After The Fact

Music is a soundtrack to life - ever changing, advancing, revising, revisiting, abandoning. I value initial impressions and early immersions, but more often I find insight and worth in considering music after it has been lived with and adjusted. Of course, all this could just be my excuse for not really reviewing or addressing "the album of albums" from last year - Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Now that I've had five months or so to break it in (oh, and it won some polls and Grammys and stuff in the meantime), I figure its as cooked as it will get (I mix metaphors like I'm melting Velveeta/Straight from the microwave, too hot to eat, yeah).

I really think most of The Love Below is shit. It's highs absolutely soar - the doubts amidst the joyous noise of "Hey Ya!"; the hopefulness of "Prototype" (which, to my mind, sounds like some sort of hybrid of Jeff Buckley and Cameo); the slutty near cha-cha grind of "Spread"; the (gasp!) skits "God" and "Where Are My Panties?" However, things go horribly, undeniably wrong. "Roses really smell like boo-boo"? I keep hearing comparisons to "Sign 'O' The Times", but I hear more eighties electro-funk like the aforementioned Cameo. "Behold A Lady" sounds like an outtake from She's Strange, but not in a good way. I just can't get into the spiral of narcissistic obsession and retro-retreads that is the second half of The Love Below.

Speakerboxxx isn't all gold stars either. However, for what I assume are thematic reasons, Big Boi's disc gets the one culture bomb concocted by the self-styled funkateers: "Ghettomusick". I brought this up in my singles post (which, excepting the Maroon 5, I stand by):

The craziest single by a major artist that I can remember. At least three different songs are merged into this genre busting techno/soul/rapalicious spectacular. Nothing prepared me for hearing this song for the first time - Stankonia, masterpiece that it is, did not clue me in to this possibility.

Yet Speakerboxxx keeps the bar fairly high, with "Unhappy", "Bowtie", "The Rooster", "Knowing" and "Reset"; all of which stand up well in comparison to best of The Love Below. It fails too - the tracks featuring guests outside of the Dungeon Family crew ("Tomb of the Boom" and "Flip Flop Rock") are particularly purge-worthy - but it fails by reaching out too far (see "War") instead of reaching in.

Speakerboxxx is another step on the trail blazed by Aquemini and Stankonia; perhaps not as big a step (seeing as it is one not two), but a further evolution. The Love Below is a step to the side, and in many ways a look back. If Andre can learn from the rich and mostly untapped heritage of eighties funk and soul instead of aping it (even if it is out of love), the slight change of paths may make the road ahead wider and richer.

Unsolicited and [unintelligible-ed.] Thoughts on D. Rascal

I hate starting things with a disclaimer, but any mention or discussion of Dizzee Rascal that does not come complete with cultural signifiers and proper Garage/Hardcore/Grime resume seems to require one. I don't know his background, anymore than what I've read in pieces like this one at Slate, or through absurdly long ILX forum posts like What Drugs Are You On?, and the more tentatively titled Not Sure About Dizzee Rascal.... Of course, none of this gives me any real insight into him or his scene, and yet I have in my possession his CD. That, in reality, is all the context I need. I'm not, and never will be, part of the scene that birthed him and his esthetic; same as I'm not part of Warhol's Factory, but feel I can talk about the Velvet Underground; same as I'm a white Northern New England boy who can appreciate and discuss the music of Public Enemy or Morris Day or "The Water Dance".

Here's where I'm coming from: I'm bored with most mainstream rap - whether the mealy-mouthed rhythm-less New Yorkers led by Jay-Z and 50 Cent; the ass-obsessed and musically bankrupt southern crunk of Lil-Jon and the underachieving Ludacris; the AWOL or irrelevant LA contingent; even the forward-looking Neptunes seem to be tentative and recycling (is "Milkshake" that different from "Light Your Ass On Fire"? Or "Beautiful" any further than a kissing cousin from "Pass the Courvoisier"?). Underground rap (I refuse to call it "undie-rap" until someone does a song with the line "swaddling ho's") is slightly more interesting, though my somewhat limited exposure leads me to believe the figure of Kool Keith is still too large an influence, and Prince Paul and Dan Nakamura-esque sonic stylings too prevalent.

Onto this landscape, so reminiscent of 1997, comes Dizzee Rascal. With a beat too hollow and open, a cold, electronic, soul-less sound - Vangelis through a tweeter, all too much treble - "Sittin' Here" introduces a thoughtful man in a thoughtless world, a land never changing, the beat matching it in complacency and vigilance. Sounds of the outside filter by - sirens, tire squeals, the whistle and hum of a train, the sadly relevant and all-too recognizable pop of low-caliber firearms.

"And it’s the same old story, students truent, learn the streets fluent
Yeah it’s the same old story, strange, there’s no sign of positive change"

Boy In Da Corner isn't just another document of hopeless life - like all musical documents of modern inner city living, there are liberal doses of bragging machismo ("Fix Up, Look Sharp", "Jus' A Rascal") and tales of loose women ("I Luv You", "Jezebel") amidst the squalor and lack of opportunity. Dizzee is not a lyricist without peer - there are times his young age comes through in childish rhymes - for example, "Cut 'Em Off" rhymes "a lot" with "a lot" six times in eight lines. Where Dizzee makes marks is as a producer, for Boy In Da Corner is constantly interesting and inventive, recycling old samples into new rhythms, creating digital beats strikingly inorganic yet lively. It's the sound of the wind blowing through a slow growing field of transistors, capacitors and microchips; the sonic translation of the smell of ozone and shrinkwrap.

I think it is important to note here that this album is a product not from a rap tradition but from a dance culture, and is not something sprung like Athena from his mind full formed. I don't know his antecedents, but in my mind's ear I hear more of a Jamaican toaster over dub plates rather than a rapper over a dj mix. The musical tracks are so stripped and simple, beat over depth, like an evolution of Lee Perry or Augustus Pablo. Perhaps that explains it's profound difference when compared to the American rap traditions, mainstream or underground; it's not apples and oranges, it's steak and eggs - compatible, yes, but comparable? No.