As I sit here writing, taking a drag from the remnants of my seventh cigarette and absorbing the atmosphere of ballads strongly reminiscent of Jeff Mangum, I have come to a sudden realization: Colin Meloy is one clever bastard.
It is no secret that Meloy, frontman for the Portland-based band the Decemberists, is a fan of lyrical romanticism. Nor is it a secret that the Decemberists, named after the Decembrist Revolt of 1825, find an air of such romanticism in the epic nature of revolution and the life of the soldier. However, Meloy has outdone himself in the song “July, July!” from the 2002 album Castaways and Cutouts.
Filled with historical allusions, “July, July!” tells the story of a colonial soldier during the American Revolution. With such vivid imagery as the narrator marching in his “special boots”, the Meloy spins an engaging tale recounting the events of July 1775, when newly appointed General George Washington arrived at the outskirts of Boston to rally, for the first time, the ragtag group of farmers known as the Continental Army. For those men, I am certain when I say that “July! [never] seemed so strange.”
At various point, Meloy pays such strict attention to historical accuracy that one wonders whether he himself was present in the era. As the narrator reminds, presumably, his lover of her uncle, the “crooked French Canadian” who “was gut-shot running gin”, the listener is reminded of the Gin Acts of 17 36 and 1751, which respectively raised the taxes on gin trafficking and outlawed the distillation of gin in England. Along with the Sugar and Molasses Act of 1733, which raised the wholesale excise taxes on spirits, these pieces of legislation served both as a precursor to the Coercive Acts that ignited the Revolution and as incentive for merchants in the British colonies to begin to smuggle gin.
Finally, Meloy presents the attentive ear with a macabre portrait representative of the wartime violence, “blood [rolling] down the drain”. With nearly 1,900 casualties, the Boston campaign was surely a monumental manner in which to open the struggle for independence.
French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.” Taken conjunctively with the statement by Subcomandante Marcos of the Mexican paramilitary EZLN that “Our Word Is Our Weapon”, it is clear that Colin Meloy is a man who has found his bayonet.
I’ve finished this seventh one, but I think I’ll have another.
-Mikhail Botinok
29.4.08
The Oppression by West Coast Rap.
I have been on the West Coast for about three weeks now going from couch to couch. I cannot truly express my disgust for the West Coast style of rap. Now I may be biased seeing as I grew up in Massachusetts and hold a strong reverence for the lyricism and meaning of the East Coast rap scene, but maybe the West Coast scene is just complete shit. My friend is insistent that the "Bay Area Rap" consists of some of the "best beats" he has ever heard in his genre of music, I have to remind him that as creative as the beat may be, beats in most rap songs consist of a 5 second clip looped throughout the entire song with occasional variations thrown in to it. The true essence of a rap lies in the lyrics the author writes for those beats. Generally speaking, the East Coast rap still often speaks of the ghettos in which the artists grew up. (I am including Chicago and Midwest rap in the East Coast genre as the content and themes are handled similarly.) The difference in the East Coast rap though is not only content, but the way in which the artist reflects upon the ghetto. The East Coast movement has reverence for the ghetto, but raps about the poor conditions and rising out of the ghetto. They did not perpetuate the ghetto stereotype, that the West Coast scene now does, but handles the ghetto as a place in which they rise out of in order to become successful. As RZA of the Wu Tang Clan puts it...
"Hip-hop is just unbalanced. Right now, rappers are glorifying their hell. How you gonna tell me it's cool to live in the ghetto? Who wants to live where you got rats, roaches, pissy elevators, shootings, killings, rapings, drug addicts, alcoholics, all in a four-block radius?"- Vibe.com interview
Obviously the ghetto is not a place of gangs that bring you power or for that matter a place that one of high stature would move to, rather it is a cesspool of delinquents and people born into unfortunate circumstances that cannot break the cycle which keeps the ghetto populated. As the West Coast rap industry began to grow with NWA, Tupac, and Snoop Dogg emerged from the scene, rap was no longer lyrical nor carried literary value, rather it became all about "gansta life." Rappers glorified the ghetto, rapped about drug usage, and ruined the genre. Common expresses his disappointment of this in possibly the greatest hip-hop song of all time, "I Used to Love H.E.R." The song itself is an extended metaphor for the hip-hop scene of the East selling out and the destruction of it as it moved West.
As we have moved west, hip-hop became rap, upon further inspection an almost entirely different genre. Early rap in the West has glorified civil disobedience, ghetto life, and gang activity. In the "Bay Area Rap" the rap mostly consists of rappers getting high, drunk, stupid, retarded, etc. Now I am not insulting this genre for its absence of depth or even the fact that I find the entire genre to be lacking anything that makes it "music" or "art." (For even I am guilty of listening to completely pointless songs, [I am the Walrus].) But aside from the literary value or clever lyricism these raps carry, (zero in both categories) they carry one thing, fodder for anybody against rap or blacks.
Most may believe that statement completely untrue, but the criticism of rap has not emerged from the East Coast scene, but rather the lives that West Coast rappers glorify. Sadly the value of East Coast hip-hop is not considered when critics speak of a predominately black music scene. Rather critics, mothers, and governors all jump on the bandwagon speaking out against the violent lyrics and glorification of drugs that these raps perpetuate. The West Coast rappers feed ammunition to the very people that try to destroy them. The only exposure many people have of blacks is from the music that is large in the rap community at the time. Even Bill Cosby spoke out against his own people in the Pound Cake speech,
"But these people, the ones up here in the balcony fought so hard. Looking at the incarcerated, these are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! And then we all run out and are outraged, 'The cops shouldn’t have shot him.' What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? (laughter and clapping). I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else (laughter) And I looked at it and I had no money. And something called parenting said, 'if you get caught with it you’re going to embarrass your mother.' Not 'you’re going to get your butt kicked.' No. 'You’re going to embarrass your family.'"
With the popularity of West Coast rap in the present, anything released comes under the scrutiny of any critics. The internet allows for instant access to lyrics showing the glorification of the themes discussed. And as long as the authors, artists, the leaders are glorifying the poverty and violent lives, the people in these communities will continue to be enamored by this life style, the middle and upper class will continue to fear blacks, and the masses will not realize the importance of rising out of their situation.
It seems that I am not the only one who cannot wait to get back east.
-Robert Carnegie
"Hip-hop is just unbalanced. Right now, rappers are glorifying their hell. How you gonna tell me it's cool to live in the ghetto? Who wants to live where you got rats, roaches, pissy elevators, shootings, killings, rapings, drug addicts, alcoholics, all in a four-block radius?"- Vibe.com interview
Obviously the ghetto is not a place of gangs that bring you power or for that matter a place that one of high stature would move to, rather it is a cesspool of delinquents and people born into unfortunate circumstances that cannot break the cycle which keeps the ghetto populated. As the West Coast rap industry began to grow with NWA, Tupac, and Snoop Dogg emerged from the scene, rap was no longer lyrical nor carried literary value, rather it became all about "gansta life." Rappers glorified the ghetto, rapped about drug usage, and ruined the genre. Common expresses his disappointment of this in possibly the greatest hip-hop song of all time, "I Used to Love H.E.R." The song itself is an extended metaphor for the hip-hop scene of the East selling out and the destruction of it as it moved West.
As we have moved west, hip-hop became rap, upon further inspection an almost entirely different genre. Early rap in the West has glorified civil disobedience, ghetto life, and gang activity. In the "Bay Area Rap" the rap mostly consists of rappers getting high, drunk, stupid, retarded, etc. Now I am not insulting this genre for its absence of depth or even the fact that I find the entire genre to be lacking anything that makes it "music" or "art." (For even I am guilty of listening to completely pointless songs, [I am the Walrus].) But aside from the literary value or clever lyricism these raps carry, (zero in both categories) they carry one thing, fodder for anybody against rap or blacks.
Most may believe that statement completely untrue, but the criticism of rap has not emerged from the East Coast scene, but rather the lives that West Coast rappers glorify. Sadly the value of East Coast hip-hop is not considered when critics speak of a predominately black music scene. Rather critics, mothers, and governors all jump on the bandwagon speaking out against the violent lyrics and glorification of drugs that these raps perpetuate. The West Coast rappers feed ammunition to the very people that try to destroy them. The only exposure many people have of blacks is from the music that is large in the rap community at the time. Even Bill Cosby spoke out against his own people in the Pound Cake speech,
"But these people, the ones up here in the balcony fought so hard. Looking at the incarcerated, these are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! And then we all run out and are outraged, 'The cops shouldn’t have shot him.' What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? (laughter and clapping). I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else (laughter) And I looked at it and I had no money. And something called parenting said, 'if you get caught with it you’re going to embarrass your mother.' Not 'you’re going to get your butt kicked.' No. 'You’re going to embarrass your family.'"
With the popularity of West Coast rap in the present, anything released comes under the scrutiny of any critics. The internet allows for instant access to lyrics showing the glorification of the themes discussed. And as long as the authors, artists, the leaders are glorifying the poverty and violent lives, the people in these communities will continue to be enamored by this life style, the middle and upper class will continue to fear blacks, and the masses will not realize the importance of rising out of their situation.
It seems that I am not the only one who cannot wait to get back east.
-Robert Carnegie
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