Chan Lite and Doughboy
There’s an mp3 making minor waves on the web right now—several nights ago I encountered posts on it at three different blogs, including the ubiquitous largeheartedboy, and a quick google confirms many more. The sound file in question would be former Veruca Salt co-frontwoman Nina Gordon’s neo-folk reinterpretation of N.W.A’s 1989 classic (and arguably the greatest hip hop number ever…anyone?) “Straight Outta Compton.”
I was never a Veruca Salt fan, but as an artifact of the post-Nirvana days of mid-nineties alternative, I did always secretly enjoy “Seether” and still remember vividly how you could sing over its chorus: “sounds like the Breeders.” Anyway, it seems that, instead of Kim Deal, Nina G now wishes she were Chan Marshall (Cat Power). That said, it’s not an entirely unappealing slice of pop culture, and I do enjoy the post-sampling novelty of genre smash-ups. (uh, I think.) Toss in covers of Cinderella’s “Nobody’s Fool” (very cool), Skid Row’s “18 and Life” (almost as good), and Phil Collins’ “One More Night” (I could do without), and you just might find yourself wondering what her originals sound like. Maybe. [mp3s here]
But enough Chan Lite—that was only s’posed to be an awkwardly tangential segue into my screening a few nights ago of Boyz N’ the Hood, one of three movies in my life during which I distinctly recall shedding tears (the others: E.T. and Dead Poets Society). Nearly a decade has gone by since I’d last seen it, and I had little idea whether the film would retain the enormous power with which it mesmerized my previous incarnation as a lily-white, pimply-faced high school sophomore in the Midwest, first discovering Malcolm X and hip hop culture.
Back then, hip hop mattered. I mean REALLY mattered. It was, as Chuck D put it, "The CNN of Black America." It was dangerous. It threatened the powers that be. It gave voice to the disenchanted and beaten-down. And besides that, it opened up the eyes of sheltered white suburban kids like me—we who grew up going to schools that were, for all intents and purposes, nearly as segregated, albeit unofficially, in the eighties and nineties as they were before Brown v. the Board. Those of us listening to Death Certificate weren’t surprised when the LA riots when down. When Ice Cube talked, we listened. And that scared the hell out of parents all over this country.
Watching Boyz n’ the Hood again after all these years, I remember each and every scene as if it were yesterday. Certainly one of the great directorial debuts of all time—but what a heavy weight to carry for the rest of your career! Where are you now, John Singleton? Take a bow, for you’ll never top what you did at 23. And my, oh my, how far Ice Cube has come from his debut acting gig, and still his greatest role, as Doughboy. Following his buddy Ice-T (New Jack City) onto the silver screen, Cube gives a fiercely poignant performance that would set a pretty high standard for all rap star/actors to come. But seriously, have you seen the previews for Cube’s latest, Are We There Yet?, yet? Now that’s more shocking to me than any riff on white America that O’Shea Jackson ever did spout in his former life as one of AmeriKKKa’s Most.
A lot has changed since ’91, even if we are still stuck with a Bush in the White House. One might decry the relative lack of meaning in a lot of hip hop today, the seeming triumph of bling over substance, and one might be right. But while folks like me might miss the hip hop of our youth, disappointed at witnessing yet another revolutionary force perverted by the excesses of capitalism, it was always about more than the music. Perhaps more than any other genre, hip hop is driven by socio-economic factors, many of which, in some ways, have changed for the better (though not nearly enough, surely) since 1992, the year after Boyz was released, the same year Rodney King got punk'd by the LAPD and Reginald Denny was pulled out of the cab of his truck and beaten silly. No one wishes a return to those days. Still, I liked it better when Cube was Cube, a “crazy motherfucker named Ice Cube,” to be exact.
N/P Giant Sand – Chore of Enchantment
I was never a Veruca Salt fan, but as an artifact of the post-Nirvana days of mid-nineties alternative, I did always secretly enjoy “Seether” and still remember vividly how you could sing over its chorus: “sounds like the Breeders.” Anyway, it seems that, instead of Kim Deal, Nina G now wishes she were Chan Marshall (Cat Power). That said, it’s not an entirely unappealing slice of pop culture, and I do enjoy the post-sampling novelty of genre smash-ups. (uh, I think.) Toss in covers of Cinderella’s “Nobody’s Fool” (very cool), Skid Row’s “18 and Life” (almost as good), and Phil Collins’ “One More Night” (I could do without), and you just might find yourself wondering what her originals sound like. Maybe. [mp3s here]
But enough Chan Lite—that was only s’posed to be an awkwardly tangential segue into my screening a few nights ago of Boyz N’ the Hood, one of three movies in my life during which I distinctly recall shedding tears (the others: E.T. and Dead Poets Society). Nearly a decade has gone by since I’d last seen it, and I had little idea whether the film would retain the enormous power with which it mesmerized my previous incarnation as a lily-white, pimply-faced high school sophomore in the Midwest, first discovering Malcolm X and hip hop culture.
Back then, hip hop mattered. I mean REALLY mattered. It was, as Chuck D put it, "The CNN of Black America." It was dangerous. It threatened the powers that be. It gave voice to the disenchanted and beaten-down. And besides that, it opened up the eyes of sheltered white suburban kids like me—we who grew up going to schools that were, for all intents and purposes, nearly as segregated, albeit unofficially, in the eighties and nineties as they were before Brown v. the Board. Those of us listening to Death Certificate weren’t surprised when the LA riots when down. When Ice Cube talked, we listened. And that scared the hell out of parents all over this country.
Watching Boyz n’ the Hood again after all these years, I remember each and every scene as if it were yesterday. Certainly one of the great directorial debuts of all time—but what a heavy weight to carry for the rest of your career! Where are you now, John Singleton? Take a bow, for you’ll never top what you did at 23. And my, oh my, how far Ice Cube has come from his debut acting gig, and still his greatest role, as Doughboy. Following his buddy Ice-T (New Jack City) onto the silver screen, Cube gives a fiercely poignant performance that would set a pretty high standard for all rap star/actors to come. But seriously, have you seen the previews for Cube’s latest, Are We There Yet?, yet? Now that’s more shocking to me than any riff on white America that O’Shea Jackson ever did spout in his former life as one of AmeriKKKa’s Most.
A lot has changed since ’91, even if we are still stuck with a Bush in the White House. One might decry the relative lack of meaning in a lot of hip hop today, the seeming triumph of bling over substance, and one might be right. But while folks like me might miss the hip hop of our youth, disappointed at witnessing yet another revolutionary force perverted by the excesses of capitalism, it was always about more than the music. Perhaps more than any other genre, hip hop is driven by socio-economic factors, many of which, in some ways, have changed for the better (though not nearly enough, surely) since 1992, the year after Boyz was released, the same year Rodney King got punk'd by the LAPD and Reginald Denny was pulled out of the cab of his truck and beaten silly. No one wishes a return to those days. Still, I liked it better when Cube was Cube, a “crazy motherfucker named Ice Cube,” to be exact.
N/P Giant Sand – Chore of Enchantment
posted by Jonathan Wright at 1:03 AM EMAIL POST
