emcee

Jigsaw

admin — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 09:04:00 +0000

They say you can’t live up to a stellar debut record, and this may be true. Lady Sovereign is known as Britain’s white girl grime emcee prodigy, brought to American audiences via the marketing machine that is Jay-Z and compared repeatedly to Eminem. I was into the Lady’s initial defensive stand with singles like “Love Me or Hate Me,” but Jigsaw contains far too little of her infectious rapping, far too many jokey words like “fothermucker” that failed to make me laugh, and repetitive choruses that don’t really say anything at all. The title track is a perfect example of Lady Sov’s limited rapping on this record. “Jigsaw” relies heavily on the pseudo-pop line, “My heart is like a jigsaw puzzle/Pick it up and fix it for me,” which is quite a striking departure from her previously themes of self-empowerment and misanthropy. Couple this abrupt shift with AutoTune-like synthesized melodies, and you don’t have a recipe for follow-up success.

“Let’s Be Mates” can be interpreted as either a romantic ode to weirdo love or an invitation to freak friendship. Despite running around with Brits (the UK kind, not pop starlets with a variation of my name) who say things like “bin” instead of “trashcan,” I had a rough time deciding whether “mate” meant to pal around or procreate. Thankfully, Sov announced her single status mid-song, signaling her desire to get together—you know, together together.

Young folks have so much promise that I want to resist hating. For every fabulous sample—like The Cure’s “Close To Me” rip-off “So Human”—there was an equally plodding track. I like her defiant attitude against university in “Student Union,” but didn’t find “Food Play” and its coupling of edibles and sex all that appealing. In the end, I was turned off and tired. Maybe I’ve just gotten too old to be down with Britian’s “big midget.”

Written by: Brittany Shoot, August 5th 2009

Misogyny and the Emcee: Sex, Race, and Hip Hop

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:42:00 +0000

By Ewuare X. Osayande

Machete Media

In light of recent events, when speaking about the state of misogyny in hip-hop, it would be inappropriate to ignore the media frenzy surrounding Rihanna and Chris Brown, each sweetly young, fabulously charming, and wildly successful hip-hop stars in their own right. If you don’t read the CNN ticker, or guiltily sneak a peek at People.com, you could have missed the news that Brown allegedly assaulted his girlfriend the night before the Grammys. Likely, if you absorb media along a spectrum, you’ve heard about everything from the couple’s post-fight rendezvous at Diddy’s Miami condo to teen girls who remain steadfast in their Chris Brown devotion. You may have even seen that heartbreaking photo of Rihanna’s battered face.

Writer and cultural analyst Ewuare X. Osayande begins his brilliantly concise collection of essays by dissecting another high profile case of a badly behaving hip-hopper: R. Kelly. Kelly’s progression (and Brown’s accelerated one) is all too common among young Black rappers, who go from lyrically degrading women to—in Kelly’s case—actually peeing on them. The original proceedings against Kelly were not so much about whether he had abused a girl; his defense aimed to prove she was eighteen at the time of the encounter. Pissing on a woman—sickening misogyny—was not a crime as much as her potential underage (and thereby “girl”) status. Kelly, no stranger to this type of sex scandal, has yet to be found guilty in a court of law. The court of public opinion is another matter.

Throughout Misogyny and the Emcee, Osayande repeatedly asserts the most fundamental arguments for healing sexism within the Black and hip-hop communities. He argues that while many insist that discussions about specific community-based violence and degradation be silenced or ignored, the Black community’s “dirty laundry” should be aired, washed, and cleaned—or to break with the metaphor, discussed in public, critically examined, and resolved. Black men must critically challenge their violent oppression of both Black women and other Black men. Repeatedly citing bell hooks, Osayande begs Black men to answer her call: “assuming responsibility for ending [sexism]” (hooks, From Margin to Center). The call to redefine betrayal must also be heard: Black men who violate Black women, he argues, must be seen as the traitors they are. Black women are not marginal; Black women are the community.

Osayande’s short, powerful volume is polemic for good reason. Taking on the spectrum—from BET and misogynist white rappers like Eminem, to organized religious institutions that harbor similar (if more subversive) hatred for Black women and blame women’s sexuality for their supposed myriad sins—it is easy to see that corporations and legislation will do little, if anything, as long as the community remains permissive and turn a blind eye.

Most invigorating, Osayande calls for a boycott of misogynist rappers and their entertainment industry counterparts. When men degrade women and stand to profit from their actions, we should send a signal: no more. No more Academy Awards for songs about how hard it is for a pimp. No more Nelly videos featuring a man swiping a credit card down a Black woman’s ass. We can do better than that.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, April 27th 2009

Moments in Movement

admin — Mon, 14 May 2007 17:50:00 +0000

By Macromantics

Kill Rock Stars

Formerly Romy Hoffman, Australian rapper Macromantics has released a debut hip-hop album that will keep her listeners guessing from track to track. After discovering hip-hop on a 1995 American tour with her pop punk band Noise Addict, Miss Macro spent the next few years fine-tuning her solid rhymes and traditional beats. It’s when she veers from the traditional path, however, that the album is at its best. From the time-honored intro touting her abilities as an emcee to "Locksmith," on which she and Sage Francis intersperse rap with a collection of robotic-sounding voice recordings, to the ethereal "Love Thyself," Miss Macro keeps each tune fresh and unique.

The album’s overall feel is dark and eerie, keeping in step with the grimier hip-hop coming out of many parts of the world, most notably England. Pop culture fans will particularly appreciate the references that weave their way through the album; some obvious, some inferred. Name drops include Susan Faludi and Corey Haim, to name a few, and "Apple Crumble" is so infused with a nostalgic roller rink sound that it would tempt any listener to strap on a pair of roller skates.

Written by: Becky Ramsey, May 14th 2007

Check the Rhyme

admin — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:13:00 +0000

Edited by DuEwa M. Frazier

Lit Noire Publishing

Talk about a breaking silences; we finally have an anthology speaking to women of diverse backgrounds, backgrounds usually ignored or tokenized in more traditional publications. Check the Rhyme is a new anthology and one of the first dedicated not only to women of diverse backgrounds, but to both “female poets & emcees.” What do I think? I say: Hallelujah, Hallelujah; thank the stars this anthology exists! For one of the first times, female emcees and poets speak about issues as diverse as hip-hop, hair, Hurricane Katrina, and Black history. Long ago, the quest to break silences was begun by such artists as Nikki Giovanni and Audre Lourde; this anthology continues the struggle to have new histories and perspectives discussed.

The goal of the anthology, as its editor writes in the Introduction, is to “teach young girls” that this anthology exists. Finally, we have a collection does not “other” its subjects; the realities set forth under such section titles as “About Hair,” “Growing Up in the Hood” and “I Dream of Hip Hop” are presented as empowering, lyrical communications of realities one may not find in the next anthology of this and that. With both received/traditional forms such as the haiku existing in the same space as rhyme/rap forms, this anthology presents not only a diverse view of the world, but a diversity of poetic forms. Rather than villanize hip hop, this anthology offers new perspectives and offers a space to socially conscious emcees. In Mikayla Simone’s poem “American,” she asks “Where is my country?” I think her America exists in the space of this anthology tackling class and ethnicity and class and love and family, among other subjects.

Frazier’s anthology offers a new perspective of our nation(s), our world(s), and of identification. The result is a publication that empowers and will hopefully throw light on what has been marginalized or unseen.

Written by: Lisa Bower, March 1st 2007