That Post-Geographical Feeling
• It's funny to me that if you have a blog, then really you just end up "blogging" (ecch) about other blogs. I mean. As long as you're not trying to promote anything, and you have figured out that no one really cares about what you did with your Saturday if there's no free mp3 in the offing. Anyway. I read this post that The Style Guy put up about the Basquiat and the Warhol that he knew versus the Warhol and the Basquiat that he has seen portrayed in various films.
• The collecting of vinyl toys is one of those nerdy things, like role playing games and musical theater, that I just sort of missed the boat on, because I was too busy doing other nerdy things like obsessively reading comic books and dorking out at record stores. Recently, however, I have come across a couple of sets of vinyl toys that I completely co-sign. Those new Adult Swim toys look like something I'd like to own, or at least the Venture Bros ones do. (And, you know, the Carl.) The question is: does Biscuit already own these things? And if not, then why not? The other thing that piqued my interest is the Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem playset, which looks like it would be a lot of fun to just look at.
• As you may know, I consider myself to be a more-than-casual fan of rap music. And, as such, I find myself occasionally preoccupied with the sort of lesser-known figures within the classification. But, given the nature of most of my friends and acquaintances, not to mention the kind of embarrassingly juvenile nature of rap music itself, I am often without anyone with whom to discuss lesser-known rappers. Or anywhere to, like, put these thoughts.
But wait. I have a "blog." (Which, yes, is embarrassingly juvenile in and of itself.) So I'm putting this stuff here today, conveniently buried away "after the jump."
I
Like Young Chris. You might be familiar with that one song. Maybe.
Lately I've been thinking that it is a good thing that Young Chris has finally taken - heeded? - what I imagine must have been the advice of every A&R he ever came into contact with, as he has been steadily releasing material sans Neef. (Who, by the way, is the other guy in Young Chris' group The Young Gunz.) It just sucks that he waited until the record industry straight up died before he started doing that. (Now that I think about it, though, the second Young Gunz album may have been the clearest early indicator that rappers would need to dramatically lower their expectations in terms of record sales. I don't think anyone even stole that piece of shit.)
At press time, it seems like Young Chris' best-case scenario would be for Jay-Z to put him under the banner of whatever he's got going on with LiveNation, where any new Young Chris album would almost certainly be indefinitely shelved, because, again, nobody buys records anymore, and Young Chris isn't one of the three or four rap acts - not counting Jay-Z - that can draw a crowd¹. That, and being indefinitely shelved is just sort of what happens to albums by members of S. Carter's supporting cast.
¹This probably has more to do with the fact that every rap show that I have ever been to, on any level, suffers from a lethal combination of impossibly shitty soundboard management and overzealous hypemen than anything else.
II
In recent months, I have been hearing more and more about this Jay Electronica fellow. Like, apparently he had some beef with some other guy or something. And Just Blaze seems to like him, which, as we'll see later, may or may not be a happy circumstance. Some Jay Electronica songs are, to be honest, ill as fuck. There appear to be, however, at least two glaring flaws in Electronica's overall gameplan:
1. "Jay Electronica" is the worst goddamned rap name I have ever heard. He might as well call himself Johnny Opera or Mr. Country-Western, since he obviously doesn't listen to the musical genre he's named himself after. (Because, you know, if he did, he'd know that ain't nobody called that shit "electronica" since The Fat of the Land.)
2. Jay Electronica has the same problem as Young Chris, in that he has decided to become a professional rap artist at a time when it doesn't seem like there's any money in it for anyone who isn't already famous. Electronica's only famous on the internet, and he's only barely famous there. And even if he became really famous on the internet blog scene, it's not like there's any money in that. Until I see Tay Zonday pushing a Bentley, I'm just going to go ahead and think that rap music is fast turning into indie rock, a genre in which most of the principal artists have, like, jobs in addition to their musical careers.
III
I remember a fleeting moment where I thought that Saigon might really do it and come out with an album that I wanted to hear. This was before my expectations lowered to just "maybe Saigon will come out with an album." And before his weird public pseudo-feud with Just Blaze. (And before Just Blaze's stamp of approval stopped meaning anything at all.) And before he quit. And before he un-quit. Back when people actually watched Entourage. They don't anymore. Just like they don't buy records. While the proposed title of this record, The Greatest Story Never Told, sounds almost too perfect, I think he ought to change it to The Chinese Democracy That Nobody Gives a Shit About.
IV
The guy that I think has done something right in the past few days is Busta Rhymes. I mean. Despite that thing where he got together with Linkin Park to make a track. But I figure you've got to put that into the "Happens to the Best of 'Em" file.
I've said this before, probably on this website, but I think it bears repeating. I have never heard an entire Busta Rhymes record, and I probably never will. That said, I have never heard a completely bad Busta Rhymes track. I've always considered him, in this respect, to be like the John Cougar Mellencamp of rap.
Busta just came out with this video, "Don't Touch Me," featured below. It's like a postcard from Flipmodia, sent just to let you know that everything is running smoothly. Spliff Star is still playing the background and being hilarious. (If Busta is Mellencamp, then Spliff is the guy who could've been just a mediocre weed carrier but wound up being rap's own Harpo Marx.) The fisheye is in full effect. The hat matches the jacket. "Don't Touch Me" relies on one implicit truth throughout: shit has never been as good as it was in the late nineties, so fuck it, the best move is to make an awesome-ass late nineties rap video.
• Have you made it this far? Really? Well. I'm honored. If you didn't, though, you missed out on me getting back to some shit you probably do care about. (Spolier Alert Level: guarded.)
• More soon, and with new a new Bird Turds.
