More Old Jokes Retold

If the stone which the builders rejected becomes the cornerstone, either the builders are corrupt or the building is.

Or both. And I'm funny as hell.

If work, learning and fun are separate, then so are body, mind and spirit. And if that's the case, each one of us is three persons in one conduit... Kirk, Spock and Bones.

But hopefully less predictable.

 

We're taught as very young children that everyone is different and special, and then spend the rest of our lives learning that isn't practical. Some people can afford to be different and special, while the rest of us have to work for them.
 

Incidentally, this is sort of a

refutation of that reasoning.

On a similar note, Einstein would have been a real genius if he could keep his life together.

That doesn't detract from the

amazing shit he said and did though.

If we talk about the world, we're talking about two different things.

I say "tomato..."

If great power brings great responsibility, why does everybody wanna be Snoop Dogg?

Rhetorical question. Everybody has their own reason.

That's it for today. See you in another present.

   

Beef: The Declining Importance of Confrontation

 
Maybe you don't, but I remember when Hip Hop wasn't embarrassing. Less than twenty years ago, this bullshit between Common and Drake would have been glanced at and passed over like a rivalry between pro wrestlers.

That's right. I wanna talk about butchered & charred bovine flesh.

 

That's "beef," for the illiterate.

What's Hardcore?
 

Say what you like about Waving Flag getting played to death. I completely agree. But K'Naan has a way of putting shit in perspective.

He's also the only one I've ever seen
bring a whole band to Rock the Bells.
Also, thanks to EXN Renders
for making this easy to steal. 

He had a track on Dusty Foot Philosopher that basically called out anybody playing the beef game. Wish I could find it & embed it here, cuz my synopsis won't do justice. But in a nutshell, he says the game is childish and cynical, and downplays real conflict.
 

Also suggests you check out the Gaza Strip or the Sudan. That's beef. 
 

Couldn't let the reference go by without playing something though.

Even when so many lives aren't directly at stake, beef doesn't have to be an embarrassment to your peers.
 

The Golden Age of Kill Whitey
 
Public Enemy was my favorite band in high school. That actually explains a lot, now that I think about it for a second.

It wasn't the music that snared me at first, but the razor-sharp, intellectually-augmented anger. Focus, education, determination, and knowledge of self. They were a nuclear warhead among cherry bombs.

On a side note, Bob Dylan was asked once what he was doing in the early 90s, when he just sort of dropped off the radar for a while. He said he was listening to rap records, particularly Ice T, NWA and Public Enemy. "They were banging on drums, throwing horses off cliffs... real poets, and they knew what was going on."
 

It was a different time.

When Chuck D hits the road these days, it ain't for concerts. A good indication that his message didn't reach everybody back in the day is the response he gets on a speaking tour now. Like when he's trying to impart a little wisdom on what it means to "be a man," and the whole front row is calling out for him to do 911 is a Joke. 
 

You can't talk rebellion with thugs. A rebel has direction and an unselfish purpose. That's the difference, according to Chuck. And he finds both wherever he speaks.
 

Less than twenty years ago, Chuck D was considered by many to be one of the most dangerous people in America. And he was. When Bush Sr was president, Chuck D was the man with his finger on the other red button - the one that could transduce four hundred years of inhumanity into burning cities.

Back before "Hope" and "Change" were trademarked.

He was the embodiment of the frustration felt by the majority of African American youth. If he said Kill Whitey, he wasn't speaking his own mind; he was relaying a message. It wasn't something people wanted to hear, and he got called out for it... Not by other rappers with something to prove, but by entrenched political elites with something to lose.
 
That's beef.

Don't know what it is about Arizona.

Every damn decade it seems like somebody

wants to kill the governor.

Soap Opera Territory

 

The Biggie/Tupac beef in the 90s was real, but orchestrated. Everybody knows what happened there, so I ain't gonna spell it out. But it marked a turning point in Hip Hop. And the turn was down. It took the spirit of confrontation inherent in Hip Hop, turned it inward, and stripped it of purpose.

 

It made Hip Hop a tabloid parody of itself.

 

It's been a downhill slide ever since. Jay-Z (peace and blessings be upon him) was able to manipulate a bump in his relationship with Nas, taking his place as the King of New York. This had all the hallmarks of classical Hip Hop confrontation, except that it didn't matter to anybody but Jay-Z and Nas.

 

But Hova is a master of PR, and made it matter. Then he made it an empire.

 

After that, it became requisite to piss off somebody and build a career on it. No Beef, No Gain.

 

I'm not here to make enemies, but is this soap opera what you want for a culture?
 
The thing going on between Drake and Common is beneath both of them, and it's beneath us to pay it any mind. You wanna be in on the gossip, knock yourself out. Just know, that's all it is - gossip.

Not too late though, as usual. Long as you still got a verse in you with substance, and aren't too dumb to let it out. Maybe the real thing is buried, but still breathing and capable of digging itself out.

See you in another present.