"Cocaine Rap" Sasha Frere-Jones hilarious delusion

[nomadologist]

I don't particularly care whether the content involves cocaine or not. That's pretty irrelevant right, in terms of evaluating what's at work in a piece of art? I don't deal coke or hang out with dealers most of the time. And I don't get why this has to be the main point of the discussion about htis record.

Ok, if you'll note, I started this thread in response to a New Yorker article that tried to pigeonhole Clipse in this tidy little notion of "coke rap" that I thought was silly, over-reaching, overly simplistic, and, as you say, MISSES THE POINT of why Hell Hath is good art and a fucking amazing album. I was reacting to the fact that I'm sick of people acting like cocaine dealing is the only thing Clipse talk about, the only thing to note about the album, etc. I DON'T think Clipse is cocaine-oriented in a significant way, EXCEPT in that they use it as a motif to set it up as an extended metaphor about late capitalism.

I don't know if you've read about this, or have heard anything to this effect, but cocaine use is at epidemic proportions once again. It's spread to small towns in the Midwest, it's considered a serious issue by the government, and they're slowly finding out that MANY MANY more people are casual cocaine users than anyone suspected. Did you read about that test they did of the urine from a sewer in some small city in Italy? They used the concentration of cocaine in it to project that something like 70% of the people there use cocaine. This is in a country whose trade routes don't even easily link up with South America, so it's harder to get coke into the country than it is in the US. I'll find the article.

So cocaine and its social relevance are significant in a pretty general way lately. Which definitely fits into the idea that the US is politically and socially similar to Reagan's 80s in a lot of horrible ways, and the late-capitalism greed is good idea...

PS: here is the article http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=28659 if that many people are doing coke in the Po valley, it's a million times more insane in NY, and the US in general

 

[nomadologist]

Last one, promise.

Here's another way personal experience comes in. Ever done coke? Well, the way Clipse are "brilliantly emotionless" mirrors the way cocaine makes you completely numb emotionally. Cocaine is a local anaesthetic, after all, and is still used in some countries by dentists for those purposes. Their fierce blasts of furious energy and aggression? Also mirror the effects of cocaine use on the mood--it's an extremely potent stimulant, like coffee times a million, without the shakes. The entire album rhythmically and production wise? Has an icy-hot feeling not unlike the feeling cocaine produces. Cocaine dilates your blood vessels, but at the same time lessens circulation so your limbs get cold. The entire song "Nightmares"? It's a coke comedown anthem, all about the terrible guilty, paranoid feeling you get when crashing from a coke high. I could keep going, but you get the drift...

 

[Guybrush]

Last one, promise.

Here's another way personal experience comes in. Ever done coke? Well, the way Clipse are "brilliantly emotionless" mirrors the way cocaine makes you completely numb emotionally. Cocaine is a local anaesthetic, after all, and is still used in some countries by dentists for those purposes. Their fierce blasts of furious energy and aggression? Also mirror the effects of cocaine use on the mood--it's an extremely potent stimulant, like coffee times a million, without the shakes. The entire album rhythmically and production wise? Has an icy-hot feeling not unlike the feeling cocaine produces. Cocaine dilates your blood vessels, but at the same time lessens circulation so your limbs get cold. The entire song "Nightmares"? It's a coke comedown anthem, all about the terrible guilty, paranoid feeling you get when crashing from a coke high. I could keep going, but you get the drift...

Sounds humdrum.

I hardly know anybody who has even tried ‘heavy drugs’ (heroin(e), cocaine), let alone uses them regularly, so I am not sure the usage is epidemic worldwide. Even ‘soft drugs’ are surprisingly hard to get hold of *sheds a tear of sorrow*.

 

[nomadologist]

it's definitely not all bad, actually pretty exhilarating despite the unpleasant parts, which are overshadowed. this website below is a government one i think, so they kinda make it seem like crack is exactly like cocaine in powder form (it's not, in terms of the dynamics of the effects), but the science in it is all true

http://www.cocaine.org/hardstuf.html

i understand being curious about drugs and the experimental urge and all that, but not having drugs widely available is probably part of why the standard of living is so high in Scandinavia! also, you guys seem pretty psychologically healthy because the standard of living is so high, so self-medication probably wouldn't be a big problem even if you had drugs. so I think you're the lucky ones!

hmm. isn't the netherlands one of those countries where drugs are everywhere but only the stupid tourists come to do them because it's just not socially appealing for dutch people? or has that changed?

PS On second thought, that website is definitely not a government website. I thought it seemed too accurate for that--goverment websites always have lists of slang that are wrong and bullshit myths. Look at the other one linked to on here, heh http://www.cocaine.org/coke.html

 

[tate]

I've been away for more than a week so missed this thread. But, um, wha? The opening post of the thread is one of the cornier things I've read in a while. For one thing, S F/J states quite clearly in the opening that "cocaine rap" is neither his idea nor his judgment, it's a phrase in circulation, and he wants to talk about some of the artists to whom it is applied.

And, incidentally, did I miss a meeting? When did Dissensus turn into LiveJournal . . . ?

 

[swears]

I hate people on coke, so loud and arrogant, another nice side-effect is making chav meatheads really aggressive and prone to unprovoked acts of violence as they're coming down. It's one of the reasons I stopped going out so much.

 

[nomadologist]

i don't think chav types need much help with that, do they? i think whatever you are is intensified by a lot on coke. if you're nervous and quiet generally, you get extremely withdrawn and jittery. if you're arrogant and loud, you get more so. if you're self-absorbed or vain , you get unbearably in love with yourself (models and actors/actresses use cocaine as a career booster because it helps them have that "i think i'm the shit" charisma about them. paris hilton is prime example of this type.) if you're sociable and talkative (i think that's me, though i'll admit i'm always ferocious with my candor), it makes you much more so but if you're antisocial, well, that's just the worst. an antisocial person on coke. uck.

 

[nomadologist]

the fact that it's in circulation is also a problem, tate. as with so many print journalists, frere-jones conjures something into existence by claiming it is in common circulation. maybe on the damn internet it is. but i don't hear many people saying it aloud everyday.

eyeroll@acting like a message board is so important and "objective" that it should be conducted like a business meeting

(p.s. since a lot of people obviously have strong feelings about this topic, regardless of its "corniness", i don't think all was lost in trying to discuss them a little here)

 

[mms]

Last one, promise.

The entire song "Nightmares"? It's a coke comedown anthem, all about the terrible guilty, paranoid feeling you get when crashing from a coke high. I could keep going, but you get the drift...

i didn't get that at all. The song to me sounds like a re-version of the kind of a sweet paranoid soul track, like delfonics or curtis mayfield, 'a lost soul sings', it's one of the moments where the singer feels things deeper than just coke psychosis, which over the lp they seem aware of and able to deal with.

i don't see the physical effects of coke all over the music, but lyrically they constantly apologise and warn and worry about the results of dealing coke, and the effects on family, the worries of going to jail, the fact they have competition, the album is up and down between this and extolling the cold pleasure of money and drug dependent women they get from it.

i think its unusual because of these things, it's coke induced honesty, the guys that do it badly are the guys who don't have the chat and the music to pull it off, they're simply boasting and moaning rather than explaining, describing and emoting, which the clipse do well.

but coke and coke dealing as a trope of hip hop is frankly ridiculous, it's present in some hip hop but its not really a trope even though you say that the hip hop you listen to, there is loads that isn't.

 

[nomadologist]

i think you may be right. i guess i just hate the idea that there's this new thing called "coke rap", as if hip-hop hasn't always dealt with similar themes. for as long as there's been hip hop, there's been coke and very soon after crack. i don't like the weird tendency journalists have to over-compartmentalize (or sub-subgenre) things-- at least a lot of the music journalists who are writing now seem to do this, the big name rock critics of the past not as much.

this is what wikipedia says a trope is:
Trope (literature)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Main articles: meme, theme (literature), and motif (literature)
In literature, a trope is a familiar and repeated symbol, meme, theme, motif, style, character or thing that permeates a particular type of literature. They are usually tied heavily to genre. For example, tropes in horror literature and film include the mad scientist or a dark and stormy night. Tropes can also be plots or events, such as the science fiction trope of an alien invasion that is deterred at the last minute. Many authors have twisted tropes into new forms to great success. Stephen King has been noteworthy for taking older horror tropes and reworking them into the modern world to great effect. Tropes may also serve as guides for writers trying to strengthen the overall effectiveness of their work (i.e., asking such questions as: what trope am I working with in this poem/story?).

i don't think it's such a ridiculous stretch to call the "big bad coke/crack dealer" a hip-hop trope according to this definition. please explain to me why it can't work that way, i'm genuinely curious...

 

[bruno]

paris hilton is prime example of this type.

strange, she looks so comfortable with herself. i thought it was natural.

 

[bruno]

i don't understand why everyone hates her, incidentally.

 

[mms]

i think you may be right. i guess i just hate the idea that there's this new thing called "coke rap".

sure i think it's a way of not calling a hip hop record good directly , or judging it on the same playing field as anything else.

 

[mms]

i don't think it's such a ridiculous stretch to call the "big bad coke/crack dealer" a hip-hop trope according to this definition. please explain to me why it can't work that way, i'm genuinely curious...

its simply not a trope in all hip hop, just some.

 

[nomadologist]

i don't understand why everyone hates her, incidentally.

ha definitely not all natural. i don't hate her. i think if you bother hating paris hilton you put too much on the line when you're thinking about celebrities. i actually think it's some kind of feat to parlay no discernable talent or skill into a multi-million dollar career in a glamour industry. a lot of celebrities have no talent (J-Lo) except as business people, and no one is quite as up-in-arms against them.

 

[nomadologist]

sure i think it's a way of not calling a hip hop record good directly , or judging it on the same playing field as anything else.

yeah, that's exactly what i don't like about it: why make up a category for "coke rap" unless you think music like clipse's and jeezy's needs to be put in a new category so it can be evaluated differently than one would any hip hop. because i like clipse (and sometimes jeezy) according to the same standard i'd apply to any other hip hop.

thanks for articulating that for me.

PS the soul singers you mention were probably doing coke, too

 

[mms]

PS the soul singers you mention were probably doing coke, too

really?
You have heard superfly soundtrack and then seen the film haven't you?
the two things diametrically oppose each other, as does the rest of his career.

 

[nomadologist]

yeah yeah. i mean, maybe he's not just singing words on "no thing on me", and maybe he is a on a "natural high." he sure does confuse the word "junkie" with the more general term "drug addict" on it, which is like what cops do. i said "probably" because i wasn't sure.

ever heard about how grandmaster flash and the ff wrote "white lines (don't do it)" mid coke binge?

 

[mms]

ever heard about how grandmaster flash and the ff wrote "white lines (don't do it)" mid coke binge?

maybe, it does sound like a song about coke in the same way that people sing about boozing with a hangover.

 

[viktorvaughn]

Bit off-topic but there is a line on this LP where they say something like 'your favourite's rapper who went conscious and tried to tell you how to live'. Who are they on about?

I really like this album. One MC sounds a bit like Masta Ace (in later years) and the other sounds a bit like High Priest (i think its HP, definitely one from APC) from Anti-Pop Consortium - seriously!