Ghost Voices, Gypsy Cabs & Cellphones

Today, marks the 10th Anniversary of Weldon Irvine’s suicide. At the time, Weldon Irvine was a man struggling with massive debts to the IRS, and a dangerous addiction to gambling. However, he was also the composer and arranger of some of the strongest works of Nina Simone, as well as being an accomplished jazz pianist/keyboard player, poet and playwright. Most would easily recognize one of his songs “Morning Sunrise” as providing the sample for Jay-Z’s “Dear Summer”, the record that hoaxed people into giving Memphis Bleek record sales. Others may recognize his song “To Be Young, Gifted And Black”, which would be performed by Nina, Donny Hathaway, Elton John and a variety of performers. A few may even remember him as being that odd old man sitting in Mos Def’s “Umi Says” video.

However, I know the man in a different light; Weldon Irvine was a good friend and mentor to my own father. For many years, my dad would describe hilarious interactions between him, an aspiring rapper/producer with idealistic visions of what was and wasn’t hip-hop… and this man who had a unique fondness for the artform, which also was doubled with his occasional reward for cleared samples. When Weldon informed my father his favorite new rapper was Too Short, my dad asked the man who’d worked so hard towards Afrocentrism why he’d like a rapper like Too Short; “Because, he just paid me for sampling my songs!” Money wasn’t everything to Weldon though; when he met KRS-One, who’d sampled him on “My Philosophy”, he gave him praise for his work, and informed him he wasn’t going to bother HIM about unpaid credit.

My own relationship with Weldon is… abstract at best. When I met him, I was very young, and so I failed to remember him very distinctly. However, over the years of my father’s recollections and memories, I was given a portrait of a genius. Discovering his music was nothing short of bliss as this above video demonstrates, given the astonishing quality of his work. To know that someone like this existed, so very close to my life, and yet, not quite in it, was remarkable.

I can’t offer any deeper insight into this man, and the tragedy that comes with his untimely demise. All I can do is listen to his music, my father’s stories, and watch videos like this. To know that a man with such intensity and creative force as he passed in and out of my life, in any indirect fashion, does fill me with a sense of wonder.

RIP, Weldon Irvine.

rebeccahaithcoat:

back in january, i asked maxwell cavaseno where kitty pryde is from. “she’s from florida,” he wrote. “but really, she’s just from the internet.”

Yep.

(Source: bryanmckay)

julianahuxtable:

ASAP ROCKY IS A CARRYING HOMOPHOBIC CHODE. ITS LIKE HES TAKEN THE SATC GAY HANDBAG MENTALITY AND MERGED IT WITH HIS ARTIFICIAL ‘NOSTALGIC’ BLACK MALE BRAGGADOCIO. THE CULT OF WORSHIP SURROUNDING HIM AND HIS LIKE-MINDED PEERS REEKS OF A WEIRD STRAIN OF WHITE GUILT WHEREBY MISOGYNY AND HOMOPHOBIA GO UNCHECKED B/C THE ARTIST IS A BLACK MALE. EVEN MORE TERRIFYING, I FEEL LIKE THE MORE HETERO-ORIENTED MALE POPULATION THAT WORSHIPS HIS MUSIC (AND THE QUEENS THAT VOLUNTARILY MINSTREL THEMSELVES IN SUPPORT) LIVE VICARIOUSLY THROUGH HIS EXPRESSION OF BLACK MASCULINITY, WHICH APPARENTLY IS ALLOWED TO VIOLATE THE SAME SOCIAL/POLITICAL NORMS (ESPECIALLY IN TERMS OF GENDER/SEXUAL POLITICS) THAT A MALE OF ANY OTHER RACE WOULD BE PUBLICLY SHAMED FOR. WEARING FUR, SMOKING WEED AND ADMITTING THAT YOU LET FAGGOTS STYLE YOU IS NOT PROGRESSIVE. IS YALL REALLY THAT DAMN THIRSTY? BOOP.

-JULIANA FUCKING HUXTABLE

No shots but… I cannot help but say yes, these are all critiques I have against Rocky and those guiding him.

(via cameronr)

No Fixed Abode - Indian Street Slang

I NEED DANNY BROWN TO JUMP ON THIS RECORD YESTERDAY.

The LHF album should be dropping on Keysound any minute now. For fans of good music, I cannot stress enough to give these future legends their proper due.

(Source: mimmblog)

So, I had the wonderful privilege of interviewing the artist known as B L A C K I E for NoJumper (expect the interview to arrive soon), and since then I’ve had to marinate on his discography for a minute. I’d only been exposed to him first with his last mixtape, so I can’t claim to have definitive knowledge on his artistry to any real degree. But it’s making me thing about rap we label as ‘experimental’.

From my birth, whenever someone really goes out of their way to make music that gets labeled at experimental in rap, it’s because they’re actively trying to say something against traditional rap. Company Flow, Kool Keith and artists of similar ilks were often rapping in an antagonistic way to the mainstream that wouldn’t accept them. Sure, there were the occasional ‘ghosts’ in the mainstream that exuded creativity while maintaining commercial ‘relevance’, but our anti-heroes had this great fantasy world where they were struggling against the mainstream evils with their pure artistry.

One of the biggest problems though is how little you get as a result… And while I respect and admire B L A C K I E and his craft to an immaculate degree, I do ‘fret’ at the lack of exposure he’s gotten with his career that ‘officially’ stretches to over 7 years now, and I’ve had to go through so many of those years trying to force myself to listen to dull rap yawnings like DALEK for the dream of ‘noise-rap’, when it’s real king was right there lying in wait? And now, we have Death Grips signing to Epic, with the ability to promote a similar (though the differences are too numerous to go into) style on a more ‘mainstream’ level. As much as I’d prefer B L A C K I E there instead, I can’t lie and say that D.G. being on the same label that’s promoting Future is an adorably fun notion.

Because now, it’s not the case as much. You can hear how artists like Odd Future, Lil’ B and Main Attrakionz are indebted less to obscure reference points, and more to traditional rap, yet come up with some of the more compelling art out there. So why is there such a reaction to separate these artists from the rap world that inspired them to be so unique? If one were to drain the cybernetic vocal distortion from his voice for example, wouldn’t Khalil Nova just sound like a kid who adores Gucci Mane and Young Jeezy rapping about girls, weed and ‘let’s get it’? (Albeit, with the occasional Dragonball Z reference instead of trap talk). Why is it that these artists with so much to offer often get labeled as ‘different’ from the genre that birthed them?

With O.F., this was a particular issue due to the fact that well… The backlash against them is always so naive. These kids have time and time again intoned that they love Top 40 artists as much as the occasional ‘out-there’ reference point (Tyler’s championing of weirdo Stones Throw acts like James Pants or post-rockers Stereolab, for example.) But when these kids did in fact enter the mainstream and living out their dreams, a good core of their fanbase who were more traditional “underground rap” fans rejected them in favor of pining for Earl’s release from boarding school. Discovering that Sweatshirt is signed to Stones Throw is no surprise to me, as it’s the perfect marriage of Earl becoming champion of this reactionary element in OF’s fanbase, and his own admitted past in lyrically lyrical rap (the kid WAS in a rap group called “The Backpackers” before encountering Tyler after all). In this way, Earl has symbolically broken from ‘the evil mainstream’… But in reality, the notion that he’ll just end up rapping over an album consisting of Madlib chops and ‘organic’ rap production is more regressive than anything OF would put him through.

This is a pretty poor statement to make, as the points I’m trying to raise are all over the place, but I really do wonder about our generation’s rap output getting it’s proper due. In the 90’s, that generation made a willful break from the norm because of a fear of homogenization and pop-polish. But at the same time… didn’t Pharaoh Monche’s output with Organized Konfusion really technically out-weird his solo album in the confines of Rawkus’ underground belly that could have supported him really artistically stretching and branching out? Does running away from the pressures of commercial rap actually benefit this new era of rap, especially now?

(Source: errrr-errrr)

dalatu:

spaceagehustle:

Words I wrote in a semi-coherent order were used in the creation of this post. 

-SM

Hey, I also contributed this. And Soft Money’s write-up of “He’s My DJ” by Dangerous D and DJ Charlie Chan is great. 

I got in on this too. Shout out to HL for looking out and everyone else.

bobostevens:

deezy d - dem wan (prod. clams casino)

Brian Eno’s favorite rap record (technically). It’s just cool when you get to say that.

(via ygrn4234235-deactivated20120308)