Procrast-Nation

In 2003 a rap sensation like none other burst onto the scene, a one man hip hop revolution to eclipse all others, a messiah of rhyme. Y’all might think I’m talkin’ bout when Kanye West dropped The College Dropout, or when 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ hit the streets, but all the insiders knew the real score. There was only one MC with a flow so fresh the opposition wilted in its presence, a persona so big it could eclipse Biggie, and swagger nobody was dumb enough to fuck wit. I’m of course talking about Jin. (more…)

The reason I haven’t posted in a bit over a week is because I started a job in construction. This isn’t the first job I’ve had in the field, and I don’t really mind the work that much; I’m in pretty good physical condition now and the hours are pretty regular. However, the culture of construction workers has always seemed like an evil fun-house mirror reflection of the culture at large.

The most easily visible gage of this would have to be modern country music. Like hip hop, country music is mostly what I’d call ‘lifestyle music’; it mostly exists to assert the benefits or commiserate with a self-proclaimed social subculture; common occurrences within the subculture are overtly sexualized. In hip hop, there are many odes to the joys of the large posterior; in country music there are several songs equating tractors with penises.* Otherwise miserable necessities of the life, be it grueling construction work/lack of education/gang violence/drugs are romanticized or legitimized by the introduction of arbitrary ‘codes’ and idyllic pastoral scenes.

Both are modes of rationalization; however I’d strongly argue that, if one is to judge solely on the musical product turned out, the urban black is much more in touch with his environment than the rural yokel. While hip hop music has a long history of fairly sober assessments of the dangers of living in low-income urban environments, the country musician seems to be much more eager to create a fantasy world. He could be driven to relentless displays of alcoholism; his wife now just one large stretch mark and his screeching harpy like children chewing on nuclear refuse, and this would still come out in country music as being ‘Gee how great it is to live in small town USA.” Like some sort of inbred Job, the country music protagonist keeps on coming back for more punishment.

Yet despite the horribly unflattering light this leaves the culture in, they eat it up. Go figure.

*The most prominent examples being “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” by Kenny Chesney and “Big Green Tractor” by Jason Aldean.

I don’t rap anymore, due to the extremely poor reviews that my crew’s first album received. Perhaps the most concise summation of them can be found here. But ideas still come to me from time to time of how I could start my rap career anew, build hype, and get back in ‘the game’. So without further ado, here are my 3 specifically tailored outlines of diss tracks for fellow rappers. (more…)