Murder to Excellence; an expose

"When the hook("whole lotta money in a black bag. black strap you know what thats for") is repeated at the end of the song, the line “black strap, you know what that’s for” segues into “Murder” (part of “Murder to Excellence”), which discusses black-on-black crime." -Rap Genius 


Murder to Excellence, the tenth track off of Kanye West and Jay-Z's storied "Watch the Throne", participates in the artist practice of the form of the art matching it's content. Murder (the first part of the song) has a gritty beat, with instrumentation and tones matching a more urban, harsh theme. The backing vocals create a driving force for each of the rappers, pushing them on, creating an aura of tension and giving the feeling of almost being hunted. This element is regarded as form, as it is the structure of the song; it frames the song and provides a skeleton that the content, or the lyrics, is laid over. The content of this section is about how black people murder each other, how black culture is self destructive, how murder is a manifestation of symptoms of a system that discriminates, oppresses and drives black people to murder each other. It's a mature approach to race relations, as it places blame on both black people ("It's time for us to stop redefine black power, 41 souls, murdered in 50 hours") and on the system (the same line Dan pointed out, "What's the life expectancy of black guys? The systems working effectively, that's why"). It challenges the community to move past violence and become more sophisticated ("If you put crabs in a barrel to insure your survival/You're gon' end up pulling down niggas that look just like you/What up, Blood? What up, cuz? It’s all black, I love us "), and as Rap Genius points out, "Jay uses the 50 Cent line “What up, Blood? What up, cuz?” to demonstrate that he is talking to all young black folks (“Blood” refers to the Bloods gang, and “cuz” is a common Crip salutation), and to remind them not to get caught up in gang violence, but rather to feel pride in their race. "

Excellence (the second half), has a cleaner, loftier rhythm. It's sounds sophisticated, and classy. The voices that made "Murder" ominous and threatening sounding shift and make it now sound high class. There are comparisons that can be made here between these vocals and gospel music. Gospel music could be considered one of the shining beacons of hope for the black community, as it has existed through hard times, through slavery and civil rights, and has remained a major part of the community through all its hard times. It has remained an unwavering force for good, and more importantly, a force for wanting to be better. There's a sense of hope in it, that they can push past this life full of hardships and misery and achieve a better one in heaven. The verses here talk about moving up in society, and how black people aren't really involved in high society (because of structurally imposed racism on black people dating all the way back to the middle passage). This song has a hope that blacks will rise up and join their equals in positions of power and influence. Hope that black people won't be stopped by police, for our society will have stopped demonizing black people to the massive extent that it does today. There's the clever line "Domino, Domino, only spot a few blacks the higher I go". If dominoes and black with white dots, the higher the number, the less black you will see. I'm not sure if this is what Jay-Z meant, but true art is something that gets us to ask questions, and whether or not the artist "meant" it does not matter as much as much as we think (for more on this, read Roland Barthes' "The Death of the Author").

The participle "to", when used here, indicates a movement from one place to another. This is what the song does. It moves from one aspect to another, and not only in terms of moving from one topic of discussion to another. The song carries the overall theme of hope, and in this same vein, The Throne hopes that African Americans can move from Murder to Excellence. In this way, by uniting form (rhythm, tone, the aesthetics of vocal parts) with content (the lyrics), Kanye and Jay Z have created a masterful piece of music. This uniting is commonly found in good literature (most commonly in poetry).

Who ever said hip hop wasn't art?

HAH?! - The Aesthetic Appeal of Music

"It also features this great Kanye moment, "Doctors say I'm the illest because I'm suffering from realness/ Got my niggas in Paris, and they going gorillas," followed by a sample of Will Ferrell in Blades of Glory talking about how awesome shit doesn't have to mean anything." - Pitch Fork Review

"Got my niggas in Paris and they goin' gorillas, hah?!" There it is: hah?! Go ahead. Say it. Out loud. It's fun. And there's nothing that summarizes the wonderfully obnoxious platinum-crusted one-percent-ness of Watch the Throne better than Kanye West's go-to ad lib. Hah?! is funny, memorable, annoying, dumb, genius, earth, water, sky-- it's the entire known universe in one impossibly indignant syllable. Nobody knows what it means because it means everything.--Ryan Dombal -Pitchfork, Track of the Year



"Awesome shit doesn't have to mean anything". It is this phrase that I latched onto when reading this review and one which stuck with me. Why do cool things need to have a reason behind them? Maybe there's value in things that appeal at face value. When we think about why or why not we like something, we try to think of reasons for that; that the lyrics are meaningful, that the music sounds good and that the people in the band are good people. But why do we look for answers? I think it's because we like to think that we can justify our taste to others, and maybe a little, to ourselves. But do we need this? Why can't we just like things that appeal to us?

Ultimately, all music does is give you feelings. Music affects you and when we hear it, it makes us feel a certain way that cannot be put into words a lot of the time. We can get close. We can say "oh I like that bass line. The way it sets up expectations and breaks them, coupled with the pitch and timbre, produces an enjoyable experience for me. Then, when used with the guitars that play notes at the same time, produce a harmonizing effect that I really enjoy." Or, if I knew more musical technical terms, I could say, "It was in 7/4 time in the key of A, uses whole note steps, uses rests, blah blah blah". However, neither of these descriptions really give you the feeling of listening to the songs. When someone describes a painting, or a sculture, depending on the piece of art in question, you can sorta get a glimpse into what it's like to be there. Now, as being a person who has been to the Sistine Chapel (which nothing can prepare you for), I know it's not the same as actually experiencing the work first hand. However, you do get some idea into it. With music, that isn't true.

When I read reviews of new CDs coming out, I never really know what it's going to sound like. Despite the reviewers best tries (well maybe that's their attempt), I am still surprised when I hear a CD for the first time. Calling the drums on "Niggas in Paris" gigantic turns out to be really descriptive after I've heard the song. But before, who knows what that could mean? And, more importantly, reading that they are gigantic is nothing close to actually hearing them boom out of your speakers (hopefully with a lot of bass). It gives you a feeling. It makes you feel awesome, larger than life, or annoyed, depending on who you are. But there is a gut reaction there that one can't really explain. A sound engineer can tell you its frequency, height, length, you name it. A musical theorist can tell you if its off key, in a minor key, major key, and so on. But, there is no "if it's in this key at this frequency, everyone will like this beat". You could find something that everyone would hate probably (siren sounding erratic noises come to mind), but whether or not you could find something everyone would like is a different story. People have a gut reaction that can't be measured and differs from person to person. And when you ask people why they like something, there's nothing more really any average person says other than "I like that". "I like that it's raw" or "I like his voice" or "I like that beat". But there really isn't a solid, quantifiable measurement about why one would like it.

This gets down the difference in mediums that language and music occupy. In music with lyrics, we can describe why we like lyrics a lot easier than we can describe why a piece of music is good. I believe this is due to the difference in senses. We use language to frame our world and use it as a way to understand it and classify it. Without language, we cannot move past simple understanding of the world. There was a girl who was found chained in a basement for 17 years and we were unable to get her to move past simple construction of language. Language is not something inherent to us, and our society constructs it. This girl, because she couldn't talk, could not understand concepts, analyze them (using words) and expound upon them. But, we all use different languages to think about the world. I think of the bathroom as "bathroom", the English think "Water Closet" and the Spanish think of it as "Los Banos". There is nothing inherent about any word that lends itself to describing an idea. It is only our agreed upon meaning that gives it authority to describe an object or an idea. When I hear a Spanish sentence that I do not understand, there is no way I can even begin to unpack it. I can't look for anything inherent about it, other than words that coincidentally mean similar things in English or French. But music defies this. A good beat is good no matter what language you speak. And every language is going to have a different way of attempting to describe what they hear and how it makes them feel. But just as "The bathroom" to me is actually "the toilets" to the Spanish, our language will limit us in how we can describe why we like it to others. There is a French phrase that goes "Comme ci, comme ça", which means "a little of this, a little of that". However, they use it in the sense of "How are you?". While "a little of this, a little of that" may translate to "some good, some bad" or "Alright", it doesn't do that in French. It retains itself as a phrase. There is an idea that accompanies saying "Comme ci, comme ça" instead of another phrase like "Bien", even though to us, they roughly mean the same thing. There is an idea that you can't describe, but it's there.

This leads to why you can't describe how music makes you feel. There's a feeling that you get when you hear music. It's something else. Our words can encapsulate our emotions to the best of our abilities, but its like trying to translate from one language to another. There is something lost when trying to "translate" the beats of "Niggas in Paris" to the sentence "Niggas in Paris" rides an impossibly propulsive synth riff and gigantic drums ". It makes sense to us after we hear the song, but that's only because we can go back to our memory and remember what they sound like. If someone were to say, "this song sounds like this", they are using a comparison to illustrate their point. They are asking you to think in the language of music to go back to something so you can actually get a feel of what they are trying to describe. Otherwise, its almost like trying to describe a smell without using the word "like".

So, if all music boils down to "liking" one aspect because of a gut reaction to a certain element of the music, why do we need to justify our taste? Do we need to say "this is better than this" if all it comes down to is a feeling you get when listen? So what if it's Justin Bieber's "Baby" or Sleep's "Dopesmoker"? Different people like different feelings. Some like being active and accomplished and others like being lazy. Some like the feeling of metal, feeling badass, aggressive, pessimistic or angry. Others like pop, feeling happy, sugary, or naive. Others prefer music that's raw, because it sounds like real emotions and they connect with that. Others like refined music because the feeling they get when they recognize an artist participating in artistic tradition is one of admiration. When others hear that same artist doing the same thing, they balk at and ask themselves, "why didn't they think of something new"?

However, intricacies of music genre and taste aside, it all boils down to Kanye West. Does awesome shit NEED to mean something? I say NO. Since all music boils down to emotion, if there is something that appeals to your emotions right away, I say, go for it and like it. There is absolutely room for music that "means something" in what you listen to, but every single thing you listen to doesn't have to mean something. I think some of it should be HAH!. It should mean nothing, and everything. It should be a flash of emotion. One that doesn't have to be described to be appreciated. It should have face value and you should revel in it. It should splash over you like a wave of ecstasy and let it just take you. Screw what anyone else says. I'm gonna like the Biebez, whether anyone likes it or not, because the bass line in Boyfriend slaps.


Related:
"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" -Martin Mull

Childish Gambino and Innovation

I was reading pitchfork's review of Childish Gambino's Camp on Pitchfork. They gave it a 1.6. When I read the article, I realized I got the end of it and had no idea what they were talking about. I couldn't recall a simple reason why they didn't like it. There was no point to the article. They mostly said he copied Kanye West. OK. They sound similar, I give you that. So he's going with a style of art that is proven to be good. He puts his own spin on it, and takes it to new places. Furthermore, what else is he going to do? Should he go with a failed model? Maybe he should come up with something new? But I do want to point out, that most of the things that we consider "high art", such as painting, classical music, plays, novels, poetry, opera, sculpting and cinema, are very infrequently the first of their respective "genre"s. They all copy pieces that come before them, and put a spin on it. That eventually leads to further inovation. "People don't write from the moon" as my professor would say. Meaning, you don't create something masterful without influences. So don't criticize Glover for not being crazy innovative. 

Some people complain that shit talking on the internet is annoying. That it's unnecessary and pointless.  But the literary community has been writing contrary pieces for ages. In fact some of the most influential essays on critical theory have been responses to essays that were published in journals, Henry James' The Art of Fiction to be specific. It was a response to and essay that no one reads anymore. We feel a need to criticize what others do. The difference now with the internet is that all of it is recorded and saved. We can go and look at it all now. Before it was just word of mouth between commoners. Not until recently did the average person know how to read and write.

Reading and writing is power, I guess.