Sunday Stuffs

Still haven't heard this joint out at the clubs, and I don't understand why. Seems to have everything you'd need for one of "those" songs:

- On Friday, accompanied by my mans 'an 'em, I checked out Beyond Beats and Rhymes: A Hip-Hop Head Weighs in on Manhood in Hip-Hop Culture. The movie was an entertaining probe of the overt masculinity of hip-hop that is encompassed by genre staples: braggadocio, misogyny, violence, and homophobia. Among other footage, the filmmaker, Byron Hurt, included interviews with Jadakiss, Busta Rhymes, Russell Simmons, Mos Def, and Talib Kweli; candid man-on-the-street clips captured at some BET lowest-common-denominator fest in Daytona Beach; and a this-guy-is-so-ignorant-that-you-can't-help-but-laugh interview with some idiot white dude from Ohio who actually called black people "colored" and used the term "you people" (I think) in a way that always gets everyone riled up. While the notion that hip-hop is ailed by too much music that glorifies degrading social values and judgments is not a new one, there was an admirable poignancy that accompanied Hurt as he challenged today's rappers and rap fans to account for their willing participation in certain practices that are objectively objectionable. Busta Rhymes, for instance, wouldn't even let Hurt get out the word "homophobia," flipping out and leaving the interview because he finds homosexuality anathema (and likely threatening). It was unintentionally and incredulously hilarious.

It is always easy to call someone with Hurt's intentions a didactic, moralistic Cosby who is unfairly judging others. But Hurt was right to ask the questions he investigated, and one of the more resonant, less explicit lessons of the movie is that hip-hop--like everything else, really--can be taken the wrong way by ignorant consumers who will readily accept the exaggerated posturing heard on record and seen on video as validity of hurtful behaviors. It is also always very uncomfortable and potentially treacherous for one set of people to call out a nebulous, larger group of others as being foolish or misguided, but you can't watch this movie and conclude that someone like Jadakiss is really thinking all that hard, relying on varied and conflicting inputs, about some of the practices he perpetuates.

I only wish that Hurt had interviewed the Dip Set, as the "no homo" phenomenon was ignored.

- Reason #459 why hipster hip-hop fans suck: As though it were not already bad enough that hip-hop is now critically assessed for so many people through the indie-rock, ill-informed lenses provided by the Village Voice, Pitchfork, and other outlets, this growing group of, um, unique hip-hop consumers are now ruining nights out. After the movie on Friday, we rolled over to some URB magazine-sponsored album-release party for the newest Duke Da God mixtape (lotta money over there!) figuring that there would be some powerful hip-hop being played. And we were right, but I couldn't get over how many hipsters there were tearing the club up to every Dip Set song released in the past three years (Juelz's "Mic Check 1, 2" had the crowd going nuts, the homoeroticism flowing as all kinds of kids channeled their inner uptown capo) but then losing interest in the evening when the DJ threw on older Cam joints like "357" and "What Means the World to You." This is your god, hipsters. Learn the fucking catalogue!

- Next-level blogging