In 2001, MTV filmed an episode of Cribs that rapidly rose to cult status among hip-hop heads. Viewers expectations--the usual Cribs fare of lavish and disgustingly tacky homes—went utterly unmet. This episode is, for many, “real” hip-hop’s response to the unabashed commercialism that characterized the Bad Boy era and became a hip-hop norm. Instead of a crib along the lines of Missy Elliot’s nauseating 4,200 square foot apartment in Miami, this episode featured a 2 bedroom, 2 bath home studio in Staten Island, N.Y. That gutta, M.O.P.-esque side of hip-hop is forever enshrined in this, the gulliest Cribs episode of all time.
The crib’s owner? Redman.
“Those motherfuckers wanted me to rent a house,” Redman told me, when I brought up the episode. As it progresses, Redman shows off that New Jerz dirty shit—the fridge contains only 40’s, the basement contains his uncle, sleeping on the floor. “That really is my Uncle,” Redman told me, before introducing me to the man himself, perhaps the greatest background actor of any Cribs episode.
The episode is so ghetto that it almost seems staged. How, after all, could Redman have been asleep in bed when the cameras showed up? The whole house is so unprepared for a cribs episode—it is too perfect not to be fake. Yet Redman explains: “They were supposed to come at a certain time, like noon, and they showed up at 8 in the morning.” In the same vein, why does Redman have any house, let alone a shitty one, in Staten Island? Isn’t there a house in Brick City, perennially full of bitches and blunts? The answer, unsurprisingly, is that Redman is out there grinding. “So, I do real estate quietly, and that was one of my first projects, which is why it was like that.”
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Transmission IV
Story lines about this record are rampant, so let’s cut off a few inroads first and foremost. The Chris Gaines comparisons are off key – Gaines, the Garth Brooks alter ego from the late ‘90s, was a forced excuse to rock out. Kanye West, per his highly publicized recent sorrow, continues to battle brutal loss: his mom, his long-term fiancée. The only parallel is pointless and coincidental, two superstars at the summit switching gears. 808s and Heartbreak as an off the deep-end power trip is a fundamentally flawed theory because Kanye West has forged a career on making hip-hop’s direction coincide with his personal evolution - haters battled with every release date. Moreover, Heartbreaks immediately sounds pretty; containing, like, three jams destined to follow suit in a long history of beloved singles. He’s still floating flow over impeccable production; and cutting checks to cash cows like Young Jeezy and Lil Wayne. The sitar-laden, back-from-India revelatory Karma album comes later. Likewise, the Autotune backlash doesn’t matter unless you flat out don’t like its prevailing effects on vocal chords. West isn’t biting a hot sound so much as he’s employing a narrative device for cohesion. The continued manifestation of his next level, outer world persona has been the cosmos itself (come on fam, it’s not like you weren’t at “Glow in the Dark”), and Autotune’s spacey qualities make sense. I imagine this record will be remembered as the gorgeously arranged, therapeutic pit stop along a limitless career trajectory. The sad songs released in late November you instantly connect with, and, like “Elf” and cranberries, come back to on a seasonal basis. Here, Kanyeezy expands on the best moments from last year’s worldwide LP, Graduation: siphoning the sticky, synthy, soulful and spiritual grooves of “I Wonder” and “Flashing Lights” for 40 minutes. Bluntly put, one of his greatest gifts is taking cool shit black people don’t like (Jon Brion, Daft Punk, Common), adding blackness, and blowing black people’s minds. Well versed in stuff college-educated liberal white people gravitate toward, West plucks ideas from bands like Portishead and Mogwai (atmospheric and moody acts depending on minor tones to paint the sky), and accents with hollow, gutted singing. “Street Lights” is his layered and lush knockoff of Ben Gibbard’s “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight.” If there’s a fair, accurate spin in play it’s Kanye West as emo, in the most negative connotation of spoiled, martyr suburbanites with too-tight jeans and moaning romanticism. Not because of song titles like “Coldest Winter” and “Welcome to Heartbreak,” but due to a baffling lack of introspection and admission of guilt. The limelight’s perils broke his monogamous ideals, but she’s the heartless one and he’s the sympathetic protagonist in half these tracks? He kept it more real on Ego, the money mixtape from ’06, wherein he stockpiled an uncomfortably vulnerable laundry list of grievances. But it’s all good. The supple listening is all the more impressive when you consider its source is one monster talent who uses both sides of his brainbetter than anyone in hip-hop history. To infinity and beyond?
To the great beyond.
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