One night not too long ago, the ADLIB crew was walking on the street, having just finished attending a flute recital, and naturally started jumping around while shouting rap lyrics.
A local musician picked up on this subtle cue, recognized us as his target audience, and came over with CDs in hand, one for each of us, FREE OF CHARGE.
According to his CDs, his name was School Boy Slingy AKA Slingy Boy AKA Slingy.
Unfortunately he's too underground for me to feature him here.
Some days later in k-mart, a white guy with dreads called Chris B. approached me with CDs of a hip hop "mixtape" he made. I grabbed one out his hand and reassured him that I would listen to it. He quickly responded by telling me that there was a catch, but it was however, a good catch. When I asked him what it was, it turned out the catch was that the CD cost 5 dollars, not a good catch at ALL. I put the damn CD back in the guys hand.
I asked him if his music was online though, and he directed me to his youtube channel, where I would not be able to find the music from his CD, but instead remixes of various other popular rap songs.
I checked it out and it was depressing.
Lots of popular rap songs are about struggle, and are usually inspiring because the artist tells his/her story from a place of success, reflecting on the struggle. Some other rap songs are about a struggle with no resolution, but are still interesting and touching because of their emotional content.
But this guy's songs were about a struggle that was just sad and not compelling.
For example, his song "I wish I went to college" (a remix of "I love college" by Asher Roth) begins with depressing adlibs punctuated with forced, defeated laughter.
I'm broke right now...
[laughs]
I feel like shit...
[laughs]
It's hard being a rapper...
Should've went to school...
The beginning line of the chorus comes in afterwards:
Wish I went to college, and got knowledge, now I'm broke, eating out the garbage...
So he's broke, feels like shit, eats garbage, but doesn't get knowledge.
That's at least 75% of college... some would argue that's actually 100%.
Maybe what makes a song of suffering compelling is actually our INABILITY to relate to it.
