The Music Fan’s Walk-In Clinic
DIAGNOSIS: You can use Pharell or Dub Magazine in a sentence; children named ‘Timbaland’ are in your future.
ILLNESS: Hip-hop has slithered into each tenet and timbre of your existence. Far be it from crunk to be confined to the weekend, for it’s always on.
SYMPTOMS: When ‘Z’ supplants ‘S’ as the plural signifier, rap and whatnot becomes a border for one’s reality, meaning that up is down, down is word up, and Eve is acting the fool. Low End Theory and Three Feet High and Rising or not, Native Tongues be scorned, and The Roots is Alex Haley’s masterwork and not the cream of the rhyming crop. Also, contemporary heads bob to Courvoisier and ‘tail feathers,’ dissolute and fraught with misunderstanding, willful ignobility and the distemper of bling and misogyny.
PRESCRIPTION: Rap’s forebears and icons must be rolling in their collective grave, for that is how fetid the down and dirty is these days between the wheels of steel and the microphone. If one chooses the Zen of Scarface, at the very least respect the achievements of luminaries like J-Live, Mos Def and Snow.
PROGNOSIS: If one repeats the mantra of Biggie Smalls’ “Juicy” each time a trick comes all up in your grill, all samples will be clear and peaceful. Remember, when all else fails, you can ‘come back with a brand-new invention — something that grabs ahold of you tightly — enabling you to flow like a harpoon daily and nightly.’
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