Jeff Chang takes on Nik Cohn, old white guys, and da capo

maybe not enuf hip-hop for his tastes, but...?

a wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom is like a canon high-point for me in rockwrite.

Now I don't know what to think. I'm not British; I've never read Cohn. I'd like to, but I haven't. There was a time about 5 years ago when I really fervently checked every used book store I came in contact with for his stuff!! I gather some stuff had been reprinted by American presses in the last couple years? Oh well, you lazy piece of shit presses missed your moment with me. I'm sure I'll read him one day, though.

A few years back, Picador in the UK published a Cohn anthology called 'Ball To The Wall', which includes the Sat Night Fever piece.

Sterling's OTM here. For all the lip service given to "diversity" and multiculturalism" sometimes it doesn't seem like too much has changed. But I think Chang should be giving Cohn more crdit than he does for writing about New Orlean rap. Cohn could have been just writing about Radiohead. Yawn.

There's not much writing about "salsa, latin rock, or Tejano" in the mainstream English language press by writers of any ethnic background. Jon Pareles actually does a bit of it in the NY Times but there's not much in Rolling Stone or most American weeklies for that matter.

You're an editor in Seattle, right? Do you try to actively seek out writing on diverse music genres, or to seek out writers from varying backgrounds, or are you too busy trying to meet deadlines each week to take that extra effort? I'm just asking for curiosity sake, I don't read your weekly's site online enough to know.

Check out this piece he wrote for the Nation, which argues that conscious rap is a liberal invention and the political consciousness of chart rep is underestimated.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030113&s=chang&c=1

that doesn't seem to be what he is saying at all
the article paints talib kweli as the only hope for the future!

Does anybody know how Da Capo picks the editor each year?

So...the timing of the rant. I have been doing a grad-seminar style reading binge to prep for a class I'm teaching on music journalism, which got me to remembering how angry I was about Da Capo and the--thank you Sterling--making of the *rockist* canon.

So, yeah, I could be wrong about Nik Cohn. I'm willing to be convinced about Nik Cohn. I cited Nik Cohn because that sentence about Calliope was what set me off, pushed all my buttons about generation and race and other shit. Don't want to go back there now.

Re: one of Sterling's points, I never meant to argue that my point of view ought to be privileged over Nik Cohn's--in that old 80s, "only *I* can speak about my people (and for my people)" kind of way. I used to be religious about that line when I was younger and less sweet a guy, but I realized about 14 years ago that that would mean I could only write about Hawaiian or Chinese American music or culture (which I still do). I gave that line up and have been happier and more enlightened ever since.

So Nik Cohn was a soft pink target for the main points, which was that I'm mad at the process of canonization of music writing and that it's *done been* time to make room for other voices.

FYI the process for Da Capo, as I understand it, is that Da Capo hires an outside editor--in that case, Paul Bresnick, who is a contract editor with experience in music criticism books--and chooses a guest editor--usually a famous literary white male. Together they assemble a couple of college-age interns who send out emails to a small clique of usual suspects who recommend stories for the guest editor to read. The collect them, he reads them, he chooses. Book gets published. Jeff trips out.

I could have said this: if they wanted to get hot literary guest editors they could have called...

Zadie Smith
Colson Whitehead
Danyel Smith
Paul Beatty
Junot Diaz
...

Maybe they will in the next ten or fifteen years. And maybe some of us might make it in there if we're hot enough.

So on to the real shit...did I call Mr. Lif "danceable"? Okaaaaaay. But he is, though, in a throwback way. My 7-year old son would rather hear Luda and Lil Jon and Youngbloodz. For the record, I am not mad at that. We have had many a father-son 'bow-throwing session together, to my wife's chagrin. My 2 year old's favorite song is "Prototype", he's a lover not a fighter. I'm trying Prince on him now, and he likes "Do Me Baby" which maybe I should worry about. Before anyone calls Family Services on me, please know that both boys are also getting their daily supplement of Bob Marley, Cesaria Evoria, Willie Colon, Lyrics Born, Missy, and Outkast.

BTW I believe I did mention K. Sanneh's and Kodwo Eshun's pieces, as well as Selwyn's and Sasha's and maybe some other folks, in the blog rant (which actually is preceded by a posting of the non-canon reading list I ended up giving to my students.) Or maybe I meant to and didn't.

Anyway the rant did wonders. I haven't had a rage attack since I blogged it. I have a few new books to check out. Life is good. So peace to Sterling and all yall, and boycott Da Capo.

Just kidding on that last point.

Well, I read the following as making the point that hip-hop wasn't inherently/originally a political music voicing the discontent of the urban oppressed (which is how your average aging liberal likes to view it when bemoaning The State of Hip-Hop Today):

"Political rap" was actually something of an invention. The Bronx community-center dances and block parties where hip-hop began in the early 1970s were not demonstrations for justice, they were celebrations of survival. Hip-hop culture simply reflected what the people wanted and needed--escape. Rappers bragged about living the brand-name high life because they didn't; they boasted about getting headlines in the New York Post because they couldn't. Then, during the burning summer of the first Reagan recession, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released "The Message," a dirge (by the standards of the day) that seethed against the everyday violence of disinvestment. Flash was certain the record, which was actually an A&R-pushed concoction by Duke Bootee and Melle Mel, would flop; it was too slow and too depressing to rock a party. But Sugar Hill Records released the song as a single over his objections, and "The Message" struck the zeitgeist like a bull's-eye. Liberal soul and rock critics, who had been waiting for exactly this kind of statement from urban America, championed it. Millions of listeners made it the third platinum rap single.

And I read this as saying that, erm, the politics have not disappeared from popular rap:

Yet the politics have not disappeared from popular rap. Some of the most stunning hits in recent years--DMX's "Who We Be," Trick Daddy's "I'm a Thug," Scarface's "On My Block"--have found large audiences by making whole the hip-hop generation's cliché of "keeping it real," being true to one's roots of struggle. The video for Nappy Roots' brilliant "Po' Folks" depicts an expansive vision of rural Kentucky--black and white, young and old together, living like "everything's gon' be OK." Scarface's ghettocentric "On My Block" discards any pretense at apology. "We've probably done it all, fa' sheezy," he raps. "I'll never leave my block, my niggas need me." For some critics, usually older and often black, such sentiments seem dangerously close to pathological, hymns to debauchery and justifications for thuggery. But the hip-hop generation recognizes them as anthems of purpose, manifestoes that describe their time and place the same way that Public Enemy's did. Most of all, these songs and their audiences say, we are survivors and we will never forget that.

So it's also about Talib Kweli. So what. Talib Kweli is alright. Unless you're a realer-than-thou faux-populist type.

Yeah, but "The Message" wasn't actually the first (even explicitly) political rap single. Originally most of it slowed down a Melle Mel verse in Flash and the Furious Five's first "Superrappin'" 12-inch (where it had just jumped out of all the party lines and lemon to limes and whatnot, and was actually MORE effective). And "How We Gonna Make the Black Nation Rise" by Brother D with Collective Effort came before "The Message" (in 1981), as did "The Big Throwdown" by South Bronx, right? And maybe more; plenty of pre-"Message" rap singles depicted street violence, though none that I know of tried to make it into a Big Important Point. It was just THERE, along with all the happy stuff. If something already exists, you can't "invent" it.

PS I like Nik Cohn a lot--he has a good case for being the first rock critic and he wrote a few great articles that do deserve to be canonized. But while I haven't read the piece that's in the Da Capo collection, and you can't judge something on quotes out of context alone, it does sound like it's coming perilously close, stylistically at least, to Nik Tosches wankdom.

But I think this is the exact point of the bit I quoted! I don't think the piece is arguing that rock critics (or anyone else) literally invented political rap. It's arguing that political rap received a disproportionate amount of attention, such that it came to be considered what hip-hop was about, obscuring all the other things that hip-hop was also about...like the happy stuff. Which constitutes "something of an invention."

To be honest I don't know how much you'd like Nik Cohn, but I do think you should give him a try. In some ways his voice is fairly unique too and somewhat rare, so while I'm all for inclusiveness I don't want to see certain other endangered species fall off the edge. On the other hand, I *like* Tosches style wankerdom and also some other crit styles I'm fairly sure you don't. I'm all for giving the ego trip crew et cet more space though and Danyel (though not Zadie) Smith would be a dream editor for me of a Da Capo book.

I could see maybe one article on undie/conscious/whatever-the-hell-term-you-want rap in an anthology like this but is it really representative to look for *bunches* of them? Also I do think that its somewhat of a contradiction that on the whole there's more better writing about music I find more dull (the rockist canon) than about music I find more exciting (i.e. hip-hop etc). And some of the hip-hop I find *most* exciting gets some of the *least* space for expansive thoughtful coverage (i.e. just Murder Dog or something in a capsule reviw at the back and maybe a fascinating but straightforward interview)

When the fuck is Junot Diaz gonna do something else? How long can one man coast on one collection of short stories?

"You could also invest next year in Raquel Cepeda's anthology collecting some of the best hip-hop journalism of the last two or so decades called And It Don't Stop (not from your press, I note)".

So does the fact that Da Capo has more music books on its backlist about artists of color than any other press in existence.

Also, the series clearly doesn't limit itself to "music journalists," so one of the main thrusts of his nearly racist rant is a little disingenous. I don't think the series aims to capture the state of music journalism. The pieces chosen are what the Guest Editor thinks the best writings on music are, regardless of the source, whether the authors are novelists, poets, journalists, or whatever.

They probably shouldn't call it "Best Music Writing 200x" then.

And while Bangs might indeed have be "mentoring a young woman of color," it would only be after he got her drunk on cough syrup and . . . well, you can imagine the rest.

Triksta
Life and Death and New Orleans Rap
Written by Nik Cohn
Music - Rap Hardcover
November 2005 $22.95 1-4000-4245-3

desc
In Triksta, a masterful observer of movements that emerge from dark corners to become worldwide phenomena–early rock ’n’ roll and “Saturday Night Fever,” to name but two –gives us a mesmerizing account of a city, its music, and a way of life that often embraces death.

Nik Cohn’s love of hip-hop goes back to its beginnings, and his love of New Orleans even further, to when he passed through on tour with The Who and discovered a place whose magic has never failed to seize him. As a white, foreign-born writer without money or bling, he would seem the least likely rap impresario imaginable, yet he plunges into this violent and poverty-ravaged world as a would-be producer. His passionate involvement with the music and the people who make it leads him through a New Orleans–wards, clubs, and projects–hidden from anyone not born to it: a journey into the heart of the hip-hop dream. En route, he immerses us in lives we scarcely think about, and then only with ignorance and fear, lives at once desperate, heroic, and endlessly enterprising as these men and women driven by talent and passion struggle to survive. Cohn captures a music that’s hugely popular but rarely understood, and with transcendent humanity he reveals this beloved city in all its tragic beauty.

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Nik Cohn is the author of six previous books, as well as two collaborations with the artist Guy Peellaert. He was born in London, raised in Northern Ireland, and now lives on Shelter Island, New York.

anyway, he comes across as extremely conscious of and humble about his position (old english white guy) vs his subjects (young black rappers). (ps, for the shelter island hataz, he has spent time living in new orleans and has an apartment there. next to a crack house, for extra authenticity).

also, he was even more ahead of his time than i had previously realized--not only invented saturday night fever, but also has a claim on ziggy stardust and pinball wizard too.

plus, he really should be rehabilitated as the OG Popist.

so, step off bitches.