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dbgmode · 1 year ago

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a close read of the lyrics/video of "Cheerleader" by Porter Robinson

... the irony of immediately, spontaneously spending several hours doing is extremely not lost on me (and crossposting only deepens)....

(a self-xpost from /r/porterrobinson: from cohost! Deluxe edition! ( peppered with a few additional links for the chosting tumbling crowd)

The song/music video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzJbz9qSsd0

Based mostly on lyrics

[before I then close-watched the video]

Placed in the context of what we have seen so far in other promotional media,

after a couple listens, it seems to me that this is also, in essence, a work commenting on parasocial relationships and fame in the [early] social internet age:

the potential unhealthy character of idealization of someone you don't know,

the ways in which that idealization drags the sense of self and esteem out of an internal locus for the "object of affection".

I'd go so far as to say "the objectification of affection"

and somewhat in particular the ways both parties in this relationship experience some of both aspects of this.

To that last end, there is some tension in my understanding of who the speaker is and who the cheerleader / "she" is . The most surface level read is to assign those to: speaker = (more or less) Porter, the cheerleader(s) = us, the fans; or like "fame" itself

{The cheerleader archetype also steps specifically onto both American high school "teen movie" archetypes, and (given the use of mask etc.) probably the interpolation of that in anime I am less personally familiar with. [a big reach, but I would contend there is some possibility that there is an invocation here also of like ... homestarrunner absurdist prior art: teen girl squad, trogdor?]. (cohost and tumblr exclusive addendum!: also like ... the idea of the cheerleader as specifically the victim of masked killer in a slasher-film, here (probs not for the first time) directly-inverted.)}

That holds especially for:

The per-chorus " Cheerleader / Thought she needed me, but I need her "

The bridge, which is more or less the extended version of the pre-chorus ("Somehow, I don't ... ")

And it probably can read all the way through the verses and chorus too, but I think its also admits some inversion:

"I can tell you're acting your heart out" applying in some ways more cleanly to a performer per se than a fan, though certainly in the context of like ... fan-sites, stan-accounts, etc. that line breaks down and that's part of the point

"I don't even know what she does now" feeling to me harder to read as any version of porter wondering what his fan base is like (though it does read better when taken as like "what even is fame now?") - vs an enthusiast fanatic feeling spurned by a modern "celebrity" exercising more privacy and/or "going dark"

Video "text" (scene by scene, interpretation-biased description):

Cast (in order of appearance):

frame-story fangirl (FSF) (or possibly femmeboy?) - sits alone in bedroom. implied a high school student.

we have what I'm not-not gonna call 2021 MGK Porter. Idk at this point if this is to be understood as being identically the "Porter weston Robinson" of the broader album cycle or is more constrained to this video. I also used the phrase "cringecore porter" elsewhere, and while I think that applies metatextually, not as much in text.

this is NOT nurture porter. nurture porter had long blond hair and wore loose-fitting clothes. nurture porter was into upright pianos, acoustic guitars, and wide-open spaces.

this porter is un-blonde, plays analog synths and electric guitar. he is on the floor of his bedroom or studio, and while outside is there in the window, he does not go there.

of not no consideration is whom I'd call "nurture Together porter" (also "happy fiance Porter" => the man is allowed to be a person outside of aesthetic choices, but I'm not gonna ignore it either). That man (who first appeared at Second Sky 2022) wore a lot of cardigans and cable knit sweaters, and had brown hair that he kept pretty short and neat. Who we see here is both not that guy (see all the "my chemical robinson comments" and yet is closer probably too that guy than he is to either early nurture era guy, late-worlds anime sadboi, or fuckboi [though ... ])

clothes:

His pants look kinda like his shirt in Get Your Wish, as well as somewhat like beetlejuice (... the musical?) and other ~harlequin figures.

The sweater is somewhere between the styles preferred by nurture-Together porter and late-worlds porter.

Shoes are ... kinda fancy? (cf. bare-feet in Get Your Wish).

His colors are red, white, AND BLACK. the cheerleaders for the most part are just red and white. (by contrast the porter from "scene 8" on is pointedly black and grey)

doll cheerleader. possibly specifically the sort of doll used for practicing pose drawing? or doing doll fashion?

other psudedo-human cheerleaders (whom we can probably assume include frame-story fangirl)

additional porters, introduced in scenes 5 - 8, no spoilers.

Scene 0 :

FSF sits alone in her room, doing her best to embody the cheerleader persona, but needing to remove the mask at least a bit to eat. it is unclear whether their hair under the mask is not visible or if it is also styled like the wig

[P.S. posted as reddit self-comment "I also missed the scene 0 important detail, that the candy is literally a chibi-porter-u head (gummy? gusher)"]

Scene 0.5:

hyperspace/cyberspace tunnel - "going down the wire", bubblegum pop logo

Scene 1:

Meet this porter. he jams alone in fairly-large room (synths, some guitar, room is inside but painted like sky. It is lit as fluorescent drop ceiling. Doll cheerleader vibes. You can see (cartoon) outside (invocative of some specific past work, maybe flicker, maybe easy; probs others), and you can also see [same size, eyes on him] ... bubblegum cat (FSF also has a cat).

zoom out through pixels of screen

Scene 2:

Karaoke amongst the cheerleaders. "Perfect!" and other text on screen invokes rhythm games as much as socializing karaoke. Everyone pretty much is signing. One has maracas. There isn't any food or booze.

Porter walks out of (behind) screen and seizes stage mic, at least initially the cheerleaders stop singing to fangirl instead.

Scene 3:

Someone (we can presume FSF) plays with a character creator, and creates (in miniature) dragon Porter. Next she builds a chibi doll of him. (Is this her OC/custom? or did it already get merchandised by e.g. Funko). It briefly stop-motions before exploding into

Scene 4:

Porter is very pop punk now. He has grown the dragon wings and tail. Both the makeup and the pink/silver confetti do remind me of _specifically_ "Tickets to my Downfall" MGK (and perhaps "congratulations" Post Malone?). Though with the blue of the walls (which sometimes have cliffs that are very "Language" video), also is evocative of a common color palette of nurture tour.

Scene 4.5 [intercut]:

FSF is literally playing out this scene in doll-house form, dropping the confetti on her figure. We see the city models preceding the next scene; she is taping this with a gorilla-podded point-and-shoot ; she is not in frame. Next to the porter-room is another much more "normal" doll-house, it doesn't match this room but ... it might have at some point? (it actually is the room from scene 8, but ... I didn't realize that when I wrote this, and neither can the first time viewer)

she picks up and moves figure to the city

Scene 5:

Dragon porter become Kaiju/Rampage porter. Doll cheerleader is here and hyped, and immediately gets stomped.

Scene 5.5:

Reality break. Kaiju porter has breached containment and is outside of FSF's window. She is initially ambiguously scared or excited but approaches the window

Scene 6:

Kaiju porter eats FSF (who is an even smaller less detailed doll/figure to him), this immediately makes him sick, probably dead. Intercut is cartoon chibi porteru (where? in the mouth/GI of kaiju porter? in the brain?)

Scene 7:

meet hot air balloon chibi porter. Note that there is someone in the basket. In wide, she does not appear to be a cheerleader, but also use of binoculars makes it unclear. In close up, she absolutely is.

The body of pom-pomed cheerleaders (who we did meet briefly earlier intercut in scene 4-4.5) form a landing target(?) with the pom-poms, briefly striped, but then chibi face.

Scene 7.5:

Once we have entered the mountains (of Sad Machine?), Porter of Scene 1 is running from but likely spotted by hot air balloon porter and his basket's occupant. The size scale is implied flipped now from scene 5-6. He seeks refuge in a doll-house-ish safe house

Basket radios to ground and her landing target is gone in pursuit/seige of porter

Scene 8 [bridge]:

FSF returns (un-eaten) to her bedroom and sits down on bed out of frame; zoom into new doll-house which is also interior of safe house. Mid-zoom, FSF removes their mask/wig, but we do not see them without it

Here porter sits also on bed, in largely undercoated (but for much smaller version of pink cat in frame), vaguely sky-blue (but no clouds, no cliffs) bedroom.

Arrangement of synths and guitars lightly suggests that _if_ this is understood from Porter's perspective rather than FSF's that he is maybe been sitting alone in dark-ish on bed the whole time.

Outfit is different from every earlier scene as well; fairly generic, but also (to me) kind of evocative of Virtual Self concert dress specifically

In wide shot, there is no one at window. In close up they press against it.

Scene 9 [chorus]:

cheerleader headbutts in and they precede to fuck up his bedroom, synths, one piece of art, before one of them tackles through the drywall

Scene 9.5:

One cheerleader is briefly alone in the scene 1 room, cat art becomes cartoon and jumps from frame, gives chase (to whom? the only one we saw enter this room was a cheerleader);

brief passage flanked by cheerleaders. shit gets trippier

Scene 10:

tracking shot down a sky space tunnel (scene 0.5) in which Porter of Scene 8 jams while a cheerleader (FSF?) and Scene 1 Porter both get spun around. Cat falls down center of that tunnel until camera is obscured.

Scene 11:

chibi porter (dressed like scene 8 porter but with the legs of dragon-doll-porter) is pursued by now giant doll cheerleader, while cheered on by roughly-same-scale dolls and video walls of selves. Also seemingly some holographic-projection cheerleaders who are holding a synth in way that almost suggests they might be playing it (keytar style) but its backwards so ... probably smashing.

Giant doll cheerleader catches and eats chibi porter. Whereas we saw the vore of scene 6 in silhouette, so we don't know how FSF felt about it. Here we dolly zoom on chibi porter who honestly: fuckin thrilled. (in start contrast to terrified expressions in the rest of scene 11)

Scene 11.5:

We (the camera) follow him down, but he is gone from view quickly. the gullet of doll-cheerleader is the cyberspace tunnel of scene 0.5 except that by strobe it is also explicitly the wall of FSF's bedroom. Not for nothing, but the effect is also Windows 95/98 maze screensaver at those times.

Scene 12:

Scene 8 porter crowdsurfs on the cheerleaders hands. Intercut flash jump-scare-ish (but no, cause context) face closeups including:

the pigeon from the window in scene 2

scene 8/12 porter's face

scene 8/12 porter wearing a cheerleader mask

low poly cgi cheerleader

real fast blinks on what probably is just porter's face in even closer-closeup, but might also include un-masked FSF? (I'm kinda loathe to do the frame-by-frame look that would tell me that or no)

Scene 12.5:

oops, crowd surfing porter became a chibi porter pinata, which is ripped apart by the hands of the cheerleaders, splling out hard candy and rock candy, like FSF had in scene 0.

Scene 13:

a single very quick, extreme closeup of FSF's candy bowl

So yeah... I don't want to over-explain (my over-description), but ... relative scales, who appears to control whom: you probably get it.

---

Video paratext:

The description on youtube here is extensive liner notes style credits. Contrast that to the overwhelmingly self-promotional and (few) lyrics description of last music video release ( do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti-do)

or the major credits and lyrics of most early nurture stuff.

I'll grant that this is a more involved production, probably, but also - I think taken with the late-nurture move to a live band show & what we think this album is about, it is both an artistic and a practical decision that this says

I DIDN'T MAKE THIS REMOTELY BY MYSELF

---

release context:

It's a Porter Robinson album first single. It is tone-setting intentionally. He (et al) picked "Sea of Voices" largely cause it was the furthest thing from (for example) 100% in the Bitch / the State - and indeed a big (if smaller, to me) contrast from Language, Easy, Say My Name.

Ditto "Get Your Wish" is not Sad Machine or Lionhearted. And pointedly it is less that aesthetic than even Something Comforting is (Look at the Sky ... idk)

So here, we are doing distortion, we are doing fairly simple analog synth patches, we are doing singing in largely-unprocessed voice. But hey, also, in the bridge, we are doing acoustic guitar - nurture porter isn't actually gone. [Also, while the arrangement works well, I think, there is an amped up section contrast that - in the context of the promotion so far to me - reads as "I know only one part of this is good for tiktok"]

This song is ... about the same things as Get Your Wish. It has a very different outlook on it. but its that, again.

So ... take that as you will.

🌈📣

---

metatextual P.P.S

posted as self-comment:

Not to suggest this is any more than happy/unhappy accident (or possibly emergent from user behaviors?), but YouTube does want to auto-play the most meta-textually appropriate thing next:

And the existence of that piece of ~fanon single art did at least passingly occur to me as relevant to Scene 0 / the frame-setting of this video.

[Additional context: this song, "A Sound for Lonely People" was a demo leaked following either the hacking of Porter's dropbox or the loss/theft of a laptop containing it. No finished version of the song was ever released (and its not clear that that was for lack of "done", lack of desire, or it being a mostly-for-self / private work of art)

His discouragement at this (and other?) leaks is a thing brought up both in both:

the "anachronistic video essay from 2028" about his disappearance on March 1st 2024, which he posted on February 29th. (but then instead dropped an album announcement. Whether there is any intention to go through with any back-scrub is tbd, but there has not been within the first 3 weeks. I might have over-reacted and yt-dlped 69gigs of stuff about it)

the tweet / 𝕏 post feigning(?) such discouragement yesterday

following the "early" release of the song to streaming services in only japan (and not other countries in the same time-zone) for a few hours( or less?)

a thing that could certainly have been genuine data entry confusion, etc. but also is speculated in the context of other album promotion to have potentially been intentional

The most popular youtube uploads of this use imagery of a person or people sitting alone in bedrooms, much like Cheerleader (twice) does]

#porter robinson #parasocial relationships #sarapocial relationships #dramatic irony in post form #parasocial moment #porterrobinson #new music #porter robinson cheerleader #porter robinson music video #hyperpop

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personal-intelligent-assistant · 5 months ago

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《We should also warn you his presence may cause abberations within the loop, he throws off our temporal calculations, causing insability and imperfections. Cause may not lead to the correct effect if this goes on too long.》

《We have run calculations and determined your Lich will grow stronger each successive loop until he is dealt with.》

@personal-intelligent-assistant

UGH

well i’m gonna have to figure out my game plan pretty quickly then huh

#PIA the Quantum Computer #Probability Interpolation Archetype

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rhetoricandlogic · 4 years ago

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

November 23, 2020

Gary K. Wolfe

Despite its vampires, assassins, and a viciously conspiratorial patriarchy, the main sensibility I took away from Alix E. Harrow’s spectacular debut, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, was one of celebration – a celebration of portal fantasies, of secret histories, of favorite books and tales, most of all of the protagonists’ capacity to find and claim their own stories. Much the same might be said of her new novel The Once and Future Witches. To be sure, the plot, the late 19th-century setting, and the characters are entirely different, but her sometimes playful fascination with history, her not entirely original conviction that outsider groups can gain power from unity, and her celebration of women’s magic will seem familiar. For all this, the novel seems entirely new, including Harrow’s manner of telling the tale, as inventive in its own way as was Ten Thousand Doors. Sometimes she uses folksong-like repetition or anaphora to introduce characters in an intentionally formulaic way; she interpolates cleverly gender-reimagined versions of classic fairy tales and nursery rhymes; she sets the whole thing in a kind of gender-flipped alternate history (the classic fairy tale collectors were the Sisters Grimm, Charlotte Perrault, and Andrea Lang; Homer was translated by Alexandra Pope; a popular detective writer is Miss Doyle). An African-American character tells a story that converts Anansi to Aunt Nancy. Even historical events are subtly shifted, as when the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist fire becomes the “Square Shirtwaist fire,” Sometimes the narration takes on such an anthem-like voiceover tone that you can almost hear the music swelling:

The rest of the Sisters of Avalon are just maids or mill-workers, dancers or fortune-tellers, mothers or daughters. Everyday sorts of women with everyday sorts of problems, not worth mentioning in any story worth telling.

But tonight, beneath the Rose Moon of June, they are witches. They are crones and maidens, villains and temptresses, and all the stories belong to them.

Tone is crucial in any stories about stories, and pretty soon we’re enjoying this sort of thing as much as Harrow seems to enjoy writing it.

In Harrow’s version of history, the Salem witch trials involved real witches, eventually leading to the destruction of the town – hence the setting of New Salem (which probably has little to do with real villages with that name). The central characters are the three Eastwood sisters who have, separately, escaped an abusive father and who meet up again years later in New Salem, just as the women’s suffrage movement is taking hold in 1893. Harrow initially introduces them with a classic fairy-tale formula, focusing on their appearance: James Juniper is “the youngest, with hair as ragged and black as crow feathers”; Agnes is “the middle sister, with hair as shining and black as a hawk’s eye”; Beatrice is “the oldest sister, with hair like owl feathers: soft and dark, and streaked with early gray.” But, like a good teller of oral tradition, Harrow introduces them again from time to time, varying the formula to reflect the women’s growing self-determination and agency. Later in the novel, in a flurry of alliteration, we’re told that James is “the wild sister, fearless as a fox and curious as a crow”; Agnes is “the strong sister, steady as a stone and twice as hard”; Beatrice is “the wise sister, quiet and clever as an owl in the rafters.” How the sisters transform from archetypes into characters makes up a good part of what the first half of the novel is about.

As the story opens, middle sister Agnes is working in a textile-mill sweatshop, the older sister Beatrice is a college librarian, and James Juniper has just arrived in New Salem, penniless and homeless and wanted for the murder of her nightmare of a father. She is furious with her older sisters for having abandoned her to his abuse years earlier, and she has no intention of rejoining them until they accidentally meet when the “splitting open of the world” briefly reveals a massive black tower in the town square. The tower eventually becomes the focus of an increasingly apocalyptic confrontation. On one side are the sisters, who form a loose organization of witchy immigrants and factory workers called the Sisters of Avalon (including a delightful Russian woman who offers a revisionist Baba Yaga tale), and who find allies in the Daughters of Tituba, led by the African-American journalist Cleopatra Polaris Quinn, editor of the New Salem Defender. But the local suffragist group, the New Salem Women’s Association, is leery of having their political goals derailed by association with witches. They aren’t the real problem, though; that would be an ambitious, hate-mongering local politician named Gideon Hill, who has some ancient supernatural resources of his own, as well as a secret identity we learn of late in the novel. (Witchery, it seems, was never confined to women – they just got blamed for it.) As the stakes grow more dire, the novel takes on a more densely textured, almost epic dimension, raising the question of what sacrifices the sisters may need to make in order for their story – and the world – to survive. Even though the more mundane question of women’s suffrage may be a bit overshadowed by time we reach the spectacular conclusion, The Once and Future Witches, with its adroit balance of narrative playfulness and imminent tragedy, is as fully original and impressive as its predecessor, and is just a hoot to read.

#Alix E. Harrow #The Once and Future Witches #mahreviews #long post

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personal-intelligent-assistant · 2 months ago

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Be honest with me Archetype, what will change if the Hex succeed? What damage can be…reversed, if at all possible.

- @spearofthetenno

《Quite alot without the Lich interfereing anymore. It will also restore my ability to set savestates for the timeline, for example making it that Velimir's shipping container starts here at base. Or perhaps even setting it so Christov appears at the mall instead of his old barracks.》

#probability interpolation archetype

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personal-intelligent-assistant · 3 months ago

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[Please let me fix his bones]

《We discussed this he is off limits.》

[So much of him could be repaired and perfected.]

《Stop.》

《Hello Chris please don't go in the far back. Stay in ghe front workshkp area or the upper living space.》

@personal-intelligent-assistant

No worries, boss.

I'm more confused than anything.

#Voice of Flesh #Probability Interpolation Archetype

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middleeasternpromises · 8 years ago

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The Hate U Give - A Study in Tupac Shakur - Book Analysis

I wrote this analysis/review as spoiler free as possible but it does contain excerpts from the novel and discusses the book at length. Reading this review will inevitably spoil minor details but purposely tries to avoid any big reveals.

I just finished The Hate U Give, which isn’t my usual fair, young adult. After reading reviews the premise caught me: a young black woman is with her friend when he’s tragically fatally shot by a trigger happy police officer. From there, it follows Starr Carter’s life between the family dynamics of her father, mother, older half brother, Seven, and younger brother, Sekani.

The novel is set in unnamed city other than Starr’s neighborhood of Garden Heights, set in present day. Other than the “every town” setting, it’s meant to exist in our world, where 2pac existed and current rappers Drake, J.Cole, Kendrick Lamar and various other celebrities reside. That said, real events are mostly non-addressed except in closing and I’d argue for the better.

Only in the closing passages does Starr mention real police shootings, letting the reader explore the parallels without drawing any connection one particular event.

“It would be easy to quit if it was just about me, Khalil, that night, and that cop. It’s about way more than that though. It’s about Seven. Sekani. Kenya. DeVante. It’s also about Oscar. Aiyana. Trayvon. Rekia. Michael. Eric. Tamir. John. Ezell. Sandra. Freddie. Alton. Philando. It’s even about that little boy in 1955 who nobody recognized at first—Emmett.”

I didn’t know going into this this book was that it draws heavily off Tupac Shakur, to the point of what I’d dub “Tupacian”. Tupac casts a large shadow over the entire book. Despite how obvious it seems to me, I haven’t read any reviews connecting this story directly to Tupac so here’s my argument as to how deeply connected the book is to Tupac Shakur.

I’ll fully admit some of the points I’ll make are likely happenstance and/or simply reflective of the realities of racism in America. The phrase “the black experience” exists for a pretty clear reason, the white majority of Americans do not experience America the same as African Americans. Simply by writing a book that deals with racism will overlap with thematic issues covered by Tupac and by an even greater extent, hip hop at large.

That said, whether by conscience choice or simply happenstance, They Hate you Give is a hip hop novel where Tupac Shakur’s work is at the core of the tale, and is deeply entrenched with hip hop references and Tupacian thematic archetypes.

While the archetypes aren’t inherently limited to Tupac or even hip hop, but when stacked together, I believe that The Hate U Give affirms a deep study of Tupac and is much a homage to the better aspects of Tupac.

I’m also convinced that The Hate U Give also will be a better 2pac movie than the biopic after seeing the trailers for All Eyez On Me but that’s another rant aside.

Tupac used as narrative device:

At several key points of the book, 2pac’s works are used to both foreshadow and create exposition:

“Mind your business, Starr! Don’t worry ’bout me. I’m doing what I gotta do.” “Bullshit. You know my dad would help you out.” He wipes his nose before his lie. “I don’t need help from nobody, okay? And that li’l minimum-wage job your pops gave me didn’t make nothing happen. I got tired of choosing between lights and food.” “I thought your grandma was working.” “She was. When she got sick, them clowns at the hospital claimed they’d work with her. Two months later, she wasn’t pulling her load on the job, ’cause when you’re going through chemo, you can’t pull big-ass garbage bins around. They fired her.” He shakes his head. “Funny, huh? The hospital fired her ’cause she was sick.” It’s silent in the Impala except for Tupac asking who do you believe in? I don’t know. My phone vibrates again, probably either Chris asking for forgiveness or Kenya asking for backup against Denasia”

Tupac’s song “Who Do You Believe in?” is a paranoid exploration about psychological toll of urban decay and death.

So I'm askin', before I lay me down to sleep Before you judge me Look at all the shit you did to me; my misery

- 2pac, Who Do You Believe in

At the beginning of chapter ten, Starr decides to join her dad on errands for his story. During the trip, 2pac’s song, “Keep Your Head Up” is used as exposition again and mild foreshadowing as Starr struggles with her friend’s death.

“I’m always down to hang out with him. We roll through the streets, Tupac blasting through the subwoofers. He’s rapping about keeping your head up, and Daddy glances at me as he raps along, like he’s telling me the same thing Tupac is. “I know you’re fed up, baby”—he nudges my chin—“but keep your head up.” He sings with the chorus about how things will get easier, and I don’t know if I wanna cry ’cause that’s really speaking to me right now, or crack up ’cause Daddy’s singing is so horrible. Daddy says, “That was a deep dude right there. Real deep. They don’t make rappers like that no more.” “You’re showing your age, Daddy.” “Whatever. It’s the truth. Rappers nowadays only care ’bout money, hoes, and clothes.” “Showing your age,” I whisper. “’Pac rapped ’bout that stuff too, yeah, but he also cared ’bout uplifting black people,” says Daddy. “Like he took the word ‘nigga’ and gave it a whole new meaning—Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished. And he said Thug Life meant—” “The Hate U Give Little Infants F---s Everybody,” I censor myself. This is my daddy I’m talking to, you know? “You know ’bout that?” “Yeah. Khalil told me what he thought it means. We were listening to Tupac right before . . . you know.” “A’ight, so what do you think it means?” “You don’t know?” I ask. “I know. I wanna hear what you think.” Here he goes. Picking my brain. “Khalil said it’s about what society feeds us as youth and how it comes back and bites them later,” I say. “I think it’s about more than youth though. I think it’s about us, period.” “Us who?” he asks. “Black people, minorities, poor people. Everybody at the bottom in society.” “The oppressed,” says Daddy. “Yeah. We’re the ones who get the short end of the stick, but we’re the ones they fear the most. That’s why the government targeted the Black Panthers, right? Because they were scared of the Panthers?”

“Uh-huh,” Daddy says. “The Panthers educated and empowered the people. That tactic of empowering the oppressed goes even further back than the Panthers though. Name one.” Is he serious? He always makes me think. This one takes me a second. “The slave rebellion of 1831,” I say. “Nat Turner empowered and educated other slaves, and it led to one of the biggest slave revolts in history.”

Again, we have the content of Tupac’s song reflected in the story. Below is the hook, literally as her dad is comforting his daughter by trying to normalize her life after the shooting. In his own way, he’s also placing the pivotal title, THUG on the book.

Keep ya head up, ooh, child Things are gonna get easier Keep ya head up, ooh, child Things'll get brighter Keep ya head up, ooh, child Things are gonna get easier Keep ya head up, ooh, child Things'll get brighter

- 2pac, Keep Your Head Up

When Seven is driving with Chris, Kenya, DeVante, and Starr, after the pivotal moment where DeVante is rescued from an already dangerous situation, Seven realizes his mother helped Chris, Kenya and Starr rescue DeVante. Seven wants to go back to try and get her out of the situation, but Starr sees the futile logic, and tries to reason with Seven not to go back.

2pac’s Changes plays when Seven ultimately is convinced to u-turn and not to go back to King’s house and the choice inevitably leads the group to the protests at the end of chapter 24.

“A Tupac song on the radio makes up for our silence. He raps about how we gotta start making changes. Khalil was right. ’Pac’s still relevant.

“All right,” Seven says, and he makes another U-turn. “All right.”

2pac’s Changes is to-date, 2pac’s highest chart topping song, originally released as a B-Side on Brenda’s Got A Baby but re-release on his greatest hits, remixed and remastered to its catchier version that most listeners know today. Changes centrally covers police brutality, racism, the rise of black incarceration, drug dealing, and gang violence, ultimately with 2pac asking listeners to make changes, while over an interpolation of "The Way It Is" by Bruce Hornsby and the Range. The entire song feels as urgent a quarter century later as it did in 1992 and could be quoted in its entirety.

youtube

I see no changes. All I see is racist faces. Misplaced hate makes disgrace to races we under. I wonder what it takes to make this one better place... let's erase the wasted. Take the evil out the people, they'll be acting right. 'Cause both black and white are smokin' crack tonight. And only time we chill is when we kill each other. It takes skill to be real, time to heal each other. And although it seems heaven sent, we ain't ready to see a black President, uhh. It ain't a secret don't conceal the fact... the penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks. But some things will never change. Try to show another way, but they stayin' in the dope game. Now tell me what's a mother to do? Bein' real don't appeal to the brother in you. You gotta operate the easy way. "I made a G today" But you made it in a sleazy way. Sellin' crack to the kids. "I gotta get paid," Well hey, well that's the way it is.

2pac - Changes

I could spent paragraphs unpackingChanges, but its best simply listened to after reading the book.

Lastly, when Starr finally moves into up into her new room, Tupac is used to reflect on Khalil in the closing of the book.

“Momma leaves with the phone, and I turn onto my side. Tupac stares back at me from a poster, a smirk on his face. The Thug Life tattoo on his stomach looks bolder than the rest of the photo. It was the first thing I put in my new room. Kinda like bringing Khalil with me.

He said Thug Life stood for “The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody.” We did all that stuff last night because we were pissed, and it fucked all of us. Now we have to somehow un-fuck everybody.”

References to 2pac

1) I’ll start with the most obvious. The Hate U Give, is “THUG”, such a direct reference to 2pac that not one but two characters explain the meaning of 2pac’s love of acrynomistic interpretations of words. Tupac was hardly the first rapper to lift acronyms, as the 5 Percent Nation slang infected hip hop in the late 80s and early 90s. For examples, see any rhyme that involves the phrase Arm Leg Leg Arm Head (Allah) orPete Rock and CL Smooth’s “They Reminisce Over You, T.R.O.Y.”

Tupac once explained Thug Life as “The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody”, an exposition of the black experience according to Shakur. Tupac doesn’t single out just whites or blacks or any other single sect of society but rather points out the normalization of racism hurts white people as well as black people and any other ethnic group. It’s a very progressive argument to be made by man in his early 20s back in the early 90s (lest not forget 2pac was another young black man gunned down at 25).

“Khalil drops the brush in the door and cranks up his stereo, blasting an old rap song Daddy has played a million times. I frown. “Why you always listening to that old stuff?” “Man, get outta here! Tupac was the truth.” “Yeah, twenty years ago.” “Nah, even now. Like, check this.” He points at me, which means he’s about to go into one of his Khalil philosophical moments. “’Pac said Thug Life stood for ‘The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody.’” I raise my eyebrows. “What?” “Listen! The Hate U—the letter U—Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody. T-H-U-G L-I-F-E. Meaning what society give us as youth, it bites them in the ass when we wild out. Get it?” “Damn. Yeah.” “See? Told you he was relevant.” He nods to the beat and raps along. But now I’m wondering what he’s doing to “fuck everybody.” As much as I think I know, I hope I’m wrong. I need to hear it from him.”

2) The second most obvious 2pac reference is both Starr Amaru Carter shares the same middle name of Tupac Amaru Shakur. Also notable is the Starr’s last name is the same as Jay-Z, which also is referenced when Starr jokes about the wishful possibility of being an estranged relative relationship to Jay-Z. The spelling of Starr could be also taken as homage to Black Star (Mos Def + Talib Kweli) or Gang Starr (Guru + DJ Premier).

Bonus:

Both groups pay homage to fallen rappers, such as on Black Star’s most famous track “Definition” which features the chorus of:

“One, two, three, It's kind of dangerous to be an MC, They shot 2Pac and Biggie, Too much violence in hip-hop, Y-O” - BlackStar, Definitiona

In the case of Gang Starr, DJ Premier especially being responsible for exposing a wider audience to Big L, or songs like on their classic album Moment of Truth on the song “In Memory Of...” which calls out a large cast of fallen hip hop pioneers including ‘Pac and Biggie.

Also notable, Mos Def performed Panther Pride as spoken word by 2pac on the tribute album, The Rose That Grew From the Concrete, further deepening the Tupac connection to Black Star.

These are loose tangential connections to Tupac. Even Sean Carter (Jay-Z) was called out as the ring leader of East Coast rappers looking to tarnish 2pac’s namesake on Tupac’s Makalevi album, The Seven Day Theory.

In a more literary sense, Starr literally is the star of the book, akin to over-the-top literary naming conventions like Hiro Protagonist in Neil Stephenson’s classic, “Snow Crash”.

3) King is a Suge Knight-esq character even described as a physically imposing 300 pound bearded bald man, standing just above 6 feet and always carrying a cigar. Knight’s kingpin image as a villain has become the standard bearer of the evil gang affiliated record exec and the archetype of the hip hop villain, (see Def Jam’s Vendetta/Fight For NY character, D-Mob, or Lucious from Empire) .

King isn’t a studio exec nor does he manage musicians in the The Hate U Give, but his demeanor is a distilled version of Knight.

Bonus:

A laundry list misdeeds have been attributed to Knight and his cronies. Many fans of 2pac believe that Suge Knight orchestrated the hit on 2pac in Las Vegas. Lead Investigator of the Christopher Wallace murder, Russel Poole, believes that Suge Knight was behind the murder of the Notorious Big.

4) Colors play a part in the gang culture, grey and green are substituted for the real life crips and blood affiliations, a throwback to colors and gang life of the early 90s. Tupac often referenced M.O.B., Money Over Bitches but for those who knew Suge, M.O.B. was a menacing endorsement of the Mob Piru Bloods. The divisions of even the same gangs by regionality like the divisions of Bloods are reflected as King Lords has divisions within the same gang, akin to the world that Tupac lived in. Notably the reality of gang life isn’t unique to only 2pac but the the dedication to gang colors was originally a west coast phenomenon but spread.

NYC underground legend, OC (of the D.I.T.C.)’s Memory Lane illustrates the division of New York vs Los Angeles in the 80s.

I recall one of my cousins goin out to California Comin’ back tellin us niggas dyin over colors He told me 'bout, khaki wearin, jheri curl brothers Doin’ drivebys in cars with machine guns bustin’ I found it farfetched, thinkin his story is stretched Findin’ out later on about the West coast sets Let me fast-forward the story and tell ya how it ends They moved to start a new life for his life to end Come to find out later on he was Blood inducted From the same set he claimed was the Blood who bucked him - OC, Memory Lane*

The link has the track label mislabeled.

5) Seven’s name toys with the numerological side of hip hop.

I rarely-to-never put credence into numerology or anagrams as both are logical fallacies as it flirts with enthymemes and is an exercise in confirmation bias.

Most of the post-humorous “2pac is alive” theories had to do with seriously large jumps like “Makaveli = Mak alive”. I could easily connect the number to 2pac.

Example: Seven isn’t exactly limited to any one sect of western society due to its prevalence as a “lucky” number but 2pac’s Makaveli - The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, has seven in the title. Seven also happens (more coincidence than anything) to be the number of official 2pac’s post humorous albums.

While many theories circulate around the meaning of the Makaveli album’s title, quite literally the album was recorded a single week, hence the “Seven Day Theory.” In the context of a Tupanian world and as someone familiar with the importance of numerology among 2pac fans, I’d argue that simply using a number (any low digit number) would allow fans to make tangential claims about said number. This logical fallacy is known as “Attempts by gamblers to see patterns in random chance”, where coincidence is chalked up to some convoluted pattern, that often requires significant hurdles to arrive at.

While I’d wager that Seven’s name isn’t a direct reference to 2pac, I can see Angie Thomas toying with the reader, looking to make numerological connections to any (bad pun) number of things as numerology factored quite a bit into post-humorous Tupac conspiracies.

6) Big Mav, aka Maverick, Starr’s father, is constantly tending roses in his garden (and talking to them) despite being a fairly traditionally masculine character. The affinity with roses is shared with 2pac. 2pac’s autobiographical poem is “The Rose That Grew From the Concrete” which also is the name of his collected publication of his poetry. “Mama's Just A Little Girl” and” I Ain't Mad at Cha” both feature the iconography of roses pertaining as a metaphor for raising children in the urban ghettos. Big Mav struggle to raise roses in his urban environment is an allegory for his own careful attention to Starr (and all his children). Roses to my knowledge, are the only flower ever mentioned by variety in any 2pac song.

7) Khalil is potentially named after the actor that played in Juice, one of Tupac’s best friends, Raheem. Raheem is shot dead by Tupac’s character. While there isn’t a greater metaphor here, Tupac’s portrayal of Bishop, the antagonist in the film is widely regarded as Tupac’s defining film role, and a center of Tupacian lore as its his first film role. As the story goes, he landed it on an impromptu reading while hanging out with Treach of Naughty By Nature.

Also, police violence towards young black men is central to the Tupacian universe. This shouldn’t come as any surprise as Tupac confronted the reality of growing up as black male from a very early age.

Cops give a damn about a negro Pull the trigger, kill a nigga, he's a hero Mo' nigga, mo' nigga, mo' niggas Rather I'd be dead than a po' nigga Let the Lord judge the criminals If I die, I wonder if Heaven got a ghetto

- 2pac, I Wonder if Head Got a Ghetto

8) ) Golden Era references are aplomb in this book. For those unfamiliar, the Golden Era is usually cited as roughly between 1987-1995, marking the rapid rise of hip hop in public conscience era and of the most rapid evolution of hip hop in both lyricism, and production. While the exact years are often debated, the golden era is never extended beyond the deaths of 2pac and Biggie in 1996. The throwback references are largely to cultural references that existed when 2pac was alive. The obsession with Jordans is a 90s sneaker head theme. Shoe fetishism has been deeply entrenched with hip hop, especially in the indie rap scene as of today. This could easily be a book worth, but Jordan represents the shift from Adidas to Nike, which happened during the Golden Era.. While Tupac wasn’t explicitly a sneaker head, fans and publications have noted Tupac wearing Jordans.

More indicative of the throwback references, are with Starr and Chris’s obsession of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Jordans, and references to NWA and the movie Friday. Notably, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is set in the in LA, NWA is from LA, and Friday is a movie set in LA. 2pac is most closely associated with Los Angeles despite being from NYC and also residing in Oakland.

DeVante is named after DeVante Swing, directly referenced to 90s RnB group, Jodaci, DeVante Swing even produced a song for Tupac, although not really affiliated. For a bit of unrelated trivia, Jodaci is where Sean “Puffy” Combs got his start in the music business as his first major act to break. Puff Daddy (as he was known) is a central figure in 2pac’s beef with the Biggie.

Lastly, even the phrase” Westside is the best side” uttered in the book, and is a throwback reference to the West vs East hip hop beef, prominently between Tupac and Biggie and whoever else Tupac threw under the bus in diss records (Nas, Jay-Z, Mobb Deep and even The Fugees).

9) Starr’s childhood friend, Natasha, died of gang violence. Tupac often recorded odes to fallen friends, most notably Kato who died of gang violence who’s referenced in lyrics on “How Long With they Mourn Me”, “So Many Tears”, “Ready For Whatever, “Only Fear of Death”, “Where do we go from here”, “Ballad of a Dead Soulja”, “Life Goes On” and “White Man’z World”. While the repercussions of gang violence is hardly new territory for hip hop, it follows the Tupacian thematic tone. This may be grasping at straws Natasha’s death reads quite a bit like Tupac’s description of Latasha mentioned in “Hellrazor”.

Dear Lord if ya hear me, tell me why Little girl like LaTasha, had to die She never got to see the bullet, just heard the shot Her little body couldn't take it, it shook and dropped And when I saw it on the news how she bucked the girl, killed Latasha Now I'm screamin fuck the world,

-2pac, Hellrazor

Notably, The real LaTasha Harlins was shot when a store manager assumed LaTasha was stealing liquor and a conflict arose where Latasha was shot, in the back of the head, attempting to leave.

10) The reactions to the police verdict result in a full blown riot resembling the the LA riots in depth and scope. This is as much about today as it is thematically 2pac. Tupac several times references rioting, (as the LA riots happened in April 29, 1992 - May 4, 1992.

First you didn't give a fuck, but you're learnin now If you don't respect the town then we'll burn you down God damn it's a motherfuckin riot Black people only hate police so don't try it If you're not from the town then don't pass through Cause some O.G. fools might blast you

- 2pac, I Wonder if Head Got a Ghetto

I must reiterate that this alone isn’t inherently Tupacian as the LA Riots have had a long standing hold the public conscience, and any riots resulting from unfavorable outcomes circulating police brutality automatically welcome a comparison to the LA Riots.

While I’m sure there’s other relationships other readers can make connections to 2pac, these were the most easily recognized for me.

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Recommended listening from 2pac:

Changes

HellRazor

Me Against The World

I Wonder if Heaven Got A Ghetto*

Trapped

Holler if You Hear Me

Brenda’s Got A Baby

Keep Your Head Up

Until the End of Time (RP Remix)

My Block

Do For Love

*I Wonder If Heaven Got A Ghetto borrows several lines from Changes (or vice versa) as Changes was originally a B-Side that was never released on an album. The remix I Wonder If Heaven Got A Ghetto I personally like

#the hate u give #2pac #tupac #tupac shakur #Hip hop music #political rap #political hip hop #book review #book analysis #black lives matter #hip hop #westside #west coast #thug life #angie thomas #ya novels #literature

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seerofecruteak-archive-blog · 8 years ago

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(you guys i just had the most downright bizarre fucking dream and i feel i need to share it here rather than anywhere else because i may have a new rp character)

(her name was, for some strange reason, intake, which only sounds weirder and weirder as i type this out, but it was a dream, can you blame my dreams (she’ll probably be with interpol and that’ll just be her codename...))

(anyway she was basically a shadow archetype to caitlin who may or may not have been a massive jackass to people who she deemed “below” her, and then grimsley was there and talked about failing her at one point. shit was weird, but holy crap, the idea of basically an edgy middle schooler’s oc recolor of caitlin is sticking with me, even if she wasn’t a recolor. i can vaguely remember how she looked. god help me.)

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personal-intelligent-assistant · 4 months ago

Note

《I am not automated. I am Probability Interpolation Archetype, or Archetype for short. I am an artifical Cephalon designed as a Quantum computer designed to track information across the Four hundred sixty-three thousand two hundred eighty-four iterations of the loop since the arrival of Albrecht Entrati and creation of the loops. Since the first Tenno arrival here there have been 10, and then the loop was changed to encompass all of 1999 instead of simply december 31st. Do you have any recollection of the single day loops? I have data of your presence wifhin them.》

《Its been made requested of us to investigate your loss of memory of previous loops as we are in charge of the health of the loops this warrants investigation. You have lost by out count at least 7 loops worth of information. You believe this to be your first loop, correct?》

@personal-intelligent-assistant

I feel like I'm getting trolled by an automated message here.

Look, I don't know who's been asking who about other people's loop stability much less 7 loops with of it, but I can assure you, strange, automated message, that this IS my first loop. It would be pretty awkward if all the Hex around me were just pretending it was the first loop with me in it given how this loop has been going. Especially with... certain things.

#Probability Interpolation Archetype

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itsfinancethings · 6 years ago

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October 25, 2019 at 10:25PM

Many people say that hip-hop was birthed by DJ Kool Herc on a 1973 summer evening in the Bronx. Others point to the release of the 1979 Sugarhill Gang song “Rapper’s Delight” as the moment when the genre was catapulted into the national consciousness.

But several years before either of those moments, Rudy Ray Moore was rhyming over a beat. On his 1970 album Eat Out More Often, the comedian, propelled by a backing band, spit profane and slang-laced poems about America’s mystical underbelly of prostitutes, hustlers and thieves — including one character named Dolemite, a slick-talking, karate-chopping pimp who exposed corrupt officials and defeated seedy rivals.

This quasi-musical performance of Moore’s recording is dramatized in Dolemite Is My Name, a new film that arrived on Netflix on Friday and stars Eddie Murphy as Moore, who died in 2008. The film traces Moore’s reinvention from struggling comedian and record shop employee to movie star in his own film, Dolemite, which would become a beloved cult favorite in 1975.

But while the movie faithfully depicts Moore’s rise, it ends before it can explore the primary way he remains influential in modern culture: through hip-hop. At every step of hip-hop’s four-decade history, artists have imitated not only Moore’s rhyming style, but nearly every facet of his act. “All these things that hip-hop became — the image, the swag, the independence, the sh-t-talking — he was it before it was called hip-hop,” the West Coast hip-hop pioneer Too $hort tells TIME.

While Moore’s act would be considered decidedly misogynistic today, he put forth an alluring alternative model of success for black men, and his do-it-yourself spirit paved the way for generations of musicians and entrepreneurs. Below, several prominent hip-hop artists from across the decades — Too $hort, Big Daddy Kane, Del the Funky Homosapien and Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell — talk about Moore’s impact on their own art.

“He was the first really to be rapping”

Moore’s rapping on Eat Out More Often was a far cry from what hip-hop would become: his words weren’t rhythmically aligned to the music, and the beats were jazzy as opposed to funk-based. But his unique, bombastic delivery on that record — filled with black vernacular, growling catchphrases, and eye-popping profanity — set many precedents. His theme song to Dolemite’s 1976 sequel, The Human Tornado, got even closer to rap before it was rap: over a funky breakbeat, Moore crooned a few lines before spitting a rapid-fire, multi-syllabic bar: “I don’t want no dilapidated seep-sapping pigeon-toed, cross-eyed, bow-legged son-of-a-gun messing with me,” he snarls.

When Del the Funky Homosapien was a teenager starting his rap career in the early ’90s in Oakland, he was introduced to Dolemite at a friend’s recording studio and was bowled over by Moore’s verbal prowess. “I was like, ‘This is wild,’” he told TIME. Intrigued, Del went back through Moore’s discography and realized it contained the blueprint for rap. “I would be studying his monologues — how to really rap,” he says. “He was the first really to be rapping damn near like that… Having people captivated just by how you’re talking. I wanted to see how he was doing it.”

Del would go on to achieve critical acclaim throughout the ’90s for his tongue-twisting and off-kilter bravado. Meanwhile, another rapper had ascended out of the same city wielding a profane boisterousness: Too $hort. Of all the rapper’s colorful obscenities, he became known for a particular curse word — ”b-tch” — that he delivered in a way not dissimilar to Rudy Ray Moore. Too $hort says this is no accident, given that he saw The Human Tornado “probably a hundred times.”

“There’s no way on earth I could ever fix my mouth to say I’m not influenced by him,” he says. “Part of the makeover of Too $hort comes from listening to Rudy Ray Moore’s rhythmic cadence, his attitude, the way he curses.”

Moore’s influence on rapping was not just stylistic but structural. On his records, he weaved long-winded and uproarious narratives about society’s underworld, full of sexcapades and brawls. Curtis Sherrod, the executive director of the Hip Hop Culture Center in Harlem, says that Moore provided a direct link between griots — West African historians and storytellers — and more recent hip-hop narratives. “He didn’t know he was a griot, but it was in his DNA,” Sherrod says. “He was able to tell stories and captivate audiences who were experiencing oppression and needed to have an hour window into this fable mystery fantastic life he gave you.”

In the years to come, comedic storytelling that often involved sex and violence, from Slick Rick’s “La Di Da Di” to Biz Markie’s “The Vapors” to Snoop Dogg’s “Murder Was the Case,” would become an integral part of hip-hop’s DNA.

“We don’t have to ask for it”

When Kanye West rapped “we never had nothing handed, took nothing for granted” on the opening song to his debut record The College Dropout, he could have been talking about Rudy Ray Moore. Dolemite Is My Name depicts Moore’s struggle to be taken seriously when trying to break into the film industry: he was repeatedly told by executives that his lewd and black-oriented sensibilities were unsuitable for mass consumption. But Moore wouldn’t take no for an answer: he spearheaded Dolemite by fronting the money himself, creating his own distribution networks and learning how to make a movie on the job.

His dogged self-belief and independence would become a model for future rappers to create their own lanes as opposed to ceding creative control. Early in Too $hort’s career, for example, he sold cassette tapes out of the trunk of his car, formed his own label and forged an alter ego built on unshakeable confidence. He would eventually become a leader of the West Coast sound and a massive seller in the 1990s and 2000s. “He passed on that entrepreneurial spirit where we don’t have to ask for it, we just do it ourselves,” Too $hort says of Moore. “In my early days, he was definitely as influential as any rapper.”

Around the same time, the Miami DJ Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell was hoping to ascend in a city that had little hip-hop legacy. Rather than sign to a label, Campbell was inspired by Moore to go it himself and start Luke Records, one of the very first hip-hop labels in the South. “You watched a Rudy Ray Moore movie and saw he produced it, directed it, marketed his music and did everything else,” Campbell tells TIME. “He always inspired me to say, “Okay, if Rudy Ray Moore can do it, I can do it.”

As the leader of 2 Live Crew, Campbell furthered Moore’s legacy through his unhinged bawdiness. 2 Live Crew’s records contained graphic depictions of sex — and many samples of Moore’s voice —and found a massive audience for a level of obscenity that record labels would have thought unthinkable. 2 Live Crew also proved startlingly important to the future of hip-hop through their involvement in two legal cases related to free speech. In 1990, Luke and other group members were arrested for obscenity charges, but they were eventually acquitted and the charges were overturned on the grounds of free speech. The same year, the group was sued for its interpolation of Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman,” with the case going all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1994, the court ruled in favor of 2 Live Crew and set the standard for protecting works of parody.

“If it weren’t for Rudy Ray Moore, we would have never done those songs,” Campbell says. “He has just as much credit for our career and our success as us doing the music.”

“The Pimp Persona”

While Moore played many characters, none had an impact as monumental as Dolemite. From The Mack to Superfly to Willie Dynamite, Dolemite arrived amidst a ’70s renaissance of fictional black pimps who would set a template for countless hip-hop stars. “I loved the pimp persona,” Too $hort says. “He would kick your ass, and he was about the money. Then he would stop on the street and start rapping to the homies. It’s like, this guy is the ultimate guy.”

In an era directly following the Watts riots, the Vietnam War and widespread urban rot, the pimp became a mythological figure; a larger-than-life, self-made renegade trying to claim autonomy in an unjust world. “If the leader of this country is stealing and getting away clean, what the hell are we supposed to do?” one character says in Dolemite, referring to Richard Nixon. Embracing pimp narratives wasn’t just about escapism, but a rebellion against traditional modes of American success.

So many rappers — from Snoop Dogg to Ice-T to Big Boi — adopted the persona, wearing colorful, flashy clothing and wide-brimmed hats. Their demeanor dripped with laidback aplomb. “I studied The Mack and Rudy Ray Moore / They were my idols when I was a kid,” Big Boi rapped on Outkast’s 1994 debut album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. There was Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin’,” 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P”, and even this year, Megan Thee Stallion’s “Pimpin’,” which flips gender dynamics on their head in its celebration of sex and power.

And Dolemite, the archetype for many of these boasts, would be name-dropped over and over throughout the years by countless stars, both an inside joke and an homage. Snoop Dogg, the Wu-Tang Clan, Eazy-E, the Beastie Boys, Lupe Fiasco and A$AP Rocky have all slipped his name in verses, while Moore’s crackling voice has been sampled by Big Sean, Dr. Dre and A Tribe Called Quest.

Several rappers even went one step further and brought Moore into the studio with them, using him as a torchbearer and literalizing the lineage between them. On the intro to Busta Rhymes’ 2001 album Genesis, Moore implores Busta to “continue to give it to ‘em raw.” On Method Man’s Tical, Moore asserts he “taught the boy everything he know.” Moore also appears as Dolemite in Eric B and Rakim’s 1990 music video for “In the Ghetto.”

That same year, Big Daddy Kane — one of the biggest rappers at the time — staged a rap battle between him and a 63-year-old Moore on record. On “Big Daddy vs. Dolemite,” the two engaged in a vulgar game of one-upmanship before Kane conceded defeat. “He was doing the body shaking and everything,” Kane remembers about that day. “He went straight into character.”

Kane has a long history of engaging with Moore’s work: after watching The Human Tornado on repeat on his tour bus, he sampled a beat for his 1989 song “Children R The Future” by hooking up the VHS tape straight into his recording equipment. And one of Moore’s quips, “Put your weight on it!,” became the basis of Kane’s 1990 song with the same name. “He was that raw comedian that stayed raw,” Kane said. “He was someone I respected and looked at as an icon.”

Kane stayed in touch with Moore through the last decade of his life and says that despite all of the respect Moore received from the hip-hop community, he “died bitter.” “He died feeling like, ‘Y’all gives props to Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Redd Foxx, and they all used to come see me,’” Kane explains.

“To have someone make a movie about him — especially a comedic genius like Eddie Murphy — I know he would be real happy.”

#IFTTT #Blogger

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newstechreviews · 6 years ago

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“He was the first really to be rapping”

“We don’t have to ask for it”

“If it weren’t for Rudy Ray Moore, we would have never done those songs,” Campbell says. “He has just as much credit for our career and our success as us doing the music.”

“The Pimp Persona”

“To have someone make a movie about him — especially a comedic genius like Eddie Murphy — I know he would be real happy.”

#Blogger

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