Ball And Parlay or Leaning Back In The Day.

Gone are the days, way back in January, when I had the time to dissect the most minute social phenomenon, break down it's ancestry, and analyze it's socio-economical and artistic impact. I'm not with that, player. I now aim to update the page regularly, chocking it full of information pertinent to the art, nay the science, of designer (or thrift) thuggery. This time the entries will be equally awesome, but more concise. Because it's been so long since my last (and only) post, I feel the need to add a personal dimension to this, the sophomore Designer Thug-ism. Let's begin...

It's kind of a dated topic, but I would like to direct the focus of this forum to what is known in Texas as "lean", or Codeine cough syrup, and the thuggish/ruggish subculture surrounding it's use. The late DJ Screw, who ironically overdosed on the very serum that provided him a purposeful existence, popularized a unique style of slowed, re-edited rap music with a veritable shit-ton of lethargic "Chopped and Screwed" mixtapes, propelling himself to celebrity status in the south and abroad.


Granted, housewives have been abusing prescriptions for years, but H-Town rappers have glamorized “syzzurp” to the point where use of the drug itself has grown immensely. It is one of the south’s biggest narcotic problems, up their with methamphetamine, which has, for some reason, failed to gain any notable proponents within commercial rap. Your guess is as good as mine.

You would think that the FDA would somehow harness this popularity. Maybe Lil’ Flip is onto something. The demand for Sprite is undoubtedly indebted to his genius.

This is where I tie in a touching personal anecdote…

Long before the sounds of southern rap had permeated my fragile, middleclass Idahoan ears, I began to experiment with the various pharmaceuticals found within the medicine cabinets of my parents and the shelves of the local Rite-Aid drug store. During a high-school lunch break, I once downed an entire bottle of stolen Robitussin in hopes that it would make my upcoming biology class more tolerable. Not the case, homeslice. That shit had my eyes bugging out of my terrified skull. My face turned beet red, my scalp itched so bad that I scratched it until I drew blood, and my pupils dilated to twice their normal size. It was awesome, to say the least. I went to the bathroom, threw up and returned to class.

Later that year I did the same with some Codeine my friend was prescribed, and experienced similar, yet more sedentary results. Then an entire city of black people hundreds of miles away decided to steal my idea and make music about it.

Ghostride The Bandwagon

So, admittedly, I've never been the dude driving said bandwagon, but in most cases I show up early enough to get a good seat. Lately, I've noticed a welcome shift in the quality of daily top 40 radio fodder. It seems that, as of early last year, the most identifiable influence on popular urban music, particularly hip-hop, has been the synth-heavy, uptempo vintage-electro sound of late eighties and early nineties dance music.

Historically, rap has always borrowed heavily from other genres of music. Be it as blatant as sampling an eight bar break, or more ideological, regarding lyrical subject matter, tone, and intent. See, by repackaging a distinct James Brown sample for the anti-establishment anthem Fuck The Police, NWA also managed to convey some of the shared sentiments of the Godfather to a much younger, impressionable audience, and to a notably more extreme degree. It remains an embracement and acknowledgment of the same ideals, not just mere thievery.

Living in California's Bay Area for the past two years, I have witnessed the onset and peak of an indescribable, city-wide hysteria . It's been exciting and enlightening to see an entire sub-culture take the reigns of modern media, to the point that it irritates Sean Hannity.

http://ninoybrown.blogspot.com/2007/01/fab-discusses-ghostriding-on-fox-news.html

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=45423944&blogID=217630587&MyToken=d892270d-e76b-4210-9c67-5aa6e0c7b2ac

Despite it's similarities to multiple other sub-genres of rap, Hyphy music is distinct in it's roots. While NWA, Pete Rock and, more recently, Kanye West, mirrored the sounds and pro-civil rights ideals of their elders, artists such as Mac Dre and Keak Da Sneak rose to prominence amid a booming Rave-Era electronic music scene. The music of the late Andre Hicks (around 35 official independent releases) rarely tread nefarious ground. In fact, his albums primarily revolved around many of the same themes that characterize the dance music community . He heavily promoted dancing, promiscuous sexual behavior and regularly expressed his appreciation for MDMA, the slang term for which was the name of his independent record label, Thizz Entertainment. Ecstasy was one of the more identifiable through lines of Mac Dre's career.

Hicks was murdered during the decline of Crunk popularity, at a time when bay area releases were becoming intermittently peppered with the sonic characteristics of Electronic music, as well.



Being that you really aren't anyone until you die, Mac Dre's posthumous rise to fame has now fully reshaped the sound and direction of the local rap output. The Hyphy movement is in full swing, having steered from typical thuggish, ruggish rap content into an equally marketable and commercially viable, yet more genuine, avenue. Artists are producing upbeat, danceable music that's downright celebratory, and going so far as even sampling the electro-tinged mega-hits of yesteryear. The slaps on Mistah F.A.B.'s Ghostride It, his latest single, are courtesy of Ray Parker, Jr.'s Ghostbusters. The Federation, whose next album will supposedly be produced entirely by local heavy-hitter Rick Rock, have the girls swooning with a familiar Corey Hart sample, clocking in at around 120bpm. This shit is rife with synthesis.



The funny thing is, the aformentioned singles have yet to see an official release, and this could be due to sample-clearance issues. Who knows. In a post-Dipset world, does intellectual property even exist?