#kr rather you inability to picture one

[servuscallidus]

I need to start researching PhDs though because I've no idea of how they actually work

[davidjjohnston3]

Might be last 'typing for a while... I f--king hate myself for not taking that job; the principal was sincere; they called my former employer.  The landscape was beautiful like 'The Place Promised in Our Early Days' with the dark pines.  Paju is a center of the publishing industry although books / fiction and the whole 'condition of fiction' by which people think their own children, neighbors, selves etc. are anime characters is pozzed from here to Eternity along with personality-politics. There is a poem or 'hymn' or 'psalm' or 'cry of the heart' I wish I could write spurred partially by Servants of Christ's video with the river in Korea and 'I Need Thee Ev'ry Hour.  I don't know why I took myself for a failure for so long or put down roots in this poisoned Babylon when in retrospect people were sending me little 'Evangelical Satanism' messages in the form of brand-slogans et cetera for like 5 years instead of reasoning honestly.  That's why I sincerely say nuke Milwaukee - that's not pedagogy, neighborliness, love, family, friendship.  It's nothing but a swap-meet. I got sad today looking at a picture of a celebrity from a famous rigged girl-group that I always defended the rigging of due to aesthetic opinions about 'composition' and realizing something that my college girlfriend's roommate realized about her back in the day but then I felt, 'The condition of prostitution in some respects is preferable to the condition of Germanic / Teutonic purism, which leads to pedophilia and homosexuality on the one hand and mass-murder on the other.'  Moreover you can just look at a f-cking hostess-bar and talk and it prepares one for love IMO better than Western movies although I don't know anymore. I wanted to cancel all my projects like 'Stepfather' (about a teacher getting sick of his colleagues for innuendos, careerism, negativity in the lounge, everything that ppl KNOW is bad but no one ever fixes)... just 'cause I don't know if I can even live and moreover I started to intuit the different endings idle vain people would want to see. I keep saying again and again a key component of the 'Covid culture wars' is 'anti-belief' as well as people's wanting to duel one another to the death over past grievances micro or macro.  At day's end and at bottom 'anti-belief' - or attempting to convince people that truth is a lie; ex. that Koreans are unreal - compels people to pare themselves down to their ultimate solipsism or, I realize, inability to distinguish Flesh from Spirit in any fruitful and abiding way. I was reflecting on how talking about 'The Meaning of Marriage' led someone to cohabitate which totally failed for me as well as wondering whether my gifting this book was interpreted as a 'magic sign' rather than simple no-hidden-message offering.  One thing I loved about Koreans at least at my first job was there were no hidden messages at least from the senior administration. I drove to Bethlehem College and Seminary and felt a power radiating from the church but am in no position to assist them or join their Global Studies program which I'd wanted to intellectually.  I haven't really done anything with my life but study EAS, K-Studies, languages, etc.  I had visions and dreams of stealth-bombers honestly, Russian drills planting nuclear devices deep in the Earth to destabilize the orbital axis - Putin could kill any or all of us at any time, I am convinced.  I wondered if the Russians or 'Varangians' were the 'last people.'  They decide. In Milwaukee, in Germany people joke about things like Hitler's dog, racism, homosexuals and amuse themselves waiting for people to get hoist by their own petard.I also remembered how for years I thought about Cordelia in 'King Lear' but despite reading this play like 30 times I still don't understand completely how a 'Christology of Cordelia' could be articulated to make people understand their blindness to Charity.Also related to Mary HK Choi's 'Yolk,' a novel which disappointed me but which I felt could be one of those 'ultima novels; last words.' I keep remembering despite whoever wants to make me forget that Covid is or was an opportunity to pursue better international relations / build connections and relations not dependent on blind policies like IMO American NK policy or other official diplomacy.  I had big dreams about avoiding war as well as people holding goods more in common by my attempts to donate a few laptops and some money stripped me of my net worth and were not proportionately matched.  Everyone seems so determined to live their own story and cling to things when they could be dead in 24hrs from Delta variant Covid 19 and everyone knows it.  Tornadoes, hailstorms.  Man spent the last hundred years of more building trillions of dollars of weapons of war while schooling problems are the same as they were back in 1881 - as are the problems faced by graduates particularly orphans and minorities and, also, any intellectual in a society which still despises these three categories.   Maybe I just gave people dreams in the past and maybe I was too free in the past or stopped wearing the right clothes too soon.  I gave up on the future long ago - I reflected recently as I had always felt but not articulated - that as Koreans say the favored child is favored outside the home so too the hated child is hated - but I kept getting chances even without understanding others' points of view to be a part of their past.  But I don't even know if Education is the point or Build Back Better or anything like that when 4 million people died and the '3rd world' variants from India as well as South America are basically destined to come to the 1st world.  I tried to convince people that there could be a beautiful future in which everyone lived more lovingly, courageously et cetera and rediscovered God.   I also felt, however, from a long time ago that when it comes to US Korea policy and perhaps to the salvation or deliverance of America's domestic population from a worse Covid variant the most caring organization literally is the military and not any philanthropy; I don't know if anyone else could step in, though by that same token, I was thinking about IXK / anti-racism which I embrace as an alternative to Obamaism, and couldn't help feeling like the 'Grand Alliance' of this day has something to do with abortion-culture (which [Chancellor] John Piper summarizes as men playing God the Father and the strong preying on the weak; and for which I formulated the term 'unconditional evil' or the attitude that powerful men possess a lifelong veto over the lives and wellbeing of anyone else), though coefficient with race-relations or rather 'recognition' of other people as beautiful, beloved, perhaps chosen.  I was telling someone 'Language is a phenomenological...'  My favorite songs other than 'I Need Thee,' 'This Is My Father's House,' some older stuff, have been 'Make Me Love You' by Kim Taeyeon which is a song about the 'shared gaze' and 'Clover' by Fromis which embodied my desire to help kids 'get life right the first time' through teachers and structures that would 'save people from themselves.'  But then my mind traveled to Japan, swords, halberds, maidens, all kinds of new birth-defects and problems in the new age, and I couldn't help feeling that some things will be very much the same and in a way it is my fault for losing my fire.  I'm dreaming in dark red and am incredibly frustrated reading Eric Feigl-Ding on Twitter that the West - Canada, America, UK - is perpetrating this corporatist mass-sacrifice.. I want to just fly away to KR where at least they count the bodies honestly but wish Americans would go home, get married, go to Church more often.  Everyone seems so unwilling to put their stories on hold or discard their fetishes / idols (Healthcare, Money / Mammon, Science, The Past, Ultimate Communist Utopian Social Justice, Almighty Meritocracy...).  Some ambrosial(?) explosion, the Face of Jesus, with or without me may the 'Grand Alliance' prevail.

[rapuvdayear]

1994: Illmatic Nas (Columbia)

I guess that 2019 is the year that I officially start feeling old. Illmatic turns 25 today. It’s old enough to rent a car now. I don’t necessarily disagree with the gist of what Lonzo Ball said about the man, but I also don’t think that you can dispute that this is an all-time classic and that Nas’s influence continues to ripple through rap history.

Illmatic is considered by many to be the greatest rap album of all time (just check out the definitions for “illmatic” on Urban Dictionary). I certainly used to be in this camp as well, though I think arguments about GOAT status, while fun, are ultimately pointless due to the stylistic shifts from era to era. Besides, Illmatic might not even be the best rap album from 1994, even if it was the first debut album--and at the time seventh ever--to receive The Source’s coveted “five mics” rating (just wait until September 13 when I’ll be posting another 25th anniversary post about a certified classic)! There will likely be a ton of think pieces written about it by music critics and rap historians who know far more than I do--and you should go read those if you like this album--but I would feel remiss if I didn’t chime in with what Illmatic has meant to me through the years. To wit: I played the first cassette version that I owned so many times that it snapped, I spliced it back together with Scotch tape, and it snapped again. Why a cassette, you may ask? Because this is one of those albums that can be played front to back without any need for skipping; every track is impeccable.

Before I get into the album’s content, there are some important historical details that help place Illmatic in its proper context and explain its lasting significance. In retrospect, 1992-1996(ish) represented a sort of sea change in rap. The playful party songs of the late 70s early 80s had given way to the hypermasculine, guitar-sample-and-808-heavy posturing of the mid-80s, and then the golden age of the late 80s/early 90s that pushed rap in new directions. With a few notable exceptions, every significant figure in rap’s first decade and change was, by and large, associated with New York (this is not to say that there weren’t a ton of awesome, influential local rappers around the country, but rather that nationally recognizable acts--to the extent that there were any--were concentrated in NYC and its environs). By the early 90s, however, the LA scene was producing more interesting, genre-bending, and commercially successful raps, as the G-Funk era was in full effect; The Chronic was released in December 1992, and Doggystyle followed a year later, occupying the top spot on the Billboard 200 for two weeks in a row (Black Sunday, while not G-Funk, was another West Coast success, topping the Billboard charts in August 1993, and the Hieroglyphics and early 2Pac in Oakland were also attracting attention). The New York sound was at that point represented by the Afrocentric jazz-laden grooves of the Native Tongues clique, the funky lyricism of greats like KRS-One, Rakim, Kool G Rap, and Big Daddy Kane, and the boom bap exuberance of groups like Main Source, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, and Gang Starr. A grimier, grittier, “Tims and Hoodies” style had begun to emerge in the early 90s from the Boot Camp Clik, the Hit Squad’s associated acts (Das EFX, Redman, Keith Murray), Onyx, and the Wu-Tang Clan, whose legendary debut Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) dropped less than 6 months before Illmatic.

Into this landscape stepped Nasir Jones, a 20-year-old up and coming Queensbridge rapper who had generated a lot of excitement among rap fans (at that time still a pretty niche contingent) with his verse on Main Source’s “Live at the Barbeque” in 1991 (he ended up sampling it in the Illmatic intro above). Along with fellow Queensbridge rappers Mobb Deep and with the endorsement of post-Juice Crew Queens mainstays Large Professor and MC Serch, Nas helped to usher in the East Coast’s response to “gangsta rap.” While not as explicitly concerned with gang life as G-Funk was, Nas combined grim tales of criminality with a breathless “lyrically lyrical” flow that allowed him to legitimately stake a claim as Rakim’s heir apparent (it’s not by mistake that years later he would record U.B.R.). Now, it’s no secret that Nas wasn’t intimately involved in the criminal world, but rather “witnessed it from [his] folks’ pad.” Nevertheless, on Illmatic he displayed an almost preternatural ability to spin storytelling raps of stick ups, drug deals gone wrong, and jail bids that--to a complete outsider like me, at least--had a veneer of authenticity (whatever that means). This was his Nasty Nas persona, before he tried to emulate the image that mid-90s Bad Boy was projecting with his “Nas Escobar” alter ego, and way before his redemption on Stillmatic, legendary beef with Jay-Z, explicit political commentary, marriage to and divorce from Kelis, and transition to mature old man rapper/disgraced abuser/Bitcoin billionaire (maybe?). (You can hear Nas’s own perspective on the early days here). 

Once upon a time, Nas was my favorite rapper, and Illmatic was my favorite album, from any musical genre. Full disclosure, I didn't give it a serious listen until 1998--I was a little too young when it was released for it to have been on my radar--but I can still spit “NY State of Mind” from memory, and still get amped whenever I hear the opening bars of “Halftime.” Nas’s career might be one of the most disappointing in terms of wasted talent (there’s a strong argument to be made for 50, too). Once he moved on from Large Professor, Pete Rock, and DJ Premier, he demonstrated his inability to pick good beats, and has made some truly garbage songs. But he’ll always have Illmatic. Without further ado, here’s a track-by-track breakdown:

The Genesis (link above): A skit about Nas and his crew counting (ill-gotten?) stacks over a sample from Wild Style mixed his a sample of his own voice. 90s rap iconicity with the requisite Hennessy and Phillies references. “Representin’ in Illmatic.” It’s an intro that paints an imagined picture of Queensbridge life, and roots the album in “the culture.”

NY State of Mind: If you only ever listen to one track from this album, or even one Nas track, please make it this one. Nas shows off his full range of abilities here: deft storytelling, a relentless flow that rides the beat perfectly, and clever wordplay (e.g., “It was full of children, probably couldn’t see as high as I be”). The DJ Premier beat is flawless, with excellent and obscure sample selection. Nas announces his arrival (“I’m taking rappers to a new plateau”), and sneaks in some commentary on inequality and structural violence in Queens (“Each block is like a maze/ full of black rats trapped, plus the Island is packed”; “Cops can just arrest me, blamin’ us/ we held like hostages”). I only wish I had listened to his advice when he said, “Never put me in your box if your shit eats tapes.”

Life’s a Bitch: There may never have been a better hook in all of hip-hop, at once bleak and oddly resigned. This track also has the only feature on the whole album (well, two features if you want to call Nas’s father, the jazz artist Olu Dara, playing trumpet on the outro), from AZ, a Brooklyn rapper and member of Nas’s short-lived clique, The Firm, who never achieved mainstream success. As Nas himself put it, “My first album had no famous guest appearances/ The outcome: I’m crowned the best lyricist.” I love how wistful this track sounds compared to today’s beats.

The World is Yours: The title is, of course, an explicit nod to Scarface, the go-to media reference for 90s rappers and a prerequisite for the sort of aspirational voicing that Nas is doing here. It’s a fairly conventional track about the dreams of a small time hustler that belies its strange juxtapositions (“I sip the Dom P, watching Gandhi ‘til I’m charged”). There are also some classic lines that would be sampled subsequently, including one that led Jay-Z to infamously proclaim later, “So, yeah, I sampled your voice/ You was using it wrong.” Interesting tidbit: Toward the middle, Nas says, “Thinking of a word best describing my life to name my daughter.” His daughter, Destiny, was born almost two months after Illmatic dropped.

Halftime: The first single, released six months earlier. When I think of rolling, unrelenting, boom bap beats, this is the first track that springs to mind. I challenge anyone to listen to this and not bob their head. Halftime also contains what is arguably the most quietly brutal boast in the annals of rap: “‘Cause I’m as ill as a convict who kills for phone time.” Additionally, there’s that signature Nas rhyme structure that would be so influential on rappers who came after him (you can even hear a little Eminem in there): “And in the darkness I’m heartless, like when the NARCs hit/ Word to Marcus Garvey, I hardly sparked it.”

Memory Lane (Sittin’ in the Park): If Life’s a Bitch is about the present, and The World is Yours the future, then this is Nas’s embrace of the past... at the ripe old age of 20. This is a love letter to Queens: the chorus, with DJ Premier on the cuts, samples two Queens/Queens-adjacent rappers--Biz Markie and Craig G--and the second verse spins yarns about organized crime figures Fat Cat, the Supreme Team, and Harlem’s Alpo... all of whom would be featured prominently in Queens’ own 50 Cent’s ode to his neighborhood, Ghetto Qu’ran.

One Love: Another example of Nas’s creativity, One Love takes the form of a series of letters from Nas to a couple of friends who are locked up. He relates news from the outside, expresses frustrations with injustice writ large, and reflects on how to persevere through incarceration. And all of it over a downright playful beat from Q-Tip (the quality of the production on this album, I swear...).

One Time 4 Your Mind: Okay, so basically every song on this album is designed to smoke weed to, but in my opinion this is the most “stonerific” of the bunch. The beat is a slow, deep-fried haze that complements Nas’s braggadocio. Nothing spectacular here, but I do love the line, “Y’all ****** was born, I shot my way out my mom dukes,” another sample that would show up in latter day Nas.

Represent: If there’s a weak link on Illmatic, this might be it. Others may disagree, but I’ve never been particularly drawn to this track. It’s another Queens-centric rap, with Nas warning anyone who would try to test the borough. That being said, it does contain one of Nas’s funnier lines--“The kind of ***** who be pissing in your elevator”--and another that would also become fodder for Jay-Z’s disses. 

It Ain’t Hard to Tell: Ending on a strong note, here. I absolutely love this beat, another great Large Professor contribution. There are so many elements going on that you might miss the MJ sample if you’re not paying attention. And a bunch of these lines have been sampled to death, too. Despite his repeated assertions of “depth,” there’s not much of substance to this song, just your run of the mill Nas boasts about his prowess as a rapper. Of course, “run of the mill” for Nas is equivalent to the best that other rappers can offer, so... As he puts it, “Nas’s rhymes should be locked in a cell, it ain’t hard to tell.”