"That is, Eminem’s fan base tends to poo-pooh the arguments of the more politically sensitive hip-hoppers, which breaks down as a sort of rap-world street-feud of Hobbesians versus Rousseauvians that has been brewing since at least the mid-eighties."
uh...uhhhh...wow. and here i thought east coast-west coast was the real beef in the rap game.
tell me, does this make _straight outta compton_ by n.w.a. _leviathan_? _it takes a nation of millions ot hold us back_ _the social contract_? or, would that be too nasty, brutish and short to honorably represent the noble savage, something only arrested development's _3 years 5 months & 2 days in the life of_ could pull off? what of de la soul? what are they, david fucking hume? dr. octogon/kool keith? william blake, or laurence sterne, motherfucker?
yes, well...leaving aside (but only for the moment, of course) the question of renaissance white analogues to hip-hop artists, why eminem matters in a discussion about the election is kinda cute, coming from this crowd. gee, doug, don't like that wuss moby? i guess you'll hold your nose and vote for kerry while slim shady's deeply uncontroversial bush diss redounds in your ipod?
"are these our only choices"? were you expecting a pro-bush rap anytime soon from anyone who mattered in the artform? have we all forgotten jay z's international call to solidarity as part of panjabi mc's remix of "beware of the boys"? love kills war, y'all, something krs-one -- whose disputed performance at the new yorker festival may have placed him in the pro-al qaeda camp (i hope this is not so: he's one of my favorite rappers of all time) -- and the red states should reflect upon.
i'm going to make an equally controversial prediction that eminem will be a factor in this election, or any election, somewhere around the time hell freezes over. the only people this marginally-talented creep matters to are people generally tonedeaf to the music's capacity for greatness, and/or industry hacks like joan osborne, who endears herself to her handlers when she finesses eminem's homophobia as a function of his being all street, and shit. or something...
crackers, please...increase the peace!
===== ________________________________james keepnews
American generals in Iraq triumphantly announced at the weekend that they had successfully taken over Samarra and killed 125 insurgents. They failed to mention that this is the third time they have captured this particular city on the Tigris river north of Baghdad in the past 18 months...The situation on the ground in Iraq is far worse than what is portrayed by the media. Ironically, this is because it is now so dangerous for journalists and television crews to leave their heavily guarded hotels in Baghdad that they cannot refute claims by the American and British governments that much of Iraq is safe.
-- Patrick Cockburn, 7 October 2004
____music+writing+webart+multimedia performance
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