Ask yourself, “Where am I going? How am I doing?” till you get a clear idea. —”Fear Not of Man,” Yasiin Bey (FKA the guy who you, for some reason, insist on calling Mos Def)
Where are we? All over the place. Trinidad James versus New York? Lord Jamar versus change? My palm versus my face? Look, a couple weeks ago, the super-typhoon Haiyan rocked the central Philippines, killed a few thousand people, fucked up a few times more people, and displaced a couple million. More people dead have been counted than in Katrina (a loss whose famously bungled handling at the hands of W is currently being compared to the rollout of Obamacare… if you care). Help if you can—just google the smartest/most impactful avenues to do so and do it.
What else? Detroit’s Renisha McBride, allegedly looking for help after being in a car accident, was very much mortally shot, in the face, with a shotgun, by homeowner Theodore Wafer. They’ve miraculously determined that it was a homicide—and that she was intoxicated, too, via a toxicology report. Are those kind of drug screens normal for horrifying shotgun homicides? “The length of black life is treated with short worth,” to quote the man quoted at the top.
The state of the shit that I talk about here every week—the thing that allegedly “don’t stop”—is reportedly the same as “whatever’s happening with us,” me, you. If we have been decimated, if we’re shell-shocked, lost, burned (chemically and/or emotionally), or violent, or all of the above, then hiphop is gonna be all that.
Cue the talkbox: “No Surrender-errrrrr.” Elder statesmen of the Judgment Day soldier hymn, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony come to the Neptune on Thursday, November 21, with support from the G-Child, Grynch, and Portland boss Cool Nutz. You will find Montreal’s b-boy-turned-future-beat-monster Lunice, MMG’s Chicago acquisition Rockie Fresh, and SF electro-funk saint B. Bravo, all over at Nectar on Friday, November 22, for the Red Bull Music Academy’s Club Tour.
From his affably unflappable stage presence to the deepening/sharpening ice-bloodedness of his recorded highlights, Moor Gang‘s Cam the Mac has made an entry into the local game as impressive as just about anybody you could point to, for my money. His Petty Pro–laced jammy “Lord” is free on the internet but should be fifteen a gram—he headlines at the Vera Project on Saturday, November 23, with the MG’s Mack Ned (who’s naming his album Alice Glass, I’m assuming after the singer of Toronto’s Crystal Castles) and PDX’s best-kept fucking secret, Cassow (pronounced “Kosso,” G), and DJ Matlock.
“Do dope, fuck hope,” snapped Killer Mike, a fucking rapping Sherman tank, last week onstage at the Neptune, running through the cut from Run the Jewels‘ monstrous 2013 debut—and nailing the current spirit of the country he admitted to loving, fiercely, while he put its feet to the coals. I felt the spirit. It was a revival. Not being on any dope at that moment, it actually gave me quite a bit of hope. Stuff comes in fucking handy. 