A Look Back At: Ghostface Killah - Sour Soul

As a solo artist Ghostface has two certified classics in Ironman and Supreme Clientele, and fans will hotly debate Fishscale. On the most electrifying track on Fishscale, ‘The Champ’, the intro skit taunts Starks, “He’s hungry. You ain’t been hungry since Supreme Clientele.” What followed was 4 minutes of boasts, knowledge and punchlines for the strongest lyrical performance from Starks since Supreme Clientele. He channeled the stream-of-consciousness playful mess that made Supreme Clientele so brilliant – “Who want to battle the Don?/I'm James Bond in the Octagon with two razors/Bet cha'all didn't know I had a fake arm/I lost it” – only a prime Ghostface Killah can get away with bars that weird and still make them sound so good.

On Sour Soul, this wild Ghostface, the “bulldozer with a wrecking ball attached” that helped revive both the Wu Tang in 2000 and his own solo career in 2005, was nowhere to be seen. Thus what makes Sour Soul so deserving of another look, of a reappraisal, is that it was Ghostface’s first album in a career defined by his ability to shred the mic to pieces, where he was almost gentle in his delivery. It’s a frankly unique rough diamond in a career full of jewels. It doesn’t rely on his remarkable storytelling ability, it doesn’t have the mic destroying flow, the modernist stream of consciousness ideas. It’s a muted album with muted production to match.

Even the album cover is muted. It’s a far cry from the posturing of Ironman, Bulletproof Wallets and Fishscale, the focus of Supreme Clientele, or the pop-culture inspirations that grace Wu-Massacre and Twelve Reasons To Die. Ghost’s face is obscured by the American flag. It falls atop his head like the sweaty towel of a boxer after a twelve round fight. His eyes gaze coldly at something unknown beyond the frame. The black and white palette helps to shroud the album cover in mystery. The image looks more appropriate for a polemical comeback album by Chuck D, Mos Def or Ice Cube. It does not look like the album cover for one of the greatest gangster rapper’s of all time.

The intro track ‘Mono’ glides into play. It’s a jazzy 58 second sleep tone setter, with sparse drums and a soothing bass line. This is a far cry from the legendary opening skit of Ironman.

“I got a message for Smoky?”
 “What is it?”
 “You ain’t Smoky it ain’t yo motherfucking message”
  “Motherfucker I said gimme the message”

The album doesn’t explode into life like Ghost’s previous efforts. This does not have the boundless energy that made Supreme Clientele so memorable. The titular track ‘Sour Soul’, the track that Mono fades into, opens with these lines: “Yo, cleanse me, clean me of my sour soul”. It’s the imagery of rebirth, Ghost yearns for a spiritual cleansing. Yet it’s just that: a yearning. It does not yield any sweet fruits for Ghostface. The content of the song that follows is classical Ghost, but with this maturer delivery – his flow is reminiscent of contemporaries Ka and Roc Marciano – New York is coming full circle, the rebirth is taking place.

Every time the album seems like it’s about to burst into a new gear, BadBadNotGood put on the breaks. They indulge in interludes like “Stark’s Reality”. Tony will spit a vicious verse or two and then take a breather. Ghost is indulging himself. On the title track Ghost ends the song stating: “Yeah, I got my swagger back and all that”. In previous albums Ghost’s swagger came from his uncanny eye for storytelling details – the ‘king tut’ piece from motherless child – or from his relentless approach to rhyming. He was an elite craftsman and he wanted to show it. On Sour Soul, for the first time in his career, Ghost is happy to step back and let the band take centre stage – it’s a whole new swagger.

The cast of supporting characters (DOOM, Danny Brown, Tree, Elzhi) make up a quartet of (relatively) elder rap statesman. This isn’t an album for the young rapper, it’s for the refined hip hop head. There’s a reluctancy in Ghost’s tone when discussing ‘pimping’, something he used to do with a searing misogynistic passion, and there are nuggets of political knowledge buried in every song. Tree’s verse on Street Knowledge is emblematic of the very title – detailing snippets of his life growing up in Chicago. On Ray Gun, another DOOMSTARKS collaboration to pluck at the heartstrings, Ghost describes, “Me and DOOM headed down to the range”. I’m sure he’s not describing the golf club, but in light of 50 Cent’s comments on 4:44 one has to wonder whether Ghost was pre-empting “Dad Rap”?

The tone that BBNG brings throughout the album in their gentle bass lines, the scattering of a brush on the cymbals and the subtle piano notes conjures an image of a late night jazz club performance. Ghost the forgotten MC, once a club legend, playing to a room that dwindles as the night runs on. Yet, there’s still some magic to be found in there. Those that stick around with the weary warrior will be rewarded for their efforts. They will be fed eternal wisdom; sweet food for the Sour Soul.

Food:

I used to rob and steal, now I make food for thought
Fresh like the air you snort
I drop jewels, little nuggets of wisdom
Seeds that keep growing
Paying my debts to society, so no more owing
Now it's showing and proving, keep the body moving
Exercising the mind is scientifically proven
To increase your life line, strengthen your heart
Eat fish, that brain food will get you smart
Yoga, deep medicational tactics
You no good then just practice, cause practise makes perfect
Stop burying your lies and bring the truth to the surface
Money is the root to all evil, that cash rule
Will have you out there looking like a damn fool
That's the devil's bait, the all mighty dollartry
Will have your mind fooled by technology
Make the right choice, no need for an apology


Them light as the sun, the sun's the father
The father is the man on Earth, we try harder
To teach one, preach one
Just acknowledge the wisdom
Can't figure right from wrong, it's a tough decision
My vision is light, some come to me when yours black out
Follow the footprints as I lay the tracks out
He's a righteous God, I want the best for mankind
Navigate through this war without blowing a landmine
My light shines from the east my brother
Verbally I spit, I'm a beast my brother
March through the blackness, search for the ray of lights
Don't walk bare footed through the grass
Cause that's where the snake strikes
Protect ya neck, evil lurks in the shadows
Darkness is best where the Devil wins battles
The weak fall victim, the strong sound diligent
Guerilla, we gullible but manage to stay militant
Super stars, our ego is so top billin' it
Follow me son and I'll show you how I'm killin' it
These wolves is vicious, assigned to danger
The changer, I'm 'bout to pull you all through a chamber

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The Patient Rise of Griselda

With the announcement this week of WESTSIDEDOOM, a collaborative EP from Westside Gunn and MF DOOM, the stock of Griselda Records continues to rise. Earlier this year, Conway and Westside Gunn – the highest profile members of Griselda (who happen to be brothers) – signed a distribution deal to Shady Records, Eminem and Paul Rosenberg’s label. In 2017, the two brothers from Buffalo, NY., are finally beginning to reap the rewards of years of hard work. It’s no surprise then that Griselda Records happens to share a name with the classical folklore tale of Griselda, made famous by Boccaccio and later Petrarch and Chaucer, titans of medieval literature.

In the traditional telling of the story, a young woman, Griselda, marries an important aristocratic man named Gaultieri, who cruelly tests her patience and obedience by subjecting her to an increasingly malicious series of lies. Gaultieri tests Griselda by declaring that she must give up her two children, who are to be put to death. Griselda gives up both of them without protest, but instead of murdering them, Gualtieri secretly sends them away to Bologna to be raised. Deciding this is not enough, Gaultieri raises the stakes higher, and declares to Griselda that he has been granted a papal dispensation to divorce her and marry a better woman. Once again, Griselda is obedient to his demands and returns to live with her father. Years later, Gualtieri chooses to remarry and demands Griselda to be a servant at his wedding. At the wedding he introduces her to a twelve year old, whom he claims is his wife to be, but who is actually their daughter. Griselda wishes them both happiness in their future, and at this final act of obedience, Gualtieri reveals that this fake bride is in fact Griselda’s child, and that she will be allowed to return to her place as mother and wife. If it somehow wasn’t blindingly clear, the story is disgustingly misogynistic, emphasising some of the worst aspects of patriarchal relations and male expectations of women. In Chaucer’s retelling in The Clerk’s Tale, although the story remains the same, the purpose behind the tale is subverted slightly from its patriarchal tradition. Chaucer writes:

“This storie is send nat for that wyves sholde
Folwen Grisilde as in humylitee,
For it were inportable, though they wolde,
But for that every wight, in his degree,
Sholde be constant in adversitee
As was Grisilde”

In essence, Chaucer commands the reader not to use the tale as a manual to follow, for to do so is frankly impossible, but that we should take from Griselda her strength, her constancy, in the face of adversity. Although, once again, this is not a particularly progressive message considering the immense emotional labour women in society are already placed under and the potential impact on mental health, it does poke at some related themes present in the music of Conway and Westside Gunn.

On ‘The Cow’, Conway reveals some of his own strength in the face of adversity. In a particularly moving verse from the Buffalo emcee, Conway remembers a late friend (Machine Gun Black) – “ask my baby momma how much I cried when Machine Gun died”. This is a move away from the usual blank face, cold bars that define their gritty aesthetic, a peek behind the curtain of unwavering emotional strength. Further on, Conway details his response to getting shot in the face – “You know what’s funny, I wanted to quit/ After I got shot in my head I seen my face like I’m done with this shit/ Trying to spit my verses and mumbling and shit/Face twisted up looking ugly and shit”. In a live performance earlier this year, Conway breaks down on stage at multiple points, overcome with emotion, it’s a poignant and painful reminder of the dangers of building up a Griselda persona.
This shedding back from the Griselda persona is rare for the two emcees though, who have built their reputation on the types of grimy, raw street raps that dominated the New York rap game in the mid-90s, and which have seen a renaissance of sorts in recent years with similar artists Ka, Roc Marciano and Your Old Droog. On ‘Mr. T’, Westside raps, “I’ma be fly forever if the stove work” and “If shit slow up, I’ma look prettier in the mask”, both times a pseudo-glorification of the street-drug dealer lifestyle is enacted. At other times the two emcees gloss over tragedies and tribulations with the bluntness of Griselda. “Empty out the Kel-Tec/ Til ain’t a shell left/ Bullets burn/ I can smell flesh/ I can smell death”. The opening bars to ‘1000 corpses’, where the horrorcore influence is clear, are phenomenal in crafting the image of a heartless killer, where the violence is so tangible that the listener can almost smell it too. A throwaway line on ‘Dunks’, Westside raps, “Learn your lesson, my man got 81 stressing”. This is not a plea for sympathy or a polemic on the state of the prison industrial complex, instead it’s a snippet of a story inside a story. An entire life tragically thrown away, that survives on in one line of a song, and yet Westside does not allow his icy mask to slip once.

If Griselda were named after the European folk tale, it’s an ingenious piece of aesthetic design, as the themes of that story seep into every aspect of their work. That patient, somewhat emotionally blunted approach to their lyricism, where the aesthetics of a drug deal or a murder or a car they drive define the whole song, bleeds out into everything they touch. Westside and Conway flow over beats in a manner that can, once again, best be described as patient. There’s no rushing to fit words into the beat count, every bar feels measured to mathematic precision, every word feels as though it has been painstakingly pondered over to paint the picture the song demands. Ironically, there has been little patience in the seemingly endless content they produce. Yet, within this irony exists the seed of another irony, they are patiently impatient, they are almost paradoxical in their output. It feels as though the two emcees could spend weeks writing a single verse, and yet for the past few years they have produced a whole stream of projects, mixtapes, features and singles. Conway’s debut label release, G.O.A.T, has been anticipated for some time, and yet it is not as though the rapper has been lacking in output. He has released projects with Prodigy, featured extensively on Benny and Westside’s works, and released his own mixtapes, including Reject on Steroids earlier this year. Still we clamour for more, we the listener become almost like Gualtieri, pressuring Griselda’s patience for more and more, testing the depth and range of their ability to see if it has a breaking point. So far, and with signs of the record label only ever-improving, Griselda hold strong. In rising in the rap game Griselda have been patient, not clamouring for commercial success, but ensuring a steady critical and professional acclaim that has seen their stock rise over the last few years. As they continue to reap the rewards of their hard work, it is now our turn to be patient towards their output as they continue to climb towards the top of the rap game.

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A Look Back At: Clipse - Lord Willin'

Sometimes an easy way to understand an artists progression is through their album artwork. In two years and three albums 2Pac went from restrained and reflective on the cover of Me Against the World; brooding and proud on All Eyez On Me; and strung from a cross, martyred on his posthumous album The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory. It’s an ice-clear example of the artistic and personal progression Pac rapidly underwent in this space of time, reflecting the searing highs and lows his life bounced between, before his tragic death. 

Another ice-clear example of artistic progression and change as reflected in their artwork is Virginia’s favourite brother-rapper duo Clipse, who 15 years ago released their classic debut Lord Willin’. The hand drawn, highly stylised cover is reminiscent of Snoop Dogg’s classic Doggystyle, it exudes cockiness and swagger with Pusha and Malice riding in a Cadillac with Jesus in the backseat. In the background a sign proudly displays their hometown, Virginia Beach – a prominent theme on the album - , as well as some hints towards the social realities of the area, with the two brothers contrasted against the dilapidated buildings behind them. It’s a far cry from the dead-eyed stares, crowned in front of a wall of money with nothing but an oven and a stove pot, that defines their second classic album Hell Hath No Fury. The music of Lord Willin’ is a far cry from HHNF as well, it’s the swagger and lyrical style of Jay-Z and Biggie with a Southern twist, compared to HHNF’s Prodigy and Scarface imbued violence and paranoia. It’s an album with a youthful vigour, without another four years of industry bullshit to weigh them down, without the encroaching religious conscience of Malice and without the even further encroaching fear of the DEA. 

This sense of a youthful playfulness is emblematised perfectly by The Neptunes production, which is full of playful trumpet loops, their signature piercing drums, soulful samples, Pharell’s infectious hooks and funky bass lines– it’s music to dance to; it’s hard not to find yourself grooving to Grindin’, Young Boy or Ma, I Don’t Love Her without ever planning to. For an album whose predominant theme is selling coke, it’s a roaring testament to the timeless quality of The Neptunes that Clipse were able to stretch across genre appeal – Justin Timberlake’s Grammy nominated Like I Love You being the defining moment of this. Some beats feel a little dated now, FamLay Freestyle and I’m Not You are weak moments, the heaviness of the electronic influence leaving little to be desired, but they’re not helped by consistently weak features throughout. If the album suffers from any weak points it is the features, that lack the wittiness of Pusha and Malice, and as such just feel like they’re taking up space that one of the two MCs could better fill on their own. The astonishing skill of Clipse lies in the perfect balance between Pusha and Malice, who mirror and work off of each other so perfectly that other MCs tend to feel like they’re spoiling the broth. 

On Young Boy Pusha and Malice share memories of growing up in Virginia, practicing “gangsta leans” at thirteen, witnessing coke being cooked at four, how their grandma was a woman not to be messed with. For a Conservative right-wing pundit, the stories told might be a horror story, the racist terrors of growing up poor and black. For Clipse, with the help of The Neptunes’ up tempo beat, these are fond memories, touchstones of their youth – perhaps not a ‘normal’ youth, but theirs nonetheless. On When the Last Time the boys boast about their exploits with women, Malice declaring “club nights…one of the reasons I love life” and Pusha ending the song defiantly – “I’m a winner, man”. Pusha declares himself a king in two games at one point on the album, and the sentiment rings true. After nearly a decade of record label struggle, these two brothers would catapult themselves to commercial and critical success, and it wouldn’t even be their only source of income (allegedly). If the album perhaps lacks a depth and variety of content, it’s difficult to hold it against them too much – Clipse came out the gates with a celebration lap; the confidence and delivery in their own self-worth is infectious, you can’t help but like them. 

Those dilapidated buildings that point to a degree of social realism are lightly alluded to on the track Virginia, which acts in a similar vein to the palate cleansing Murder Was Tha Case on Snoop’s classic debut. The hook reveals a bleak lack of opportunity in the community, Pusha bluntly explaining that “I’m from Virginia, where ain’t shit to do but cook”. Pusha seems to straddle the line between confidence and insecurity on the track, “Lost it all, from lives to love/But my faith and money helped me rise above”. The lifestyle that he owes so much of his success to, and so much of his confidence and swagger on the album, slowly starts to crack before the listeners eyes. Yet, Pusha and Malice are always in strict control of how much of their inner self they wish to reveal. The line, “I miss you Shampoo, We miss you Shampoo” offers a glimpse of emotional honesty otherwise absent on the album, before Pusha snatches it away with his wry sense of humour by following it up with “And your grams too…”. Malice’s verse similarly is slightly more autobiographical than elsewhere on the album, but he pulls back even harder when the armour starts to slip – “what I look like spending my nights in jail,/ I could never be a thug they don’t dress this well”. We can forgive him though, because he ends his verse with two of the hardest bars ever spit. In a month where various fascist and neo-Nazi groups have rallied against the removal of Confederate monuments, Malice offers a wonderfully ironic ode to the racist history of the American South. If you don’t know it, go and listen now. 

Lord Willin’ is an interesting album on reflection. It’s full of witty punchlines, clever metaphors, hard bars and braggadocio delivery, and The Neptunes offer a wonderful contrast with their upbeat, funky and soulful production playing off against their lyrical content. At times the album can feel a little sparse on content, that ferociousness they unleash on HHNF is still waiting to boil over, and their structure and penmanship still has a way to go. But what HHNF has in its unrivalled lyricism and thematic coherence, Lord Willin’ has in its Souther swagger, its gangsta lean that leaves you with a smile on your face and a tap in your step when you throw the album on and take a trip down memory lane. Each Clipse album, and each Pusha and Malice solo project, operates within a unique space in time – the two brothers wear there emotional state on their sleeves; with Lord Willin’ they were on top of the world – and sometimes happiness, confidence, swagger and so on is good, sometimes it can imbue its readers with this state of mind too. In the troubled waters that lie ahead for 2017, I think we could all do with a little more confidence and swagger. 

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READING BETWEEN THE RHYMES: THE SKITS OF MF DOOM (AND OTHER ASSOCIATED CHARACTERS…)

In 2005 Entertainment Weekly claimed that with the rise of the iPod shuffle the days of the skit in rap music were over, the “on-demand shuffle era will see them coldly programmed out of existence”. In many ways they were right; where once the skit was a staple of 90s hip hop, now it is largely a relic of a bygone era, only held onto by a select few artists. Yet, the skit is such a prominent part of hip-hop history that to so meekly defend it, to rattle it off as simply a comic interlude for hip hop nerds is to do it a disservice. After all these aren’t simply random choices, they often play a crucial role in the structure and creation of an album, helping to define the style of the group [see the fantastic kung-fu movie skits of the Wu Tang] and at other times they help to tell the story of an album [see the skits on Deltron 3030’s 3030].

MF DOOM is one such artist where skits are much more than a buffoonish extra, but have instead played a vital part in understanding DOOM’s work, where they help to flesh out his universe of characters, tease his politics, define the sound of his albums, alongside making the listener laugh. The skits on an MF DOOM album are an essential part of the listening experience, but it’s so easy to blow them off as throwaway extras, as little more than a distraction that should be shuffled straight through, or even worse, deleted entirely. This is not to suggest that they are more important than the music itself, or that we can find any great deep hidden meaning in their existence, but rather to reevaluate why an artist such as DOOM even bothers with skits, and to perhaps give them a stronger defense than many think they deserve.

Before we dive into the works of Dumile’s MF DOOM persona, it’s worth going back to 1993; the year Dumile’s sophomore KMD album would be recorded, but controversially not released. Black Bastards was the second album by New York based group KMD, a trio consisting of Zev Love X (Dumile), Subroc (Dumile’s brother) and Onyx the Birthstone Kid. The now famous cover of a Sambo character being lynched, alongside unapologetically political lyrics, led to the label cancelling the release of the album. In the intro skit collage to the album, KMD layout a scattered blueprint of what’s in store for the listener; for those offended already, the content will not get any lighter. There is some conjecture as to whether or not this skit was also a factor in Elektra shelving the album, but we can assume that it would be unsurprising to find out it was. As for the opening skit itself, an intense drum-loop is layered beneath the snippets of dialogue, reminiscent of the brilliant ratcheting tension and frustration Ice Cube builds in the introduction to ‘We Had To Tear This Motherfucker Up’. The dialogue talks of “sick bastards”, “cop killers” and “niggers”; it’s interspersed with sounds of women screaming, gunshots, fighting, and people crying for help; racist police chatter throughout. It becomes near impossible to search for a clear sense of narrative; instead the intro skit acts as a chaotic stream of consciousness enveloping all associated with KMD. The last lines of dialogue in the intro skit whisper to “hold it, listen”, before a beep and the sound of Zev Love X enters. KMD put a silence to all of the conflicting voices and force you to listen to their voice. The skit acts as the final transition from the chaos of the outside world into the singular vision of KMD. In his earlier works the meaning of Dumile’s work is laid clear in the lyrics, and the skits play a slightly different function. They act as framing devices for the music, setting the scene before the actors take the stage. The song ‘What A Niggy Know?’ starts with a short, but equally bombastic skit, booming out the words “He was a nigga yesterday, he’s a nigga today, and he gonna be a nigga tomorrow!” The song then follows the narrative of the skit and delves into issues of black male identity. Yet, the skits of Dumile’s work would follow the same trajectory as his music, increasingly obfuscated in their message, though near endless in their ability to be interpreted. It is difficult to imagine that the Dumile of KMD is the same man who models the MF DOOM persona, yet in spite of the polar opposite musical spheres they now exist in, the use of skits continues to play a defining role in his work.

Of course, this defining role is no longer as a deliberately framed teaser of the politics about to be explored, but begins to take on a more encompassing role for the MF DOOM persona, and the other characters in his created universe, as a whole. Six years after the death of his brother and the shelving of Black Bastards, Dumile returned to the rap game with a new persona, the now beloved MF DOOM. Beneath the mask lay a man determined to fight back against the industry he believed had so cruelly wronged him. This fight back would begin with the release of his 1999 classic, Operation Doomsday, and once again the seeds of intention of Dumile’s work would be laid out in the intro skit. ‘The Time We Faced Doom’ talks of DOOM’s “warped mind”, threats of “destruction of every major city on Earth” and the revenge that he will now have, settling a “personal score”. The skit drifts out on an elevator music jingle, before the declaration of “Operation Doomsday”, the super-villain’s plan. What then follows is one of the great hip-hop tracks of all time, with intricate rhymes and emotional refrains laced over a gorgeous soulful beat. If the skit left the listener in any doubts as to the validity of DOOM’s intentions then ‘Doomsday’ doesn’t just crush all these doubts, it vaporizes them into a million tiny pieces – the super-villain announced his return to the rap game in the greatest possible fashion.

           

The creation of DOOM is then outlined in the rest of the skits on the album; ‘Back In The Days’ tells of a “brilliant young student named Doom”, working on an experiment that is secretly tampered with; ‘The Hands Of Doom’ charts the ill fated experiment, with people then postulating on the meaning of DOOM; ‘Doom, Are You Awake?’ reveals the horrible damage the experiment did to DOOM’s face, causing him to don the mask and promising to take revenge; ‘The Mystery of Doom’ sees DOOM explain his version of the transition from man to mask; finally, ‘Hero vs. Villain’ explains how the narrator of these skits thwarted DOOM. In this mythical tale of DOOM’s creation, it’s possible to find metaphorical parallels to Dumile’s own life. The promising young rap artist betrayed by those close to him and left disfigured to wander the streets alone, vowing to take revenge against those who did him wrong. This vengeance comes in the literal form of Operation Doomsday, DOOM’s rejection of the rap status quo and the spineless industry execs who refused to take a chance on him. It’s a beautiful success too, a super-villain’s master plan that actually worked, and the first step on DOOM’s path to rap domination.

As an emcee DOOM would largely go back under the radar after Operation Doomsday, before returning with a monstrous catalogue of phenomenal releases between 2003-2005. In just three years DOOM released Take Me To Your Leader as King Geedorah, Vaudeville Villain and Venomous Villain as Viktor Vaughn, MM…FOOD as MF DOOM, Madvillainy as one half of the Madvillain duo, and DANGER DOOM with producer Danger Mouse. Upon reflection it’s quite an astonishing period of releases for an artist in any genre, releasing six highly acclaimed albums in three years, including Madvillainy is regarded as one of the greatest albums of the early 21^st century.

           

These albums are wonderfully creative pieces of work, offering a plethora of sounds and concepts demonstrating the range and depth of DOOM’s rapping and producing capabilities. In turn the universe that DOOM creates and inhabits rapidly expanded, and often in the skits of these albums can we piece together snippets of information and story. On the Take Me To Your Leader album Dumile takes on the role of King Geedorah, a three-headed space monster that will cause “the entire human race to perish from the Earth… and only flaming ruins will be left”. With Vaudeville Villain Dumile introduced us to Viktor Vaughn, another alias in his list of characters, and another villain in his expanding universe. Intrigue and violence surround the character, with hints at his past, one person describing the “uneasy feeling that it wasn’t young Viktor Vaughn who needed my protection”; alternately his villainous ways are exposed in his maniacal laughter whilst declaring, “fool, did you really think Viktor Vaughn could be captured so easily?” Take Me To Your Leader and MM…FOOD introduce Mr. Fantastik into the equation, a mysterious figure that we know literally nothing about, other than his excellent appearances on tracks and his role as accomplice of MF DOOM. Madvillainy is the pinnacle of everything DOOM had been working up to at this point, and on the track ‘Bistro’ the super-villain takes time to introduce the various players at work, with Madlib and King Geedorah producing, Viktor Vaughn and Quasimoto helping out with vocals, and the super-villain himself hosting the entire session. If it’s unclear at this point, this roster of five characters is made up of two men, and DOOM’s mythical villainous universe has truly come to life. The intro track-cum-skit, ‘Illest Villains’ tells of “two of America’s most powerful villains” responsible for “much of the popularity; audiences loved to hate”, “two historical figures, outlaws and desperados” who “allowed audiences to relate to their dastardly doings”. Madvillain is born, and they declare their importance before even one word or note is played.

As DOOM’s aural universe expanded this came with greater artistic license on how he wished to create his albums, and this is reflected in his artistic use of skits. Where on Black Bastards and Operation Doomsday skits played a political and storytelling role, it isn’t until MM…FOOD where we can see DOOM’s experimentation with the skit as an artistic device really starting to take a more central role. In a daring and oft-criticized move, MM…FOOD features a six minute long section dedicated entirely to a skit collage, starting with track six ‘Poo Putt Platter’ and ending with track nine ‘Fig Leaf Bi Carbonate’. It’s a difficult move to defend, as six uninterrupted minutes in the middle of an album is a long time to devote to just listening to skits, and its no surprise that people skip straight over these moments after a first listen, regarding it as overly indulgent. The purpose seems to be to fully hone in on the concept of a rap album dedicated to food imagery, where beats become beets, rappers become wrappers, and beefs becomes beef. These skits are often incredibly funny, at one moment the voice of a child nonchalantly says, “I’ve lost an arm”; the deadpan reply is just “good.” Music is compared to food; satiating good company with a good meal is equivalent to playing them music, perhaps some “black eyed peas” or “substantial beets”? DOOM uses the skit to take a swipe at rappers also, with “edible wrappers” being necessary to reduce the amount of “garbage they produce” – although we cannot point to anyone specific, its clear that even in the skits DOOM has something to say, all the while keeping conceptually on brand.

With time and repeated listening the importance of skits to DOOM’s work becomes clearer and clearer, essential in the creation of the artist he is today, skits round out DOOM’s work, giving a fuller sense of the universe he is creating and the concepts that he wants to explore in the album. Not all of DOOM’s uses of skits are perfect of course, the homophobic track ‘Batty Boyz’ can be argued as DOOM fulfilling his super-villain mantra, but it feels needless and the skit only adds to the uncomfortable listening experience. Mostly, however, skits are a vital part of the listening experience with DOOM, helping to structure his albums or frame songs in fictional and political contexts, for instance, consider ‘Cellz’ off of the Born Like This Album. The first 1:50 of the song is an ominous, building skit, a reading of Dinosauria, We by Charles Bukowski, with Bukowski speaking of “hospitals that are so expensive it’s cheaper to die”, being “castrated, debauched, disinherited” – this impending sense of death and destruction is broken by the beat change and DOOM’s entry onto the track, the epic build up making way for DOOM’s opening lines to sound more imposing than ever. This is one example of countless DOOM tracks where the skit helps to define the song; of course, the music ultimately always trumps the skit, but within the work of Daniel Dumile they are not so easily discarded, not so easily programmed out of existence; instead they are reinvigorated and become a fitting reminder of why skits continue to exist in such a prominent role in hip-hop.

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The 5 Hip-Hop Biopics I Want to See

With the recent release of Straight Outta Compton, the biopic of rap group NWA, storming into cinemas and raking in a tidy $60.2 million along the way, we might just be about to see some of the greatest hip hop artists get the big screen treatment. Here are the five that I'd love to see:

1. MF DOOM

Superhero films are all the rage right now, so it only seems fair that THE super villain gets some screen time of his own, and after all, there are fewer interesting stories to tell in hip hop than that of the enigmatic DOOM. Starting his career in the early 90s with the hip-hop group KMD (then known as Zev Love X), alongside his brother Subroc and Onyx the Birthstone Kid, the group were weeks away from releasing a politically charged classic in Black Bastards before tragedy struck. Subroc was killed in a car accident, and the record label dropped Black Bastards due to its controversial cover art. From here, it looked as though DOOM's career in hip-hop was finished, he spent years out of the industry, allegedly living it rough on the streets of New York, determined to take revenge on the "industry that had so badly deformed him". And take revenge he did, starting out free-styling at open mic events wearing women's stockings to cover his face, he would rapidly take on the moniker of MF DOOM and acquire the infamous mask. 1999 would see the release of his classic album Operation Doomsday, and the next seven or so years would see DOOM go on a streak in hip-hop that only a few can hold a candle to. DOOM's life, whilst rapped in so much mystery, is ripe for a biopic, because it's so damn interesting - few MCs can hold a candle to his discography, and even fewer to his character building (King Geedorah, Viktor Vaughn, DOOM). The life of Daniel Dumile deserves to be told on the big screen, for its not just a story of the black struggle in America, it's also a story of the inner strength of one man to fight back against personal demons, industry bullshit and pure bad luck to become one of the greatest to hold a mic. Just remember the all caps when you spell the man's name!


2. AFRIKA BAMBAATAA

Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa. These are the three men who created hip-hop from the fires of the Bronx, but it's Afrika that has the most interesting story to tell. From a young age Afrika was a key player in the Bronx gangs, acting as a warlord for the Black Spades - one of the biggest gangs in the Bronx - yet it was a trip to Africa that changed his view on life, and thus changed hip hop entirely. Hip-hop became a medium that could incite change, and Afrika was one of the most important figures in this. Founding the Universal Zulu Nation, Afrika helped draw kids out of the gangs and into the music scene, with the intention of building a youth movement from a new generation of outcasts that would have an authentic, liberating world view. Alongside his outstanding political work, Bambaataa had an important impact on the music itself, releasing a series of genre defining electro-tracks in the 1980s that would heavily influence the entire genre. Bambaataa is a legend in the game, he took hip-hop from a cultural movement and moulded it into a social and political one, helping change the lives of countless underprivileged youths throughout the entire world, Bambaataa - more than anyone else on this list - deserves a biopic so that he can continue to inspire countless generations.

3. WU-TANG CLAN

When it comes to hip hop as a purely musical medium, it's hard to top the simple number of classics that the Wu-Tang Clan has released over the years; from their genre defining debut Enter the 36 Chambers to Only Built for Cuban Linx Pt. II fifteen years later, no hip hop group can claim to have lasted for so long and so successfully as they have. The chances of getting ten of the most talented artists together, each with their own distinctive personalities, and managing to creating classic after classic after classic is unbelievable. This would be an incredibly fun film to create as well, from their days of selling drugs so that they could fund the studio time for their debut, to selling out worldwide tours and working with the best in the game (Biggie, Nas, DOOM etc.), the Wu-Tang Clan have most likely got an endless stream of stories to tell.

4. KANYE WEST

To be completely honest, this isn't a serious entry into the list, not because Kanye doesn't deserve it, but more because of the assumed idea I have in my head for this film. If there is ever going to be a Kanye biopic, I can only imagine that Kanye wants to star, direct, write, basically do everything with the film so that he can tell his story in the most outlandish way possible. Kanye's the most important hip hop artist of the last ten years, releasing classic albums, influencing the entire sound of the industry and just about pissing off half the world along the way, there are few characters like Ye. And so imagine what a film we would get if Kanye directed his own life's story - one thing is for certain, it would definitely divide a lot of people.

5. LAURYN HILL

Lauryn Hill is perhaps the most tragic story on this list, as she's arguably the most talented musician on the list. With the Fugees she released unbelievable records, and with The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill she released not only one of the greatest hip hop albums ever, but one of the greatest albums ever, period. Since then, however, her story has not been the dream it deserved to be - struggles with fame and anger at the music industry itself led to numerous controversies, and she has not released an album since her 1999 classic. Instead reunions with The Fugees came and went, she managed to infuriate the Catholic Church (not that that's a bad thing) all the while trying to balance a personal life, before in 2013 she served three months in prison for tax evasion. Recently though Lauryn Hill appears to be back to form, narrating an award winning documentary, and garnering critical acclaim for her musical work for this year's Nina Simone documentary. Despite this, in many ways, I don't want this biopic to be made, or at least not yet, Lauryn Hill doesn't need the full-force of the public eye judging her again, even if her story is an incredibly fascinating, yet sad one.
             

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