Unwritten and unraveled the deadman's pedantic...
--Black Thought, "Make My" from undun
We've known many kids over the years just like Redford Stephens, the semi-fictional protagonist whose brief life (1974-1999) informs the narrative underpinning of our new album, undun. Redford is the prototypical urban kid -- young, gifted, black, and unraveling before our eyes. Too volatile to embrace, we wait for the shot clock to count down their demise.
There's a certainty to this specific brand of premature black-tinged expiry, and yet, it always catches us off guard.
A few months ago, in the midst of our "30 Rock" grind, a segment producer pops in our rehearsal room and says, "Hey guys, we need something special for this Kristin Wiig sketch -- something upbeat!" Before I can respond, I feel the smartphone vibrating in my pocket. I check it. And in the surreal waltz that is my everyday life, I've been informed that my man Lil' Mark back in Philly is no more. I tuck away the emotions that are rushing to the surface, finish the requested 'upbeat' ditty in A major and keep it moving.
What it do? Where does it move to -- the slow motion of feeling that stops... dead in its tracks, like Soulja Slim in Gentilly?
The Tuskegee Institute in Alabama recorded 3,446 lynchings of black folks between 1882 and 1968. As Kanye reminds us, the number of black folks murdered by black folks in Chicago over, say the last 20 years, is well over 10,000. Nice work if you can get it, and clearly you can get it if you try. Just ask Lil' Mark's moms or countless other mothers knee-deep in grief and funeral wreaths.
It's almost cliché now.
Redford is the personification of the Nietzchean abyss gazing into my generational cohorts and me. With undun we hoped to give voice to an imagined internal dialogue that could take place as a deceased black youth looks forward into our post-modern void.
The confluence of hypercapitalism's manufactured desire (shout out to Thorstein Veblen), the bankrupt currency of perceived black cool (shout out to Steve Stoute), the hobbled nexus of negation and assimilation (shout out to a Lincoln-channeling Obama), is not a sometime thing and needs must when the devil drives.
Here are some snapshots of Redford's head caught mid-dialectic:
"Sleep"
Redford disoriented post mortem
I've lost a lot of sleep to dreams
And I do not miss them
I wouldn't wish them on the worst of enemies
Let them burn, go from here
Like when autumn leaves
-- Aaron Livingston
To catch a thief
Who stole the soul I prayed to keep
-- Black Thought
"Make My"
Redford in the throes of death
Tryna control the fits of panic
Unwritten and unraveled
The dead man's pedantic
Whatever...
See it's really just a matter of semantics
When everybody's fresh out of collateral to damage
-- Black Thought
I did it all for the money Lord
It's what it seems
But in the world of night terrors--it's
Hard to dream
They hollering cash rules everything
-- Big K.R.I.T.
"One Time"
Redford figuring on his mortality and showing signs of experiencing remorse.
I wonder when you die do you hear harps and bagpipes
If you born on the other side of the crack pipe
Niggas learn math just to understand the crack price
Then drive in head first like the jack knife
Cause out here, yo you niggas can't belly flop
If you wanna make the noise inside your belly stop
-- Dice Raw
Man, I guess if I was ever lucky it was one time
Then I went missing looking for the sublime
A nigga stayed low, left the ladder unclimbed
Time after time, verse blank, the line unrhymed
-- Black Thought
"Tip The Scale"
Redford's will to power
Picture me living life as if I'm some animal
That consumes it's own dreams like I'm a cannibal
I won't accept failure unless it's mechanical...
-- Black Thought
I got a brother on the run and one in
Wrote me a letter he said when you comin
Shit man I thought the goals to stay out
Back against the wall
Then shoot your way out
--Dice Raw
Follow Questlove on Twitter: www.twitter.com/questlove
How can you in good faith right a piece as he has done _ while knowing that he just days earlier committed an offense against someone? Well, why not? Those in power who call themselves our leaders or those heralded as role models do it all the time. I am sickened! Where are the few good men?
"and we are not saved..."
How is it that the greatest nation on earth has failed
to make sure that each and every child is provided with
an education that gives them real working skills to insure
their place as a productive member of society.
How do we teach them to reach for their dreams
when they see no hope, no future, only struggle.
How do we teach them to be street smart, to size up
a bad situation and to know when to walk away from trouble
and when to call for help?
If only each one of us could sponsor one disadvantaged child
to help them prepare for a very tough world.
To be a guiding light.
Perhaps we can start by giving our kids the guts to tell
their teachers, " I need to get this, and you are here to make sure
I'm prepared for a future."
If you have no future because the education system has failed you,
then there should be no shame in asking for help.
Perhaps that child can't depend on his parents for whatever reason.
We're not just talking about one student, but entire populations
that continue to struggle because of a failed education system.
And secondly thank you for playing your Jimmy song for 'you know who' when she came out. =)
Great article man keep it up!
What is the African-American community willing to do with whites who want to help? Law enforcement? Leaders from other communities? These are not naive questions. The African-American community has been let down, kept down and beat down from all of the above. But some can be trusted, can they be part of the solution?
Kevin Chamow
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-ultimate-collection-of-stupid-michele-bachmann
Examples:
''It is horrific to know that in the African American community, 50 percent of all African American pregnancies in the United States end in abortion, 50 percent. That is a genocide of African Americans of the United States. It should not be. There are Americans all across this country who would love to adopt African American babies, but they can't because 50 percent of all African American pregnancies today are ending in abortion.''
''I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another, then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence.''
They just chose to play it.
@rononiwu