Wild Cards

(This were my thoughts in response to a post on the effect of sexism or lack thereof on the Clinton campaign over at HuffPo, reblogged from elsewhere.)

At the end of the day, there are two types of Hillary voters: solid Democrats who didn’t like Obama for his lack of electability, slightly-too-far-left politics or rebellious spirit, and older, weary women who see Hillary as their champion. So if you want to talk about why she’s not getting nominated, it’s largely because half of her fans are voting for the entirely wrong reason. Yeah she’s a polarizing figure, one who brings out the worst sexist tendencies in our country. But the sheer number of people whose vote for or against Clinton depended on their feelings about America’s foremost post-sweetheart is the biggest issue. Like it or not, she was basically an actress running on the popularity of her movies.

Her support among women feels analogous to black people who vote for Jesse Jackson, born out of a deep-seeded (but, yeah, reasonably accurate) feeling that politics has failed them and that a symbolic vote for one of their own kind is more important than actually participating in the electoral process. Everyone else was essentially voting for the Democratic version of Mitt Romney, a very middle-of-the-road candidate who was acceptable to the mainstream party voter, especially in contrast to the other choices. That should be good news for Obama. He might scare off uneducated white working voters (uhh) but if legions of women were putting their frustration with the patriarchy ahead of their political values in the primary, our boy Barry might have a much better shot in some of the tougher races.

This year’s election has been a pretty intriguing status check for America’s prejudices. The Democratic primary more or less asked the question “are we more sexist than racist?” We’re not getting a straight answer to that query as long as the woman in question is Hillary Clinton. We’re heading towards a presidential election which will basically be a referendum on the question “are we still terrified of black people?” (even if we’ll hardly get a straight answer when Fox News insists on calling the black person in question Barack Hussein Obama).

I think we’re much better off as a country asking that question when we choose our leader than asking “do we still resent strong women?”

The Grimanator

Dizzee Rascal f/ Bun B – Where’s Da G’s (video)

Dizzee Rascal goes to Houston, where Bun B is his liaison for the purchase of some shades with Gangster Vision. Dizzee turns on the Gangster Vision and we see a Terminator-style visual heads-up display for all kinds of gangster-related information. Dizzee can now, with statistical certainty, separate the Snitches and the Mama’s Boys from the True Gangsters in all his street-related dealings. Gangster Vision also tells you who’s packin, who’s on that prometh, S.U.C. affiliation and where the leftover soul food on the table came from. There’s also a gangster radar sweep which detects gangsters in the area. So necessary.

Everybody apparently has a Gangster ID number, which implies the existence of a massive Gangster ID database, whose server farm is probably located in either Compton or the jungles of Columbia. I got some questions about Gangster Vision’s information; when it confirms Bun B as a True Gangster, it declares known associate Pimp C as “status unknown.” Is anyone really doubting if Chad will be a True G in the afterlife? Or is Gangster Vision’s database just managed and updated with IRS-level inefficiency?

Did the masterminds behind Gangster Vision also design models for other demographics? Is there Hipster Vision for detecting bad coke and trust funds? Can it give me a “hipster threat level” based on their iTunes library?

Anyways, this was one of my favorite tracks on “Maths and English” last year so I’m glad this was the track Def Jux chose to put forward stateside. Dizzee’s weird mad scientist flow is a good fit alongside Bun and Pimp, and “2 Types of Bitches” from UGK’s last album, was also really good (despite that retarded outro by Pimpin Ken). It makes a strong single and not just for the blog-ready collaboration. Still, there’s something really solemn about this video, with Pimp C’s verse chopped off the track entirely. The abundance of dead rappers has given the music video community plenty of practice filming around lyrics by the dearly departed, and Pimp’s verse was great. But this is end of days for integrity rap. “Where’s Da G’s” says it well enough with the lyrics, but the negative space makes the point even clearer. There aren’t many left and we just lost one of the best.

(The dirty version is embedded above, but there’s a clean version in an MTV2 player floating around with slightly different info on the Gangster Vision.)

Rust Battle

With my Pittsburgh roots, Cleveland is my sworn enemy, and as a Pensylvanian, I have a long-standing beef with the entire state of Ohio.  I tell the “trees in Pennsylvania point east because Ohio blows” joke every time I’m drunk and, after having a pretty awful fall-out with a girl from Cincinnati in college, I wrote a song called “I Hate Ohio” for the emo band I was drumming for at the time.  I wrecked my car pulling into the parking lot for Scribble Jam in 2003. So it’s notable that I’ve been listening to this Bitch, I’m From Cleveland! tape all week.

Bitch came out almost a year ago and it’s ostensibly a group effort for Cleveland’s SLAB crew: Fat Al, Chip tha Ripper and Ray Cash.  I’d been checking for all three.  Ray put out my favorite album of 2006 (“Cash On Delivery”) and blew my mind with how much he talked about how selling crack is boring.  Chip kept showing up on random tracks and killing it with one of those super-lyrical southern flows (most notably on that Hi-Tek jam).  And Fat Al’s “I Done Came Down” is one of the great dumb local rap anthems of the last three years.  (PS: according to this article, the track has a TECHNO REMIX somewhere out there.  WHAT?)  Bitch! is pretty great, beyond the sheer absurdity of its name.  It turns out Fat Al can actually rap beyond the retarded sing-song flow from “Came Down.”  Ray’s not as humble as he used to be and talks about being a kingpin more than I’d like, but dude can still rhyme his ass off.  This is the most I’ve heard from Chip at once, but he doesn’t disappoint.

Oddly enough, the sound of the city is a high-quality strain of radio rap.  Everything creeps along at 85 bpm with beats dipped in Jazze Pha’s sine waves.  Dudes talk about flip-flop paint and suicide doors.  Elsewhere, dudes like Young Shank are working with Gucci Mane and Chip shows up in videos with Huey.  I’m not mad at it at all, but why is Cleveland pumping out this shit, while the biggest rapper in Pittsburgh sounds like he’s from East New York?

I watched the Steelers’ comeback win against the Browns this year in a Browns bar in Philly.  And while most of the Cleveland ex-pats in the house were real salty we were there, we did some adversarial bonding with some dudes who bought us beers and gave us the heads up that we were stupid for punting to Joshua Cribbs.  After the game we talked about the rivalry and how it’s not only artificial because the real Browns are in Baltimore, but also because Cleveland and Pittsburgh are in the same, economically challenged, rusted boat.  The cities have so much in common.  You would think the cultures would follow suit.