The Billiken's Bluff

Nas from Hip Hop is Dead:

I'm lookin' over my shoulder
It's about eighty n$@gaz from my hood that showed up
And they came to show love
Sold out concert and the doors are closed shut.

And I like that, and that's the way it it is!!@!@#!@!!!!%$@!$$!$!#@$!#!!!!



This verse from Nas is, in short, my definition of not selling out, and understanding. This is the high end, the max of a min/max for # of humans who can really share, knowingly, in clever turns of phrase, references to specific neighborhoods, landmarks, roots of hip hop or urban lore, bodies of knowledge in general, before the reference becomes diluted.



And for this type of precision calibration to reach a larger, broader group it needs footnotes, artistic champions, English literature classes taught for 50 years, or else, it becomes watered down in meaning via pop music or broadcast TV and reaches us instantly, e.g., U2, or e.g.(er) Coldplay or Snow Patrol. And you end up comfortably numb.



I could write 100,000 words about this but I would rather YOU did.







So for it to be REAL hip hop, or otherwise, it has to be a limited engagement. Nas doesn't elaborate, but I must, which already gives him a rhetorical advantage over me. He could sell more seats for this fictional concert, in closing (of his verse), but he is only housing 80 people with common backgrounds, not in terms of race (I'd like to think) but in terms experience and shared knowledge - real hip hop heads, fans who are old enough to know that hip hop has died because the music that captured my imagination when I was 12 years old and memorizing all the lyrics, the verbal gymnastic session outlined on LP tape cassettes, in Wu Tang's 36 Chambers or Nas' Illmatic is not the same music on Hot 97 today.

So once Nas' 80 true believers are loaded on his ark he is setting sail. Ironically though, this type of earnest reflection will attract a wider audience, and this record will sell.