TUE., DECEMBER 19, 2006
Post Spotlight to FacebookLife Goes On: 2006 in Review
by Hua Hsu
A couple of weeks ago I received an email detailing a terrible accident suffered by the Coup, Mr. Lif and their respective touring entourages. You've probably heard by now: on a quiet stretch of highway about an hour out of San Diego, their tour bus flipped over and burst into flames. Everyone survived but everyone also sustained some form of injury, either physical or financial. That same day, I read a piece of news online: it was a distress signal from the experimental hip-hop group Subtle. Their tour van had been robbed, with the thieves netting everything from Dose One’s personal journals to the sextet’s entire stash of tour earnings. Instantly, I was reminded of something that happened last year. While touring the Midwest in February, Subtle’s tour bus hit a patch of black ice, tumbled out of control, and member Dax Pierson — if you’ve ever been to Amoeba Records in Berkeley, you know who he is — was left paralyzed from the chest down.
Financially speaking, this was one of the weakest years the music industry has ever seen, in my lifetime at least. And as each year draws to a close, these are the eminently quantifiable terms we generally use to tabulate the previous twelve months’ worth within the broader historical record. We make lists: what sold (nothing); what ruled the summer (Jim Jones’ “We Fly High”); what would have worked, had it not leaked a month early; what albums were overlooked. But it is also a reprieve from the year’s inertia — a moment to consider whether we feel better than we did a year ago, the last time we had to rank our ten favorite albums. And so, for reasons apparent, mortality and the consequences of aging have been on my mind quite a bit lately. My year was thick with moments that reminded me that I am growing older, from trawls through the browser-crashing orgy of sound and color known as MySpace to the conflicted feelings I have about the late-thirty-something comeback of Jay-Z. There were other markers: Philip Roth, an author I admire, published Everyman, a very “last novel”-feeling rumination on the final breath’s approach; The Village Voice, the very definition of alternative journalism, when the term still held meaning, more or less ceased to exist in any recognizable form; and there is apparently going to be a sixth Rocky film.
A bittersweet self-awareness accompanied the arrival of one of my favorite records of this year or any, J Dilla’s Donuts. The Detroit producer passed in February of complications from lupus, mere days after the album’s release. Donuts is an incredibly subtle collection of Dilla instrumentals, and it is a captivating glimpse into the late producer’s approach to music. Ideas in all stages of polish are auditioned; beats are played for seconds or minutes, and scribbled away in favor of something better. The album unfolds beautifully, as one hears Dilla experimenting with an Eddie Kendricks sample — it is slow and stern, so he pitches it up mid-beat — or tries different filters and effects on a Sylvers loop. It is the sound of one of hip-hop’s truly brilliant minds working through his ideas.
Donuts ended up as a lot of people’s favorite record this year, and I choose to believe this gesture isn’t simply the case of a heartbreaking back-story trumping aesthetic judgment. Rather, I think Donuts embodies what we want out of music: a sense of history, spontaneity, play, a fascination with ideas and a reason to live and struggle on, even if the doctors deem the end near. There is nothing quite like the image of a grown man sharing his hospital bed with his mother and a sampler.
Dilla’s compatriots shed a tear but fought on. Hi-Tek released an excellent album of collaborations with MCs like Ghostface and the Game, Madlib’s sketchbook-y The Beat Konducta was a worthy rival to Donuts and Aloe Blacc’s versatile Shine Through was one of the year’s best beginning-to-end listens. And at a time when highbrow independent hip-hop (and its go-everywhere tributaries) seems gauche and unpopular — was 1998 really that long ago? — the Coup ( Pick a Bigger Weapon), Mr. Lif (Mo’ Mega) and Subtle (For Hero: For Fool) — among others — forged ahead with excellent and inspiring records. And they lived on the road, delivering their music and earning their livings at a time when the traditional networks had begun to break down.
Despite these admittedly maudlin ruminations on things past, one rapper emerged to remind me of how it felt when I first discovered the joy of recorded sound. Remorseless, hypnotic and possessing an almost gleeful fascination with putting words together, New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne (aka Weezy) took the year’s greatest quantum leap. Having grown considerably as a rapper over the course of The Carter and The Carter 2, Wayne tested out new flows and brags on a series of mixtapes, the best of which was Dedication 2. On “Sportscenter,” Wayne discusses his deep love of all ESPN original programming before rapping about being “pure beast/fear free” and citing Steffi Graf over some dribbles and squeaks, while “Concrete Jungle” is a swagger-off between Weezy and Juelz Santana. Of course even Wayne, limitless future and all, wasn’t immune to concerns of age — when he was busted on a drug charge in the fall, it was revealed that the self-proclaimed “'80s baby” was in fact born in 1979.
As with Donuts, you get a sense of how Wayne puts his thoughts together — how he gets off referring to himself as “the best rapper alive.” He lives multiple tax brackets above Dose or Lif or, frankly, most of the names you’ll find browsing eMusic; his moneymaking persona is the antithesis of the Coup’s egalitarian politics. And yet Wayne is no less inspiring as an artist. The last track on Dedication 2 is “Georgia…Bush,” featuring an uplifting Ray Charles sample and Weezy’s eloquent and unfiltered thoughts on the President’s handling of Hurricane Katrina. At a time when arguments abound as to why all classes of hip-hop today seem so stagnant, and where all the money has gone, Wayne has somehow blossomed into a rapper dexterous, clever and committed enough to become an all-time great. Only time will tell, and frankly, time is all we have.
Financially speaking, this was one of the weakest years the music industry has ever seen, in my lifetime at least. And as each year draws to a close, these are the eminently quantifiable terms we generally use to tabulate the previous twelve months’ worth within the broader historical record. We make lists: what sold (nothing); what ruled the summer (Jim Jones’ “We Fly High”); what would have worked, had it not leaked a month early; what albums were overlooked. But it is also a reprieve from the year’s inertia — a moment to consider whether we feel better than we did a year ago, the last time we had to rank our ten favorite albums. And so, for reasons apparent, mortality and the consequences of aging have been on my mind quite a bit lately. My year was thick with moments that reminded me that I am growing older, from trawls through the browser-crashing orgy of sound and color known as MySpace to the conflicted feelings I have about the late-thirty-something comeback of Jay-Z. There were other markers: Philip Roth, an author I admire, published Everyman, a very “last novel”-feeling rumination on the final breath’s approach; The Village Voice, the very definition of alternative journalism, when the term still held meaning, more or less ceased to exist in any recognizable form; and there is apparently going to be a sixth Rocky film.
A bittersweet self-awareness accompanied the arrival of one of my favorite records of this year or any, J Dilla’s Donuts. The Detroit producer passed in February of complications from lupus, mere days after the album’s release. Donuts is an incredibly subtle collection of Dilla instrumentals, and it is a captivating glimpse into the late producer’s approach to music. Ideas in all stages of polish are auditioned; beats are played for seconds or minutes, and scribbled away in favor of something better. The album unfolds beautifully, as one hears Dilla experimenting with an Eddie Kendricks sample — it is slow and stern, so he pitches it up mid-beat — or tries different filters and effects on a Sylvers loop. It is the sound of one of hip-hop’s truly brilliant minds working through his ideas.
Donuts ended up as a lot of people’s favorite record this year, and I choose to believe this gesture isn’t simply the case of a heartbreaking back-story trumping aesthetic judgment. Rather, I think Donuts embodies what we want out of music: a sense of history, spontaneity, play, a fascination with ideas and a reason to live and struggle on, even if the doctors deem the end near. There is nothing quite like the image of a grown man sharing his hospital bed with his mother and a sampler.
Dilla’s compatriots shed a tear but fought on. Hi-Tek released an excellent album of collaborations with MCs like Ghostface and the Game, Madlib’s sketchbook-y The Beat Konducta was a worthy rival to Donuts and Aloe Blacc’s versatile Shine Through was one of the year’s best beginning-to-end listens. And at a time when highbrow independent hip-hop (and its go-everywhere tributaries) seems gauche and unpopular — was 1998 really that long ago? — the Coup ( Pick a Bigger Weapon), Mr. Lif (Mo’ Mega) and Subtle (For Hero: For Fool) — among others — forged ahead with excellent and inspiring records. And they lived on the road, delivering their music and earning their livings at a time when the traditional networks had begun to break down.
Despite these admittedly maudlin ruminations on things past, one rapper emerged to remind me of how it felt when I first discovered the joy of recorded sound. Remorseless, hypnotic and possessing an almost gleeful fascination with putting words together, New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne (aka Weezy) took the year’s greatest quantum leap. Having grown considerably as a rapper over the course of The Carter and The Carter 2, Wayne tested out new flows and brags on a series of mixtapes, the best of which was Dedication 2. On “Sportscenter,” Wayne discusses his deep love of all ESPN original programming before rapping about being “pure beast/fear free” and citing Steffi Graf over some dribbles and squeaks, while “Concrete Jungle” is a swagger-off between Weezy and Juelz Santana. Of course even Wayne, limitless future and all, wasn’t immune to concerns of age — when he was busted on a drug charge in the fall, it was revealed that the self-proclaimed “'80s baby” was in fact born in 1979.
As with Donuts, you get a sense of how Wayne puts his thoughts together — how he gets off referring to himself as “the best rapper alive.” He lives multiple tax brackets above Dose or Lif or, frankly, most of the names you’ll find browsing eMusic; his moneymaking persona is the antithesis of the Coup’s egalitarian politics. And yet Wayne is no less inspiring as an artist. The last track on Dedication 2 is “Georgia…Bush,” featuring an uplifting Ray Charles sample and Weezy’s eloquent and unfiltered thoughts on the President’s handling of Hurricane Katrina. At a time when arguments abound as to why all classes of hip-hop today seem so stagnant, and where all the money has gone, Wayne has somehow blossomed into a rapper dexterous, clever and committed enough to become an all-time great. Only time will tell, and frankly, time is all we have.
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