VARIANT 25 | SPRING 2006 | 23 At the Crossroads Tom Jennings The concept of “the crossroads” has been a staple the public. Crucially, the cultural neo-colonialist hip-hop. of US blues traditions. It refers to an oscillating recuperation of independent local production state of paralysis when faced with equally systems under monopoly control coincided with unedifying moral choices concerning the personal the clout of hip-hop’s younger Black audiences who Paths of Least Reminiscence directions to be taken in life – with the emotional rejected the yuppie 1980s MOR and disco R&B resonance of “feeling the blues” lying in its styles. Ironically, the subsequent overdue return poignant acknowledgement that pain inevitably of soul to the maturing hip-hop spectrum reflected accompanies any chosen action. The quintessential both the business success of entrepreneurs like concept of the blues crossroads contrasts selling Sean ‘Puff Daddy’ Combs whose upward mobility one’s soul to the devil in exchange for earthly masterminded the move, and major label rap’s gain, with the deferred satisfaction of piety rapid tumble into vapid bling. The outcome now, promising heavenly reward. Beyond the religious according to Neal, is that the promotion of R&B overtones, of course, far more prosaic existential only through affiliation with superficial hip-hop and ethical dilemmas fit the model thanks to its has effectively evacuated the human heart of the metaphorical economy of memory and biography, genre. social imbrication, fantasy and individual agency, This analysis accounts for the present and the sense that the profound complexity and preponderance of teenage R&B karaoke acts intransigence of the world never permits simple or visibly lacking genuine feeling. However, R&B’s perfect solutions. So, now that the cutting edge of traditional opposition of big money and individual globalising capitalism concentrates on squeezing essence is as problematic as any simple model of profit from its colonisation of culture, even the alienation. Both musically and performatively, hip- most belligerently oppositional genres and forms hop aesthetics specifically counterpose grass-roots of production find themselves indentured in its collective experience and personal biography, dream factory. Short of abject submission, those thriving on the contradictions and ambivalences If R&B authenticity appears possible only in the mesmerising matrix of this most secular of thrown up which the transcendent emotionality in nostalgic reference, hip-hop’s disputed crossroads must thus also distinguish lines of flight of a single isolated voice could never resolve. golden ages are too recent to mythologise so from dead end postures in avoiding the sacrifice of The contemporary challenge, then, is to find effortlessly. From a rich field of hip-hop realism autonomy. renewed expressive potential within a landscape and representation, the only transcendence of During the past decade hip-hop musicians, of broken beats and fractured subjectivities pain and struggle yet yielded is a handful of performers and entrepreneurs have transformed without sticking with the busted flushes of moguls marching into mansions and boardrooms the profile of the contemporary popular music spiritual uplift, liberal civil rights and bootstrap remixing the American dream. The celebration industry in an unprecedented invasion of economics promising fortunes for tiny fractions. of such unlikely riches without any disavowal commodified cultural space on the part of largely Hence thug soul2 thematics grapple forcefully with of origins may be an instructive demystification lower class Black people (with considerable the fallout of class struggle in a neoliberal age, of continuing race and class aristocracy, but no multiracial involvement at all levels and stages). while exploratory R&B musical innovation is only political phoenix has yet risen (as anticipated by Starting from organic community responses to intermittently apparent,3 as it has serious trouble rap’s cultural visionaries) from the ashes of civil the social and economic circumstances of mid- resisting corporate sanitisation due to its dialogue rights and Black power’s encounters with the late- 1970s New York, hip-hop’s immensely innovative with hip-hop. capitalist state. Instead commercial ascendancy compositional, discursive and productive The paucity of significant major 2005 releases has attenuated the potential down to cartoon formations spread like wildfire across the US, largely bears out the story of the suffocation of caricatures of toxic ghetto freaks and monsters, as then worldwide. Mobilising and infecting other soul. Flashily fashionable new pop tarts with exemplified by Eminem and 50 Cent10 and sundry media and musical genres on the way, as well as varying degrees of talent but utterly unoriginal similarly tawdry seductions into the wild goose the sports and fashion fields, so-called ‘urban’ material abound, whereas commercially-proven paper chase. Nevertheless many refuse to resign style is now accepted to be the most profitable stars trot out more (or less) of their same. The themselves to a social death of enslavement to framework for cultural production. But success respective vocal strengths of Mary J. Blige (The repressive commodification – preferring a tactical brought not only continual hostility from Breakthrough) and Faith Evans (The First Lady) retreat into harnessing the strengths of early 1990s external gatekeepers, policers and arbiters of retain considerable evocative power, but the styles but retrospectively questioning the logics taste, and repeated backlashes against its vulgar excessively smoothed-out retro ‘80s production of assimilation and accumulation leading to the profanity, but also dissent from within – so that and minor tinkering with signature styles contain present impasse.11 all commentators now foresee no solution to the only flickers of their key contributions to hip-hop North Carolina’s Little Brother have no doubts grave crisis of authenticity arising from the music’s soul – an affiliation whose receding substance about the status of mainstream rap. The Minstrel dislocation from its grass-roots origins and the justifies the album titles in the narcissistic sense Show mimics the format of a television talk show, apparently inexorable primacy of commercial of resting on laurels.4 In contrast, Jon-B’s fifth simulating comic interludes, cabaret and comment agendas. Through a survey of trends in last year’s album, Stronger Everyday, marks a minor advance interspersed among tracks which excoriate the urban recording releases, this review of the state due to the greater freedom given by a smaller guns, sex and cash obsessions of radio rappers of hip-hop asks whether the cultural and political independent label to combine songwriting, vocal, as no more than contemporary stereotyping and movement pursued for three decades really is instrumentalist and production prowess with a justifying racial subordination.12 But the equal finally at a standstill in the cul-de-sac of the wider range of subjects than hitherto allowed, with appeal of progressive rap to both white and spectacle. much darker and edgier material accompanying Black youth as well as the class affiliations of accomplished romantic balladeering.5 gangsta rap paint a more complex picture, which Roads to Nowhere New Rising stars signal little forward movement is probably why Little Brother offer no analysis either. John Legend’s earnest soulman anthems or prognosis to back up the bald mantras. More in Get Lifted sparked mendacious marketing well nuanced is Black Dialogue by the Perceptionists, beyond self-important moniker and pretentious drawing on more hardcore conscious antecedents title.6 Meanwhile the great black hope of neo- to experiment with a wider range of personal soul also risks premature greyness. So there’s no and political orientations in confronting present doubting the sincerity and sweet soulfulness of circumstances.13 Heavier still are The Black Market Dwele, but second album Some Kinda … virtually Militia, recalling the awesomely dark ghettocentric recapitulates his debut.7 And although scarcely mysticism of the Wu-Tang Clan collective musically adventurous, Jaguar Wright’s Divorcing combined with the programmatic ambitions of Neo 2 Marry Soul is far grittier and more energising Public Enemy, Paris and Dead Prez in calling the in plumbing depths of frustrated desire.8 Anthony disenfranchised to arms on their own behalf.14 Hamilton’s still longer journey from North Unlike many rap luminaries critiquing Carolina saw his debut Soulife9 followed this year the degraded state of the music who need by Ain’t Nobody Worryin’ – both classic documents distance from commercial imperatives to speak of empathic soul detailing the manifold hurts and out, Common continues his sophisticated In a series of articles in Pop Matters magazine hopes in life spoiled by economic, emotional and co-articulation of blues, soul and rap in the entitled ‘Rhythm & Bullshit?’,1 Mark Anthony social dysfunction. Hamilton’s voice conveys such consistently excellent Be. The occasional preachy Neal details the market consolidation of US generosity of spirit despite repeated heartbreak superciliousness of this wordsmith is here recording and radio sectors in the 1990s, and its that questions of sentimentality seem superfluous more than compensated for by his imaginative severely constricting effects on the range of music – especially when his breakthrough required hired identification with the