Say Word?! Ya Heard!?: The Go! Team

So, what's your favorite Action Hero Theme Song/Cheerleading Chants/Indie Rock/Simplified Hip-hop band?

Trailblazing a genre that you've never heard of, the UK sextet The Go! Team churns out high energy ballads that could either be heard in anime movies or cliche workout scenes.

The band is the brainchild of experimentalist and Go! Team guitarist Ian Parton, whose vision was to fuse all that he loved into a cohesive sound. The result is something that combines 3 Feet High and Rising's quirky humor and obscure samples with Sonic Youth noise rock guitar riffs. Accompanying Parton are two drummers (cus it takes two to make your beats extra funky), a bassist and another guitarist. However, the leader of the group is definitely their emcee, Ninja, whose high pitched voice and simplistic party rhymes are reminiscent of a young Roxanne Shante. Ninja creates girl power chants that resonate over the bands use of multiple instruments. Her child-like voice accompanied by the band's melodic instrumentals makes for happy songs that capture the essence of energetic rambunctious school kids high off slurpee syrup and sour patch sugar.

More than anything, The Go! Team makes pump-it-up jams that'll get you ready to run marathons, scale mountains, and fuck like there's no tomorrow. While some high-tempo musicians want to make you feel like you just got slapped in the eardrums, The Go! Team takes your eardrums on a night out, forces them to down 42 Red Bulls and peer pressures them into snorting 36 lines of coke. Boomselecktah.

A Track You Need to Bump Before You Die (Vol. 2) 4:21 Edition

my head hurts my head hurts my head hurts my head hurts

Suspended Animation by K.M.D.

Dro Rules Everything Around Me DREAM Get Some Papers Smokin Cheeba Cheeba Y'all

The sun hangs low in the clouds as the big hand hits the South Eastern edge of the clock. It's a warm April day here in Davis. The combo of a cool breeze of fresh air and stanky (and I'm not talking about the cowshit) gives you goose pimples. My fingers are sticky, the papers are out, the bic is sparkin'. Suddenly out of nowhere you hear:

"Suspended animation of a gray expansion casting shadows over the sun"

Then the beat hits you. Raw, hard-hitting, grimy, bass-in-your-face slaps to your eardrums as you hear someone crying "I want to get high! So high!" Yep, it's K.M.D.

"I've been splitting blunts, I lick 'em then I spit once/
It's nasty, shit tastes like cancer in my tongue and fronts/"

The Brothers Dumile were probably baked as pecan pies on every track off their forgotten masterpiece Black Bastards, but there's something about "Suspended Animation" that just oozes tetrahydrocannabinol. The track's hazy feel makes for a perfect backdrop for crystal-ridden rhymes of sticky icky goodness, and a young MF Doom acts as a spokesman for the common toker.

Daniel Dumile goes on a tear, taking the pothead badge and reppin' it hard. One verse? No problem.

"So light up, get the Philly broke, smoke a toke/
Pipe full, cause when I pull, I pull until I choke/
Like *coughs* and that's the only shit I'm choking/
Ducking hookers, saying "Yo why you be bugging?"/
I'm fucking stuck in (suspended animation) for one I'm done/
Casting shadows over the sun for fun/"

This is my kinda smoking jam. No trippy beats on some hippie bullshit, no samples from clichés like Marin and Tommy, just a song with some "muthafuckin' bass in it". The song's infectious beat is so perfect that it'll make any stoner look like a bobblehead riding in their thick-clouded car.

Super Silver Kush be killin' my brain, but a dose of early morning Stats helps to put me back on the ground after flying all night.

Hyphy Article

I wrote this for my school newspaper in October of 2006

I'm From the Bay, Where We Hyphy and Go Dumb…or Am I?

How the Hyphy Movement Tears Me Apart.

As the commercialization of hip-hop kills the concepts of the true MC and DJ, our radios are being besieged by simplistic lyrics over droning and monotonous beats. Today's rap music makes old people mistakenly condemn the music I grew up with, calling it unoriginal, abrasive, and idiotic. However, after hearing what is being played on the radio, I can understand why.

At the same time, though, people generalize about how rap has always degraded women and promoted violence, they neglect to remember the messages of old school artists such as Grandmaster Melle Mel, Rakim and KRS-One. I almost laugh when ignorant critics disparage the synthesizer-ridden and simplistic beats that have become the norm in rap songs today, even though they probably don't have a clue who DJ Premier, Marley Marl, or Pete Rock are.

With all this criticism, people are saying that hip-hop is officially dead, and being a hip-hop fan ever since I could crank Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" to full blast on my Walkman, it's hard for me to let rap go. But when listening to new acts like Yung Joc, Young Jeezy, and Rick Ross, I feel as though hip-hop has committed suicide.

This whole death thing is making me depressed. I've listened to rap for so long and now it's going to straight-up bounce on me?! What do I have to look forward to? I guess I'm going to have to find some gold in this pile of garbage. And as I look though the muck, I have stumbled upon the local rap scene: Hyphy.

Over the past few years, the Bay Area has produced a new sound. Using less thought-provoking and more party style, simplistic lyrics accompanied by bass-heavy beats, Hyphy has put our community on the hip-hop map. Hyphy rappers such as Mac Dre, E-40, Mr. FAB and Keak the Sneak are finally beginning to get the attention they deserve. Besides the music, Hyphy has become a social movement in a sense. It has created its own culture, with crazes like sydeshows where people gather together to throw their scrapers (a flashy yet cheap car that is suped-up to show off performance) into donuts. Hyphy has also invented a new dance style called "going dumb", which is basically the act of jumping up and down to the beat of the music, and the Bay's unique swagger is portrayed by stunna-shades and grills.

But I know what you're thinking: aren't Hyphy's unsophisticated lyrics what you just criticized in the rap of today? Well, to a degree, yes. It is hypocritical to show respect to this form of hip-hop and deem others as garbage. However, to really understand why Hyphy is somewhat appealing to an old-school-hip-hop-head, like myself, one would have to look back to hip-hop's true roots.

"You could put this in the hip-hop Bible"- E-40

The origins of hip-hop are sketchy, but records show that the music form was born in the Bronx during the mid 70's. Its true intention was to keep kid's minds off of gang violence. Block parties were set up by rap pioneers like DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa, whose goals were to keep hostility out of the 'hood through the power of music. Soon, hip-hop block parties spread all over New York, and kids began to drop their guns to battle on the mic. Accordingly, the mentality of rap was to promote one's culture and have a good time doing so, which is what Hyphy does. "Hip-hop started out as a way to party, for kids to put down the drama and pick up the microphone," said MP3.com's Urban Music Editor Brolin Winning, "Hyphy is super popular with the youth out here and it gives them something more constructive to do." In its essence, Hyphy stays true to the meaning of hip-hop, and through this we also gain a place to showcase the Bay's unique culture.

"Bouncing up and down like the floor is a trampoline"- Mr. F.A.B.

Even though it sticks with the Bambaataa motive, Hyphy is still a sign of how the quality of rap has declined over the years. With uneducated lyrical attempts and a penchant of self-deprecation with the "go dumb" dance, Hyphy just doesn't seem to compare to previous hip-hop cultures such as the Native Tongues and the Juice Crew. Acalanes graduate and current Bay Area hip-hop producer Jordan Diaz explains that "if you like E-40 and Mac Dre, that great, but if you really know the roots of hip-hop, then you would realize that Hyphy is kind of a dumbed-down, watered-down music." Losing my brain cells while bouncing my dreads isn't my style, so it annoys me that this is what represents the Bay in the hip-hop World.

"Sitting in my scrapper, watching Oakland go wild... Ta-dow"- E-40

And that is the true quandary; this is my community that this music represents. Aren't I supposed to embrace whatever my community puts out there? At least Hyphy gets us noticed on TRL as that hot Asian chick retires the E-40's "Tell Me When to Go" video. It has taken a long time for that to happen. Too $hort has been in the game before Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and Jay-Z put out their first solo, and Mac Dre has more records than Jerry Rice (think about it). "I think it just helps people not from here get some idea of the things going on," Winning said, "there hasn't really been many local artists to blow on a national level since Tupac died, and personally I'm happy to see the Bay getting attention and love from other regions" So finally, for once we are being noticed.

"Go stupid, that's what we do good"- Mac Dre

However, what is the Bay's hip-hop scene being noticed for? The Hyphy trend today is to look as immature as possible and act like a 5-year-old during a tantrum. Also, Hyphy symbols like the thizz face, (a facial expression related to the use of Ecstasy) and sydeshows (mentioned before) display the illegal actions which Hyphy promotes, which is in no way what Bambaataa wanted. Hip-hop has gone from the graffiti-tagging, break-dancing, b-boying style of the golden era ('87-'94), to the gun-coking, female-discriminating, bling-bling rap of the mid 90's to early 21st century, and now the club-bumping,, dumb-acting, unintelligible lyricism of ATL's Crunk and Bay Area's Hyphy. The problem is that people are forgetting what hip-hop is supposed to be, and where all this came from. Diaz said that, "we should always respect the hip-hop forefathers, and we should remember when hip-hop was hella pure." If anything, Hyphy has done a good job creating new vocabulary for the hip hop dictionary, so I have to give mad props to that.

"The soil where these rappers be getting their lingo from"- E-40

In the hip-hop world, the Bay Area is known for its inventive and immense vocabulary. Without the Bay Area's inclination for code talk, the hip-hop dictionary would have stopped at "dope". The vernacular that the entire Bay has produced over the years is prolific. For instance, the word "shizzle" is synonymous with Snoop Dogg, but it was actually coined by Mr. Hyphy himself, E-40. In fact, a Bay Area rapper named Seagrams created an entire song using the "izzle" language, with an exception of one line: "White folks trynna get up on the convo". Another term that belongs to the Bay is "yadidamean", a condensed version of "you know what I mean" with a rolled "d" probably stemming from a Hispanic influence. It has been colloquialized even more into many forms (yadidabooboo, yadidimsayin, yadida, and my favorite: Yarla-damean). Other words found in the Hyphy dictionary include "flamboastin'" (flaunting your possessions), " adoobadabbadeeba" (a verbal agreement; yes), "gerbazll'n" (to act foolish; stemming from the verb to gerbazlle), and "gouda" (money; cash). So now when someone asks you "hey-yo, can you hook a partna up with some gouda so I can get my flamboastin' on, homey, and don't gerbazlle on me, yadidamean?!" you can kindly respond by saying, "why adoobadabbadeeba, sir". Now Hyphy-followers have a distinct language that they can use, which is another attraction to Hyphy for me to consider.

I don't know what I'm going to do if hip-hop dies out anytime soon, but at least I got communal patriotism…yadidamean?!

Are you like me and don't want hip-hop to die like disco? Check out these up-coming releases
that try to bring a hip-hop Renaissance:

Rakim- Seventh Seal

Nas- Hip-Hop is Dead

Raekwon- Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II

Redman - Red Gone Wild

(haha only two of those four albums have come out and Redman's was the only good one)

So Yeah, I Lied

hehe, i forgot

A Track You Need to Bump Before You Die (Vol. I)

N.Y. State of Mind by Nas

"Straight out of the fuckin' dungeons of rap, where fake niggas don't make it back, I don't know how to start this shit"

The ironic opening words of Nas' seminal debut album, Illmatic. Nas then proceeds to murder a beautifully grungy DJ Premier beat with lyrical genius, thus a classic track is born.

Literary Style

"Rappers are monkey flippin'/
to the funky rhythm/
i be kickin'/"

Nas develops the street anthem with multi-internal-rhymed verses, using two or more matching assonance sounds per line, placed in a perfect form and complementary to the beat. His flow never stumbles and his consistency is impeccable. Nas' talent can even be compared with such greats as Rakim and Kool G Rap. In the 70's to the late 80's (and some in the 90's thanks to acts like Nice & Smooth), rap artists' rhyme schemes were bland and repetitive. In most cases, rappers would just write their verses and only after they were done would they would go back and make the end of each line rhyme, which didn't develop an overall essence of flow in the song. Nevertheless, this ended when Rakim picked up a pen, and by being more attentive to where rhymes should be placed and how to utilize syllables to a T, the God MC revolutionized the game, leaving the users of that past technique to be seen as novelty acts. Nas uses Rakim's great tools to create a truly poetic song. His flow is so fluid that most of the time his rhyme-switching is unnoticeable:

" Bulletholes left in my peepholes/
I'm suited up in street clothes/
Hand me a nine and I'll defeat foes/
Y'all know my steelo with or without the airplay/
I keep some E&J, sittin bent up in the stairway/"

Nas also tightly packs each bar with as many rhymes as he can while still developing the song's meaning:

“It's like the game ain't the same/
Got younger niggaz pullin the triggers bringing fame to they name/
and claim some corners, crews without guns are goners/
In broad daylight, stickup kids, they run up on us/”

His talent is unbelievable, but what separates Nas with the rest of Rakim's followers is his lyrical content.

Lyrical Content

"It drops deep, as it does in my breath/
I never sleep, 'cus sleep is the cousin of death/"

This line acts as the “N.Y. State of Mind”'s refrain, repeated at the end of both verses. Its morbid yet harshly truthful meaning symbolizes the essence of the song's message: the life of a hoodlum in New York is never-ending and pain-staking. With great storytelling talent, Nas depicts a man trying to make it in the ghetto, though gun fights, weight-pushing, and robberies. He builds the character in the first half of the first verse, saying he is “like Scarface sniffin' cocaine/ Holdin' a M-16, see with the pen I'm extreme/” and that everday he is “on the corner bettin' grands with the celo champs/ Laughin' at baseheads, trynna sell some broken amps”. Then, Nasty delves into a story of a gun-fight where his gun jams. Continuing, Nas explains that the game isn't like it used to be because today we “Got younger niggaz pullin the triggers bringing fame to they name”, a notion that unfortunately becomes remains true by each passing year. Nas' lyrics were and still are on a completey different level as his contemporaries and succesors, and he personifies an true MC, boasting that:

"I'm takin' rappers to a new plateau/
Through rap slow/
My rhymin' is a vitamin/
Held without a capsule/"

His wit accompanies the song's deep message, with tricky lines like "Bullet holes up in my peepholes" and "Give me a Smith & Wesson, I'll have a niggas undressin'". Nas says he has “got so many rhymes I don't think I'm too sane", showing he can hit the listener with a myriad of rhymes thick with tales and metaphors and still joke around about it. Nasir Jones, a true thug-poet, lays down the foundation of his incredible album with his first track, but not without the help of Hip hop greatest producer.

Production

One thing that I have learned as a Hip hop enthusiast is that you can never go wrong with Premo beat, and NY State of Mind is a perfect example. With the eerie piano loop, the classic breakbeat, the perfect use of Donald Byrd's Flight Time, one cannot deny DJ Premier's production skills. The beat captures the dark and dangerous life of a kid trying to make it for himself in the streets. The loop doesn't stop, until Nas exclaims:

"The smooth criminal on beat breaks/
Never put me in your box if your shit eats tapes/"

Premo can accompany Nas like no other producer can, and although Nas and DJ Premier have yet to make a full collaboration album (still waiting on that), every track that the two do together is golden. Rakim's voice graces the track's chorus, which is almost like the passing of the MC torch. The song ends with a sample of Nas saying "Nasty Nas", sampled from his first rapping appearance (Live @ the Barbecue), and Premier cuts it lovely as the beat fades away. NY State of Mind is undoubtedly my favorite song, and it is definitely one you have to hear before you die!

Why I Will Always Hate Indie Rap

I've been listening to hip hop my whole life (which I admit is not that long), but after developing a palate for fine, golden-age beats and lyrics, i have come to feel disgusted by the what the kids today call "indie rap". Record labels like Def Jux and Rhymesayers put out crappy crap crap that legions of preteen emo kids follow as if the artists there are better than Rakim, KRS-One and Kool G Rap (my heroes). I Hate It With A Fiery Passion!

It's not cus they're white (although I’ve begun to see that I discriminate towards white rap alot). I just hate their style.

Your over the head rhymes are not very over the head. Just because a rapper uses the words "juxtaposition" and "proballistic" in the same line doesn't mean its groundbreaking music. Its unnecessary fluff, the shit you use when you need to make 6 pages from a 3 page essay (trust me, I'm the Fluff King). Just stick to captivating the crowd through understandable metaphors and witty puns. I don't want to hear about how you're life is compared to the animalism Faulkner exemplifies in "Light in August".

On that note, indie rap is borderline emo. Please stop talking about random shit in your life like your feelings and start to move the crowd. Some mindless substance is acceptable in the rap world, you don't always have to be then next Ginsberg. Nobody cares about the shit you write about, Aesop. What the hell are you saying?

That's another thing: Why do Def Jux and Rhymesayers rappers have to sound like they have an entire continental breakfast in their mouth? They're nasal rapping is enough to make you go crazy. I mean, it's one thing that we have no idea what Mr. Lif is talking about, but even if we did, we would be able to understand it with the cat screeching sound he calls a voice. It's idiotic.

Plus, they try so hard to be indie that they're worse than the mainstream dumbasses. It's like those kids in school who spend all their time complaining about how jocks and popular kids are idiots, when they are the ones who spend their whole day whining! I don't wanna hear about how the life of an indie rapper is hard. Say your shit and get out! Goddamnit!

Lastly, why the fuck do your beats have to sound so shitty, El-P. Just because it's disgustingly futuristic doesn't mean its genius. I hate this space age, hollow drum beat crap. Gimme some Primo and I’ll be good.

So to wrap it up, I’ll probably be listening to golden age for the rest of my life. This has been a one minute rant by your favorite Indian.