weird how some of the tastiest meals can leave you with pretty rank breath for the rest of the day, the kind that can't be sated by candy, subsequent meals, or gum. yesterday, the culprit was indian food - went to a lunch bufft w/coworkers, and while it was quite scrummy (scrumptious + yummy), the tastes/flavors remained in my mouth for about 8 or so hours. i even gargeled w/listerine and later burped the essence of tikka masala.
today the culprit was/is something called "chicken noodle soup" from a thai restaurant across the street from where i work. i put quotes on that b/c i don't believe something so tasty should have such a bland americanized name. it's a really strong-flavored broth to which you add sprouts, green onion, white chicken meat, some shrimp, cilantro, and thai noodles. it's kind of like pho, in a way, in both its simplicity and the ability to customize your soup. but i dunno what it is - the broth or green onion or what - but that taste is not going away.
i spit hot fire!!
30 November 2007
12 November 2007
the mos def effect.
[disclaimer: i've been meaning to write this post for a while. what better time then when i am bored at work? anyway, this post has been like a lover i like to emotionally abuse - i pay lots of attention to it for a while, then take off without explanation for a couple of weeks, without returning texts or voicemail. hence - my thoughts might come across as kind of scattered, as this topic is something i grappled with for a while, and i tend to come up with new ideas/theories at inopportune times - in the shower; while driving; during conference calls at work.]
i have seen atmosphere, a minnesotan hip hop collective consisting of a rapper called slug and a producer called ant, a total of six times in various concert venues. i've seen the multi-talented mos def perform four times. i've seen mos' sometime-collaborator, talib kweli, a total of three times. the roots - the best hip hop band ever - i believe i've seen them two or three times. with the exception of talib, the aforementioned hip hop acts are among my all-time favorites, and i have listened to each artist/group obsessively at some point in my life.... however, all have succumbed to a plight i have tentatively named the mos def effect.
let me first briefly define the mos def effect, and then i'll elaborate on its background (according to me), its warning signs, and its proliferation.
the mos def effect occurs when an artist - presumably one of your favorites - begins to have less-than-stellar live performances. the live set is not lacking in energy or any technical/sound quality; rather, the substance of the set is borderline unbearable. put simply, the mos def effect occurs when a once-brilliant artist begins to have increasingly lazy, confusing, obnoxious, and/or annoying live performances, and one begins to question why they ever liked the artist in the first place.
- background and offenders -
ATMOSPHERE:
i began to detect the first traces of the mos def effect fairly recently, when i saw atmosphere perform at the wiltern in 2005. it was my fifth atmosphere show, and i was quite excited for it. atmosphere had become my favorite music group based largely on the fact their live shows were so incredible; slug is an engaging, dynamnic, and passionate rapper who really connects to the audience, and he generally enlisted some very skilled DJs to back up his vocals. however. for this particular performance, the DJ was resigned to being part of a larger backing band. whereas, in past shows, a heavy metal song snippet would be thrown in here and there to pump up the [mostly white] crowd, now... half the songs sounded kind of metal-ish, and the other half sounded like a jam band-mess. they had the decency to utilize only the DJ for some of the best songs, but, overall, the finely produced and decidedly hip hop songs which i had grown to love from atmosphere had been given a weird, heavy metal-meets-phish-meets-dave matthews band makeover. yuck. so i left the show feeling slighty disoriented and a little betrayed. since it was my [repeat] FIFTH show, i was pretty confident and i had really hyped up the show for those who were accompanying me (including a guy i had just started dating that later turned out to have a girlfriend... good times! good memories!), and i lacked that when the show ended. "uhh... the shows aren't usually like that?" i was basically apologizing for my favorite rapper, something you should never really have to do (unless your favorite rapper is kanye west).
THE ROOTS:
the roots POSSIBLY have the most leeway in this category, because they are an actual band, and therefore have the freedom to do solos, interesting live covers of songs, and basically just keep jamming. when hip hop acts do this with their djs, it's forced and unnecessary ("yo, play the folks some of that led zepplin we were listening to the other day so i can rap over it, even though it has no connection to what i'm doing now").
so yeah, the roots get a free pass to SOME extend for their transgressions; namely, doing covers. this pass, however, does have a breaking point which they tend to reach all the damn time. when i saw them perform a few years ago at at my law school(a popular southern california private university that can afford to reimburse high-profile hip hop artists....), they did a medley of covers for about 15 minutes. that was their closer - 15 mins of other people's music. black thought occassionally rapping over it. mostly just the [incredibly talented] roots crew jamming to a wide variety of good songs. by other people.
i could go on.
MOS DEF:
anyhow, this phenomenon resurfaced when i saw mos def in a free show the following year at my law school and had told a gang of my friends about it. after having seen mos at the spitkicker tour back in '99 or so, and again at audiotistic (2001? 2002? who knows, it's all a blur), i was pretty excited to see this handsome devil perform again. uhhh... right. first of all, the previous times i had seen him he was really dapper and well-dressed, showing up like the mack that he is. here, he came in a hoodie and jeans, not quie what you hope for from mos, one of the more stylish artists in hip hop. and then came the music....
...lord, the music.
what followed was just a head-shaking mish-mash of half-performed songs; lazy rap-slash-singing, but mostly covers and a blend of scating and toasting or boasting or whatever it's called -- basically, mos turned into a 30's jazz singer all reefer-ed out mixed with wyclef 'i want to be jamaican' jean trying to sound like he's shabba ranks or something. por ejemplo - when he performed "ms. fat booty" (in my top 10 songs of all time), he went off on the "like gregory isaacs" part, singing the sampled song for a good minute or two before the beat came back in. now... that's fine and all, i mean - i get it - but when every song is interrupted/reinterpreted/bastardized, it gets really old really quickly. and he also did this thing where he just like started singing marvin gaye songs, stevie wonder songs, etc. uhhh... seriously? "black on both sides" is a CLASSIC album - why not do some of that? i mean, besides "ms. fat booty"?! i think that might have been the only song off that joint he performed in its entirety.
now, yeah - it was a free show and all, but still... have a little pride and integrity and respect for folks who come out to see your ass perform. for someone who hustled so hard so early, it's hard not to blame mos' current lack of effort on his various side projects - the "italian job" and it's spinoff; the tv movies; the broadway shows; the chappelle's show appearances. etc. further, perhaps mos and his partner in mos def effect-related crime, talib, should just perform together or not at all. because talib is equally lazy, unfocused, and cringe-worthy live.
the symptoms only got worse at rock the bells 2007. good.effing.grief. my brother and i were with one of my homeboys, and, from the beginning, i was really iffy about watching mos. i thought it might be time for a bathroom break, but i really didn't want to lose our coveted spot in the pit area. plus, my brother doesn't go to shows nearly as much as i do, and he didn't want to miss mos, who he quite likes. and, yeah... about five (5) minutes into the set, little bro goes "i'm done with mos def. OVER HIM. we should have gotten food."
the main problem with mos differs from that of atmosphere in a critical way; whereas atmosphere reimagines his popular hip hop songs with a really mediocre backing band, mos instead chooses to perform scattered snippets of past songs and possible future songs (i believe at one show he said something like "let me just fuck around with you for a minute... do some stuff i've been working on. is that cool wit y'all?" um, NO. do your ish and let's get to some booty-shaking and fist-pumping. none of your abstract neo-soul shenanigans.) also, he did the stupid covers again. look, mos. we all like marvin gaye, bob marley, etc. etc. etc. we GET that you are influenced by the past greats. don't pay us your record collection when we paid $90 bucks to get into some place - effing perform "mr. nigga" and "brooklyn" and even "rock and roll". the ONE song he consistently KILLS (in a good way) is "umi says", but that's because that song really encourages the kind of random, rambling singing he tries to inject into every song.
because mos is the most consistent and reckless offender, i had to name the phenomenon after him. someone with so much talent and so many weapons shouldn't perform like he's a drunk homeless dude let loose in a rare/vintage record shop. have some scruples.
***
anyhow. share the mos def effect theory with your friends and family the next time you go to see one of your favorite musicians/groups and they disappoint horribly. because it WILL happen, someday when you least expect it. either the fanbase will change drastically (or really young kids will begin to latch on to them) or the artist/s will choose to use a backing band when their songs NEED a DJ, or they will cover other artists for an extended period of time, or they will wax poetic about nothing interesting and just invite average-looking girls on the stage to dance. blah.
i have seen atmosphere, a minnesotan hip hop collective consisting of a rapper called slug and a producer called ant, a total of six times in various concert venues. i've seen the multi-talented mos def perform four times. i've seen mos' sometime-collaborator, talib kweli, a total of three times. the roots - the best hip hop band ever - i believe i've seen them two or three times. with the exception of talib, the aforementioned hip hop acts are among my all-time favorites, and i have listened to each artist/group obsessively at some point in my life.... however, all have succumbed to a plight i have tentatively named the mos def effect.
let me first briefly define the mos def effect, and then i'll elaborate on its background (according to me), its warning signs, and its proliferation.
the mos def effect occurs when an artist - presumably one of your favorites - begins to have less-than-stellar live performances. the live set is not lacking in energy or any technical/sound quality; rather, the substance of the set is borderline unbearable. put simply, the mos def effect occurs when a once-brilliant artist begins to have increasingly lazy, confusing, obnoxious, and/or annoying live performances, and one begins to question why they ever liked the artist in the first place.
- background and offenders -
ATMOSPHERE:
i began to detect the first traces of the mos def effect fairly recently, when i saw atmosphere perform at the wiltern in 2005. it was my fifth atmosphere show, and i was quite excited for it. atmosphere had become my favorite music group based largely on the fact their live shows were so incredible; slug is an engaging, dynamnic, and passionate rapper who really connects to the audience, and he generally enlisted some very skilled DJs to back up his vocals. however. for this particular performance, the DJ was resigned to being part of a larger backing band. whereas, in past shows, a heavy metal song snippet would be thrown in here and there to pump up the [mostly white] crowd, now... half the songs sounded kind of metal-ish, and the other half sounded like a jam band-mess. they had the decency to utilize only the DJ for some of the best songs, but, overall, the finely produced and decidedly hip hop songs which i had grown to love from atmosphere had been given a weird, heavy metal-meets-phish-meets-dave matthews band makeover. yuck. so i left the show feeling slighty disoriented and a little betrayed. since it was my [repeat] FIFTH show, i was pretty confident and i had really hyped up the show for those who were accompanying me (including a guy i had just started dating that later turned out to have a girlfriend... good times! good memories!), and i lacked that when the show ended. "uhh... the shows aren't usually like that?" i was basically apologizing for my favorite rapper, something you should never really have to do (unless your favorite rapper is kanye west).
THE ROOTS:
the roots POSSIBLY have the most leeway in this category, because they are an actual band, and therefore have the freedom to do solos, interesting live covers of songs, and basically just keep jamming. when hip hop acts do this with their djs, it's forced and unnecessary ("yo, play the folks some of that led zepplin we were listening to the other day so i can rap over it, even though it has no connection to what i'm doing now").
so yeah, the roots get a free pass to SOME extend for their transgressions; namely, doing covers. this pass, however, does have a breaking point which they tend to reach all the damn time. when i saw them perform a few years ago at at my law school(a popular southern california private university that can afford to reimburse high-profile hip hop artists....), they did a medley of covers for about 15 minutes. that was their closer - 15 mins of other people's music. black thought occassionally rapping over it. mostly just the [incredibly talented] roots crew jamming to a wide variety of good songs. by other people.
i could go on.
MOS DEF:
anyhow, this phenomenon resurfaced when i saw mos def in a free show the following year at my law school and had told a gang of my friends about it. after having seen mos at the spitkicker tour back in '99 or so, and again at audiotistic (2001? 2002? who knows, it's all a blur), i was pretty excited to see this handsome devil perform again. uhhh... right. first of all, the previous times i had seen him he was really dapper and well-dressed, showing up like the mack that he is. here, he came in a hoodie and jeans, not quie what you hope for from mos, one of the more stylish artists in hip hop. and then came the music....
...lord, the music.
what followed was just a head-shaking mish-mash of half-performed songs; lazy rap-slash-singing, but mostly covers and a blend of scating and toasting or boasting or whatever it's called -- basically, mos turned into a 30's jazz singer all reefer-ed out mixed with wyclef 'i want to be jamaican' jean trying to sound like he's shabba ranks or something. por ejemplo - when he performed "ms. fat booty" (in my top 10 songs of all time), he went off on the "like gregory isaacs" part, singing the sampled song for a good minute or two before the beat came back in. now... that's fine and all, i mean - i get it - but when every song is interrupted/reinterpreted/bastardized, it gets really old really quickly. and he also did this thing where he just like started singing marvin gaye songs, stevie wonder songs, etc. uhhh... seriously? "black on both sides" is a CLASSIC album - why not do some of that? i mean, besides "ms. fat booty"?! i think that might have been the only song off that joint he performed in its entirety.
now, yeah - it was a free show and all, but still... have a little pride and integrity and respect for folks who come out to see your ass perform. for someone who hustled so hard so early, it's hard not to blame mos' current lack of effort on his various side projects - the "italian job" and it's spinoff; the tv movies; the broadway shows; the chappelle's show appearances. etc. further, perhaps mos and his partner in mos def effect-related crime, talib, should just perform together or not at all. because talib is equally lazy, unfocused, and cringe-worthy live.
the symptoms only got worse at rock the bells 2007. good.effing.grief. my brother and i were with one of my homeboys, and, from the beginning, i was really iffy about watching mos. i thought it might be time for a bathroom break, but i really didn't want to lose our coveted spot in the pit area. plus, my brother doesn't go to shows nearly as much as i do, and he didn't want to miss mos, who he quite likes. and, yeah... about five (5) minutes into the set, little bro goes "i'm done with mos def. OVER HIM. we should have gotten food."
the main problem with mos differs from that of atmosphere in a critical way; whereas atmosphere reimagines his popular hip hop songs with a really mediocre backing band, mos instead chooses to perform scattered snippets of past songs and possible future songs (i believe at one show he said something like "let me just fuck around with you for a minute... do some stuff i've been working on. is that cool wit y'all?" um, NO. do your ish and let's get to some booty-shaking and fist-pumping. none of your abstract neo-soul shenanigans.) also, he did the stupid covers again. look, mos. we all like marvin gaye, bob marley, etc. etc. etc. we GET that you are influenced by the past greats. don't pay us your record collection when we paid $90 bucks to get into some place - effing perform "mr. nigga" and "brooklyn" and even "rock and roll". the ONE song he consistently KILLS (in a good way) is "umi says", but that's because that song really encourages the kind of random, rambling singing he tries to inject into every song.
because mos is the most consistent and reckless offender, i had to name the phenomenon after him. someone with so much talent and so many weapons shouldn't perform like he's a drunk homeless dude let loose in a rare/vintage record shop. have some scruples.
***
anyhow. share the mos def effect theory with your friends and family the next time you go to see one of your favorite musicians/groups and they disappoint horribly. because it WILL happen, someday when you least expect it. either the fanbase will change drastically (or really young kids will begin to latch on to them) or the artist/s will choose to use a backing band when their songs NEED a DJ, or they will cover other artists for an extended period of time, or they will wax poetic about nothing interesting and just invite average-looking girls on the stage to dance. blah.
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