Known to carry big things, if you know what I mean
I’m having a Destiny’s Child-related attack of Critical Gender Theory Syndrome.
Can someone tell me how they went from this: Question: Tell me how you feel about this Try to control me boy you get dismissed Pay my own fun, oh and I pay my own bills Always 50/50 in relationships
And this: All the women who are independent Throw your hands up at me All the honeys who makin' money Throw your hands up at me All the mommas who profit dollas Throw your hands up at me All the ladies who truly feel me Throw your hands up at me
To this: If his status ain't hood I ain't checkin' for him Betta be street if he lookin' at me I need a soldier That ain't scared to stand up for me Known to carry big things If you know what I mean If his status ain't hood I ain't checkin' for him Betta be street if he looking at me I need a soldier They ain't scared to stand up for me Gotta know to get dough And he betta be street
In under five years? Is Beyonce’s dad behind this? More importantly, can Jay-Z, with his pair-a-day S Dot habit and $6.5 million TriBeCa apartment () possibly still be thought of as “street”? I’ve had a steep learning curve as far as expecting and/or desiring sociopolitical consciousness from commercial hip-hop goes. On the one hand, I’m learning to appreciate the theatrical aspect of someone like Biggie’s or Jay’s gangster braggadocio, and the way their lyrical talents work to simultaneously celebrate and critique the lifestyles they describe, including its misogynistic tendencies (cf “Girls, Girls, Girls”). On the other, I still find that I appreciate hip-hop most when its lyrical content values women and doesn’t suicidally affirm a culture of criminality. So to see Destiny’s Child, who are obvs the Supremes of the aughties, devolve from grrl-power funk into male-dependent shrinking violets, is pretty upsetting. The whole appeal of Beyonce and her women, circa mid 2001, was that they didn’t need someone to “stand up for” them. There’s some real cognitive dissonance going on here. I’m wondering if the shift in politics from “try to control me boy you get dismissed” to a “Known to carry big things/If you know what I mean” has something to do with September 11, which happened right after “Independent Women Part 2” hit it big. From the perspective of DC (in both senses, I guess), does the war on terrorism necessitate a reevaluation of the power politics of male-female relationships? To be honest, given the feminist fierceness of their output to date, I’d have expected the chorus to be more “I am a soldier” than “I need a soldier.”
Two additional thoughts: 1.Imagine what a boon “Soldier” has been to military recruiters in the inner-city. It’s almost like Donald Rumsfeld ghostwrote the lyrics. 2.“Behind the Music: Lil’ Wayne” will assuredly feature a long segment about his crack problem. Dude has had a hard life.
About a month ago, in the midst of one of my periodic fits of theoretical self-improvement via consumption, I bought a clock radio. I took it home, plugged it in, set the time and began to search for a radio station that I could wake up to without reflexively smashing the device against the wall upon being roused from slumber. I'm still looking. Since you, dear reader, are most likely an NYU student, it's highly unlikely that you have ever attempted to navigate the barren wasteland of the New York City radio dial. You haven't had occasion to. After all, in the technologically bloated body that constitutes today's college lifestyle, the radio is the appendix: purposeless, vestigial and prone to septic infection. In dorms full of stereos, iPods and computers with high-speed internet connections - in a world where piracy of music remains ubiquitous and commercial-free, listener-funded, eclectically programmed radio stations like Seattle's KEXP and Ohio's WOXY stream live through every iTunes account - I'm convinced that the only times NYU students find themselves listening to the radio are when they are in delis and cabs, and when their sadistic roommates wake up. On my more paranoid days, this conviction lends itself to the belief that the very strong correlation between radio listenership and the earning of subsistence-level wages is indicative of a causal relationship - that radio in NYC, in all its mindless, soul-numbingly repetitive ingloriousness, operates as an especially insidious form of class warfare. Does it seem altogether inconceivable that the fine folks at Clear Channel might be in league with their good buddies and campaign beneficiaries in the White House and on Capitol Hill to gradually endumben the minimum wage masses by bludgeoning their brains with Ricky Martin and Maroon 5 on an hourly basis? Yes, I just said "endumben." New York's only white music station is stupidizing me. Economists and political scientists use the term "the tragedy of the commons" to describe the abuse and neglect of common resources, notably environmental ones, due to the insufficient energy and attention devoted to their maintenance by the collected public. Since broadcast entities are increasingly owned by huge, lumbering media conglomerates, the airwaves cannot be thought of as entirely public, and the stench rising from radio's steady march toward a nationalized, homogenized, 10-track-playlist lowest-common-denominator has gotten so heavy that normal radio can hardly be thought of as a resource. But just as pollution of aquifers and fears about the safety of tap water created a market for Evian, the degradation of our airwaves has pushed many members of our society into luxury brackets of popular music consumption; the iPod and satellite radio are just the most prominent examples. Something about our culture's failure to sustain publicly-available institutions for the promulgation of the kind of pop music that hints at the richness of its heritage, coupled with the fact that the closest thing that America has to John Peel is Carson Daly, makes me queasy. It's another example of the fact that the media market, as sustained by current advertising models, is incapable of sustaining innovative or challenging programming. In the future, it seems, all the best television and radio will be available only on a subscription basis, and the plebes who lack the coin for HBO and Sirius will have to settle for equal doses of idiocy and monotony. Since the country seems anxious to slip back into a feudal state of peasantry and aristocracy (Hi Paris!) this is perhaps only appropriate. When social justice on the level of the dinner table is a far-off wish, it seems frivolous to carp about social justice on the level of access to culture, but the two seem critically interrelated. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to pick up the pieces of my radio.
