Microphone Fiends NYU

[microphonefiendsnyu]

Response 8

Words move out of the mouth

And into the space we share

The manipulation of air

molecules used to 

form symbols for concepts

from input to transmit in 

complex systems

Does this change my reality?

Can your speech transform my mentality

adorn your mental dealings in

symbols and factuality

defining rational actuality

with linguistic formalities?

Explain to me the black experience

The fucking of the police

pleased people wishing 

to be treated legally

as equals under the watchful

eye of the american eagle

But try to define yourself

as something else 

beyond the hell of oppression

wrestling with connections

that ring prescient and 

bring lessons for veterans

yet never let in the new

a constant resurrection of the view

of black identity as between

"me" and "you"

splatter black on white 

it always ends up blue

words are the ingredients

of the speaker

in his hour as teacher

feeding mental eaters

with brain food and

a side of culture

neither of which 

are mutually exclusive

dishes served to 

others with different

experiences 

[microphonefiendsnyu]

Just Another Neighbor

[microphonefiendsnyu]

[microphonefiendsnyu]

Looking for collaborators - Nick Duba

So lets do this Microphone Fiends mixtape! Whoever wants to should contribute verses, beats, video skills etc. Here are some verses to start us off, no topic is off limits.

# 1

*

Yesterday the crib across from mine got raided

I wasn't even cross cuz my mind's so jaded

Speakin' with a tech ain't communicatin'

You'd never kill your family we're all related

* 

Seems like violence can't be stopped

Like the vilest crooked cops

Conscious music these days

Sounds like silence with some writer's block

Don't you dare blame this on Pac

Cream keeps rising to the top

While those below keep beefin'

Over what the trickle-downers drop

The roots of this conflict:

Socioeconomic

Colonial essay topics

And like ganja its chronic

Best grab your antibiotic

'for this infectious psychotic

Corrupts then turns you moronic

Like Scooby-Doo but despotic    

 I know a few of you have got it now but hear me

When you have power you can't see the world clearly

And when your dead broke feelin' lonesome and weary

 You don't need to kill to get    what you need dearly

Knowledge rules, and I mean that sincerely

Racists and sexists and classists should fear me

Hourly, daily, monthly, yearly

They'll pay for their crimes and I'll judge them severely

#2

So just because its poetry don't mean that its art but

Rap and spoken poetry been married from the start

Not a cautionary tale of two broken hearts, but an anniversary

 orchestrated perfectly

Ya its true that trash MCs take up all the screens you see

But ain't it up to you shuffle past their mindless mp3s?

You gotta search beneath the viral pop disease

Its time to find the diamonds in the rough with tough drivin' beats.

Clean out whackness like a broom, curate the art that you consume

Instate a state of change like Butterflies who leave their cocoons

Clear Channel needs an tomb soon, just like a festering wound

They tried to kill Hip Hop while it was still just kicks in a womb

Then they made rap a cartoon, complete with guns and buffoons

The struggle to survive has changed into the struggle for poon

They got their money and goons, but mention battle, they'll swoon

Or repeat the same ol' shit just with a different tune

Ya I'm repeating shit too, I hope Saul Williams don't sue

But who I imitate should indicate that my love is true

For One: Hip Hop

Also, Two: all of the people like you; who keep Hip Hop alive in spite of all its been through

----

Message me so we can start making music!

([email protected])

[microphonefiendsnyu]

Response 4

This is a constant climb

It passes from mother to son

Father to daughter

Life inherited

Not an heirloom

A curse

The life of hardship

Well I'll tell you

It's no escalator

This is running in place

job to job

meal to meal

one foot in front of the 

other in front of the 

other in front of the

otherwise you're off the

treadmill 

will you tread the hill?

atlas path

soldiers returning

on the backside

sun always setting

world weary as 

your mother

and others 

and sinking beneath the sea

ignores you

and your boulder

all death's are untimely

in the life unfulfilled

and you must die

[microphonefiendsnyu]

Class 7

the lock is set the key is gone

the bars are steel and strong

the mind is starved and self destructs

unaware where it belongs

Billie all the way the lady day

approached new lyrics and rhymes

took a stand said that shit cray

got political about the times

about time someone did

strange fruit hanging in the south

everyone scared to flip a lid

till it crooned out billie's mouth

ma rainey before her

bessie smith in back

heroins of honesty both

feminine and black

then years later KRS-one

the teacher on the street

implored his dudes to drop their guns

and drum a different beat

a consciousness is needed

before and still it seems

to stop the reckless bleeding

and heal a people's dreams

the soulful voice of miss badu

to chapman's inner glow

the sowers of the seedlings true

and worthy yet to sow

of solidarity in stance

of humans side by side

drop the march and join the dance

put freedom in your stride

[microphonefiendsnyu]

"If you could feel how my face felt, you would know how Ma$e felt" -- Blues to Jesus

While I read through the reading section from A.Y. Davis’ "Preaching the Blues: Spirituality & Self Consciousness," one question stuck out in my mind, and I still have not been able to shake it out of my head. Why do blues singers stop right after they devote themselves to Jesus. Davis says that Ma Rainey “spent the last years of her life as a Christian devotee, refusing to sing the blues and fervently supporting the church and its institutions” (Davis 125). Davis says refused; Rainey denied herself to do the artistic action that she’s been doing – beautifully and hauntingly, for that matter – the majority of her life. Bessie Smith and other blues singers followed suit, sticking to gospel and kicking the blues aside.

            When looking at the two institutions together – the stage and the church – they do similar thing for the audience or congregation member. Both musics speak to the soul, addressing an intangible and quizzical feeling inside that person. Blues is about underlying frustration and melancholia in life. Bessie Smith sings in Poor Man Blues: “Mister rich-man, rich-man, open up your heart and mind / Give the poor man a chance, help stop these hard, hard times /While you're livin' in your mansion you don't know what hard times means” (Smith, Poor Man’s Blues). Economic inequality is a monolith of life, an unyielding evil that will always put one person or one people in front of another. And since cash rules everything around everyone, it is a very, very big deal. Where would we be, as a people, if we couldn’t wail about financial troubles? Bessie Smith is here to beautifully wail for us.

            At the same time, gospel glorifies faith, the ability to trust in something you cannot see or smell or touch. Those who believe in a high power just believe, with no evidence for or against the existence of G-d. In the face of reason and thought, blind faith is a very, very big deal. And yet, so many people do believe. The god-fearing need someone to sing for them too.

            How can we describe the indiscernible? Through the voice of another uniting the audience. Like Annie Pavageau eloquently says, “Any kind of music make you feel good – blues or church music. It’s the sincereness of it – that’s what make you feel good…” (Davis 123). Both the blues and gospel validates, and releases that kind of goodness. I feel like both musics come out of the same feeling, a need to exalt and connect. It seems as if the binaries -- good and evil, secular and religious, corporal and divine – made a blues singer choose or the other. Though I think both are equally divine, equally worthy, and equal expressions of the human condition.

            I will now leave to listen to Lauryn Hill’s cover of Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You for the fifth time in thirty minutes.

[microphonefiendsnyu]

Convergence

I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that before this reading I was unaware of the scope and influence of women's contributions to the blues. I love the line in "Preaching the Blues" which asserts that "the blues aesthetic is an aesthetic of self consciousness, after all" (Davis 127). This self consciousness seems to be inherent within African American socio-artistic movements. Defining one's culture within a power structure that attempts to stunt all knowledge of one's self and one's potential is the first step to enacting change, and probably the hardest. Even harder still is defining oneself against gender inequalities within the very culture attempting to define itself, but that's exactly what these pioneering women did. This feminine wave of blues musicians opened a window into realms of consciousness traditionally shunned by the church and middle class circles. By asking listeners to expand their consciousness in regards to sex and love, the blues acted as a catalyst for enlightenment in other ares of thinking as well. Engaging social taboos is more than just poking fun at the established societal norms - it challenges those involved to constantly question the status quo. 

My favorite aspect of the reading was the magical implications of the music, echoing Saul Williams' idea that the "word" is a power worthy of God yet accessible to man, which Davis locates in the African tradition of Nommo "which conjures powers associated with things by ritually pronouncing their names" (Davis 128). Awareness of the arcane, magical potential within all things, especially ritual, is something that I feel has been lost within modern American (and perhaps most modern) culture(s). That is not to say that the power of ritual is gone, simply that many are unaware of it. In fact, I think that this ignorance to the power of words and repetition is an incredibly dangerous thing. Take, for example, this week's song's by Erykah Badu, Queen Latifah, and Lauryn Hill. They echo the same spirit of sexual self awareness and liberation moaned decades before by Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. 

Everytime I hear a brother call a girl a bitch or a hoe

Trying to make a sister feel low

(line from Queen Latifah's song "U.N.I.T.Y.")

Some might argue that the use of derogatory language like this towards women is part of a culture and that the intended meaning is different from the received. Yet I would argue that the power of ritual and repetition, as with the ancient tradition of Nommo, means that hearing women referred to as bitches and hoes over and over and over again on the radio and on your speakers literally transforms your consciousness. If a child is told he will never amount to anything enough, he will believe it. If a slave is told that he is a lesser being enough, he will believe it. If society is told that bitches 'aint nothing but hoes and tricks enough, that society will believe it. I have often wondered about this in regards to the word "Gay" as referring to something bad or unwanted. I have heard the argument that the speaker doesn't mean gay people with the use of the word, but invoking a term used to define an entire subculture and re-appropriating it as an insult seems a perfect example of how certain terminology is potentially capable of directing the speaker's consciousness towards ignorant, homophobic ways of thinking. 

On the other side, the power of words and ritual can be used for peaceful forces of enlightenment. This is exactly the power Afrika Bambaataa utilized in creating spaces of integration and positive energy at his shows. Bambaataa "took herc's party and turned it into a ceremony of new faith, like he knew that this was exactly how their world was supposed to look, sound and flow" (Chang 107). Bambaataa seems to have had the power to end gang violence, to bring people together in ways no one ever thought possible, all through his belief in the potential of self knowledge, the potential of the music, the "potential convergence of the aesthetic dimension with psychosocial reality" (Davis 135).

[microphonefiendsnyu]

Poem from the first day of class

This morning

my roommate left a couple 

cigarettes

on the table

And I was unable

to tell 

if they were a gift for a spliff

or whether or not he forgot his 

deadly meditation

Well, 

I'm out of weed

And I don't smoke cigarettes

But if he forgot them

I'm sure he won't mind

If I have just one

ya know?

Look

I don't smoke cigarettes 

and you can bet I don't wanna start

I don't smoke cigarettes

granted

it looks good while you're doing it

so it feels good while you're doing it

so sometimes

I do it

Ya know?

Besides, whoever said smoking

doesn't look cool?

Parents?

Here's the thing

Santa Claus

Ya know?

Plus I've been trying to write

all night and day

I mean I call my self a writer

So what do I say 

12 months into my screenplay

and my first draft seems eons away

I mean fuck

Ya know?

But let me tell you,

everything looks better with a cigarette

let me tell you

everything looks better with some 

smoke in the room

tobacco wet tip

on your lip is just

Ya know?

Without a cigarette

I'm just a guy staring at a computer screen

feeling obscenely aware of the fact that I'm

not 

doing 

shit

but

With a cigarette

I'm a serious person

working

slaving away the day

taking drag after drag

an artist in the middle of the hardest

challenge he's ever attempted

redemption

comes with a cost

in 30, 40 years

cancer

maybe

maybe

maybe just one more cigarette

Ya know?

[microphonefiendsnyu]

Content and Form

If the reaction to your rhymes is less than best

it's a process don't distress just address

the content of the rap bout squashing beef

maybe the problem lies in what it speak about

check it out the battle shit sure is hot

but how you gonna feel when you're on the spot

some dope mc speak the truth of life

you trippin talkin' glocks and then dissin' your wife

but you can't force people to get political

like you can't force jesus to walk in with ya'll 

just because a preacher preaching a sermon

there 'aint no guarantee that you'll come out learnin'

the real rapper knows that it's more than flow

cause you could spit the illest rhyme bout the glitterin' gold

but if the words don't connect with a deeper core

than you will be forgotten like Millard Fillmore

now who the fuck is that you ask of me

he was the 13th dude to hold the presidency

and that is exactly what I'm talking about 

I had to do my homework to figure that out

so when you talk about subjects old and new

you better know your shit you better ask your crew

you better check the net and check a book or two

out the library before you act a fool

that being said a structure is a blessing

undressing the argument like a sunday night fling

to see the inner workings of your labor of love

rearrange on the page like it comes from above

but all the best tested methods of oratory

don't come from the sky like a prophecy

they come from inside where you use tools and set rules

to rule out the sets that don't shed the best views

upon the subject you try to convey 

whether exposition or analogy

Faceting categories argumentatively

till you expose the meaning of the things that you say

so what's the lesson fill your work with meaning and form

and you can sip success 'stead of receiving scorn

you be the best and guess what you're on your way

to being crazy good instead of just plain cray

[microphonefiendsnyu]

First Response

Last time I was on the stage I felt afraid of this light

Last time I was on the stage I stood and sprayed

some rhymes I wrote that morning and prayed

pretty please please these people tonight 

that my words might provide a paved way

within which to cross this space and say

this is me, this is me, nice to meet you 

But you see I forgot me immediately

when these feet hit the stage

and I saw this collective black and white gaze 

coming to graze in my field of view

And I looked at me too but instead of a 

mooooo

All I got was "who the fuck are you?"

And I felt afraid

See often my gaze get's hazy

and crazy as it may be

casts itself on that which does not last

and fast flows in the insecurity and fear and doubt

no doubt the reason I freaked out 

last class

See I started thinking thoughts like "These lights are bright and frightening"

Thinking thoughts like "This room feels uninviting"

Like "These people might not like me"

Like "I'm white and the shit I'm writing

doesn't mean shit to a black poet

let alone any poet who knows what it's

like to grow up in proper hip hop conditions

one's in which one traditionally does not live the life that I've been given

See last class when you asked 

why I'm taking this class

I feared a spotlight bright enough to light me up

and puff puff pass judgement on 

a classic kid from a wealthy caste

which classifies my milky white ass

as a casual hip-hop hobbyist

unable to grasp the experiences this class has had

in the past

Cause during Katrina all my FEMA beef

was fed to me through the speakers of a beamer

and angry as I was my life went on as planned

and understanding that I felt bad

Cause every month I'm home for a home cooked meal 

dealing with problems that seem real at the time 

but really I'm fine

cause the dude on the corner who begs for a dime

makes me realize where I'm at

And I feel anxious that I'm somehow

Unworthy of that

But that anxiety doesn't last

Cause that anxiety inside of me isn't from you, the class

It's just me

You don't live the way I do and why should you?

We all live a life that's true

and we all just do what we gotta do

and duly noted it's truly true that

this bloated glass heart of mine is full of 

do's and don'ts and

do I need to prove that I'm part of this crew?

And don't nobody care bout the shit that I do

and

Am I worth It?

Is my life worth sharing?

Shit

This is poetry

this aint for industry

gatekeepers who keep keys on speakers

bumping beats bout the club 

that don't speak to me

cause they hot

This is poetry

this isn't supposed to be a flow

to show undoubtably 

how I'm a G straight from the street

Cause I'm not

This poetry's simply so you can know me

and see that what I am extends beyond 

the bounds of articulatable sound

But as Saul said

we are beings of sound

and found in that statement

is some spiritual ground I found in the basement

To stand on and sound off 

and face it 

I am who I am

So I'm using my power of sound now

to gaze out at this chill crowd 

and kowtow to this pow wow

which is about what now?

Perhaps bridging the gap

between meaning and rap now

between being a cat that scats crap

for billboard tracks

and the rat flat under the rumbling tracks

unjlating eternal base slaps

laced with graceful beauty and beautiful grace

in case someone listening cares to face potentially

the faceless eternity we all return to eventually

and that shit's just as me 

as where I'm from or who you see

And in this light I'm free to be 

me, and this is me, and nice to meet you

[microphonefiendsnyu]

just a quick few thoughts. i think the conversation we had about should and the balance of flow and content is something that every artist should ask themselves regardless of medium. if you have no flow then you haven't been practicing your craft. If you have no content, then you have no why behind your words which is way harder to obtain. write everyday, and maybe (even if for the sake of getting better) reflect on your why before you put pad to pen and that should kill two birds with one stone :D

[microphonefiendsnyu]

Visit Original Link

same here

[microphonefiendsnyu]

Visit Original Link

just an instrumental

[microphonefiendsnyu]

Preacher Man

I don’t know much about Christian sermons, but I think they’re quite a lot like Jewish ones. Old men making bad jokes, explaining text from an enlightening new angle, making more bad jokes, and rounding about to how we can be better people if we do good things. We, as the congregation, listen, because that’s what we came to do on this Saturday or Sunday morning; we want to be enraptured by the Word of the Notorious Gee Oh Dee, and feel better about what we’re doing when we leave. 

As I read through the chapter of W.E. Sangster’s The Craft of the Sermon, I was struck by his explanation of what a sermon of a single text should get across. “Here is the aim: to explain in the simplest words what the text means…. He will know how precious is an intimate knowledge of the English Bible, and he will compare passage with passage, and so study the context of his select word that when his sermon is over he can honest feel that…he has made is people understand the truth of that text” (Sangster 60). At first, I saw this as a major difference between the Christian and Jewish sermon. Many Christian services are no longer carried out in Latin, but are now conducted in English. However, in Judaism, rabbis and cantors still must have a strong command of Hebrew, as services and texts are still conducted in the ancient language. The rabbi conducting the sermon must then translate the texts of the Torah himself, or with the help of a different translation.

After rolling Sangster’s thoughts around in my head, I remembered that the New Testament has over four hundred different translations in modern English, and each one varies drastically with their languages. The King James, lush with adjectives and adverbs, is much different than the straight-forward New International Version. The preacher must still explain “what the text means” through someone else’s translation into English. It is the still the responsibility of the leader of the congregation to lead, to teach us something we have not known before. The linguistic barrier comes not only from translation, but understanding and explaining the allegorical and moral natures of these religious texts.

I can see how that appeals to the rapper who wants to say something, to explain what society means in as simple way as possible. MC and poets are secular preachers, wielding their lingual gift to entertain, yes, but also to each. KRS-One knows he’s a teacher – as he spits in My Philosophy, “Yo, 'cause I'm a teacher, the Scott is a scholar” – he’s ready to teach us something, drop knowledge upon us to be good and be good to each other. This is the mindset KRS-One comes in with for “You Must Learn.” He is the preacher, laying down the entire story of colonization and African pride in the final verse. Just as powerfully, Kanye West reappropriates the sermon, plucking Jesus out of the church and putting him in the booth with Jesus Walks. Though he might just be making a point about the secular country he lives in: “They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus / That means guns, sex, lies, video tapes / But if I talk about God my record won't get played Huh?” (West, Jesus Walks). Still, he’s leveraging the power of the sermon for the strength of his song. 

[microphonefiendsnyu]

Sleep-Rhyming and Hallelujah!

(this is where we post reflections, right?)

Mackenzie Taylor

Class 5

I really enjoyed hearing verbatim from MCs about how they write. I am always interested in other musicians'/artists' creative process. Not so I can copy them or because I think there is a “correct” way to write or even that there are certain “better” ways to write, but because I think the exchange of ideas on the writing process helps one to come to more informed conclusions on how they personally write their best. Everyone goes about writing very differently and a good result isn't necessarily correlated with a certain kind of writing process. I saw a lot of my own writing process in some of the MCs that were interviewed and even got ideas for what methods could work for me/how I could improve the methods I already have. For instance, Crooked I (on page 147) talks about how sometimes he writes rhymes in his sleep, so he has a tape recorder ready by his bed to record them in the middle of the night. Something Cormega said really hit home – the frustrating and disappointing experience of thinking of a rhyme, going to sleep and telling yourself you'll write it down in the morning... only to have completely forgotten it by the time you wake up. I often write rhymes in my sleep or as I'm starting to fall asleep, so I'm usually too lazy or hazy too wake up enough to write them down. I think that if I had a tape recorder readily accessible, it would make it so much more convenient for me to “write” down the rhymes I come up with in this setting. Also, sometimes I come up with rhymes when I'm actually dead asleep – I'll write an entire song, verse and chorus and whatnot, and sometimes even write the full instrumentation, and it will sound so dope, and these dreams are usually very very vivid when I am having them. But I won't realize I'm asleep, so I'll furiously write it down in the dream... and when I wake up it'll take me a minute to realize that the pen and paper I had in the dream weren't the pen and paper I have in real life. So with that, I really wonder if it's possible to ever remember the songs I write in my dreams. Maybe if I learn how to lucid dream I could. I don't know.

When I was reading the text “Sermons Classified According to Structural Type,” I read it while replacing each instance of the word 'sermon' with the word 'rap' so I could more easily relate it how I could apply this knowledge to my own writing of rhymes. “The strength of a sermon is so often in its structure:” I think this is an important point, and also relates to something said back in the text about writing. An MC in the content text said that often MCs are good at one thing – either flow or content – and it's a really good MC who can master both. I'm definitely on the content end of the spectrum – I have more of a skill with writing and the actual words, but when it comes to spitting them, I keep finding that my flow is repetitive or sounds stilted (and I'm really trying to work on that). So even though I have the words of my “sermon,” it's structure is lacking. And it's the structure that ties the whole thing together.

I like thinking about rapping and spoken word in the context of sermons. It makes me think of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He was an incredible speaker and I would almost constitute his speeches as spoken word for the artistic way his words flowed. His pauses, emphasis on certain words, changes in volume, etc. really grab the listeners attention and gives them goosebumps. Thinking of sermons brings to mind my experiences sitting in church as a child (only black churches really, because I never got the same kind of experience out of white churches) and the call and response and the “amen!”s and the dramatic pauses in the sermons. Everyone was caught on every word of the sermon because it was just that beautifully articulated. Much of what I saw sitting in these churches really bares a lot of resemblance to some aspects of hip-hop and spoken word. P.S., check out this dope music event coming up this saturday night and the promo vid (if you want to see me reading a book in a library while a friend dances next to me, twerking on the wash sq arch, etc) : (I am the master of ceremonies and founder, and fellow classmate Zach is performing under Kitty Mane) ch-ch-ch-check check it outtttt- http://youtu.be/htnlsEKrs_g https://www.facebook.com/events/451469091551587/

[microphonefiendsnyu]

The Content of Poetry: Storytelling

When budding teenage poets walk into Urban Word in midtown New York City, there’s a sprawling graffiti mural plastered on the far wall, right next to a big table and writing supplies. In purples and greens, stylized in wild style handwriting, there’s an acronym: G.I.T.S. It stands for Get It To the Story. Before the poetry ability gels, before gaining a writing routine, before putting a single pen to page, there is teens need to embody their story. That is their responsibility to the art form and to themselves.

I believe in the healing power of writing. The ability for a person to articulate and express his or her inner truths is a necessary catharsis for human beings. As we see our words composed in front of us, we can validate ourselves and accept ourselves as beings with a past, a present, and a future. This week’s readings reflects the storytelling in hip hop and spoken word, the catharsis for the artist that goes along with telling their story. Poets can use different structures, metaphorical conceits, or other poetic devices to tell that story, but is still an expression of the person’s life and struggle. Mariahadessa Tallie shared the story about her sexual assault straight up, a brave attempt to render a trauma in its barest form. In order to properly understand his mother’s struggle, Langston Hughes puts himself in his mother’s voicebox. At the same time, he interprets her life as climbing up and down stairs, a tangible object to ground his intangible feelings for her. And although Shane Koyczan seems to totally remove himself in his poem about Beethovan’s life, the underlying ideas circulate back to problems he may have as an artist, or had with an overbearing father.

At the same time, the poet or MC’s personal catharsis will resonate with the audience. They want the artist to be real, and to keep it real, as hip-hop becomes that confessional and the connection. In How to Rap: Guerilla Black revered 2Pac’s real-life bars and rhymes: “2spoke about the common struggle every day in his rhymes – he was never above the average street dude. He always made you feel like he was on the corner with you smoking that last dime bag of weed… how are we gonna survive, and will we die tonight… with 2 Pac, you feel like grabbing a pistol and going against the government” (13). Big Daddy Kane corroborates that when its like a problem that you’ve experienced, “You felt it and it touched you that way – it hits your heart” (7) The listener, reader, or audience member resonates with the reality. You have been brave enough to share yourself with us, and be spit fire while doing it. Love begets love, truth begets truth.