Somebody asked me why I quit reading Amazing Spider-Man last week. I thought about doing a post detailing what I liked and didn’t like, but who cares? Why spend time on something that isn’t working for me? Instead, there is this, which, if you look at it sideways, maybe kinda relates.

My love of rap is directly related to my love of stories, but I’ll come back around to that.

I’ve been reading since I was a kid. I partially learned how to read by looking for my name in the credits of movies, which I would invariably watch all the way to the end. Comic books provided another useful resource, as the dialogue tended to be very simplistic and childish while the word choices were bombastic.

In other words, it wasn’t hard to understand the sentences, but you’d still have to look things up, particularly when you’re too young to figure out context. I remember Claremont/Lee-era X-Men being a treasure trove of new words. I know for a fact I learned “vernacular,” “deadpan,” and “kinetic” from those books. Poring over a stack of well-read comics, some freshly traded from friends, and having to ask someone how to say “Adirondacks” (where X-Force lived) is one of those things that sticks out in my memory.

Years later, I got a library card and was old enough to go there on my own. You could check out, what, five or eight books? Something like that. Enough to pack a backpack with. I’d burn through them and come back the next weekend for a reload. This would’ve been around 1995 or 1996.

In that same stretch of time, I started actually listening to rap. I knew the popular songs, and I knew that Method Man was kinda cool, and I really liked Tupac, OutKast, and Goodie MOb, but I didn’t really hear what they were saying. I couldn’t tell you anything about it, other than that it sounded cool. It was just something that came on the radio. And my mom controlled the radio, so that meant it was gonna be all R&B, all the time.

(Half a memory: Jay-Z’s “Ain’t No Nigga” dropped in 96, and it ran around my school like a brushfire. Tons of pretty little brown girls singing, “Ain’t no nigga like the one I got!” while the boys grunted, “No one can uh you bet-ter!” We couldn’t curse in school, you see.)

Jay-Z’s “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” hit in 1998 like an atom bomb. It decimated the airwaves, and my memory may be faulty, but I think the only song that I remember even touching it was OutKast’s “Rosa Parks.” “Hard Knock Life” was huge, and as a result, I heard the song at least a dozen times a week. That bassline is still absurd.

Eventually I started paying attention to the lyrics, and suddenly rap started looking a lot more attractive. There were stories here, people playing roles and creating their own myths. On top of that, there was wordplay, the sort of wordplay you simply didn’t see in R&B or movies. The meaning of words changed based on inflection, position in the bar, or even just because. Flow mattered, and one thing Jay has in spades is flow.

I had an after school job at this point, and one of the guys I worked with was this white dude who was super into underground hip-hop. He introduced me to a site called UGHH, which was full of indie acts and Real Media files at the time. That’s where I discovered Bad Meets Evil, bka Eminem & Royce da 5’9″, and a gang of other groups. At this point, the floodgates were opened wide and I was lost forever. Company Flow, Big L (who I discovered overseas when Rawkus released The Big Picture), Big Pun, Ras Kass, Kane, G Rap, Chino XL–whoever it was, as long as they could spit, I was there.

The kind of rap I’m still the most attracted to is built around the lyrics. Clever turns of phrase, complex wordplay, tongue twisters, double entendres, or even just kicking phrases with three or four meanings are what gets my motor going. Language is immensely powerful, and rap is all about bending language to your will. What you are talking about isn’t half as important as how you say it and the words you choose to express it. A simple chase scene (“The cops came, so I ran”) can become something that puts you right into the scene, and a sad love song (which would be rendered with earnest literalism in R&B, most likely) can turn into a sad first-person story.

Flow is crucial. Evidence once said that “emcees without a voice should write a book.” Any idiot can tell stories. Some idiots even make major cash and fame doing it, and good on them for being able to parlay mediocrity into a living wage. The people who matter–and I’m not just talking about rap here–the ones that stick out in your memory, are the ones that do something different or new. Pick your poison–Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Grant Morrison, Kurosawa, William Gibson, James Ellroy, Scorcese, Michael Mann, Quentin Tarantino. All of these guys either do something new or synthesize something old into something that’s almost entirely new. All of these guys have a voice.

Consider Big Pun dropping this bit of brilliance into an otherwise normal verse: “Dead in the middle of Little Italy, little did we know that we riddled some middleman who didn’t do diddily.”

Or Biggie Smalls going rapid-fire: “Motherfucker better duck quick, cause/ me and my dogs love to buck shit/ Fuck the luck shit, strictly aim/ No aspirations to quit the game/ Spit yo’ game, talk yo’ shit/ Grab yo’ gat, call yo’ click/ Squeeze yo’ clip, hit the right one/ Pass that weed, I got to light one/ All them niggas, I got to fight one/ All them hoes, I got to like one/ Our situation is a tight one/ Whatcha gonna do, fight or run?/ Seems to me that you’ll take B/ Bone and Big, nigga, die slowly/ I’ma tell you like a nigga told me/ Cash Rule Everything Around Me/ Shit, lyrically, niggas can’t see me.”

Or Bun B murdering Jay-Z on “Big Pimpin'” to the point where Jay had to step his game up on the video version: Now, these motherfuckers know we carry mo’ heat than a little bit/ We don’t pull it out over little shit/ And if you catch a lick when I spit, then it won’t be a little hit/ Go read a book you illiterate son of a bitch and step up yo’ vocab/ Don’t be surprised if yo’ hoe step out with me/ and you see us comin down on yo’ slab/ Livin ghetto fab-ulous, so mad, you just can’t take it/ But nigga if you hate now/ then you wait while I get yo’ bitch butt-naked, just break it”

Or Eminem on “Kill You,” after he made his first mil: “It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder/ Why I keep on duckin’ under the bed when I hear thunder/ ’cause I ain’t crazy, I say shit that’s crazy to crazy people/ To make ’em believe I’m crazy so they can relate to me/ And maybe believe in Shady, so they can be evil baby/ I like that!/ I’m only as crazy as people made me”

Or Fabolous mixing the Superman mythos with a stutter-step flow on Lil Mo’s “Superwoman”: “Be whipped? I might/ ’cause usually with my chips I’m tight/ But the only green I keep from you is kryptonite/ The way that blue and red suit fits your hips so right/ I be like duh-duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-duh-duh-duh DAMN”

Or any of the times when Ghostface has built an impressively visceral mood and setting using nothing but free association rhymes, new slang, and nonsense (“Hold up, we at the opera/ Queen Elizabeth rub on my leg/ Had ketchup on her dress from a Whopper/ Chunky ass necklace/ Must be her birthstone”), or when Luda has turned simple nursery rhyme-level lyrics into something that gets you heated just off charisma, or when Black Thought’s impressive technical skill knocks your socks off when you stop to think about his effortless rhymes. Young Jeezy isn’t lyrical, but he’s clever enough that I keep coming back for more. He’s like a supernova of charisma and black superhero music.

This sort of thing is why I listen to rap. It’s why I read books, it’s why I consume comics, and watch movies. It’s probably even why I made a conscious decision to become a writer. The stories and wordplay are what works for me, and if I can’t chew on something for a while, or if it’s just emulating something old, or if it’s just going through the motions, or if it’s just the same old, same old, it’s worthless.

and yeah, ain’t nobody as true as us
-Comic books? Did you know that they let people other than Grant Morrison write Damian Wayne? Whose bright idea was that?

-What have we learned?

-Kanye’s record leaked a week ahead of schedule. As expected, it’s good. I’m not sure how good just yet–I’ve only listened a few times–but good enough that I listened to it a few times in a row.

-It opens with Nicki Minaj, which is whatever, but the production and rhymes are solid.

-He does a lot of really interesting stuff musically this time around. He’s much more willing to let tracks breathe, or go on long past their running time, which is something I enjoy. There’s a breakdown on “Devil In A New Dress” before Rick Ross’s verse that’s tremendous, the 9 minute version of “Runaway” is heat, and there’s one track in particular that feels kind of like 808s & Heartbreak in miniature. I can’t wait for the official release, as long as I can get the cover art with the dude with the sword in his head and not that ugly painting.

-It’s been a good year for music, hasn’t it?

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you ain’t gotta like me
created: I’ve got something big cooking that will hopefully land with both feet right in the small of someone’s back, but in the meantime, I put some words on comic book covers (protip: they’re there for a reason) and Thor comics (protip: don’t read all of them, or even most of them). Soon, though, I think I’ll have something you’ll love/hate.

consumed: I watched George Clooney in The American the other night. It was pretty good. It was kind of the anti-Bourne, and not really how the trailers made it out to be. It was a very quiet movie, though it opens on an effective bit of violence, which had the effect of making almost every scene very tense. You’re waiting for the explosion. It’s like Unforgiven, but instead of fighting against type like Eastwood did then, Clooney is stuck in a movie you expect to go one way but insists on going another. It indulges in cliché a few times, but it doesn’t really hurt the movie. I liked it, I’ll probably watch it again.

I’m in the middle of a reread of Grant Morrison’s run on Batman & Robin. I picked up Batman Reborn and Batman vs. Robin the other day in prep for an upcoming post. It’s wildly uneven, with Philip Tan not even doing the bare minimum in terms of storytelling or quality being the nadir and Cameron Stewart’s arc being the height. I’m massively frustrated by Morrison lately, and by the fact that what should have been a good story has been marred by crap art. I’m gonna try to work that out on the page, though, so stay tuned.

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i like me enough for the two of us
David: Amazing Spider-Man 648
Esther: Batgirl 15, Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne 6, Birds of Prey 6, Knight & Squire 2, maybe Red Robin 17
Gavin: Batman Return Of Bruce Wayne 6, Booster Gold 38, Justice League Generation Lost 13, Knight & Squire 2, Welcome To Tranquility One Foot Grave 5, Avengers Prime 4, Chaos War Thor 1, Incredible Hulks 616, New Avengers 6, Ultimate Comics Thor 2

I’ve been pretty well obsessed with the Gorillaz lately.

I rediscovered them earlier this year when “Stylo” leaked, and I thought it was pretty okay. Later, after buying Plastic Beach late, I got into the habit of listening to all three of their proper albums every couple of weeks. I’ve been through the wikipedia pages explaining the meta-story, watched the videos on Youtube, and spent a lot of time thinking about the band.

It all comes down to fiction, I think. Telling stories and how you tell them. Each album is accompanied by a series of videos, background pieces, and text explaining its story. Each album, then, represents, or is part of, a story. The characters begin in one place and end up in another, for good or for ill, and each album evokes a specific mood or style. The narrative isn’t always clear just by listening to the album, the way the narrative in a comic isn’t crystal clear if you just have the art, but when you add in the other media, the picture becomes more filled in.

It’s modular storytelling, isn’t it? You can enjoy the Gorillaz on their own, just listening to the music and buying the albums every few years, and stop there. That’s how I did it until earlier this year. Gorillaz hit while I was in high school and got a lot of spins. I liked the joint with Del on it, even though I wasn’t even really a Del fan, because there was rapping. Demon Days was college, and I think I gave it short shrift at the time. I forget what song I bumped on that one… these days, it’s “Feel Good, Inc.” I feel like I dug “Dare,” but I can’t call it. Regardless, I love it now. But that’s how you consume music, isn’t it? I listened, I liked the tracks I liked, and I kept it moving on to the next one.

You can also begin absorbing the other media info–the DVDs, music videos, website info, and so on. They fill in the picture around the album, expanding upon the mood and vague hints found on the albums. Why does Demon Days sound so dark? What is a “Plastic Beach?” If you wanted just the story, not the music, you could use Wikipedia, Youtube, and fan sites to get the job done. I think the music is an integral part of the narrative, personally, but whatever floats your boat.

Together, all the parts make one whole. You don’t need all of it to get the job done. Each individual piece has merit on its own, whether it’s as marketing or art. But together, you have something really interesting. You have a genuine narrative. It’s told in a fractured way, but you can track forward motion.

The Gorillaz themselves are fictional, the product of Damon Albarn, Jamie Hewlett, and whichever musicians they’re working with at the time. In the world of the Gorillaz, those musicians are used as in-story personalities. Del the Funkee Homosapien is turned into one of the spirits inside Russel’s head. De La Soul are malevolent forces in “Feel Good, Inc.” Shaun Ryder is a giant severed head turned music box.

Even their live band features other, standalone musicians operating under the umbrella of Gorillaz. Everything is subordinate to the story. Sure, we know that Albarn or members of The Clash are there, but while they’re on stage, they’re Gorillaz, which suggests a certain style or sound.

Look at the group, too. A young Japanese girl (20 years old this year). A black guy from the US. Two Brits. They don’t exist. They’re fake. And yet, they have detailed histories on Wikipedia. You can point out what they were doing on specific dates. They aren’t real, and yet, they are. Just like Batman.

This kind of thing is really interesting to me. I think most of what I’ve written about on 4l! is all about fiction and narrative. You can even look at the race stuff as pointing out things where storytelling got it right or wrong. It’s all about the telling of stories.

Everything is. That’s why I read comics, play games, watch movies, listen to music, and everything else. The rappers I like, the ones I come back to, paint pictures with their words. Sometimes it’s an entire story in one song, sometimes it’s evocative of a certain mood or emotion, or something it’s just a song about how they’re the best ever. It’s all creating something new, whether from the ashes of something old or entirely from scratch. Create and innovate.

I like the multimedia approach of Gorillaz a lot. It’s 2010, and I have more information available to me after a five second Google search than probably every person combined two hundred years ago. Coincidentally, my attention span is exponentially shorter than what people were working with two hundred years ago. I need a lot of information in varied formats and styles and I need it two weeks ago. The Gorillaz fulfills that need in some way by giving me a lot to absorb, and most importantly, whenever I want to absorb it.

Honestly, though, I’d kill for a Gorillaz comic. I need more Jamie Hewlett in my life.

(There’s this strange connection in my head between the Gorillaz and Jet Set Radio Future, the classic Xbox joint. I’m not sure if it’s because they share Miho Hatori [and maybe Dan the Automator?] or if they both were working in a similar flat kind of art style around the same time or what. They’re both fairly global in scope, too. JSRF and the Gorillaz have a multi-ethnic that synthesizes myriad and sometimes obscure influences to create something fresh.)

Quick hits!

–Shadow of the DAMNED trailer is heat rocks. Suda51 is dope, Shinji Mikami is pretty straight, and Akira Yamaoka is cool, so I’m basically on-board day one, and I don’t even really care about video games any more.

Video Games | Shadows of the Damned | TGS 10: Debut Trailer HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

-Did anybody else look at that Shadowland: Blood on the Streets book the other week? I flipped through it, got to like page four and was like “nope.” Why?

Yeah, naw, I’m good man. You go on and take that somewhere else.

–Shadowland: Daughters of the Dragon is similarly wack. Look at the soft batch of an action scene in this preview. Everything about it is a turn-off–the way they just hop off the motorcycles, the stiff art, the absurd fight in a truck that is also a shapechanging warehouse, whatever whatever. Gross.

-I’ve been paying more and more attention to fight choreo in comics. It’s such a basic thing, and I’m growing increasingly certain that getting it wrong is absolutely ridiculous. It’s one-two-three-four–first this, then this, then this, and then this. A lot of superhero artists tend to do it the other way, pinup-pinup-pose-pinup, instead, and it looks like crap every time. It’s sequential art, right? Then it follows that the images we see should be in sequence, rather than a loose collection of images where people are maybe kinda sorta fighting/dancing. This is like drawing cross-eyed people or one leg noticeably longer than the other. C’mon, son. Do better.

-That new John Legend & The Roots? Wake Up!? It’s a cover album and it’s fantastic. That eleven minute version of “I Can’t Write Left Handed”, one of my favorite Vietnam songs, goes hard. Legend divas it up some, but I’m digging it. It’s basically a tribute to the ’70s, and Legend does really well.

-Grant Morrison wrote the superhero comic Bible when he wrote Flex Mentallo. I can’t even imagine why someone wouldn’t like it or what it says about cape comics and superheroes themselves.

-My launch PS2 still works and Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 is still basically the illest game on the system. I’m playing it again after a break of a year and some change. I’m in Rise’s striptease dungeon, but I think that Kanji’s gay bath house takes the prize for greatest stage of all time.

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Stuff I Read, Stuff You Should Buy
-I got a big box of books from Vertical, and I’ve made it through 7 Billion Needles (review coming here soon), and Chi’s Sweet Home 1, 2, and 3. I’m currently reading The Crimson Labyrinth and I finished Parasite Eve late last week. They’re all good to great, which is astounding. I know I read a lot of Viz, and for good reason, but Vertical, Inc is pumping out some great stuff while nobody’s looking. Parasite Eve was deeply weird and I never thought I’d say this, but I definitely read a scene where mitochondria masturbated.

–Empowered 6, huh? How good was that book? Sistah Spooky is killing me over here.

-Guess what’s on sale? Scott Pilgrim is on sale! The entire series! For fire sale prices! Links: Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World (v. 2), Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness (v. 3), Scott Pilgrim, Vol 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Scott Pilgrim Volume 5: Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe, Scott Pilgrim Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour

-Comics Alliance: we beat up on a crappy interview from The Atlantic, I review Empowered, Wildstorm is dead, and here’s some Marvel comics you should read.

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I read your comic, now I break weed up on it
“The Immortal” David Brothers, brother!: This week, there’s nathan, but penetra-er, I’ve got no comics this week, but I might buy Matt Fraction and Pasqual Ferry’s Thor because John Workman lettered it.
Miss Esthlizabeth: I tried to find a title that Esther’d never read, like maybe Prison Pit or Preacher, but eh… effort.
“Macho Man” Gavin Jasper: Green Lantern Corps, Justice League Generation Lost, Avengers Academy 04, Avengers 05, Deadpool Team-Up 889, Hit-Monkey 03, Hulk 25, Secret Avengers 05, Darkwing Duck 04

Anything worth reading this week?

Stuff What I Wrote: SLG needs legal help, Deathlok demolishes, and BPRD brings Hell to Earth.

Music What I Bought:
Curren$y – Pilot Talk: I like Spitta, but dude seriously needs to start switching up his flow and subject matter some. I like weed, slow flows, and other people’s (pause) as much as the next dude, but an album full of it was unexpectedly draining. Curren$y varies from into it to lethargic from song to song, and sometimes the production vastly outshines him. This one isn’t bad, but I’m not sure if I’ll still be spinning it in a couple weeks. I think what it is is that I don’t like it as much as How Fly, his mixtape with Wiz Khalifa. Still, the production is dope, the guest spots are ill… this album is straight. Video: King Kong.

Kassin+2 – Futurismo: I’m fully unqualified to actually discuss this album in terms of technique or artistic merit, but The +2s are dope and make this kind of really funky, relaxed, hype, dance music. That doesn’t make any sense, but listen to “Ponto Final” and a few other cuts. You can sit around reading to this stuff, or shake it like a salt shaker. Kassin+2 also did the music for Michiko e Hatchin, one of the dopest shows out that has yet to actually get licensed for release.

Gorillaz – Plastic Beach: I bought this one on Graeme‘s recommendation and was left pretty pleased. I liked the Gorillaz in high school (though apparently the song goes “I ain’t happy,” not “Iiii’m happy”) and this kicked off this whole thing where I’m spending all of my time listening to the Gorillaz and figuring out what I like about it. Right now, it’s “I like the range and versatility.” Later, it may be something else. I’ll tell you what, though. I’m really interested in theatricality and gimmicks and narrative, and Gorillaz are all of that rolled up into one. Video: Stylo (with Mos Def and Bobby Womack [!!!!])

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack): Do you know how often I buy movie or tv show soundtracks? Almost never, that’s how often. I liked the music in the movie enough to grab the soundtrack, though, and I left pretty dang pleased. I hadn’t heard Metric before, but I like the way that sounds. The in-movie stuff, the Sex Bob-omb songs? Those sound great, too. “Garbage Truck” is fantastic. I could do without the chiptunes song, tho. Bleah. Black Sheep (featurette)

Stuff What I Been Reading: Shade (finally started book 3 after a few false starts), other stuff

Stuff What We Gonna Buy:
David Days: Amazing Spider-Man 640, Atlas 4, Hellblazer 270, King City 11, New Mutants 16, Thunderbolts 147
Esther Planet We Reach is Dead: Tiny Titans 31, Streets of Gotham 15, Power Girl 15
Don’t Gavin Lost In Heaven: Authority The Lost Year 12, Azrael 11, Green Lantern Corps 51, Age Of Heroes 4, Atlas 4, Avengers Academy 3, Avengers And The Infinity Gauntlet 1, Deadpool Corps 5, Deadpool 26, Marvel Universe vs The Punisher 2, New Avengers 3, Secret Avengers 4, Shadowland Power Man 1, Thunderbolts 147, Darkwing Duck The Duck Knight Returns 3

Stuff What Is A Drag:
This OMIT story in Amazing Spidey. Extremely pretty, but extremely who cares. Should’ve just kept on going with the status quo instead of explaining something boring.

Half of the greatest rap group of all time drops his solo record today. I copped the deluxe edition, personally.

The intro track to Big Boi’s Sir Lucious Leftfoot is called “Feel Me (Intro)” and was produced by Malay. It sounds like Sleepy Brown singing, with a Roger Troutman accompaniment, but I might be wrong. It’s Antwan Patton’s resume. 15 years off in this game, still ain’t changed, feel me. It’s a command, not a request. This song is funky, with an Ennio Morricone whistle and laid back sound setting the stage for the album. There are no vocals from Big Boi until the very end, after the music drops out. “Damn,” he says. “And that wasn’t nothing but the intro!” Cocky or confident? Who cares, he’s right.

I’ve been looking forward to it forever, personally. OutKast always got broken up into the pimp and the poet, but that was never quite right. Big Boi was just as weird as Andre, but weird in a different way. SIr Lucious Leftfoot, as an album, is proof of that. He finally gets around to rhyming orange in a song, something I’ve been telling people he’d do since I was in high school. He flows over a variety of beats that have one thing in common: they all knock.

There’s a gang of guest appearances, but his album never feels crowded. George Clinton makes his second appearance on a Kast track, Yelawolf and Bobby Ray represent for the New New South, Andre 3000 produces one song (and would have had a spot on the album if Jive wasn’t run by idiots), Gucci Mane delivers a verse that doesn’t suck, and Big Rube makes a triumphant return to wax. Too $hort comes through for a guest appearance, and apparently he listened when GZA told rapper’s to make it half short and twice strong. His four bars are his whole style in miniature and still being dope.

You can easily draw a line from Speakerboxxx to Sir Lucious Leftfoot. The production doesn’t sound like your normal radio clips, and what samples there are are all over the place. There’s a lot of Dungeon Family-oriented production, too, whether from Mr DJ, Big Boi Andre, or the almighty Organized Noize itself. It’s a little more focused than Speakerboxxx, but when separated from Andre 3000, you can see where Big Boi is spreading his wings. He switches up his flow, whether via computer tricks or just good old fashioned spitting. There’s not necessarily a Rosa Parks or Hey Ya on this record, nothing that’ll put the radio on smash, but every song is bumpable.

I dunno if I can or should pick a favorite. “Turns Me On” is silky smooth, and I love Sleepy Brown. “Tangerine,” his joint with T.I. and Khujo Goodie is ill, too. “Fo Yo Sorrows” is nuts and includes a breakdown, something you don’t see often enough in rap these days. Big Boi’s verses on “Night Night” is crazy. Don’t even get me started on “Shine Blockas.”

I like this one. That’s really all there is to it.

You might wanna argue with me about best rap group of all time, but go ahead and listen to Southernplayalisticcadillacmuzik, ATLiens, Aquemini, Stankonia, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, and watch Idlewild. We told you the South would rise again. You just didn’t realize it happened in 1995. DF!

Relevant videos:

The last album from The Roots was Rising Down. It was the release valve of living under eight years of Bush and the information overload and depression that came from suddenly having all the news you care to read at your beck and call. It was harsh music, with the closest thing to a round edge coming in the form of the Wale and Jill Scott-featured “Rising Down.” The standout track was “75 Bars (Black’s Reconstruction),” which featured Black Thought going in for three minutes straight on a spare ?uestlove drum track and a low, groaning musical accompaniment.

I’m not sure which bars are my favorite. “I’m in the field with a shield and a spear, nigga/ I’m in your girl with her heels in the air, nigga” is incredible, but Thought drops ten about three-fourths of the way through the song that pretty near knocked my socks off. “What’s your networking plan? You better look alive/ ’cause them niggas outside looking desperate again, nigga/ And the blunts and liquor killing our lungs and liver/ The asthmatic drug addict, I function with it/ I put a rapper in a hole where the dust will sit/ for spitting played out patterns that once was hitting/ I got news for you all, let me show you how to ball/ See the legendary fall? I ain’t heard of that/ Y’all niggas is off the wall like Aresnio Hall/ I’ma put you right back where the dirt is at.”

Their new joint is How I Got Over. The title really says it all: it’s about triumph over adversity. I’m on listen three or four at this point, and listen sixty or seventy of the lead single “How I Got Over,” and it’s a great record. The sequencing, the music, all of it sounds on point. Each song flows into the next, and they work together to build an album about getting over when times are hard, whether through hustling, prayer, or just living. It’s a strong album.

The guest appearances come from all-stars, too. Blu is a dope producer and artist out of Los Angeles, one of those guys who releases tunes so rarely that you get mad and think he disappeared, and then he comes back with something that goes hard and all is forgiven. Down to earth, interesting production, straightforward lyrics, Blu is basically that dude. Phonte from Little Brother is on a couple tracks, too, and he’s always entertaining. STS, aka Sugar Tongue Slim, and the always dope Peedi Crakk (Peedi Peedi so he can get on TV) make strong guest appearances, too. Roots staple Dice Raw has several verses, which is always nice to see. John Legend and Joanna Newsom are on the album for all you people who don’t like rappers but loooooove sangas.

Cop it. How I Got Over is pretty good. It’s down tempo, a little more laid back than Rising Down, and a little more, what, mature? Is it grown folks’ music? I’m not sure, but it’s good.

Related: Bobby Ray’s album is five bucks on Amazon, that Janelle Monae record is eight, and Eminem’s latest is ten bucks. It’s been a good year for music.

The Boondocks returns on Sunday 🙂 I don’t have cable, so I can’t watch it live, but please believe I’m excited. On to the links!

–Paul DeBenedetto and Marc-Oliver Frisch take me to task for my Death to Canon post the other day. They raise some good points. I do want to say, as a meager defense, that I don’t hate the idea of the narrative, I just hate that perfectly good tales don’t get read because they aren’t important. That’s silly to me. I think we should treat all stories with the same level of importance. That was the point of the Spider-Man Noir vs Amazing Spider-Man comparison. I should have expressed that better. You should definitely read their posts, though. They say a lot of good things.

–Tucker Stone talks about comics, ads, and audiences.

–Nina Stone serves up a good review of American Vampire, a series I have been enjoying much, much more than I expected to. I’m hoping Vertigo’s got another hit on its hands, because I want to see this one continue. That’s a good review there, you can see exactly what she likes about it.

-Kate Dacey’s Manga Critic turned one! Kate’s great.

-Look at this lady talking like an idiot in public! Let Obama define himself, stay up out of his business.

-Music video!

Lupe Fiasco – I’m Beaming

–Pac Div’s new mixtape is heat rocks. It’s free music. Go on ahead and get that.

“The greatest rapper of all time died on March 9th.” Christopher Wallace died 13 years ago, after a career where he brought jiggy and drugs and excess to the mainstream and created a swagger hundreds of rappers have jacked since. Whether it’s “You got it, nigga, flaunt it” or “Picture me being scared of a nigga that breathe the same air as me,” Biggie is probably the blueprint for your favorite rapper.

RIP

“It is what it is” is a phrase that signifies resignation or a grudging acceptance of a situation. It’s not admitting defeat, not exactly. Really, it means exactly what it says. Whatever situation you’re in is whatever situation you’re in. You can’t change the past and you can’t change the present. All you can do is live in it. Fantasy only goes so far, and “so far” in this equation is “nowhere.”

I read a story in a comics anthology a few weeks back that really surprised me. It’s short, just seven pages, but it bounced around in my head for days after I finished it. In it, a man named Tarlton is in charge of inspecting the robotic citizens of Cybrinia to see if they are ready to be accepted into the Galactic Republic.

He meets an orange robot soon after landing on the planet, and this robot serves as his guide around the planet. Tarlton is shown their factories, their system of government, their educational system, and their technology. He asks about the blue robots, and is told that they live on the south side of the city.

Tarlton learns that the citizens have self-segregated, with the orange robots living in relative opulence, while the blue robots must live a harder life. He visits a blue factory and notices that the blue robots have the same innards as the orange robots. His orange guide bristles at Tarlton’s anger. “You are lecturing me as though all this were my fault, Tarlton! This existed long before I was made! What can I do about it? I’m only one robot!”

Tarlton storms out of the factory and back to his ship. He explains that the robots are on their own until they learn to live together in harmony, and that they won’t see real progress until they do so. He climbs back inside his ship, bids his guide farewell, and lifts off. Inside the safe atmosphere of his ship, he removes his helmet, and the narration describes how the instrument lights make the “beads of perspiration on his dark skin twinkle like distant stars.”

Pretty simple, right? Maybe a little ham-fisted in its use of metaphor, but it has a good message at its heart. The thing is, Al Feldstein wrote it and Joe Orlando drew it in 1953 for EC Comics. They named it Judgment Day. Thirty years after that, Guy Bluford became the first black American in space. Twenty-five years after that, Barack Obama became the first black president.

What struck me was how similar the moral of Judgment Day is to the way race is treated in modern day superhero comics. Like the story set in the far-flung future, superheroes exist in a world where acceptance is the default. The X-Men, long-time stand-ins for various peoples, are indistinguishable from the population at large. They only encounter racism in stories specifically geared to show that racism is something bad people do.

Most black superheroes, the ones worth reading about, at least, pay lip service to the idea of race. They tend to have “Fight the power!” motivations, embody the “angry black man” stereotype, or both. They fight racists disproportionately often when compared to their white compatriots. Their motivations might not be as pure as their brethren.

Some black characters, like John Stewart or James Rhodes, are permanent sidekicks. They aren’t as popular as their white counterparts and never manage to rise above their sidekick status. If they weren’t fictional, you could say that they never manage to self-actualize, no matter how many times they fall out with their benefactors.

Others, like Luke Cage or Misty Knight, are their own characters, but that proves to be their doom. Without some kind of tie to another franchise, they can’t keep their head above water. They are guest stars and cameos, showing up when someone needs a crowd shot or a reference to a character’s friends.

There are a number of reasons why this tends to hold true for so many characters, but that’s not the point today. The point is that today, almost sixty years after Judgment Day told us that racial unity is the future, superhero comics are still singing that same song.

We don’t see the nuances or cultural traits that combine to define a race. We don’t see how the races interact and intersect. In superhero books, race, and everything to do with it, is a binary construct. Villains can be racist, heroes are not. Black characters are unquestionably accepted and called equals, even if the story or art suggests otherwise.

Race is not, and has never been, as simple as black and white. People aren’t that simple. That’s just not how it works.

There’re three bars from a Saul Williams song called “Coded Language” that are applicable here.

Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which as been given for you to understand.
The current standard is the equivalent of an adolescent restricted to the diet of an infant.
The rapidly changing body would acquire dysfunctional and deformative symptoms and could not properly mature on a diet of applesauce and crushed pears.

Judgment Day was controversial in 1954, when it was reprinted in Incredible Science Fiction #33. The Comics Code Authority wanted the race of the astronaut changed to white. William Gaines, publisher of EC Comics, stuck to his guns and defied the Code.

It’s 2010. What was controversial then is par for the course today. Interracial relationships are more common than black-on-black relationships in mainstream comics. Captain America’s history bears the specter of experimentation on black men. Luke Cage has been leading the Avengers for a few years. We are standing on the shoulders of giants, looking out at the future, but we’re still eating applesauce.

Of course, applesauce isn’t all we have. There’s a lot to appreciate and a lot to love. I spent a lot of time thinking about BHM10. Several months, in fact. When I sat down to really plan what I wanted to talk about, and how I wanted to talk about it, I was faced with a choice. I can either continue to mourn and wish things were different, or I can accept that it is what it is and move on to the next one. I chose to move on.

Moving on doesn’t mean ignoring the past. Far from it, I think. A few of the essays may cover ground I’ve stomped on before, but hopefully from a fresh angle. I’m gonna talk to people creating the new hotness. I’m gonna talk about black heroes, and yeah, about black superheroes, too. I’m gonna talk about stuff you should be reading and creators you should be watching. I’m looking at three a week, Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday, though that may alter as the month goes on.

This is Black Future Month ’10. I hope you like it.