DIAMONDS AIN’T NO MYSTERY

[We had planned to run this write-up as a ‘Contemporary’ selection but the "Diamonds" song/controversy is a far, far more interesting issue except that much of what is said here helps one appreciate our exchange about "Diamonds." So here is "Mystery" and after you dig this, then what we have to say about "Diamonds" will be clearer. We hope ;->) —Kalamu]

LAURYN HILL / “Mystery Of Iniquity”

 

From: MTV Unplugged 2.0 (Columbia/Sony – 2002)

“I don’t know what the press is saying ‘cause I don’t really listen to the press too much. But I know that the view is I’m emotionally unstable – which is reality. Like you aren’t?”
—Lauryn Hill

For a long time, I avoided hearing this album. I wasn’t interested in hearing the public meltdown of one of my all-time favorite MCs. Now that I’ve heard it, I can’t say that all the people who warned me were wrong. Yes, Lauryn does break down in tears near the end of “I Gotta Find Peace Of Mind.” Yes, she does go into extended rambles between many songs. Yes, her voice is very hoarse and rough throughout, even cracking at times. But although I probably won’t be listening to the album very often, I’m very glad I finally decided to hear it. For better or worse, this is the most honest performance I’ve ever heard from a major recording artist. As music fans, we’re always complaining that everyone runs around saying ‘keep it real’ but no one actually does keep it real. (Except for my man Osiris/Dirt McGirt/Big Baby Jesus/Dirt Dog/Joe Bananas, and look where it got him. RIP ODB.) Whatever else you might say about this album, it is real. Maybe too real. I guess that’s what all the warnings were about.

 

 

I wanted to post "Mystery Of Iniquity" for two reasons. One, because this is one of the few songs on the album where Lauryn is MCing. (And of course, she rips it up.) Second, because this is the song Kanye West interpolated for the chorus of "All Falls Down." Maybe I was the last person on earth who didn’t know the chorus of "All Falls Down" was originally a Lauryn Hill sample. In the event that I wasn’t, just wait until you hear Lauryn break into that line. It’s spooky enough to make you pull out your Kanye West CD to make sure it isn’t Lauryn on the song itself. It’s not. (It’s Jive/RCA recording artist Syleena Johnson whose album I’m really not feeling. Sorry, Syleena.)

Bonus track: "All Falls Down (Original Mix)" – This is Kanye doing "All Falls Down" before Lauryn (or her people or label or whatever) refused to clear the sample. It sounds like a demo to me. At the end of the song, the applause is still in there from the Unplugged record.

—Mtume ya Salaam

Click here to purchase Lauryn Unplugged  

 

          The antithesis of realness          

I understand what you’re saying about Lauryn keeping it real; sharing with us the state of her life at that moment, but there is another aspect to keeping it real that I think should be explored and that is: art as a lens that focuses what the audience sees/feels/thinks/hears/etc. Art could be a microscope or a telescope, an infrared lens or time-lapse photography, the key is that what the artist does should bring us what is happening (or imagined) at a heightened level of intensity. Whatever is being dealt with should be presented so that we, the audience, are encouraged to experience it or reflect on it at a higher or deeper level than we would consider the issue were it not for the art. In that context, keeping it real means being true to the inner world or the outer world of the subject matter while making an artistic statement.

So, while I can dig the ‘realness,’ what Lauryn did on that release was not an artistic statement. She says that those tracks were incomplete. So, I guess if you are deep into Lauryn, hearing this stuff is both fascinating and endearing, but if not, well…

 

But Kanye West on the other hand is the very antithesis of realness while dropping some really real insights. I say the antithesis because there is a cognitive dissonance between the knowledge he drops in the lyrics and the video he made of the track as the song appears on his album featuring Syleena Johnson. The video shows none, absolutely none of the self-awareness the lyrics espouse. Indeed the video both explicitly and subliminally promotes the kind of behavior the lyrics criticize.

That’s one of the big contradictions of rap—all the time talking about keeping it real, while all the time actually living a different reality. And, again, to be fair, it’s not ‘rap’ in particular that has this problem, it’s the American way of entertainment—i.e. what is more fake than reality TV? But the bottom line on all of this is that the bottom line runs all of this, by which I mean, artists are constantly ‘encouraged’ to consider what sells, or answer the question will it sell, and if it doesn’t sell what will I do next, or the even more difficult, how can I make it in this business if I’m not selling. Selling. Selling. Selling.

Selling becomes the end all be all, and of course, when the bottom line drives one’s consciousness and what one does is present one’s self for sale, that is called… which, again pushes me to be even more appreciative of what Lauryn did, because she was not just an(y) artist trying to sell something, Lauryn was one of the top selling artists of all time, and for her to turn around and drop that unplugged, 2-CD, bare-butt, no band, half-the-time-not-even-no-completed-songs album, well, no doubt it was a bad day at Black Rock (the label headquarters) when they got the news that this is what they had to put on the market.

Which, I guess, takes us back to the strength of Lauryn Hill, what she was singing and rapping about is what she was living, and that the results were not finished as works of art was not her point. In contradistinction, I’m really suspicious of ya boy Kanye, whose work I admire, but who is, as we all are, full of contradictions. I smell some funky shit here (and I don’t mean that in no nice way!).

For those interested, Kanye’s lyrics are printed below and also here is the link to the "All Falls Down" video if you have not already seen it. http://www.kanyewest.com/index1.asp

All Falls Down

Oh when it all, it all falls down
I’m telling you ohh, it all falls down

Man I promise, she’s so self conscious
She has no idea what she’s doing in college
That major that she majored in don’t make no money
But she won’t drop out, her parents will look at her funny
Now, tell me that ain’t insecurrre
The concept of school seems so securrre
Sophmore three yearrrs aint picked a careerrr
She like fuck it, I’ll just stay down herre and do hair
Cause that’s enough money to buy her a few pairs of new Airs
Cause her baby daddy don’t really care
She’s so precious with the peer pressure
Couldn’t afford a car so she named her daughter Alexus
She had hair so long that it looked like weave
Then she cut it all off now she look like Eve
And she be dealing with some issues that you can’t believe
Single black female addicted to retail and well

Man I promise, I’m so self conscious
That’s why you always see me with at least one of my watches
Rollies and Pasha’s done drove me crazy
I can’t even pronounce nothing, pass that versace!
Then I spent 400 bucks on this
Just to be like nigga you ain’t up on this!
And I can’t even go to the grocery store
Without some ones thats clean and a shirt with a team
It seems we living the american dream
But the people highest up got the lowest self esteem
The prettiest people do the ugliest things
For the road to riches and diamond rings
We shine because they hate us, floss cause they degrade us
We trying to buy back our 40 acres
And for that paper, look how low we a’stoop
Even if you in a Benz, you still a nigga in a coop/coupe

I say fuck the police, thats how I treat em
We buy our way out of jail, but we can’t buy freedom
We’ll buy a lot of clothes when we don’t really need em
Things we buy to cover up what’s inside
Cause they make us hate ourself and love they wealth
That’s why shortys hollering "where the ballas’ at?"
Drug dealer buy Jordans, crackhead buy crack
And a white man get paid off of all of that
But I ain’t even gon act holier than thou
Cause fuck it, I went to Jacob with 25 thou
Before I had a house and I’d do it again
Cause I wanna be on 106 and Park pushing a Benz
I wanna act ballerific like it’s all terrific
I got a couple past due bills, I won’t get specific
I got a problem with spending before I get it
We all self conscious I’m just the first to admit it

—Kalamu ya Salaam

 

          Hip hop gets a bad rap         

Well put. I can’t add anything to what you said except to say that hip-hop gets a bad rap (no pun intended) when it comes to bullshitting about keeping it real. I’m not saying that hip-hop artists in general do keep it real, they don’t. What I’m saying is, particularly in the case of mainstream musicians, you can count on one hand those that do keep it real. Whether it’s R&B, country, jazz, rock or whatever, commercial is commercial. There are dedicated, serious artists in every genre. There are poseurs and fakes in every genre. In the case of rap, the faking and posturing is just easier to see. Turn on your television anytime and on any station and you’re likely to get an eye and earful of of a bunch of bullshit being thrown in your direction. By and large, mainstream rap is just going with the flow.

And by the way, I share your disappointment about Kanye. His album shows frequent glimpses of consciousness about what’s going on around him and just as frequent episodes of bullshitting around. On the basis of the album, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I figured the negative elements of it might have been some sort of a parody or an attempt at self-deprecation. But looking at the direction he’s chosen since, I’d say he was merely hedging his bets. I won’t be breaking my neck to hear his next CD.

—Mtume ya Salaam