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Yo, Yo, Yo - BOJ in the hizzle with the mother fuckin' MBW!!!!

Word.

I hear kids in Cheyenne talking like that. I heard them when I was teaching school too. I've got no trouble with creative self expression, I write a blog, that's my thing. Some people play music or paint or whatever. Cool. I'm all for that. People trying to be creative are generally somewhat influenced by their surroundings. What they do, who they are should give you some clue as to where they're from and their social standing.

Unless you're a high school student. I fail to believe that every kid I run into is a gangsta from the inner city. I cannot believe that any kid I run into in Cheyenne has been to the inner city with the possible exception of Denver and then, well, IT'S DENVER.

I understand that kids that age are imatative by nature. I did it, though I watched way too much Brady Bunch and said "groovy" way too much for a high school senior. Kids are picking this shit up from TV, movies and music.

I have no problem with hip hop and rap music. Any music done to highest level is fantastic. Hip hop and rap are (or at least were) a reflection of a social situation. A culture, a way of speach a dress came along with this music. It was originally a response to a particular environment. It's quite relevant in and of that environment. It loses most of it's relevance in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

It doesn't lose all of it's relevance. At it's best, hip hop and rap music, though it may be of the street is dealing in broader issues that cross regional and social lines. I saw a bit on CMT Crossroads the other night where the band Los Lonley Boys and Ronnie Milsap did a Milsap song as a straight blues. Milsap remarked that it was a story song and its situation crossed cultural lines. Rap and hip hop can do that as well.

But that's not what the kids want. They want songs about gangstas and gats. Yeah, don't forget to take your glock to school, things are tough on the street, yo. Ninety percent of the culture expressed in those songs has nothing to do with the average midwestern high school student.

We did a song that became known as Anysong in P957. The idea started out with JB playing a silly sort of loungy guitar part and singing Snoop Dogg's Gin 'n Juice. I added really cheesy harmonies to make the whole thing sound goofier. Then JB said you could do any song (hence the name) to that guitar part and would add other rap things. I started adding TV theme songs (I'm merely a product of my environment), but tried to make the theme to Giligan's Island sound as hardcore gangsta as possible.

It worked. Why? Who the hell knows what an audience will react to and why but here's what I think. First of all you had four white guys with acoustic instruments rapping, to me, that's freakin' funny. Second we made the hardcore rap sound cheesy and cheesy TV theme songs sound hardcore. Finally, it was sort of an audience participation thing, they knew the songs and joined in. Fun for the whol family!

I love the blues. It's something beautiful that came out of desparation, a refection of a particular situation. While originally that situation was an economic one, it became primarily about emotions, "woman done me wrong" kind of stuff. It moved off of the plantation to the big cities in the 40's and 50's. It became something a little different after that. The deep country blues of the american south still exists, but when it moved to Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, etc, it became something different, the sound of the street. It was sort of the hip hop of it's day.

Blues travelled the world. It moved to the west coast where the blues has a distinctive, jazz-jump feel. It moved to the piedmont of the mid-atlantic states where it took on an almost country and wester feel. It found itself in England where white boys played it, changed the rhythmic emphasis, added ridiculously long guitar solos and created something entirely new.

Blues travelled the world and it was changed by everyone who touched it, incorporating it into something culturally significant to those who played it. A Londoner wouldn't write about "the Hawk," the cold wind in Chicago that came off of Lake Michigan. A Californian wouldn't write about picking cotton on the plantation. They all did their own things with the music, they added their own cultural references in their original music.

When I see kids imitating the hip hop culture, I don't see any of that. They make references that aren't relevant to their particular situation. It's simply spouting things they've heard in movies and music.

My defense? I've adopted the culture. When kids see a middle aged white guy wear his hat askew and in baggy pants and a fubu sweatshirt, hopefully they'll think it's monumentally uncool and decide the whole scene is uncool and abandon it.

It could happen.

B to the OJ