On Kendrick Lamar, and the eternal greatness of Hip Hop.

Watch this video. In its entirety. It may be the most honest, touching and beautiful musical moment of the century so far.

The young guy in the natty suit? That's Kendrick Lamar. Probably the best young rapper out there at the moment. The guys around him? That's basically everyone else who's ever been big in west coast Hip-Hop. The Game, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mos Def; they're all there.

They're passing him the torch. Publicly admitting that he's the new thing in their genre. At 3:50? That's Kendrick collapsing into tears, overwhelmed by this outpouring of love and support by his childhood heroes. Wouldn't you do the same, in his shoes?

If I'm honest, I haven't always been an open fan of Hip-Hop. As a kid, growing up in upper-middle class Toronto, I was ambivalent about it. Most of my peers were throwing themselves into it, eating up Eminem, Dr. Dre, 2Pac, all the big names of  the time.

I hung back. I didn't feel right about liking it somehow. Sure, I wanted to dance to it. Sure, these guys were fascinating. But it felt a bit like a party I hadn't been invited to. What right did I, a white kid who probably grew up as far from the projects as it's possible to be, have to like this music?

Maybe the problem was that I was listening too hard to the lyrics. I thought my peers who wore chains to school under their dress uniforms and changed them for baggy jeans and Lakers jerseys as soon as they got home were faintly ridiculous. Poseurs. What did they really know about anything 2pac was saying? How could they possibly relate to 50 Cent or Eminem? Rosedale and Forest Hill were light-years removed from Compton or 8 Mile. How phoney could you get?

In a word, I was worried about being like this guy.

This kind of sums it up, doesn't it? What more base hypocrisy can there be? How can you pretend to relate to this music when you wouldn't dare set foot in the neighborhoods it comes from.

But something became clear to me watching that last video with Kendrick. I don't really need to worry about it, because that's the way it's supposed to work. White kids are supposed to buy this music. By doing so they make black artists from impoverished and marginalized communities rich, famous and powerful on their own terms. That's part of the magic.


Hip Hop, in the end, is much more than just a genre of music. It's a community. A big, beautiful family, with a tremendously open heart and an incredible ability to look after its own.

As evinced in that first video. Can you imagine a bunch of aging rockers getting together and doing that for a young new band? A bunch of aging DJS? Country Singers? Hell no. Egos and agents and record labels would nix it before it ever happened, or worse, try to capitalize on it and fuck everything up.

But in Hip-Hop, people are loyal. They support each other. Each new young rapper to make it big is a win for everyone in the community. There's no bitterness, no backbiting, just support.

Take Dr. Dre, for example. Here are some songs he didn't write.

Still Dre? He produced the beat, sure, which is what makes the song. But did he write any of the lyrics? Nope. That was Jay-Z. Even Dre's bit.

This is just understood, is the funny thing. Nobody who knows anything about Hip-Hop would claim that Dre is any less of an artist for not writing his own raps. Far from it. His beats are universally recognized as being legendary. It may well be the highest honor in the game to be deemed worthy to rap on a Dre beat.

Forgot about Dre? Nope. This one's Eminem.

Once his artistic relationship with Snoop was over, he discovered Eminem. This is what he does. He picks the talented young rapper of the moment, launches them to stardom, and makes a hit single with them to keep himself in Lamborghinis for another few years.

Now it's Kendrick. He's the best new rapper in Compton. He comes to Dre's attention. Dre signs him. Kendrick writes his lyrics and joins a distinguished company. Dre gets a new commercial lease on life. Win-win. Totally without ego.

There's a coherence to the evolving saga that lends it a certain operatic grandeur. Every rapper is a character in the unfolding drama. They have a role to play, a niche to fill. One generation rises, has its moment, and then bows out gracefully to the next. The cast of characters is continually replenished, but ultimately there's room for everyone.

What the Game, Dre, Snoop, Mos, and everyone else on that LA stage understand intuitively is that Kendrick's success doesn't diminish theirs; far from it. Rather it fulfulls the promise they made all those years ago to kids in Compton, Inglewood, and every other disenfranchised neighborhood in America. That they could get out of the ghetto too. On their own terms. Not Whitey's.

And in that spirit, here's Kendrick's first big song. His breakout hit. Or maybe it's just the one that first got my attention. Either way, it's awesome, and I hope you like it as much as I do.

Ladies and gentlemen... HiiPower.

On Mayer Hawthorne and being pretentious.

Ok, so in my last post I may have been a simpering idiot.

Here's why.

I love this man, despite his completely negating my views by virtue of his existence. That's soul. Detroit soul. The essence of the charts for decades. What America first started partying to. What was I thinking? What computer has, in the end, that kind of soul? Not a one. He recorded that himself. And I, a pretentiously self-confessed electronic music junkie who thought the band was dead, couldn't stop dancing when I heard it.

Find the album. It will restore your faith in a lot of things.

But enough words. This is a music blog. My mistake here is that anyone gives a shit what I have to say. From now on, dear reader, if you're out there, I promise to give you music. Not stupid ramblings.