on 11/12/03 3:38 PM, Joseph Zitt at jzitt@metatronpress.com wrote:
You're white, aren't you?
While a snappy comeback/accusation, it doesn't quite answer the question. I'm curious as to this too, since, while I've been hearing hip-hop since Back In The Day (I still remember playing the newly released copy of "The Message" at a college disco event at which I was sorta assisant-DJ), I hadn't been paying attention for a couple of decades, so it's as much of a challenge for some of us to hear it in context as it is for, say, some of my young co-workers who are into the The Strokes to hear what was striking about the Velvet Underground. Or, for that matter, to hear why Stravinsky caused a riot.
What he was sampling wasn't the news as much as how he was building it. Like 'em or not -- and I sure don't -- the Velvets are striking as long as you're not deaf. Contemporary rock music is so often like microwave food -- looks like food, it's got steam coming off it, but it's somehow less nutritional than the real stuff. And I thought it was less Stravinsky than the dancing that caused the riot. sh