Jay-Z, Kanye West, The Grammys and the N word

My brother and I are soooooo different. At the conclusion of the first 5am screening of The Dark Knight Rises, on the day of its release, I'm not ashamed to say I welled up. Perhaps it was the context in which I viewed the movie - I've never been to a 5am screening before - but it seemed the perfect end to a very impressive trilogy. My brother's verdict? Not so much. His was a decidedly unimpressed "Meh..."

'Twas ever thus. Back when we were youngsters the family cat, Rivelino (we named him after the World Cup winning, combative Brazillian midfielder. Later I had a pet Hamster whom I named Reggie The Bastard, but that's a different story for a different time), somehow managed to trap himself in the back of the piano and was mewing desperately for help. I was distraught. I was crying hysterically. Poor Rivelino. My brother, as rational as always, huffed, "What's wrong with you? All we need to do is pull the piano out. Jeez..."

I could give you loads of examples of where I'm the one shrieking with outrage like a raped goat, whilst my brother gives an insouciant shrug of his shoulders. Our roles have probably been reversed lots of times over the years, but at present I can only bring to mind two examples. A few years ago I was leafing through the NME (yeah, I know). In the ad section I came across a music emporium which announced proudly that it sold lots of different genres of music, but specialised mainly in Indie, Electronica, Heavy Metal and Nigger.

Being permanently drenched in cynicism it was pretty easy to make my voice sound light and breezy when I rang my brother to casually suggest he go to a newsagents and just have a quick flick through the ads section of this week's NME. "You'll know what it is when you see it," I teased. He rang me back an hour later in a frothing rage, which as I've already stated, is most unlike my brother. He had rung both the shop involved AND the publication to ask what they were playing at and to find out exactly what they planned to do about this gross transgression.

On the second occasion, we had just soundchecked for a show as Damaged Gods and strolled into the town centre for some deep-fried, potato based sustenance. Sitting down to eat at a grubby formica-topped table our senses were assaulted by a dishevelled man who announced "He's a nigger. A big, black fookin' nigger."

"What the-? Okay, Brother B," hissed my brother in a harsh whisper. Putting down his fork he curled his fingers into a fist as he used one of my many rap aliases (Big Brozilla, Triple XL, B.B. Mon£y and Daddy Long Stroke are amongst the others), "What are we going to do about this?"

"Leave it, G-Influence," I replied - plucking that particular nomenclature from a very long list of my brother's AKAs which includes Doc Connors, Wachowski and Chachi - "He's clearly disturbed."

Anyone notice the common thread between both incidents? That's right! The N-word.

Words exert influence. You can calm, scare, call to arms or induce sleep with words. Noam Chomsky posited that words and language are an integral part of our psychological being; they give shape and meaning to the things around us, and, in a very real and literal sense, the person and people that use them.

In magickal terms - I've been reading a lot of Aleister Crowley recently - invocations and spells are referred to as "Grimoire", literally "grammar" in French. One can harness power and create magick for one's own ends simply through the use of words.

The history of the word nigger is often traced to the Latin word niger, meaning black. This word became the noun negro (black person) in English, and the colour black in Spanish and Portuguese. derogatory nigger and earlier English substitutes such as negar, neegar, neger, and niggor that developed into its lexico-semantic true version in English. It is probable that nigger is a phonetic spelling of the white Southern mispronunciation of Negro.

By the early 1800s it was firmly established as a pejorative term. In 1837 Hosea Easton wrote that nigger:

"is an opprobrious term, employed to impose contempt upon [blacks] as an inferior race. . . . The term in itself would be perfectly harmless were it used only to distinguish one class of society from another; but it is not used with that intent. . . . [I]t flows from the fountain of purpose to injure."  

The word "nigger" is imbued with so much hatred and prejudice that its mere utterance evokes centuries of discrimination and ignorance: conjuring an image of abused, enslaved forebears who were considered lazy, stupid, dirty, subhuman and unworthy of the dignity afforded any other human being. The use of the word was a form of ritual humiliation employed by slave masters.

Fast forward a couple of hundred years and Jay-Z and Kanye West are picking up Grammys for Niggas In Paris. I feel like crying. Trust Americans (a people whose country was founded by genocide and built on the backs of slaves) to trivialise the word, ignore its history, use it as a matey salutation and subscribe to the notion that its meaning changes depending on the complexion of the person saying it.

Slavery has caused severe emotional and psychological trauma, resulting in a self-hatred which manifests itself as Black people disrespecting themselves with the same words which were once used to denigrate them. No other culture does that. You never hear, "What up, my *insert racist epithet here*?!?!" as a greeting in any other culture. It would be quite horrific, but indicates that slavery and its attendant racism have succeeded.

The Godfather of the Black use of the N-word is Richard Pryor. In his rather slight autobiography Pryor Convictions, he said, "Nigger... I decided to make it my own. Nigger. I decided to take the sting out of it. Nigger. As if saying it over and over again would numb me and everybody else to its wretchedness. Nigger. Said it over and over like a preacher singing hallelujah."

In 1979, Pryor went to Kenya. He sat in a hotel lobby and saw, "gorgeous black people... The only people you saw were black. At the hotel, on television, in stores, on the street, in the newspapers, at restaurants, running the government, on advertisements. Everywhere."

Pryor said to his wife, "You know what? There are no niggers here. The people here, they still have their self-respect, their pride."

He left Africa regretting ever having uttered the word "nigger". "To this day I wish I'd never said the word. I felt its lameness. It was misunderstood by people. They didn't get what I was talking about. Neither did I. ... So I vowed never to say it again."

Of course, by then the damage had been done and the floodgates opened for an abundance of Hip Hop Proto-Pryors who considered the word mere slang and paved the way for the negative stereotype to become profitable and impose itself as a shorthand for Black culture. Professor Griff calls it the niggerfication of rap music. Wynton Marsalis calls it "ghetto minstrelsy." He says,

"Old school minstrels used to say they were 'real darkies from the real plantation'. Hip-hop substitutes the plantation for the streets. Now you have to say that you're from the streets, you shot some brothers, you went to jail. Rappers have to display the correct pathology. Rap has become a safari for people who get their thrills from watching [Black] people debase themselves, men dressing in gold, spending money on expensive fluff, using language like 'bitch' and 'ho' and 'nigger'."

Witnessing the rise of an "artist" like Chief Keef is depressing, but, as a teenager, he doesn't know any better. He's young, impressionable and plainly has no idea that he is perpetuating negative (Niggertive) images of black people, or that he could be a focus for the laser beam of racism.

I hold the rap elder statesmen and veterans to a higher standard. Jay-Z and Kanye West should know better, but the lure of filthy lucre means they'll shit yards of reinforced negative stereotypes to keep the shareholders happy and consolidate their personal brands. Music executives want to cash in on gangsta rap and its essentially disparaging narrative: the media complies, ignoring all other expressions of the music. The big money involved means that the corporations care nothing for the soul of hip-hop or the people who create it; their only concern is with profit.

Jay-Z's lyrics are a far more eloquent treatise on why he would rather rap about nothing and perpetuate the notion that, as a rapper, one has to be steeped in criminality and wallow in juvenilia for one's music to have any validity. It all comes down to the money...

"I dumbed down for my audience to double my dollars / They criticise me for it yet they all yell holla / If skills sold truth be told I’d probably be lyrically Talib Kweli / Truthfully I wanna rhyme like Common Sense / But I sold five mill, and I haven't rhymed like Common since." - Jay-Z, "Moment of Clarity"

The resulting dumbassification* sees rap artists all trying to sound the same: chasing the same coin in the consumer's pocket in an effort to justify the major label coddling of their record contracts. They sound so similar that they cancel each other out and create a cacophony of nihilism.

We also have a real-life CB4 movie plot in progress in the form of Rick Ross. In CB4 Chris Rock appropriates the identity of an incarcerated criminal, MC Gusto, in order to sell records, only for the real Gusto to turn up and claim a little violent restitution. All of which is precisely what Rick Ross has done. He's presently living out the rest of the movie as the Chicago Gangster Disciples issue death threats via YouTube(!), passing acerbic comment on his sales strategy. Mr Ross was the target of a drive-by shooting in late January as he sat in his Bentley: great for sales and it bolsters his street credibility.

From Melle Mel's hard-hitting and innovative The Message in 1982 to Niggas In Paris in 2013, the Grammys represent the celebration of Hip Hop's regression. It's ironic that Public Enemy's Chuck D was on hand to close the Grammy awards ceremony with an incendiary performance which was ably supported by LL Cool J, Tom Morello, Travis Barker and Z-Trip; reminding us of the true power of Hip Hop. Historically Public Enemy's call to Fight The Power and their highlighting of the Fear Of A Black Planet were ignored by the Grammys' voting panel in favour of less incendiary, less difficult and less challenging works. He brought a poignantly dignified presence which acted as a peerless counterpoint to the preceeding buffoonery.

* as coined by Mr Chuck

Bringing you up to speed

Sudden realisation can have a profound physical effect. You read about it in books and see it on TV and it seems so hammy and cliché, but it's true. Try this for size.

I used to play as a striker for the British Council football team. I modelled myself after Cyrille Regis: muscular, powerful and quick. Very quick. My scoring record was pretty good: better than a goal every two games. My favourite goal saw me run from midway inside my own half, head the ball past the last defender, dummy the keeper and roll the ball into the bottom left hand corner of the goal. I was so elated I ran off to celebrate with the two casual bystanders who were watching by the corner flag. It later turned out that they'd pissed all over my kit bag and my copy of Vibe magazine which featured a Public Enemy cover story. Bastards.

A couple of weeks later I scored a 25 yard screamer which curved outrageously as it arrowed into the top corner of the net. Buoyed by having notched what was obviously the goal of the season I found an extra enthusiasm. An exuberance which gave me an extra yard of pace as I chased our opponent's playmaker back towards the centre circle. I executed a perfect sliding tackle, gathered possession of the ball and passed it back to our holding midfielder before sprinting my way back upfront for the next phase of play.

As I ran I became aware that my left hand felt weird. I figured it must have been caught underneath me as I slid in to win the ball. I looked down and saw my thumb bent back on itself at a grotesque angle, as if it had decided independently to pack up and emigrate to my elbow. I knew immediately that it was dislocated and ran to the referee to ask him if he would pop it back into place. His response, after a wince which pulled his face into a horrified 'O' was, "You've been watching too many movies, mate. I can't do fuck all about that. You'll need to go to hospital."

The understanding that my injury was serious and wasn't a Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon momentary inconvenience acted as the trigger for the physical response referred to above. Not, as you'd imagine, one of excruciating pain, but a wave of nausea the like of which I've never experienced, even after a dodgy kebab which is the exclusive fare of my local high street eaterie. My legs were suddenly unable to bear my weight, I swooned and collapsed like a 19th Century woman suffering an attack of the vapours. I was helped back to the dressing room by a couple of colleagues where I waited for an ambulance to arrive.

I had a similar revelatory experience this week. About 3 months ago I had an appalling day at work. I finally gave up smacking my head against the brick wall at about 7pm and, in a supremely bad mood, drove home. A month later that I received a letter advising that I'd been caught by a speed camera doing 36mph in a 30mph zone. I was so angry at myself, but hey, that'll teach me. I'll be paying much more attention when I get behind the steering wheel from now on. Luckily I was given the option of attending a speed awareness course rather than have to pay a fine and accept a 3 points penalty on my licence. So that's what I was doing on Tuesday morning.

There were 24 of us in a room being looked after by 2 facilitators, one of whom had the demeanour of a sorrowful, empathic, avuncular prison officer, the other the gloomy aspect of an undertaker from Rotherham: each one of his anecdotes ending with, "Ploughed straight into 'em. Never stood a chance."

I saw this course as an opportunity to reappraise my attitude to driving and get back into the good habits that I'd long slipped out of. The other people there...? Hmmmm... Not so much.

The first question was offered by the sad Uncle: what is the speed limit in built-up areas? Easy. That's 30mph. Although in some circumstances the police will apply a formula (the speed limit + 10% + 9) that gives drivers some leeway up to 42mph. Interesting, no?

Second question. What is the speed limit on motorways? That's right, 70mph. Use the formula and you get 86mph. A middle-aged woman with badly died hair (she had plainly forgotten to do her roots) and who steadfastly refused to take her brown anorak off said, "Well the limit's going to be 80 soon anyway. So..."

"Yes, but the limit is still seventy miles per hour," said the doleful trainer. The funeral director was out of the room.

"They'll put it up to eighty. They have to," said a bloke in a chunky grey pullover which looked as if it was rather itchy. The whole room shifted its attention to him. "The government want us to drive faster so we use more fuel and give them more money in taxes."

His pronouncement was met with silence. Apart from me. I coughed up a giggle. His stern face told me he wasn't joking. I stopped laughing. This fella's enunciation of his conspiracy theory was the cue for everyone else to give voice to their sense of injustice.

A woman at the back with her glasses perched on the end of her nose said, "The thing you don't appreciate is that society moves much faster now. We all work, we're all pressed for time and for the most part we're all being penalised for just keeping up with the flow of traffic."

"They friggin' trapped me - excuse my language. They were hiding behind the bushes with a speed gun," said a woman in a nurse's uniform.

"I'd like to see the breakdown of deaths on the road. I bet most of 'em are just ordinary people in a hurry to get to work," said a man in a tracksuit at my table.

A woman with a number two haircut and very pink, shiny skin - which reminded me of spam - got very animated and punctuated her shrill speech with a jabbing index finger. "Right. Let's get right to the crutch(!) of the matter," she hissed, flecks of spittle spraying from her downturned mouth. "You lot want us to speed so we can keep you in a job. We have to speed," which sounded a lot like the same conspiracy theme enunciated by the grey pullover: as if David Cameron had clamped their foot to the accelerator pedal.

Many whiney voices were raised at this point, crashing around the room in a bitter cacophony, but I tuned out as I began to swoon with the realisation that I may well be a misanthrope. Suddenly X Factor and 50 Shades Of Grey made perfect sense. I spend most of my life fully engaged in responsibility avoidance (I construct my own little world within which I can draw upon resources to help me remain creative - that's my excuse anyway), but even I accept that the reason I received a speeding ticket is because I was driving like a wanker and I could have hurt, or even killed, someone.

I'm aware it's a bit of a touchy feely notion, but we are all of us connected. Whatever I do, or don't do, has an impact on the wider society. A more apposite example of this is our lust for the new iPhone 5. The working conditions in the Foxconn plant where they are manufactured are so awful there was a spate of suicides. In reaction to this the employee dormitories are now equipped with safety nets to catch those who might want to jump. Earlier this year around 150 workers threatened to commit suicide by leaping from the factory roof in protest at their working conditions. This is emblematic of life in the Western world: poor foreign workers, stripped of their rights and dignity, and forced to make gadgets for the wealthy (ie. us). We point to our gadgets as a sign of the advancement of the human race and this is true, but at what cost.

These workers do not receive what any person would consider a living wage. A Foxconn production line worker would have to work 60,000 years to earn what Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, takes home in 365 days.

And the wider implications if we cede our responsibilities to each other are manifest. We end up in a special relationship with a rapacious America who's foreign policy in the Middle East is clearly delineated by the scary and comical John Bolton, but no-one gives a flying finger of fudge:

"...Persian Gulf, the critical oil and natural gas producing region that we fought so many wars to try to protect our economy from the adverse impact of losing that supply or having it available only at very high prices."

So, what have I learned this week?

1) I'll be sticking with my iPhone 4 for a while. Well, at least until my present contract runs out.

and

2) Only a fool breaks the 2 second rule. Unless the police take time out from tasering blind people of pensionable age and force you to drive faster.

Barcode Crucifix

I got a call from an excited Matt at Playschool Noize today to advise that 'Barcode Crucifix' by Damaged Gods out on 4/4/2011 is officially available for pre-order from amazon, play.com and hmv.

Slide back a month and I'm watching the Brits hosted by James Corden. Eliza Doolittle, during the first half of an ad break sponsored by Mastercard, proffers her stinky, powder blue trainers to the camera and mews in a voice she obviously imagines to be endearing (but which actually induces me to try and chew at my left elbow), that these are indeed her favourite trainers. If ever there was an indication of the crass commodification of music then here it is: wrapped in a self congratulatory clusterfuck celebrating vacuous product placement.

Music is both an art and a science. Between the algorithms and arithmetic, maths and magic exists the light and shadow of music. And Cheryl Cole.

The musical landscape has always been populated by non-entities with absolutely fuck all to say, playing fifth rate music filtered through fifth hand ideas and sponsored by tossers who know literally fuck all about fuck all. The difference is that now they're likely to receive a Brit nomination as they guarantee TV ratings.

It's been a long road to get to a point where this work could be released. Variously, it didn't sound "black" enough (I'll leave that to Plan B). There were too many long words (Antidisestablishmentarianism, anyone?). The guitars (Jim Davies of The Prodigy guests) were a tad too angry. The themes too dark. Even the artwork (by Lucius Michael Copsey) caused some consternation with the last record company who deemed it "disgusting" and "distateful". Awesome, eh?

But hey, if Chuck D digs it then I know I'm doing something right. I'm not going to rewrite the foreword (Pretentious, moi? Mais oui!) to the album here, but great art should be a document of the times in which it was created, so as I look out of my window I see dissent and dissatisfaction in equal measure and that's what 'Barcode Crucifix' enunciates eloquently. It concerns matters magikal, sexual, political and religious. Every word loaded with a symbolism which resonates long after the last note fades. And I personally guarantee that it'll make you shake that booty.

Can you imagine Public Enemy kicking fuck out of Nine Inch Nails whilst both parties are being torched by Rammstein as Dub C laughs at the horrific carnage? Lovely, isn't it? Man, I love Cradle Of Filth, but their hymns to violence are steeped in either fantasy or, in the case of the amazing 'Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder' album, history. Damaged Gods are of the NOW. When we suggest that "The lawless government invites anarchy," just look around. It is entirely true.

The album has been years in the making and is more relevant and necessary now than when it was conceived. So over the past couple of weeks our government has;

- sent David Cameron to sell guns to Egypt's supreme military council


- had David Cameron appear in Kuwait to defend arms sales vociferously, whilst Gaddafi continues to use British arms against his own people


- sent the SAS and MI6 to the wrong place, where they were captured by farmers

Remember, these chaps went to the very best public schools and did the Oxbridge thing, so are far better and way more intelligent than you or I. Thus, I'll pause before branding any of these actions as thoroughly cretinous. Don't get me wrong boys and girls, it's ALL about the music, but these are the reasons I do what I do. And these are the reasons for the snarl on my face.

Meanwhile, shitty bands play their odes to vacuity with a criminal inanity. Don’t accept it. You deserve better. We all deserve better. And that is what Damaged Gods represents. The middle of March finds us on tour as a trailer for the album and August sees us over in America further spreading the damage. As always Brozilla will be sharp of suit. Superior of mien. Sexy of limb. Witty. Charming. And the easy erudition of my oratory skills will be a joy for all to behold. The aim here is to put on a show rather than merely play gigs like so many other bands and I would urge you to attend, participate wholeheartedly and display your affection by offering a two fingered salute.

Vees up. Us against them.

Nothing but love

xBx