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Stabs in the Dark:
Mic Controller
I gave up my career as a battle MC because I got tired of shredding a person's appearance to rev up a crowd. What else do you have to go on as a freestyle rapper in battle except for the appearance of your foe? It's so easy to pick apart anybody: “Sharp as a tack, rusty as a nail/Got them rusty rump drawers at your granny's yard sale.” If they look goofy, rap about how goofy they look. If they look plain, rap about how simple they are. If they're good looking, talk about how “looks ain't shit.” Or go on about how all their kinfolks are ugly and how your foe is the only one that can leave the house. Or when all else fails, attack his clothes: “Got them fake Tommy Hills and that busted-ass Gucci/And your mustache you ripped from Father Guido Sarducci.”
I guess the karma of dismissing another human being night after night was too much of a load. I got out before I dug a hole.
My MC career went on hold when I bought a $39 bass guitar at a pawnshop in Springhill, Louisiana. It was a Fender copy without working pickups—I didn't have an amp anyway, so I spent the summer plucking it in my off hours from a seven-day-a-week construction job. I eventually got an amp from my cousin Clay in Fouke. Next thing you know, my brother and I are touring the country drinking free beer and eating tacos.
Lately, I've felt the urge to be on the mic again, but I'm steeped in the battle tradition, it's a hard craft to shake. Hip-hop has been wearing me out in the last few years, but I've found a couple of nuggets almost worth mentioning. It's much easier for me to say what I don't like than what I like. I'm a reductionist—no, not like George Bush. He's a reductionist chimp—one who reduces complex situations to things easier for him to grasp, like eating boogers or scratching his ass instead of reading a book or answering an intelligent question. My reductionism is an intense act of scrutiny, where I pore over every detail with a skepticism that would make Judge Judy say, “Damn, give them a break Rod!”
This maniacal bent for the perfect beat and the perfect rhythm causes me to dismiss my own work before I even share it with anyone. I revisit a track two years later and think it's great, but it's not fresh to me anymore so I don't release it, or I don't let more than a handful of people hear it. I'm worse than Stereo MCs: “You wanna hear my record but your ears ain't ready/I Got more rhymes than Helen Reddy“
I get a lot of calls at my store from record labels trying to hype me on various projects. I try to let them know early in the conversation that I am un-hype-able, but they need someone to make them earn their money, so they keep trying.
Recently a lead singer of a popular group dropped his solo album on a label and the hype men went straight to work trying to sell it, regardless of its absence of a single hook or harmonious note. When the hyper asked for my thoughts on the record I told him, “It sounds to me like he wants out of the record business."
I guess I still have the harsh battle MC guile, I just use prose instead of rhyme. I'm an orator—a shit talker. But I've got the itch…
Not a shit talker like Marion Berry,
I'm more scary, like Harry Carey.
No one can face me,
Not Harry Wayne Casey or John Wayne Gacy
Tag teamed with Dick Tracy trying to mace me, trying to case me.
Even Bill Clinton has misplaced me…
He remembers everybody, but what does that matter?
Who needs a ball when you ain't got a batter…
Column archive: December 11, 2005 |
