Rap, snot found in socks!

by JACK OATMON

Older brothers are great. Between kicking your ass and depositing gelatinous surprises unexpectedly in your clothes and belongings, the pains of a vindictive bro are often paid for in the gems of big-boy knowledge. There’s a wisdom of coolness gained from having a rebellious senior sibling that can catapult you those few treacherous steps ahead of your peers into the realm of the bad-ass. Case in point: When I was at the scrubby, ne’er-do-well age of eight, my older brother graciously convinced my parents that it was a good idea to put a cassette copy of 2 Live Crew’s Nasty As They Wanna Be in my Christmas stocking, their cursory surveillance of the album not, apparently, revealing to them the smutty scene on the cover nor any of the horrendous song titles scribed on the back. Well, needless to say, my prepubescent mind was amazed and bewildered that there could exist such a perfect form of music—polemical, hyper-slanderous lyrics set to highway-speed breakbeats with hair-raising samples of bodily noises that I could only vaguely reference. My brother grabbed me as soon as our parents were out of earshot and made sure I understood that if mom and dad ever heard the album and found out what they had bought for me, he’d be in deep and I’d be all the worse for wear. Warning enthusiastically taken.

The shit storm that followed that album is still stinkin’, and I’m not talking about Tipper Gore’s misinformed “explicit content” labelling crusade. I’m talking about a generation of boys with toys who figured out early that over-sexualized diatribe, excessive cowbells and rumbling low-end can make for some slammin’ tunes, not to mention the odd bit of attention from girls who aren’t bothered by a little misogynist idiocy. Now there’s a half-dozen offshoot genres bringing bliss to all the dirty dudes and loose ladies out there, falling under an umbrella I recently heard a teenage friend refer to as “thug rave.” I cracked up. And the kids still love it. I couldn’t help but remember that (regrettably?) formative album from my childhood as I scanned this week’s listings and came across Parisian booty producers and occasional TTC collaborators Goon & Koyote, appearing at Academy this Friday, June 29, for Sharp à l’os, the monthly party hosted by CHOQ.FM’s l’Étiquette show and local funky bad-asses Omnikrom.

That will make for a tough call because Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti’s son Femi Kuti will be at Metropolis that night and, let me tell you, the kuka did not fall far from the baobab in terms of musicianship and innovation.

In other news, I recently discovered that one of my favourite dance music personalities, Erol Alkan, whose rumoured fear of flying impedes us from seeing him live, is also in a psychedelic no-wave/alt-folk group called Beyond the Wizard’s Sleeve, whose touching reprise of Midlake’s “Roscoe” easily makes my Banger of the Week.

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