Black Milk

Its been almost a week since I’ve posted.  A sketch a day eh?  Yea. About that…

This sketch was actually completed a few days ago, I simply haven’t had the time to post it.  Too much gallivanting around the city…but really, is there ever too much?

I’ve been listening to Black Milk lately and reading Jason Tanz’s Other People’s Property.  In “Bounce” from his 2007 album Tronic Black Milk raps, “Even old school artists feel like the game’s fucked, that’s when I clock in as an option when you need a breath of fresh oxygen.”  I find the discussion of authenticity and the “real” pursuits of an art form or movement to be fascinating, especially when authenticity is used as a marketing tool.  For something that was initially an underground culture on the periphery of New York City life, mainly among lower-income urban black and Latino youth,  the present day marketing of authenticity within a movement is evident of the drastic break from its origins.  Is the “game fucked” because unskilled rappers are making it big, whereas many talented artists remain silenced?  That is only part of it, as hip hop was born detached from the middle and upperclass avenues of success.  The tools necessary to impress at something like breaking, for instance, were time, dedication and practice.  Not money.  Now, the multi-billion dollar hip hop industry plays by a lot of the same rules the hip hop artists of the 70s were frustrated by.

Therefore I question, is the “game fucked” simply because of talent?  Black Milk, who recently moved out of his basement studio in Detroit to go where the action is, may think that is what tainted hip hop.  And he may continue to spout those words rolling around in a Hummer limo.  We shall see.   I’m  curious to see  how rappers and producers, like Black Milk, who discuss authenticity in their lyrics and have at least some understanding of how class plays into the uneven successes of talent and talentless artists change the practice of their art and lifestyle, if at all.  Or will he, like others, simply “sell out” at some point and become the subject of future underground hip hop artists’ bashings.

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I got it from my mama

I have recently found an intimate connection with will.i.am’s “I got it from my mama,” the hit single on his 2007 album “Songs About Girls.”  About me? I’m a girl! Maybe that explains the connection. Or I forgot to release the “mute” button.  Either way, a brilliant lyricist and inspiration to us all, will.i.am’s tune asks, “baby, where’d you get that body from? Tell me, where’d you get that body from?”  Its a bit more complex than will.i.am makes it out to be and I can only blame a poorly funded primary and secondary public education system in Brazil for spitting out generations of beach babes who think they were delivered via storkes.  Nonetheless, it makes for catchy song: far more important than accuracy of information.  Even I thought about throwing on a bikini and dancing on the beach called my rooftop in Jersey City.  Hot. And smoggy.

I wanted to take the song deeper, if thats at all possible, by reflecting on my physical features, talents, and personality traits that are in the likes of my mama.  We are both tall.  We both like antiques.  We write in a similar fashion.  And then I had it. I know what it is. What all the guys were asking me in Toledo during high school with my awkward smile, my out of proportion flannel-wearing body and my mad Risk and Magic the Gathering skillz.  The one thing, among many, that made them think “oh, maybe at our fifteen-year reunion I’ll ask her out if I’m not already married. Please god be married by then.”

Any producer who wants it, its yours.  I won’t even collect royalties on it.  Just doing it for the people, out of the goodness of my heart.

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