headphones and headlines

Luke will be in America in 12 days. Christmas will be here in 15 days. 2009 will be here in 21 days. Barack Obama will be sworn in to the presidency in 41 days and in 88 days I will be 25 years old. Numbers. Days. Time pass by, marking the cadence of life with ticks and tocks reminding us constantly of the passage of time. And yet, there's something comforting falling asleep to the sound of a ticking clock.

Times are tough for Americans. When Americans can't charge as much as they want whenever they want, they get a little upset. And now the wasteful spending of the rich and the poor alike is hurting everyone's pocket. Which leads Americans to the "simple life." What does that mean? It means not going out to eat 20 times a week and throwing away the leftovers the next day. It means not taking the Expedition out for a spin in the mountains for a weeked of fishing. It means learning how to cook meals and shop within a budget. All of these cut backs are the change that's needed to happen to middle to upper-class Americans, to remind us of how lucky we are to have had what we've had for so long. There are poor people in America, homeless people, destitute people, yes. But they still get to eat. We're not living in Haiti or Ethiopia where, even if you have money, there's not much food to buy and we throw away more food in a day than they eat as a country in a year. Sad stuff, right?

Even Kanye West is feeling a bit down. For an artist whose previous hits had titles such as "Stronger," "The Glory," "Champion," "Touch the Sky," and "Jesus Walks" has released an album suffused with sadness, heartbreak and general angst. The thing that I love about hip hop and the reason I've been listening to it so much this past month is the contrast and drama that rock sometimes lacks, especially indie rock. There's something about rap that's eye-opening. The contrast becones apparent when I put on Chronic 2001 or Lil Wayne as I drive through little ole South Roanoke. Dre rapping about gang violence and murder, drugs and street life. Wayne rapping about "bodies still floating," in New Orleans and "you wonder why black people still voting" when your "president's still choking." It's like watching footage from some war for the first time, like those images in the Time magazine of all of those Vietnamese people with their eyes bulging from their skulls, covered in flies with Americans standing around smoking cigarettes posing for the picture. It's a slap in the face. It's truth without metaphor, anger, irony, hatred, love. But it can also be very funny, which I also like. (see Eminem).

Then there's the cross-refrencing. Lil Wayne quotes Kanye, Kanye praises Lil Wayne. And of course there's the infinite references to 2 Pac and Notorious BIG who are referred to as martyrs to the rap game. They make it sound like it was inevitable that they would have to be sacrificed in order to end the fueding between rappers. This drama spans two decades and countless rappers.

So if 2 pac and BIG died for the sake of peace, what has rock offered up to the music gods? Rock's drama exists within the artists tortured head. Several tortured artists have taken their own lives either intentionally or otherwise (drugs). Kurt Cobain was the big one, Bradley Nowell's music was not exactly tortured emotionally charged music, but he gave up his life to his heroin addiction. Rock hasn't lost any big stars since then. Hunter S. Thompson would be on the list of martyrs, another tortured soul, tormented by the personas created for him that he was forced to act out (Duke). The only martyr that comes to mind that was murdered was John Lennon. Ironically, his war was against peace and his life was prematurely ended by an instrument of hate.

Insecurity is the voice that must be silenced for rock stars, not the voices of haters or rival gangsters. The violence that rock stars deal with the pain inflicted upon them by the world. Pain and drama and violence exists in both genres of music, rock singers channel all of this through their guitars or in their strained voices, shrouded in vague lyrics about the universal girl that broke his heart, the pain of his past life, his insecurities, his anger, all expressed through a combination of instruments voice. The rapper has his words. Yes, metaphors exist, but names are used, specific events, public or private, or discussed openly.

Kanye has a song about how his grandmother was sick in the hospital and the pain he felt, the helplessness, the feeling that poor people get cheated by the system and "if my grandmother were in the NBA, right now everything would be okay?" They invite people into their lives where rock musicians attempt to alienate themselves farther by their vaguness and mystique. Conor Oberst wrote songs about his personal life and it tore him apart. He felt to insecure and hated the feeling of people watching him, whereas Lil Wayne claims that he's "the greatest rapper alive" on his album and never shys away from a photo shoot. Hip hop is refreshing because it welcomes the listener into a full serial drama that exists both within the headphones and in the headlines and for that, I owe a debt of graditude to Mr. Shakur, Mr. Wallace, Mr. Young, Mr. West, and Mr. Carter. Not to mention all of those before, after or unheard of that will one day inspire me.