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Nov 16, 2007

Space Rap: OhWord's Future? · by R.H.S.


We dig it where we’re from – but we love it where we’re at

For those who forgot, or just plain, slept, I go by the nom d’plume R.H.S., which for the record does not stand for “Recondite Horrendous Syntax.” You can check my resume here, but the real jive is that I have authored numerous features and reviews here, in addition to a few noteworthy blog posts. My contributions have been extremely sparse over the past year or two, and I apologize for that. But I’m back in effect like a Blue Ghost and ready to catch wreck on the regular.

Anyways, I had a minor epiphany of sorts recently while perusing my RSS feed subscriptions for intriguing news items of intergalactic significance, which is one of my hobbies and a great distraction from productivity of all kinds. So I’m traveling at magnificant speeds throughout the interwebs when it dawns on me that, despite macho posturing to the contrary, hip-hoppers of nearly every walk of life and mic style, from center city slum visionaries to collegiate bohos to ostentatious Atlanteans to inner-ring suburban malcontents, luh them some spacey rap.

And by spacey rap, I don’t mean simply raps that mentions quasars and quarks (though I like some of those too) but artists and crews that draw however knowingly from a rich musical tradition that employs cosmic motif, imagery, and sound to simultaneously deconstruct the vagaries of the African diaspora and reimagine its future trajectories. The metaphysical meditations of Rakim, the sesquipedelian pothead rants of Keith Murray, the discrusive expansiveness of Chuck D.‘s Terrodome – man, the generation of hip hoppers raised in the Robert Moses-crafted final Afro-frontiers of the Black Belt of Long Island were really in tune with their stargazing forbearers, from Sun-Ra to George Clinton to Afrika Bambaataa to Newcleus to T-La Rock to MC Shan … well you get the idea.

So I’m going to write a piece that’ll hopefully connect the dots in a lucid yet enthralling way. I’ve done it before, and throughout my writing issues of space, place, history, power relationships, spiritual conflict, and narrative mobility are tackled. But this time, I don’t want to venture into space alone – what does the blogopshere think about a collaborative Space Rap project, similar to the one OhWord put together for last year’s highly successful Crack Week? Space in the 5%er context? Contribute an article! Those wacky ATLiens? Give us an album review! Deltron as sci-fi poet? We like line for line breakdowns too! De La Psychadelics? Hell we dig visual art as well.

If you’re interested in contributing to this potential feature, or just dig where it’s going, let us know! Rafi’s still in the dark – off on a blog vacation, blissfully unaware of our new direction…

Comments for "Space Rap: OhWord's Future?"

  1. How about a review of Edan’s “Beauty and the Beat”?
    I loved Crack Week and would really like to contribute to this one.


    — AaronM    Nov 16, 01:18 AM   

  2. Damn Aaron, that was quick! I say go for it… in the very near future we’ll post a formal call for submissions.


    — R.H.S.    Nov 16, 01:23 AM   

  3. Sweetness. So I just send it in when that post goes up?


    — AaronM    Nov 16, 02:55 AM   

  4. Word up, akh, stay tuned!


    — R.H.S.    Nov 16, 03:06 AM   

  5. Dope. Hope other people are up for this too.


    — AaronM    Nov 16, 03:46 AM   

  6. Might be tempted to write something about Five Deez, as long as it doesn’t get too far into “computer rap” whatever the hell that means


    — DJ AO    Nov 16, 10:02 AM   

  7. I considered writing something about that Edan album for my site. It never materialized. Whoa. That sounds spacey right there.
    We speak verbal rhyme phonics
    Why y’all trying to change this hip hop to technotronics?


    — Jay B    Nov 16, 03:00 PM   

  8. And props on using the world’s fair globe from Flushing Meadows Park. You might have also seen that in the Award Tour video.


    — Jay B    Nov 17, 01:19 AM   

  9. The golden age of rap blogging came and went. The children wept for a well run dry. RHS RETURNS.

    Now would be a good time to imbed the cover of Beats, Rhymes, and Life.


    — hullabaloo    Nov 17, 01:24 AM   

  10. quintessentially I’m verbally Hercules
    keepin the speech hotter than the surface of mercury


    — Chux    Nov 18, 08:49 AM   

  11. IM SMOKIN CHRONIC ON A DAILY, MY CHEST IS A FULL A STRESS AND IT AIN’T NOBODY TRYIN TO HEAR MAE’, IM SPEAKIN SINCERELY, CUZ IN THIS LIFE U ONLY GOT ONE AND I TRY LIVE MY LIFE, BUT IT AIN’T POPPIN LIKE I WANT, NOW I CAN SPIT SOME GANGSTA SHIT OR I CAN KEEP IT REAL, BUT I’D RATHER JUST BE ME AND LET U KNOW JUST HOW I FEEL SOME DAY I HOPE A LABEL WILL FINALLY RECOGNIZE THAT THEY GOT A HUNGRY MUTHAFUCKA READY ON THE RIZE


    — RIO    Jan 18, 02:49 AM