Rebuilding The Wall: Art-rap and Punk-rap
By: Christian Hagen
History repeats itself
In 1972, David Bowie released The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The long development of rock and roll into the world’s dominant popular music had brought it at last to the avenue of intellectualism and distant theatricality, technical prowess and extreme production qualities. Preceded by Sgt. Pepper’s, Pet Sounds, and the florid beat poetry of Bob Dylan, and inspired not less blues and R&B but more by a mix of classical music and the young rock and roll genre itself, there was now a form of rock that took itself so seriously it had to be decoded, dissected, and discussed. And while it had been played in the clubs and had seen some following in the underground before Ziggy Stardust, now, thanks to Bowie, it was a worldwide phenomenon. Suddenly the music of the young and foolish became the passion of the educated and elite, and while its sounds still appealed to mass audiences, time would inevitably lead it behind walls which were less and less impeachable. It was the first shot of mainstream rock that was made more for critics than fans. This new sound really only fit one title: Art-rock.
In 1977, while art-rockers were taking their new-found acceptance as mandate and writing rock epics that played like bad acid trips, The Sex Pistols swung a nasty punch at pomposity with Never Mind the Bollocks. Sneering, brash, controversial, and endlessly energetic, the band was the antithesis of the art-rock movement. They barely knew their instruments, their lyrics aimed away from poetry; The Sex Pistols seemed to represent the youth that had been lost in the expansion of rock’s heady sounds, and, apparently, the intervening time had made the youth slightly crazy. The Pistols solidified a genre of rock that had been building in the wings, defining a label that had existed for nearly a decade, a term used for such acts as Patti Smith, The Talking Heads, and Television, which had never stuck quite so firmly or accurately: Punk-rock.
From these two genres was borne decades of animosity and discontent between the underground and mainstream forces of popular music, a gap which has grown exponentially as the years have gone on. The foundations for what some have dubbed today’s “hipster snobbery” can be traced in many ways to this musical conflict, and though both genres found some level of acceptance within the greater populace, art-rock and punk-rock were just the beginnings of a fractious and complicated relationship between critics, fans, the music buying public, and the industry at large.
Flash forward a little more than 30 years, to where we are today. Musically, everything has changed, at least on the surface. Rock has lost its footing; it is no longer even the best-selling genre for white kids, with country acts outselling rock bands regularly. Today, beyond the bland and unclear “pop” label, there is no style in the world more popular than hip-hop. Rap music has done for racially oppressed urban youths what early rock did for sexually repressed white teenagers, and, much like rock, it’s dealt with the ignorance and closed-mindedness of the mainstream culture until it has slowly come out ahead of all opposing genres. It’s undeniable: Rap is to this generation what rock was to the generations passed. And though each bears its sonic marks, the two are inextricably linked by a surprisingly similar history.
To 2010. Enter Kanye West, and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
Rap enters art
In his second review of MBDTF for AudioSuede, Chris Bosman determined, correctly, that the scope and meaning of what West had created was beyond the traditional “rap” or “hip-hop” determination. Here was an album that placed emphasis on arrangement over lyrics or beats, the tones of peoples’ voices over their respective skills with the mic. The whole production was musical theater, opening with a monologue and containing miniature stories which, taken as a whole, completed a complicated, often contradictory view of the artist behind their creation. Chris Bosman dubbed MBDTF the first “post-rap” album.
But I think a better distinction, and a more historically potent one, is to call West’s latest the first “art-rap” album. The record follows many of the models set forth by Bowie: thought-provoking lyrics that often resemble storytelling, a re-tooling of the sounds previously heard in the artist’s chosen genre that makes the music less fan-friendly but much more richly rewarding from a critical perspective, and the selling of an idea that has existed in the underground (a rap album that deconstructs rap music) to mainstream audiences. MBDTF even contains an obvious classical music influence, not only from the gorgeous string quartet intro to “All of the Lights” but also in the stirring string arrangements that pulse at the end of “Runaway.” Each piece of West’s puzzle is carefully carved to fit together as perfectly as possible, and it is only when each of those pieces is placed that the beauty and vision West wants us to see is apparent. In short, West has taken popular rap music to its next level: Art.
Modern music does bear one important distinction from the past, however: With the internet, things seem to change much more quickly. This is the best explanation for why, though it took rock five years to move from art rock to punk, it’s taken the rap scene less than one year. But “punk” is the only way to accurately describe the work of Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All.
The new generation of punk
Odd Future, as Sam Gelfand said when he profiled them for us in February, is recognized as much for their aims at controversy as for their wild, dirty, antagonistic music. Re-read that sentence with “The Sex Pistols” in place of “Odd Future,” and you see how similar the ideas are that Odd Future is working with. Every aspect of Odd Future’s style (dark lyrics, drugs, mad performances, ironic fashion sense) resembles the work of early punks. And now the group has built a community around themselves of rappers, artists, skaters, filmmakers, and who knows what else, and through this community, a scene has begun to blossom. They have taken up the mantle as representatives of the angry youths of their community, kids influenced by Eminem and horror-core who make music in their basements to release frustrations and scare their elders. It’s the punk identity with a new face.
Just look at the artwork the group produces for their album covers and websites: Upside-down crosses, swastikas, scenes of violence and sex. These are images punk kids appropriated to convince parents they were no good and to draw in youths who wanted to fight the establishment by banging their heads together in clubs. Then there are the group’s performances. At a recent gig at Austin City Limits, Tyler the Creator and Hodgy Beats famously leaped into the audience, breaking a guy’s nose, only to drag the injured man onstage so he could dance while blood ran from his face. The scene is reminiscent of Sid Vicious flinging blood on excited spectators in the front row while they jammed to the Pistols’ raw, barely-focused sound. Odd Future is taking rap into a direction that other rappers in the underground have attempted but, until now, no one has appropriated so thoroughly. They’re defining a rap movement that’s finally ready to see the light of day: “Punk-rap.”
Possibilities
For all the differences the older generations cite when talking about rock and roll and rap, their journeys have begun to parallel each other. The best-selling rapper of all time is a white kid from a trailer park who copped his sound from his black idols and made it big by disturbing adults and alluring kids. Rap’s gone from party music to social commentary to protest music and back. And now, rap may be entering a period where serious critical analysis and carefully crafted art will meet head-on the do-it-yourself rage of disenfranchised youth, splintering the entire scene, and the industry, into increasingly fractious styles, either more extreme or more nuanced than anything we’ve yet seen. Regardless of what anyone may believe, rap is rock and roll, and rock and roll is rap, and we might just be a few decades away from seeing another cultural revolution, where neither rap nor rock is king. But for now, the lines have been drawn. Mainstream rap and underground rap alike will be grappling with the details for a while, but there’s no doubt that art-rap and punk-rap have arrived. What’s next?
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(Originally posted April 06, 2011)