Salon.com > Baz Dreisinger

Crime, punishment … and MTV

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:25:00 +0000

I was biased against "T.I.'s Road to Redemption" before I ever caught an episode of the highly touted MTV reality series, starring the chart-topping rapper and actor dubbed "the Jay-Z of the South." Its premise is simple: T.I., born Clifford Harris in Atlanta, brings hard-learned street knowledge to bear on the lives of teenagers heading down the same wrong path he's followed -- in the not-so-distant past. The rapper was sentenced to prison last Friday on federal weapons charges, and MTV built its series, which has its season finale Tuesday, around the soul-searching and required community-service hours that preceded his day of reckoning.

The show's name was to blame for my initial bias: "Redemption" carries hefty verbal weight. Penitent sinners experience redemption. Contemplative outlaws experience redemption. Meditating religious icons experience redemption. But a blockbuster rapper marketing a new album via an upcoming prison stint, promoting his "countdown to lockdown," to cite the title of rapper Lil' Kim's 2006 pre-prison BET reality show -- does he experience redemption, even as he's likely getting paid per episode? I was skeptical.

Ride my pimp

Thu, 15 Jul 2004 20:00:00 +0000

Bishop Don "Magic" Juan isn't a pimp, but he plays one on TV. He's had cameo roles in cinematic gems like "Old School," "Starsky and Hutch" and "S.W.A.T"; in glossy rap videos by Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent and Nelly; and, most recently, on the UPN sitcom "Eve." The sleazy yet avuncular Juan finds it natural to play a pimp because back in the '70s, he was one. He's reformed, now: a dubiously ordained man of God who still sports full-on pimp regalia, a so-called spiritual advisor to rap stars and author of the would-be bestseller "From the Pimp Stick to the Pulpit."

Visiting Juan in his Los Angeles apartment, as I once did, is like entering a time warp. Bypass the 1976 Rolls Royce parked out front and step into a living room straight out of "Superfly" -- chenille sofas, shag carpets and mirrored wall paneling etched in gold. Juan wore a rainbow-colored leisure suit, shoes tie-dyed to match and shirt unbuttoned to the waist. He poured himself a pint of Hennessy and did what pimps and preachers do best: talk. For nearly two hours. After which he showered me with gifts -- a Playboy T-shirt, a sample-size vial of perfume, an autographed photo -- and exhibited the mainstream press he's gotten over the years.

Preacher’s son

Thu, 03 Jun 2004 23:05:00 +0000

Wyclef Jean is not a great rapper, a stellar singer or a humble self-promoter ("I want to do things that will change people who hear it 300 years from now, like Scriptures," he recently told MTV). That he's favored by two former presidential hopefuls -- Al Gore, who gave Jean a public "shout-out" in 2000, and Howard Dean, who deemed him "fantastic" -- doesn't bode well: Any act deemed fit for political endorsement is likely to be as cutting-edge as warm milk.

Jean's excruciatingly righteous new single, "If I Was President," released via AOL Music, isn't likely to boost his hardcore hip-hop credibility, either. "If I was president," the rapper begins, "instead of spending billions on the war/ I'd take that money so I could feed the poor." The well-intentioned, musically bereft track has the feel of a grade-school writing assignment -- "what would you do if you were president, Billy?" -- and AOL has, aptly enough, turned it into one: Fans are invited to add their own "If I Was President" declarations to an online message board; winning entries will be incorporated into a remix of the original Jean song.

Jamaica’s new music revolution

Sat, 13 Mar 2004 20:52:00 +0000

Music studios here, low on frills and high on voltage, are the nerve centers of Jamaica. Anywhere on the island -- even in Kingston, a car-loving city that scoffs at public domain -- music blares. From car windows, office buildings and beach huts comes the milange of sounds you'd expect (roots reggae, dancehall, hip-hop) and ones that might surprise you (American country music, anything by Celine Dion).

Pulling up to Donovan Bennett's studio in the fairly humble neighborhood called Mona, I smell status: The small street is heavy with big cars, including that music-industry trophy, the Escalade. This colossal entity, says my companion, a local journalist, might belong to Sean Paul, who owns one and is as likely as any other dancehall artist to drop in at Bennett's studio.

Nups and nips

Wed, 03 Mar 2004 17:42:00 +0000

On MTV's "Newlyweds," Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson coo and quarrel while grimacing viewers reckon how long their game of house will last. Another season of ABC's "The Bachelor" turns a marriage proposal into game-show victory: the equivalent of a new car or washer-dryer set. "The Littlest Groom," which proved that reality TV can indeed flop miserably, concludes on Fox this month. And when that network advertised "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé" -- in which a woman convinces her family she's marrying a boor -- by claiming that it "rings the wedding bells to sound off the ultimate practical joke," few flinched at finding "wedding" and "joke" in the same sentence.

Its aim having shifted from depicting subjects to slyly (or not so slyly) deriding them, reality television has found a new whipping post in an age-old convention: marriage. MTV's "'Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen & Dave" -- featuring Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro and his new wife, sex symbol Carmen Electra -- joins a deluge of reality programming that playfully, irreverently -- and sometimes unwittingly -- demystifies marriage and its accoutrements: engagements, wedding plans, nuptials themselves. Wednesday night (and repeated throughout the week), "'Til Death Do Us Part" offers up its climactic episode -- a big, fat celebrity wedding.

The “Jewsploitation” craze

Tue, 23 Dec 2003 21:00:00 +0000

For New York Jews in Los Angeles exile, Canter's Deli is a glimpse at the Promised Land. An L.A. eatery with enough chutzpah to pretend "Atkins" and "low carb" don't exist -- diet, you say, in the land of kugel and knishes? -- Canter's, born in 1924, churns out 4,900 pounds of pastrami every month. Close your eyes and smell the borscht. You're suddenly in the land of milk and honey (Ratner's, Katz's or any other high-holy deli on New York's Lower East Side).

This morning, though, nothing can drown out Los Angeles. Jonathan Kesselman, writer/director of "The Hebrew Hammer" -- fresh off its run on Comedy Central and now schlepping into theaters in New York and Los Angeles, with other cities to follow -- is eating breakfast, talking movies and waxing neurotic about ethnic slurs.

"I don't get it. You can't say 'kike' on TV, but you can say 'nigga.' You can't say 'n----r,' though, just 'nigga' -- except if it's a Richard Pryor film, in which case everything goes." Kesselman sips his coffee and sighs. "Why can't I say 'kike,' for God's sake?"

A pop princess, unspoiled

Tue, 09 Dec 2003 21:00:00 +0000

Once upon a time and several years ago, a very beautiful young woman with a very beautiful voice recorded a very beautiful album. A very, very beautiful album -- the sort of achingly soulful, thoughtfully written, impeccably composed album for which critics lust and fans get down on their knees to say hallelujah.

This PYT was rewarded with universal acclaim -- which, in real-world terms, means five Grammy awards. Glimmering statuettes in hand, she posed gorgeously for the press; then, with the music world at her feet, she disappeared into that land where artists go (the studio) eager to do what artists do (record a sophomore album). Fans salivated, anxiously awaiting their musical treat.

The album came; it was no treat. What, everyone asked, had spoiled such a good thing? The creative autonomy that came with fame, which allowed her to overindulge herself? Or perhaps the opposite: She had buckled under the onerous, restraining load of excess celebrity. Greedy fans, cheated of a precious follow-up, lamented their loss. Critics, meanwhile, dismantled the very pedestal they'd erected.

“Passing” and the American dream

Tue, 04 Nov 2003 20:00:00 +0000

Every now and then, cultural and social critics fashion an axiom that's flippant, succinct and thus darling enough to render its truth value irrelevant. Such is the case with a phrase coined by culture-mongers in the 1960s that's finding new currency today: "Passing is passé."

"Passing" is shorthand for "racial passing," and "racial passing" means people of one race (generally African-American) passing for another (usually white). Anybody who's surprised that there's a shorthand terminology for what might seem a pretty unlikely scenario will be more surprised that the phenomenon, with its lengthy history in American culture, isn't all that unusual. Some of the earliest stories about passing reach back to the 19th century, when slaves -- like Ellen Craft, who penned a mesmerizing slave narrative -- used their light skin to escape, and novelists from Mark Twain to Charles Chesnutt mined the subject for their oeuvre.

Passing was a much-hyped subject during the Harlem Renaissance, which produced a plethora of rich fiction about it: Nella Larsen's "Passing," Jessie Fauset's "Plum Bun," Walter White's "Flight." The subject had its Hollywood heyday; melodramatic passing flicks from the '30s, '40s and '50s include "Pinky," "Lost Boundaries" and two big-screen versions of "Imitation of Life" (the latter version, directed by Douglas Sirk, probably still delights the Kleenex industry).

Hip-hop’s odd couple gets odder

Wed, 24 Sep 2003 20:00:00 +0000

Dynamic duos delight us by virtue of contrast: One might be staid and the other brash; one large, the other lean; one high-pitched, the other baritone. Think Batman and Robin, Abbott and Costello, Bert and Ernie.

That's also the winning formula behind famous rap pairings, from Chuck D and Flava Flav (of Public Enemy) to N.W.A.'s Ice Cube and Eazy-E. In style and intonation, one is a little more out there than the other. One might wear the pants, so to speak, while the other wears, well, a skirt -- or a psychedelic top, neon green smock and daisies.

OK, so this last description applies to only one rap duo: OutKast's Andre 3000 and Big Boi (né Andre Benjamin and Antwan Patton). Two albums into their career, Andre launched his own sartorial revolution, adding a numerical value to his name and sporting outfits that -- especially on his lanky, lean frame -- might alternately be deemed eccentric or extraterrestrial. Big Boi remained content with Phat Farm sweat suits.

Will the real Feminem please stand up

Sat, 20 Sep 2003 20:00:00 +0000

For the past few years, the music industry has been on a quest for something that sounds vaguely like a feminine hygiene product -- something it hopes it found this summer: Feminem. That's as in "female Eminem." As in a miniskirted version of the bleached-blond, hot-tongued rapper who delved deep into the hearts and pockets of America, making hip-hop fans of suburban teens and baby boomers alike.

It seemed a natural progression. First, Col. Tom Parker found Elvis, a Mississippi white boy who belted out rhythm 'n' blues with enough sneer and swagger to make ladies swoon. Then über-producer Dr. Dre found Eminem, a Detroit white boy who spits rhymes with enough skill and surliness to make critics swoon. The pop industry's next idea for a Great White Hope is tantalizing: a white girl, from anywhere in America, who could serve up hip-hop with enough feminist posturing to excite teenage girls and enough cleavage to excite their boyfriends.

Top Dogg

Sat, 23 Aug 2003 01:17:00 +0000

Snoop Dogg is backstage at "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," and he's cradling a little blond boy in his arms. The boy is comedian Andy Richter's son, and Richter's wife wants a photo of him with the world-famous hip-hop star, the man synonymous with the term "gangsta rap." Snoop -- who's making talk-show rounds to promote his latest album, "Paid Tha Cost to Be Da Bo$$," and his MTV comedy sketch show, "Doggy Fizzle Televizzle, " which wraps its first season this month -- scoops up little Richter. It's a shot for the family album: Snoop, in Converse sneakers and baggy Snoop Dogg Clothing sweats, with a little white boy in a wide-eyed grin.

Later, Snoop poses for another camera. Slumped in Conan's hot seat, he details the burgeoning conglomerate that is Calvin Broadus, aka Snoop Dogg: his clothing line; his DoggyStyle Record label; his soul-inflected recent album and his first love song, the hit single "Beautiful." There's Doggyland theme park, soon to open in Mississippi, and the special-order Snoop DeVille, a mink-seated Cadillac low-rider (which he deems "fit for a pimp"). There's "Doggy Fizzle Televizzle," in which Snoop mesmerizes a first-grade class with Iceberg Slim as if it's Doctor Seuss. When Conan whips out a Vital Toys Snoop doll, the rapper interjects. "Not a doll. An action figure," he declares, adding that his boys like to pit him against Batman and Robin.