New Music Monday: Arms are too short to box with God

Turns out there's a terrible flip side to things when music is your religion. Sure, it's nice perpetually having a fat beat rocking on the soundtrack of life. And I certainly get a kick out of having music for everything. But sometimes - and I hate even to admit this - there can be too much. This the reason for my near tardiness this week, and very nearly pushing things off as a matter of fact. It's not because I haven't been listening to music, or that I haven't found anything new. On the contrary: it was cause I've been listening to so much stuff, both new and old, that I felt like my aural palette had become over-stimulated. I liken it to drinking too many different kinds of wine all at once. It's difficult to properly sort out what is "good" from what is simply "new", feelings get jumbled from song to song and artist to artist... Try to digest to much, and your brain explodes.

Luckily at the very end I did manage to settle down and find something to nod my head to. I recently happened across an interesting article about the DORF Matrix, a bit of reflection and theory on how skewed the music habits of NPR's listeners are, in particular when it comes to black music. (Woah! It's gettin all racial up in this piece! Except, don't worry, cause it's really not. ~M) The gist of the argument is, 1. black artists are underrepresented, and 2. the black folks that are represented weirdly come from music that regular black people don't actually listen to. According to this article, the NPR crowd - which is predominately white and college-educated - mostly listens to music which falls into the DORF categories, those being artists who are Dead, Old, Retro or Foreign. I have to say that I don't know enough about NPR or its listeners to speak on this with any authority, but I find this to be utterly fascinating. I feel like this should be posted on Stuff White People Like, for one. But also, in all seriousness, having had some experiences in my day hanging out with a largely white and college-educated crowd, I've seen some things that lead me to believe this theory may have merit. And, loosing track of seriousness again, there was mention of making a DORF drinking game which I think would be hilarious.

Anyway, this articles cites a whole pile of examples to back up its assertions in black musicians that have gotten airplay and recognition on NPR. I didn't come close to looking at all of them, but I did happen to click on one link that made a reference to retro hip-hop. I do loves the old-school stuff, after all, and I've got to keep my ears open for the good stuff that stays true to its roots. Can't be having that mainstream garbage made by sellouts and fools in my house. The link in question led me to a song by the Brown Bag AllStars outta New York, and left me wanting more. A little investigation into these record store employees by day, emcees by night led me to their blog and a few more songs that they've posted there. One of those I find incredibly striking, in that it is easily one of the most beautiful hip-hop songs I've heard in ages. In fact, I can almost remember the last time and place when I heard something so moving. Five or six years ago now I heard a track by a group called Pitch Black, and it knocked me out. I loved the use of strings in a hip-hop song, and to me the sound of the melody is just killer. I've only just realized that this song by BBAS is the first thing I've heard of that caliber in the last five years. I ran out and bought the Pitch Black album based on just that one song - kind of out of character for me - and then proceeded to be a little let down by the rest of their offering. It had its moments, but nothing else that rocked me so hard as that. In fact, I had to pull out Pitch Black and BBAS and listen to them back and forth and side-by-side, over and over, and it's quite eerie how alike they are. Definitely going to try and start some dialogue about this. But that is where the similarity to BBAS ends. I've been listening to a few more tracks by them, did that listening to too much music thing, gave em a break for a minute, came back for more, and find that the quality is steady throughout. Everything I've heard by them is just as awesome as that first song.

Pitch Black - It's All Real
Brown Bag AllStars - Brooklyn Queens Expressway

And for those of you interested, the article and the follow-up piece.