Jason Toney

It Ain't Where Ya From...

"And you don't know me yet." - Big Daddy Kane, 'Nuff Respect [buy the album] Michael Franti is on Def Poetry Jam alternating between the deliberate cadences of spoken word, the rhythmic flows of rap and the staccato delivery of reggae in this approximation of a coffee shop or a small theatre, a beat poet's hangout. He's talking about the roots of revolution and subversion and sticking it to the corporations that seek to keep revolution down. This imagery and message is being given to me on Home Box Office, a fully owned subsidiary of Time Warner, one of the largest media conglomerates in the world. They are more than happy to sell us the sounds and visuals of revolution once a week for 28 minutes. Hell, we can afford cable and the pay service, HBO, we aren't revolting against anything. But Michael Franti's sentiment is genuine and so I'm left wondering... Is this hip hop? Ruby Dee, who, like Lena Horne is gonna be fly until she dies, is up next and she's doing a poem about Tupac Shakur. Now, I just revealed on here that I'm not a fan of 'Pac and this old lady is taking me to school. She goes through his mythos, his conflict, and his tragedy and I feel shamed. My "conscious" rap lovin' ass is much more comfortable in the hands of the lyrical literati like Mos Def and Talib Kweli and The Native Tongues or in the party and bullshit rhymes of the Kings of New York (Biggie and Jigga) or their west coast compatriots (Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg) than the risk in 'Pac's more inspired work and so I'm left wondering... Am I hip hop? These are the questions that Patrick Neate seeks to answer for himself in Where You're At: Notes From the Frontline of a Hip-Hop Planet. It's been so long since I've read about hip hop from a more academic perspective, I devoured his work. Neate, a UK based writer, teacher, and DJ is a little older than me, a lot more involved in the culture, and, like me, looking back on his connection to what has become the most popular and accessible form of pop culture in the world, travelling the globe to do it. The premise is that he's trying to find out where hip hop is but, really, he's trying to find out where he's at and while reading the book I found myself asking a lot of questions about who I am, how I got here and what my relationship with hip hop is. The globetrotting is vastly interesting. Living in this giant megaphone known as America, our pop culture goes out to the rest of the world with very little of that foreign pop being brought back to us and I'm hit completely unawares with what's going on in hip hop in South Africa and Brazil and Italy and France. It is completely mind boggling to consider how significant this artform is to the marginal on a global scale. There's some tedium in the way Neate goes about getting to his point. He spends maybe a little too much time on the history and sociology of each area which, while fascinating, brings the large scale cultural questions about hip hop to a bit of a halt. His conversations with the local heads are the true gems in the book and I was constantly hungry for more of those interactions, thoughts, and outlooks. What I found so on point about the book, though, was how present, how now a lot of the topics he gets into are. Maybe it's my constant blog monitoring but I was regularly reminded of posts I'd read recently.

Musical Survey

"My boys warned me you was poison like BBD's first cassette" - Madvillain, Fancy Clown [buy the album] Alternately titled: I should be finishing the last few pages of this book and/or doing housework and/or some laundry right now. EJ and Trent did it before me. First Record[s] Bought: The Show b/w La Di Da Di by Doug E. Fresh and The Get Fresh Crew, 12 inch. First Album Bought: The King of Rock by Run DMC, The Jets by The Jets, The Fat Boys are Back by The Fat Boys (all with my birthday money on my 11th birthday in 1986) First Concert: My dad is a Jazz Musician so I went to a ton of Jazz Shows that I didn't care about at the time. The first concert I went to was a Bobby Brown, Al B. Sure, Paula Abdul super show at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas if I'm not mistaken (I know Bobby and Al were there, I feel like Paula was there but I also have a twinge of doubt about that). It was 1989. I was 14. Favorite Music Movie: Even with it's need of a better editor I love The Harder They Come and I don't care what anybody says, Beat Street was my introduction to breakdancing and I love it forever. This is hard, though, because I watch a helluvalot of music films & documentaries. Favorite Music Book: Black Noise by Tricia Rose Favorite Lyrical Songwriter: Stevie Wonder and Johnny Cash (Honorable Mention: Christopher Wallace) Favorite Producers: This one's hard. In hip hop it's a tie between Dr. Dre and DJ Premier. Everything else? It's gotta be Quincy Jones right? Favorite Record Label:Right now I'm buying everything off of Stones Throw but if I wanted to own an entire catalog it'd be Blue Note. Favorite Magazine[s]: URB, XLR8R (side note: What's up with One World? They haven't come out with a new issue since the beginning of this year. Favorite Bassist: Aaron Mills, Cameo Favorite Album Cover: Every Ohio Players Album Cover. Favorite Music DVD: Scratch: The Movie and Standing in the Shadows of Motown Favorite Teen Idol: New Edition and Janet Jackson Artists Who [Disappointed You]: I don't think there are artists that have disappointed me. I'm disappointed that I'll never hear new music from Biggie again. Artist You Will Always Believe In: Aretha Franklin Singer Who Makes Your Skin Crawl: Michael Bolton Singer Who Makes You Swoon: Sia Fürler Favorite Sounds: break beats Album You Will Always Defend: Justin Timberlake's Justified Album[s] You Own That No One Else Does: Len's You Can't Stop the Bum Rush and 2Gether Music from the MTV Original Series (and no, i'm not proud) Classic Album You Own but Don't Like: hmmm, i'm at a loss on this one. Artist[s] You're Supposed to Like but Don't: Tupac Shakur (I Get Around and How Do You Want It? excluded) Genres You Stay Away From: Contemporary Country and Heavy Metal Song You Can't Stand by an Artist You Like: Black Cat by Janet Jackson Band [Or Group] That Should Break Up: Limp Bizkit Bands [Or Groups] That Should Re-form: The Fugees Guilty Pleasure: Boy Bands (particularly *nsync and nkotb) Concert[s] You Wish You'd Seen: Björk at Coachella; The Rumble in the Jungle Concert Dream Collaboration: Hmmm, maybe Mary J. Blige doing traditional soul records at Staxx.

Rilo Kiley on the brain

"And you're not happy but you're funny." - Rilo Kiley, Absence of God [buy the album] Since I'm not feeling well and I'm staring at a lovely negative balance in my checking account because I forgot that sometimes when you pay bills they actually do take the money, I'm not going to see Rilo Kiley at Amoeba tonight. So, since More Adventurous is steadily moving up my favorites of 2004 list, if you haven't been able to tell here with my lyrical quoting or with the recent time wastin' post, I figured I'd sit here before I take a nap and obsess a little. Rilo Kiley (and Ms. Nellie McKay and the snooze inducing Coldplay) will be at A Sounds Eclecting Evening this year. They also have announced their Fall tour, which includes a halloween show at The Mayan. Largehearted Boy loves the album. So does E! While Spin calls them a band to watch and New York's Newsday notes that they are only getting better with time. Stereogum does a nice feature on my current music crush and RK frontwoman, Jenny Lewis. Meanwhile, the East Valley Tribune takes a look at where women are in rock & roll today (and suggests mining your son's itunes library for rilo kiley tracks). And, for the slightly dissenting opinion, a pseudo-indie-scenester-girl-what!

Big Screen

"What do I gotta do to make it work out?" - The Gossip, Fire/Sign [buy the album] Stereogum mentioned this movie. He notices Selma Blair and the names of the characters. I notice Tracey Ullman and find the very hilarious trailer. I usually don't like to follow the crowd and link to what everyone else is linking to but Anchorman is my favorite movie of the summer so far and this vid clip featuring Will Ferrell is the balls. "I will use this as a weapon to kill the devil horse if it gets near me." Register to vote, people. I love the character of Jason Bourne. I love the smartness of these films. I did not love the jumpy camera and quick cutting of the action scenes. It left me a little disengaged from the characters. That said, more Bourne, please. Perhaps my second favorite film of the summer (running neck and neck with I, Robot, which I'm secretly liking but not telling anybody) I wasn't planning on seeing it and I probably shouldn't even be telling you this -- if she knew I was putting her bizness out in the virtual street we probably wouldn't be cordial in the future -- but...(okay I'll sort of tell you after the jump)

Idiot Box

"Let's just go on the roof, man, and stare at the sky" - !!!, When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Karazee [buy the album] It's like black tv news day over at tvtattle.com (and they probably don't even know it). Boondocks might actually see the light of day. I'm guessing BET was out of the question. And Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block is probably the best place for it. Especially now that TRIO might be going bye bye. The home of The N Word and Chuck D Weekend and concert films and more new york hipster pseudo-intellectualism (kind of like Paper) than you can shake a stick at might go away which is really sad. It's got the best programming sensibilities of any station on the cablesphere. And while the tattle notes that N.K.O.T.B. (Dirty Dawg!) are going to be on Bands Reunited, I'm stopped by this: ABC. Another Bad Creation? For Reals? That's the best news ever. What if I pitch Bands Incarcerated? Come on, New Edition can't be the only r&b band with a criminal in the midst. There's gotta be at least one cat from Troop or Hi-Five who is on lockdown. And if every negro from H-Town ain't on the run from the law these days then I don't know my criminal minded. Yewknee wants you to waste at least an hour of your day like I did. Am I the only one who was hot for Jenna Von Oy back when she was Sixx (hell, I was only Twelve) or is waiting for the day that 21 Jump Street is digitally remastered and put on DVD with commentary by The McQuaid Brothers? And finally, I'm really enjoying Rescue Me (which features not one single likeable character) but, once again I must ask, in this fictional New York City, where the black people at?

Almost Halfway There

"And Everything's full of dreams for reasons" - Butterfly Boucher, A Beautiful Book While I'm listening to everything i've got on my itunes released in 2004 so I can be like the cool kids and do a halfway there music list, here's some short reviews of some of the media that's been in my life lately.

Straight Off The Dome

"Fuckin' punk/ you ain't a leader/ what nobody followed you/ you was never shit/ your mother shoulda swallowed you" - Big L, '98 Freestyle A young Biggie Smalls is on a street corner in Brooklyn. Mr. Wallace is hefty but not quite notoriously big yet. He doesn't even look old enough to drive a car. His button down shirt with the short sleeves needs work but the talent that would make him the pre-eminent east coast MC later on in the nineties is evident. He's spittin' freestyles in a battle. An older cat has challenged him and Biggie is killin' him. The crowd is nodding with every word he spits. The other MC is pacing back and forth trying to figure out how he can come back. Biggie keeps spittin'. The cadence, the rhythm, the energy, the moment is all B.I.G. While he is on this mic at this point in time, he is hip hop. The other rapper knows this. He won't even try to retort, walking away as Biggie continues on. Kevin Fitzgerald's Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme is all about that particular energy that the freestyle, be it a cypher or a battle or headz just droppin' lyrics on the corner, pulls out of people. Whether it's Biggie's street corner in Brooklyn or The Good Life in LA or somewhere in between, the kinetic motion inherent in hip hop is apparent as soon as somebody drops a beat. Following the roots of hip hop from the freestyling baptist preachers to The Last Poets to Kool Herc's Jamaican heritage -- and footage of an early 70s Kool Herc driving around New York in a drop top with two giant speakers in the back is the film's coolest visual - without ever talking down to the audience, Freestyle tells you as much about the people and the power of this culture as Wild Style and Style Wars did 20 years prior and how infectious it is. In fact, Freestyle's showing at The Arclight in Hollywood, infected the usually tragically hip theatre with a lot more hop than it was ready for. The movie started 20 minutes late, people couldn't or wouldn't conform to the assigned seats credo, Malcolm Jamal Warner was left stuck outside the door. It was multicultural like LA's very eclectic hip hop crowd is. A red head turned to her friend as they walked by our aisle and said, "Girl, we best have our seats." Something about that just cracked me up. It was the cherry on the top of this cross-cultural sundae reminding me of my days in college with our hip hop student group, Urban Art Family, discussing Supernatural and whether written rhymes were better than freestyles and sittin' in the radio station that nobody could hear tellin' them blunted DJ cats to play Incarcerated Scarfaces cuz "That shit is the shit." Ah yes, for the fleeting time that Freestyle was on the screen, it made me feel what I have always loved about hip hop. How vibrant, vivid and now it is. Felicious and I had dinner at the cafe afterwards listening as some west coast cats spit west coast freestyles at the reception. We hoped that the cypher would continue long enough for us to join in. Dinner was longer than expected and this wasn't a parking lot near The Good Life so it didn't last. Much like Kevin Fitzgerald's documentary, we were left hungry for more.

My Baby Fits Me like a Flesh Tuxedo

"You don't have to explain. I understand." - Björk, Come to Me (live) There's a scene in This is Spinal Tap in which Britian's Loudest Band is lost backstage at their own concert unable to find their way to the stage. They can hear the crowd stomping for them overhead. They meet a maintenance man who gives them directions which only succeeds in sending them in circles. It's hilarious. When the world seeks to foil you in the same manner, however, it's fucking awful, in'it? As we caravaned from NoHo to Ho Proper, my instincts told me we should just take the 170 to the 101 and take our chances. If there was traffic, we'd be relatively okay and if there wasn't, well, by george, we'd be at Roscoe's Chicken N' Waffles with plenty of time to clog our arteries on fried wings, buttery grits, and biscuits that melt in your mouth before catching This is Spinal Tap at the Arclight. But doubt creeped in. What if it's really terrible traffic? We might not get to eat at all. So I made a call. We made a decision to take the surface streets and...and fuck. It was bumper to bumper on Ventura Boulevard on both sides while the 101 was free and clear. While Tom Cruise was strolling his lazy ass into Dodger Stadium to hand the Olympic Torch to Janet Evans who, in turn, jogged it over to Vitali Klitshko, we were trapped. I seriously considered hopping the guard rail and flying onto the freeway like my name was Luke Duke. So, unfortunately, no Roscoe's but maybe not so unfortunate because we ended up at my favorite Thai Restaurant, Chan Darae, and the food was divine. Divine can also describe seeing This is Spinal Tap on the big screen. Every seat except one was purchased for the rockumentary by Marti DiBergi (Rob Reiner). There were many revelations that, for some reason, never registered on the telly. The blond mime is Dana Carvey. The mini-stone henge sculptor is Angelica Huston. The songs really do sound wonderful when heard appropriately (i.e. Loud and on the arclight's exceptional dolby surround sound systems). And, "Miming is money." Harry Shearer also provided a lot of new insight. All of the dialogue in the film, except for one scene, was improvised. They shot 80 hours of footage for 82 minutes worth of film. The Writer's Guild wouldn't allow them to credit the entire cast for their "writing" contributions to the film. And, while I wouldn't recommend this, he will do voices from The Simpsons if asked. It was great fun on a Wednesday night. We bought expensive drinks in plastic cups at the reception after and then ended up at Amoeba where I spent 40 more dollars then I was supposed to buying Debut Live, the DeLaMixtape, and a blue lined CD, Syl Johnson's Is it Because I'm Black? I'm going to turn my speakers all the way up to 11 while I listen to my new music. Smell the glove.

A Venezuelan Journey into Drunkenness

"Hey sexy I'm feeling you, you're lookin' so fly. What's it gonna take to get you to love me?" - Vikter Duplaix, Sensuality In the summer of 2004 in The Year of the Sexy, if you're Thinking, you should be Drinking and so I kicked off the summer months this weekend with way too many, ahem, not nearly enough heavily liquored beverages, lots of discussions with cute young women, and not going to sleep before 4am. So far, it's a success. And as the crowd at The Belly Up in San Diego can attest, the soundtrack for this summer is played by Los Amigos Invisibles. Sexy, Venezuelan dance music with heavy disco and funk roots (think of MAW's Nuyorical Soul album with every track as a 10 minute long play record), it makes you want to create a salsa version of the hustle. I love it when a band sweats on stage more than I am on the dance floor. LAI is energy. Jose Luis Pardo, aka DJ Afro, spun a really nice midtempo set before hand and then wowed us with his adept electric guitar playing. Every time there was a lull between songs, he would break out with a familiar riff. Let's do the theme from Love Boat, Let's play the entirety of Jan Hammer's theme from Miami Vice, let's drop a funk riff here and a soul riff there. And every time, the crowd erupted. I tried to play it cool, early. Standing on the side of the stage, I nodded back and forth watching the crowd get more excited and agitated. About 30 minutes into the hour and 45 minute set, though, the beat had me. I was thinking about the Venezuelan girl I'd met the night before, the way we had danced a little hip hop mixed with a little salsa as Justin's Rock Your Body came out the stereo and talked about life in L.A. and how she should navigate this business now that she is on the verge of blowing up. I was thinking about letting go of the awkwardness I had been feeling all evening. And the hips gyrated. And the feet moved. And the chest bounced. And I was set free. Now if only I could be set free of this gray haze that is clouding up the monday of my mind. Hmmm, that's too much thinking. It must be time to belly up to the bar.

Boys and Girls at the Hotel Cafe

"Let me hold you girl, let me hold you girl" - Kelis, Protect My Heart The Hotel Cafe is not in a hotel and is barely a cafe. Non-descript in a sea of non-descript bars on the strip of Cahuenga Boulevard between Hollywood and Selma, you enter through the back, grab a beer, and find your little section of wall where your view of the stage will be unencumbered. You might also stand outside waiting in line and ask the woman next to you how much the cover is for the night. This might turn into a longer conversation about music and choices in life. You might find out she's a substitute teacher by day/band manager by night with a good head on her shoulders, a cute haircut, and an engaging personality. You might think that her being named after a letter of the alphabet is just the cutest thing you've heard all week. You might exchange information before parting for the show. Yup, you just might.