By ryan April 20, 2001
Over the years, many hip-hop terms have proven to be decidedly slippery, often meaning anything but what they might seem. The notion of a parlance rooted in paradox most likely started in the early 80’s when The Sugarhill Gang decided to call all the good people “bad.” From there, all hell broke loose. Soon, “phat” was much better than skinny, and rich people could wear “ice” to look hot without catching a chill. And let’s face it; we still really haven’t found out what the hell “jiggy” really means. But a more constantly mysterious notion over the years is that of the Underground. Does the term “underground,” in hip-hop speak, go along with the aforementioned terms and connote its opposite? Said another way: Is underground hip-hop actually pop? Who’s down there? What are they doing? Will they surface sometime soon? Luckily, on April 22, Jurassic 5 and Common will help answer some of these questions. The two crews, from Los Angeles and Chicago, respectively, have, for years, been key players in the underground scenes in their home cities. With stylistic references to groups like De La Soul and Black Sheep, Jurassic 5 stresses a cohesive group dynamic. Often, the four MCs and two DJs work in tandem to produce punctuated harmonies and precise, lyrical hand-offs. The J-5 formula relies on its universal rejection of the perversions that rap has suffered at the hands of media influence. J-5 treats the bling-blinging, beamer-driving hip-hop culture like the plague, and instead, hits lyricism dead on. On the title track to the crew’s first full length album, Quality Control, the bass-voiced 2Na raps, “Well it’s the angelic man relic clan repelling my plan/ Apparent manuscripts withstand bullets/ Flashing like a Japan tourist we command pure hits/ While you claiming to understand these contraband lyrics.” But J-5 is best known for its ability to apply these tricky linguistic feats to energetic, crowd-pleasing live performances. Common, also quite accomplished in the studio, comes to Cornell just off the commercial success of his fourth album, Like Water for Chocolate. His flow follows in the footsteps of the Guru and Q-tip. With jazz-based beats and a mellow, baritone voice, Common is sure to be a smash with the ladies as well as the guys. On his single, “The Light,” Common demonstrates his witty ability to weave jazz into a catchy, complicated rhythmic pattern: “But that’s fly by night for you/ And the sky I write for/ In these cold Chi night’s moon/ You my light.” Common serves up a romantic rap that he wouldn’t be ashamed of kicking at a bar in front of his friends. He somehow maintains a certain street sensibility even in a love letter. It’s precisely this walking of the line between the street and MTV-friendly sentimentality that keeps his fans guessing — and nodding along. But both Common and J-5 come to Bailey in support of exceptionally successful commercial albums that have led each group to increased MTV airtime. So where, with its champions on the pop charts, is the so-called underground? Maybe it follows in the wake of the paradoxes left by so many other hip-hop terms. Maybe it’s about to surface. Maybe we’d know better if we found out straight from the mouths of the hip-hop revolutionaries that it involves. Ask Mos Def what he thinks will come next. Find out from the Black-Eyed Peas who’s time it is to shine. And they’d probably agree that we should concentrate on artists like Common and J-5. Fortunately, we’ll have a few hours to judge for ourselves this Sunday in Bailey Hall.Archived article by Ari Fontecchio
By ryan April 20, 2001
In order to try yet another new thing, this week’s FOUR-nication will be written by Catwoman. For those who haven’t been reading, she’s a lesbian. Spring is arriving in Ithaca. For many people, spring is a magical time of year, a time of year that makes them hornier than the brass section of a marching band. A time of year, let us say, when a college student’s thoughts turn to gettin it on. It is a time of year when people start to kiss other people deeply. Outdoors. I don’t know why this is. But from the Arts Quad to Collegetown, it’s happening. On Monday, when it was sunny and 60 degrees outside, I witnessed a truly spectacular amount of public kissage. Because I am a nerd, I have done the calculations, and it turns out that for every 7.5 minutes I was outside on Monday, I saw a different couple kissing. This is amazing! For the last six months, I have been walking around Cornell, and not a single couple has smooched while in my line of sight. I think we all realize that just because your spit might freeze instantly to your partner’s spit is no reason to refrain from displaying your mutual love during wintertime in upstate New York. If you’re going to live in Ithaca, you’re going to have to do a certain amount of smooching with chapped lips, runny noses, and dry facial skin. It’s just a fact of life. But all the couples that were sooooo loath to kiss each other in February have leapt out of the woodwork now that it’s mid-April. And I’m glad for them, fair-weather kissers, though they are, because it means that people are being affectionate, and possibly also that they are getting some booty. Well, it means that certain people are affectionate and possibly getting booty: I have yet to see a male/male or female/female couple taking part in our campus’s veritable festival of kisses. I see mixed-sex couples kissing wherever I turn, though: on the Arts Quad, at bars, in advertisements for chewing gum and diamonds, and even in the title bar to this column. An impartial observer might think that only straight people even exist. Silly impartial observer! Queer people are out there, either wearing rainbows or dressing dykey, counteracting the implication that we don’t exist; we’re low-flying, stealth queer, on purpose; or we’re not concerned about how visibly queer we are one way or the other. Personally, I fall somewhere between the first and third category. I want people to know I’m a lesbian, for a variety of reasons. First, it helps when getting dates. Period. Nothing sucks more than thinking you’re a smooth Mack Daddy, then discovering later that the recipient of your attentions thinks you’re straight. Also, I want the image of my sweet, angelic face to haunt the minds of people I know when they hear or see something homophobic and they don’t speak up. Well, perhaps a combination of the sweet angelic face and the “you bastard, you are in such deep shit with me” face. Being a lesbian has meant a lot of things to me, in many areas of my life. My relationship with my family changed after I came out, and is still evolving around that issue. I worry about state and federal laws that most straight people have never heard of. I don’t feel welcome in overly straight spaces, and I want people to know that. And it is so annoying when people assume that everyone is straight! I used to have this conversation with my ex-girlfriend’s mother about why gay people want other people to know that they are gay. She’d be all like, “But I don’t tell everyone I’m straight!” And I’d be all like, “You don’t have to, because everyone assumes you’re straight!” And then we’d have a brawl. Just kidding. So, that’s just me, but other queer people might agree. Hence, some of us put rainbow stickers on our cars, or wear black triangle earrings, or — if we’re really to the point — wear t-shirts that say “Dyke.” Whatever the hell it is that we’re doing, we’re not kissing in Collegetown like the straight people are. I know that getting it on in public isn’t the solution to the problem of gay and lesbian invisibility. And I know that getting it on in public doesn’t even address the problem of bisexual or pansexual invisibility — people are assumed to be either gay or straight, no matter who they’re kissing. But it’s spring. And I’m sick of all these flagrantly straight spaces, with straight people talking about their straight boyfriends and holding hands and kissing and generally flaunting their straightness all over the place. Who needs all that? Queer people, start kissin’! On the Arts Quad! On the Ag Quad! In C-town! On West! And if you’ve got no one to kiss