Music Post #8: Always Reading Us - Serengeti Appreciation Summer #music #hiphop

When I started Serengeti Appreciation Month it was as a distraction from planning my sister's wedding, and after the wedding I took an impromptu trip to California to teach tai chi and visit friends. The hardest part of blogging is not having a deadline, as well as not getting paid to do it; so, Serengeti Appreciation Month is turning into Serengeti Appreciation Summer.

The flexibility of this project suites the release of Serengeti and Hi-Fidel's album: Saturday Night. Which is expected to ship out "mid-summer". This gives me enough time to explain the rest of Geti's albums, and finish with a review of Saturday Night.

Geti released five albums in 2006: Dennehy, Gasoline Rainbows, Thunder Valley, Race Trading, and Noticeably Negro. Three of these I have already covered in past weeks. This post I'll focus on Race Trading, and next week: Noticeably Negro.

The theme of Race Trading, and Noticeably Negro, are both about issues dealing with race. From the first track of Race Trading, Afro, Geti raps about having a "fro" so big he can hide a can of mace inside. The title track, Race Trading, deals with interracial relationships, with such lines as "I want to be with someone from the same ape", and how his friends won't date outside their race.

  
Download now or listen on posterous

serengeti_-_race_trading_-_11_brad_and_jen.mp3 (1810 KB)

The skit: We've Been Dating for 112 Months, has a girl telling her boyfriend how her mom doesn't think "black people have emotions", when he asks to meet her parents. The final song on this album is Mexican Hands, with rhymes like "towels are folded by Mexican hands/ Los Lobos is a Mexican band", it addresses the contradiction in how Americans view the value immigrants bring to their country. This album's theme isn't race, it's about the contradictions in our actions, and our desire to define the world around us. 

"I've got too many thoughts, moods, views, and stories/ and they change everyday so fuck a category" - Nico B, from the song Hiccova.

Race Trading is available free from Audio 8 Records: http://www.audio8.com/releases/A8014.html         

Tracks from this album you might like:

Jim Duggin
Teenager
Race Trading Remix
America
Bees
Girlfriend

Thanks for helping me spread the word. Word.

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