"If you want to annoy a poet, explain his poetry" - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
∴ The only explanation I'll make about Friday Night's album: Saturday Night is: Don't buy it. Don't buy it or listen to it on this jump, unless you've listened to Friday Night's first album: Friday Night (not the free remixed album, cheap-o). It's part two of a story. You won't understand the intro to the first track, and you'll hate the whole album. Which would be a shame, because of the fantastic tracks like Jaqui and The Longest Wave . I love people who consider context overtone. Soon see, Jordan
Hey all, It's been a couple of weeks, how have you been? Yesterday was my first day as a teacher's assistant for the Digital Communications course for the BA Professional Communications at Royal Roads University.
Yesterday in class, we were talking about viral videos - and why most memes suck so hard. We spent the majority of the day discussing aggregation, curation, and how to find the signal in the noise of all the data on the Internet. However, what happens when you follow the recommendations of evaluating all the posts that Postrank over 5 in your Google Reader - you lose touch with the grassroots of what people are actually talking about, or actually listening to. The example we were following was of Rebecca Black. I thought this was the woman who was complaining about people talking in the library, but it turns out Black is attributed to a terrible song everyone is in love with - with over 35 million views on youtube.Let me explain the "meme to 'relevant' rating level" with two examples:Pitbull - I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho) Official VideoI can't stand this song, and I hope you find it offensive on more than just an intellectual level. Regardless, this video has over 171.5 million views on youtube. Here is a video with six thousand views:"Flutes" by Serengeti. Video by A.M. OVERTONEI'm not complaining, not a bit; however, what we learn about these two examples is that you can reach a far more general audience with appeals to sex, food, and fear, but if you want to share an intimate - intellectual or emotional - moment with your audience, above the common denominator: be prepared to be confused with your content and receive far less attention. Keeping it real can go very wrong; but, soul-less songs, from sun-glassed stars, are simply forgettable. Emotions are everything -regardless of who recommends your music. Thanks for reading, and if you comment - we can talk!Jordan Keats
In 2008, Breakfast Records released the album Friday Night, by the band Friday Night. The songs on Friday Night tell a wild story of a wild night, and the rise and fall of the characters of Dave and Umar. Friday Night could be compared to the Streets' album: A Grand Don't Come For Free or Prince Paul's: Prince Among Thieves; however, to compare this album with any previous record would be doing a disservice to the originality of Friday Night.
It's no big secret Serengeti is a fan of "A Grand Don't Come For Free". His song, Puppydog Love, from the album Don't Give Up, shares the first line with the Streets' song "Could Well Be In", and has the F word in it, but the two songs are much different. There are so many great songs by Geti beginning with a curse word, like "I Don't Know", and no radio edits. Here's to hoping people can see through the swears and notice these awesome songs, but I digress.
Friday Night tells the tongue-in-cheek story of Dave & Umar, as they embark on an ironic journey of consumption, arrogance, and luck. It's an exaggerated tale of American life and overindulgence. These guys do it up real big: Canadian Club Whiskey, transvestites, and overdoses. The Friday Night, is Serengeti, Hi-Fidel, Grilla & Ish. Grilla and Ish are the producers behind Breakfast Records.Consider the irony and cultural critique while listening. Need I say more? "You know all that shitty drug, money and sex-saturated radio and party Rap everybody likes so much? Well, Serengeti and Hi-Fidel made an album making fun of it and managed not only do it better than all the chumps on the radio, but make the shit sound good in the process. Oh, and they made the whole album a continuous story that's actually linear and compelling." - Imageyenation's Best of 2008 A-Z
Yoome's album - The Boredom of Me is one of the most depressing albums ever. It's "Shoe Gazer Hip Hop", or "Melodramatic Pop". Yoome's themes of divorce, awkwardness, and lost friendships,are best explained through the behind the scenes filming of the video for the song Amsterdam, and the videos for the album: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeNH8qqfTn4&feature=related] . http://www.youtube.com/user/TonyTrimmEnterprise#p/u/9/Lfj9RW-fE94 [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/user/TonyTrimmEnterprise#p/u/9/Lfj9RW-fE94]http://www.youtube.com/user/TonyTrimmEnterprise#p/u/5/2mk4UDiAkkY [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/user/TonyTrimmEnterprise#p/u/5/2mk4UDiAkkY]
Yoome is Renee Louise Carafice, Tony Trimm (JUNE) & Serengeti.
If you don't have all day to read this blog and watch these music videos, and ten minute long documentaries, at least have a laugh at this part of the documentary which introduces the character of Kenny Dennis. The Bolex:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f7r3b7IrBk]Kenny Dennis is the ongoing blue-collar persona who appears on Geti's albums: Dennehy - Lights, Camera Action; Conversations with Kenny/ Legacy of Lee; and, as KDz on the Grimm Teachaz album There's a Situation on the Homefront. The character of Kenny makes Serengeti more accessible. He's a funny dude with everyday problems, and a massive mustache.There is a new Yoome album said to be released this fall - Keep an eye on their MySpace for it. In the mean time buy Yoome on iTunes or from Audio8
If You Can Feel What I'm Feeling Then It's A Musical Masterpiece If You Can Hear What I'm Dealing With Then That's Cool At Least - MCA (From the song Pass the Mic by the Beastie Boys)
Serengeti and Polyphonic's first album, Don't Give Up, takes time to love. Impose Magazine said, "Serengeti & Polyphonic have created an album that will likely get better with age". The combination of Polyphonic's intense sounds with the unenthusiastic rhymes of Serengeti needs experiencing to be enjoyed. Listen to Eleven on headphones next time you are on a long boring drive. You're life will get instantly more interesting.
"Anyone who thinks they are avant garde is probably too stuck in intellect; music that lasts is usually not an experiment, but an experience" - Chris Dedrick
My initial impression of Don't Give Up was unfavorable. There were a few a enduring songs mixed with a bunch of weirdo music that I would always skip. However, each of these songs has come to find a moment where they fit. Sunrise, accompanying me on an early morning practice; Puppy Dog Love, when a relationship was good; and A Slew of Things Differently, when things weren't so good.
Serengeti & Polyphonic try to find all of the usuals of rap music on Don't Give Up, and purposefully go against them in varying degrees, from many different angles, turning more rap into music, and more music into rap - Audio 8
My roommate Rusto, the only person I know who listens to Geti (and reads these posts), told me about listening to Praha while walking through Prague finally getting it. To this day I still don't know what Waste of Time or Don't Fear the Mimes is about, but these songs make you feel the way the composer intends. I'll admit, you will feel like a bit of a weirdo listening to Don't Give Up, but normal is boring.
I read a review when Serengeti's Noticeably Negro came out in 2007, and I can't find who wrote it or where I found it; regardless, the woman who wrote about the album called it "sophomoric", "misogynistic", and panned N.N. as nothing special or just another rap album. Regarding a line on the title track about liking girls with "big mountains", I agree with her. This is somewhat immature, but anyone familiar with Serengeti's whimsical work knows he has plenty of rhymes but follows little reason. These guys kick unadulterated raps, thoughts of whatever interests them. Young men think about beautiful women. Build a bridge: get over it.
Noticeably Neeg offers more insight on life than most music on the charts today. The song: Bubble Bath, talks about raising the minimum wage to nineteen dollars an hour, and what life would be like if so: "Maybe the Wellington's couldn't get that porcelain table" , and "Folks couldn't build a water skiing lake/ if the minimum wage was...", and the end of "peasant squabbling".
Constance Burris, from BlogCritics.org, has a great review of N.N., and the song T.R.I.U.M.P.H., not to be confused with the Wu-Tang hit single of the same name. Burris notices how Noticeably Negro features gun shots, describes strip clubs, and buying porches, yet "doesn't glorify violence, sex or money". Burris points to some meaningful lines from the song T.R.I.U.M.P.H., but I take more meaning from these:
Do you always want to be worried about worries?/ No. Neither does no one. The answer is Fun. The answer is always doing things you said you'd do/ I read the Tao of Pooh on a beach in Malibu [...].
These words inspire me to fulfill more commitments, and enjoy myself when it's at all possible in the process. For example, embarking on my last trip to California when I could have brushed it off after hitting numerous roadblocks, and finishing this Serengeti Appreciation Summer project. Like Geti says about having a hit record, in this interview, I wish I could afford to write and teach tai chi full time too: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI7PGl4RYIQ&feature=related] Other tracks you might like:
South Bubbles Place Cauc's Remix Very Ill Platinum Chains
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.
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.
There's a track from Dennehy (Lights, Camera, Action), with enough meaning it deserves it's own post. The re-release of the original Dennehy has a few additional songs, and more interludes to connect the story line. Two of the worst songs, Derek & iPod, are shorter but all of the added songs make buying this re-released album worthwhile.
The other day at work I met a painter working at the same property where I garden. Homeboy was nodding his head while painting on a twenty foot ladder; bursting out "Yeah!", and "Ohhh!". I asked what he was listening to and he said the Roots covering J Dilla. Two of the greatest hip hop artists of this generation. I told him about Serengeti Appreciation Month, but I doubt he will be able to find this post. Regardless, I'll dedicate this song to him. From Dennehy (Lights, Camera, Action) - Here is - Go Paint:
The song that inspired this post is called: the Neeg. Out of all of Geti's songs, the Neeg is the most meaningful for me. The lines "With so much rushing, and so much discussion over nothing [...]", and "I went to sleep and missed all the hoopla, stunning facts of who's hot [...]", are so awesome it's almost insulting to explain why.
These lines remind me of the book, the Tao of Pooh, by Benjamin Hoff, and the chapter: Bisy Backson. Rabbit goes to Christopher Robin's house, and finds a sign he reads as:
GON OUT
BACKSON
BISY BACKSON
- C.R.
We all become path dependent to our regular routines. Hoff writes, "If you want to be healthy, relaxed, and contented, just watch what a Bisy Backson does and then do the opposite" (p. 94). Working too much makes you crazy. "The athletic sort of Backson - one of the many common varieties - is concerned with physical fitness, he says. But for some reason, he sees it as something that has to be pounded in from the outside, rather than built up from the inside. Therefore, he confuses exercise with work. He works when he works ,works when he exercises , and, more often than not, works when he plays . Work, work, work. All work and no play makes Backson a dull boy" (p. 94). Are we all working out for some imaginary idea of perfect health or immortality?
Serengeti's other release from 2006 is Noodle Arm Whimsy. Whimsy is THE essential Serengeti album. It doesn't define the music Cohn is making today, but the vibe from this album is funny, interesting, and honest. Lots of skits and fantasy songs, like Tanning Season and Trophy Husband, and some songs to make you think, like Benji and Whimsy Cards. My roommate heard about this album on a MF DOOM forum, and was annoying the rest of the house by singing off-key to the hook of Seven Minutes:
Whimsy Cards is the only other song from Noodle Arm Whimsy without cursing. We've been listening to this song for five years, and I still have no idea what it's about.
"She wrote short stories about a monster in a jar. Whose always looked at as an allegory for being alone"
A quick post for the end of Week Two of Serengeti Appreciation Month. Serengeti's album: ThunderValley (2006). Available Free from Audio 8 records: http://audio8.com/releases/A8015.html It's odd but amazing musical storytelling. Two songs appearing in my Best of Serengeti playlist are Chocolate & Curse of the Polo. Chocolate is such a mind worm, it will creep into the back of your head in the next three days guaranteed:
Serengeti is like the Tom Waits of the 21st Century. They both make incomparable and experimental music; and rarely will you hear either of their musical creations outside of independent radio stations. Tom Waits has seen recent success, playing the Devil in the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, but he has produced a canon of 30 years of amazing music. One of many VHS tapes left behind in the rush to convert to DVD is Waits's spectacle performance: Big Time. Good luck finding Big Time on DVD at Blockbuster, but most of the material is from the album Frank's Wild Years, and you can find the entire concert on youtube:
Serengeti's career reminds me of a scene, from Jim Jarmusch's film Coffee and Cigarettes, where Tom Waits and Iggy Pop meet for a coffee at Tom Waits's local coffee shop. Iggy says, "I didn't notice any of your songs on the jukebox" (4:40). Even though Tom Waits is popular in the restaurant, he's not popular enough to have one of his records on the jukebox:
Combined, Serengeti and Waits have made the most interesting music in the last forty years, but enough about Tom Waits: he deserves his own month. Trying to define one of Geti's album is tough because you can't contextualize an album's theme with just one song. Comparing one album to another is even more difficult, because each has it's own concept, but to unfold this month chronologically here is a song from Serengeti's first album, Dirty Flamingo, Ms. Nipple Queen:
Serengeti's second album, Gasoline Rainbows, featured a full rock band, and has held a permanent slot in my portable music device since sometime in 2005. It's real rock and roll, but like Waits' music, it's too real for T.V. or radio play. Here are two songs from Gasoline Rainbows:
The inspiration for one of most recent posts: Playing Tai Chi in Subway Stations, was inspired by the trip to San Fransicso in February, my never-ending love for taiji, and my experience with the song: Playing in Subway Stations; by Chicago-based rapper David Cohn, aka Serengeti, and producer Polyphonic the Verbose, from the album: Teradactyl [sic]. Before I left Geti released a select few songs from Teradactyl on his myspace, and one song on youtube that I brushed off as too wierd - Playing in Subway Stations:
The live performance of this song didn't click with the Serengeti I had expected. Auto-tune? Singing? I disregarded the song and the video as some obscure experiment Serengeti is known to do. It wasn't until I heard the album version of Subway Stations, on the Amtrak back from California, when I gew to appriciate this song. I had to rinse my cup of expectation before filling it with the great song of Playing in Subway Stations,
@DaveSerengeti has 58 followers on Twitter. Not that Twitter followers is any measure of success, but it took me four pages of a google search to find results for Serengeti, the musician. Africa's diverse Serengeti plains are one of the ten natural travel wonders of the world, the World Cup starting in South Africa, and the Chicago Blackhawks one game away from possibly winning the NHL Finals: Conditions are right to make four blog posts focusing on Serengeti the musician.
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