Review:

on 2011-06-19 CharlesMartel Said:

As hip-hop albums go this is no different to many others with the gangsta tag. It relies in its entirety on the listener buying into the attitude of the persona of the creator. That attitude is not different and no further forward in developmental terms than other gangsta rappers. Indeed, if anything it is a step back. A lot has been made recently of hip-hop growing up, outgrowing its violent, misogynist persona and become more thoughtful, more insightful and liberating.

Don't believe a word of it. What makes me find this so appalling is the utterly offensive and sick tone of the whole thing. The adopted persona thinks it is cool to crawl up the ladder of scum from scared little bully finding himself with the big boys, to being the number one thug on the block. Hooray! What a thing to aspire to! It reminds me of a kid I encountered when I worked in a juvenile prison. I asked him what he wanted to be in life. He replied Cat A. (the most serious offenders) like my Dad.

Why is this glorified? What is so noble about being a putrid, drug dealing parasite? Oh, I forgot, I am a racist. Because I am white I am not allowed to talk about hip-hop because to do so is to bring my whitey racism to the table of black empowerment and to fail to understand the social and moral condition of black people. (Yes, this is the sort of accusation which is thrown at people who don't think there is any merit in this). What utter bollocks! Drug dealing scum trade principally with others of their own race, so a guy who glorifies life as a street s**t is peddling misery, poverty, despair and crime to his own people - and I am a racist for despising it?

And then there's that other glorious theme of wonderful I'm-so-f****n'-cool hip-hop that we are all supposed to admire. While our noble drug dealing "hero" is inside, his girlfriend cheats on him. So, being the macho man that he is, he takes it out on her when he gets out. How wonderful! How heroic! How manly! That's right, I'm so f****n' hard that I can beat up any woman I want, when I want. What a marvellous example of civilised behaviour, someone to look up to as a worthy role model; a person who provides hope and aspiration to others? Give me a break! The rotting stench from a lowlife who trades in misery and whose principal concern is making his woman pay for her disrespect hits you square in the face.

All this is supposed to be what? Are we to stand by accept the feeble excuse hey man, it's part of my culture. Okay, when the next Sudanese peasant extols in song the virtue of clitorectomy on five year old girls, we can all applaud it as a masterwork in the reaffirmation of a time-honoured cultural identity. When the next KKK s**thead decides to burn a church or beat up a man because of the colour of his skin, that's alright is it because he is respecting his the cultural traits of his southern roots. When most of the adult male population of Pitcairn Island were charged with child abuse, did we stand up and applaud them for upholding their community's traditional values? No, we applauded when they were imprisoned for the child raping scum they were. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. S**t stinks, whatever the colour of the arse it comes from. I would not condone, buy or accept as having any validity at all the music of filth such as Vaginal Jesus or Prussian Blue. I despise the homophobic and racist rantings of Skrewdriver and their ilk. Why should I give this any more respect?

And don't give me any nonsense about this, deep down being a condemnation of the lifestyle played out as if in some Shakespearian tragedy. For a start, Shakespeare was a poet and playwright, not a peddler of doggerel who relied on obscenity to convey a message of which his otherwise limited vocabulary is incapable. Any kid who hears this is not going to see that "subtlety" (not that it exists). That kid is just going to see the glorification of a lifestyle that reeks with the fetid stench of putrefaction and aspire to the same.

Giving this a rating above one star (the lowest I can give and even that is too high) is to condone the message, whether you believe it or not. Any encouragement to individuals to profit from the glorification of a lifestyle, an ethos, a belief system that originates from the sewers of the deepest pits of Hades is unforgivably devoid of compassion, morality and faith in the human condition. And oh but the beats, man, they're so original is just a pathetic excuse to cover up for an inability to place the values we expect from others at the forefront of the way we live our lives.

This, incidentally, was the first hip-hop album which moved me. And how! That is something, I guess.
Rating: 1/10

Review:

on 2007-08-01 SunglassesAtNight Said:

Fishscale is a 9
Rating: 9/10