Ghostface review on NPR today WTF!!!
cpeetz
2,112 Posts
Driving home today and they reviewed the new Ghostface record on All Things Considered. It was more of a profile really: as they delved into his history with Wu-Tang, records sampled on his new lp, a crowd response to a live show in Austin, time spent as youth with his ear to the door after bedtime listing to his moms and her soul records, etc. etc. as well as playing about 4 new tracks...NPR must really be making some moves toward a younger audience. I mean this surely wouldn't appeal to their average listener right? Maybe someone knows something I don't.... O-Dub you've been on public radio before, can NPR's RAP ATTACK be far away....?
Comments
Why is this so surprising? It's not that NPR's audience is necessarily getting younger (though, believe it or not, but public radio's audience has EXPANDED over the last few years), it's that a generation of hip-hop listeners are also getting older and some of those folks - writers like me or editors/producers are a bit more savvy. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not like NPR has its finger on the pulse of hip-hop America...and it's still a challenge, at times, to get my hip-hop related segments some play (ask me about my 3 month delayed Dilla piece sometime) but this said, they're not a bunch of Geritol-poppin' fogies working there. I mean, look at what's happened at the NYT and New Yorker - they cover a lot of hip-hop now, at least relative to before. NPR is just following that larger trend and hell, I'm glad to see it happen (more work for me, ha!)
still disconnected after all these years
Don't get me wrong, I like hearing pieces like this on, that interest me. I'm just used to hearing the review of something more like new the David Gimore (Pink Floyd) CD. And Ghostface wouldn't have been the 1st thing I'd think of for NPR to review as far as hip hop goes. I know that the folks at NPR must have their fingers in a lot of pies, they have to, in order to reach a wide audience. What surprises me is that, they decided that a piece on Ghostface, would be of interest to enough people percentage wise to go out over the entire network... during All Things Considered their flagship program, seems like something that would be on This American Life instead.... Whatever more power to'em, and to you maybe we'll be hearing more of you on NPR as they "hip it up".
What is the deal with your J-Dilla piece, is it ever going to air?
I predict gnarls and 'face will be running neck and neck for iTunes rap downloads.
I think this hits the nail on the head...Look at the New Yorker. They lose Nick Hornby, whose novels are good, but his music criticism was pretty-Springsteen era centric. Now, they have Sasha Frere-Jones, who beyond being versatile (he's done excellent work covering both Mariah Carey & the Slint reunion...and you couldn't be more different than those two), is young and understands the importance of hip hop in this era's canon. Hence, in addtion to Norah Jones coverage (ideal for middle-age/class white New Yorker readers), you get coverage of the DangerDoom album, Fishscale, etc. This appeals to the younger readers, and keeps them subscribing...
Now, if someone could convince CBS Sunday Morning to get younger in their music profiles, we'd be all set.
I don't find the coverage all that surprising, Ghostface is 'smart', 'complicated' etc - perfect for NPR-listening self-styled deep thinkers - Sasha-Frere Jones is swinging from ghosts nuts over at the New Yorker etc etc.
but if they had a piece on 'I'm N Luv Wit a Stripper'?
now that would have been shocking.
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S. F-Jones DID do a profile of Houston hip hop earlier this weekend, featuring a profile of Bun B, and an explanation of 'slabs', and other ScrewSton slang.
Pretty sure they did already...
[I listen to a lot of NPR, BTW]
you gotta be kidding me!!
I listen to alot of NPR too & I never heard such a thing.
Ooops, no hits. I guess it was an article in Newsweek.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4821652
Second of all, believe me, all the smarty liberal press outlets will discuss any hip-hop song/artist/album that seems to be at the "phenomenon" stage. Certainly, that's been the Village Voice's trade since day one - if you go back and read some of their hip-hop coverage from the early '80s, the shit is amazing.
More recently, the NYT has been on top of all the "hot" artists as determined by BOTH the market AND the blogosphere, so that means articles waxing rhapsodic on everything from "We Belong Together," to Young Jeezy's Snowman logo, to "Tell Me When To Go." NPR's two big news shows - Morning Edition (who I write for) and All Things Considered are more heavily filtered than the Times and certainly more than the Voice but they're open to both news stories discussing a phenom or reviews of albums that have crossover appeal, such as Kanye's CD last year.
Will NPR cover Gnarls Barkeley? Hard to say. I wrote the MIA review last year and seriously, I don't think my editor really cared who she was. If I hadn't pitched it, I assume someone else might have but I don't think the arts editor would have *solicited* a review for it since I don't get the sense he's that blogocentric or cares what's hot on myspace.com.
As for Dilla - I'm still trying to get this run so I'll talk about it after I'm successful. If I am.
Seems like a lot of hip hop fans are npr listners. I thought the Ghostface piece, like most hip hop pieces on npr, was geared toward explaining the music to the uninformed.
About 10 years ago at the hight of the anti-hip-hop backlash Terry Gross interviewed a few rappers. Her hatred for them and their music came across loud and strong. She was interviewing Ice T, and he mentioned a book he was reading, which was an analysis of current US military hardware or something like that, and she flipped. You could hear her thinking "You read? Books? Real books?". Now she regularly features hip hop artists and reviews.
Dan
I never heard Gross interviews from that far back but the problem I have is that she really can't seem to shake the idea that hip-hop biographies follow more than one narrative, i.e. "I grew up in the hood and then made it out through hip-hop." And as such, she tends to get caught up with trying to talk about origin myths more than people's actual music. That's what I liked about her interview with Flash - sure, there was definitely some, "so Mr. Flash, take us inside this crazy 'South Bronx' world you grew up in," but she also played "The Adventures of Grandmater Flash" and had Flash explain what was happening every time the song switched up. I appreciated that.
This all said, I do think Gross is far, far less comfortable doing interviews with rappers compared to many of her other interviewees.
I know what you mean. Her interview with ?uest had her asking if he could really play hip hop if he had no gang affiliations. Blues musicians get asked how they can sing the blues if they never picked cotton, some kind of thing. But he told some great stories, like the one about Joey Defransico being pulled out of their high school class so he could go join the Miles Davis tour.
The first interview I heard her do with a rapper was with LL Cool J. She just kept hammering him on why did he have to be so violent and misogenistic. This was a long time ago.
Jesus, imagine what she's do with the Three 6.
lol...I don't mind her, the flash interview is good, but she can be akward with many of her guests. When she is interested the interviews are good, but when she is not you can tell.
I've taken her out completely and chopped up RZA's words almost word per word and reconstructed a new statement all together using the fragments, saying things like:
(spaces in between representing chops)
" I started paying attention to what they were saying in these movies
and I caught a fantasy history
of the shaolin temple , how it burnt down
and when I went back and compared this information I learned from movies to the real historical facts, I found out maybe some of the names were not correct, but
I read in the Holy Koran it says the 100 attributes of God
so personalities can have names
and not schitzophrentically
but be God, not a man, not a devil, no. Show God qualities..." etc.
Further description of project I wrote for some thing applied for:
I am currently working on an untitled video project, which follows the same general approach as "like it is like it was: descending" in the cohesive coalescing of two (formerly unrelated) works. My current video project is a rigorous re-edit of Maya Derren's "Meditations on Violence", a film of an Asian man doing choreography based on the The Wu Tang school of martial arts, a Chinese style known for its boxing, characterized foremost as a physical articulation of metaphysical states of being, a form where continuous transformation resembles perpetual battle. In the film the dancer spars with the camera, balances, and flies through the air with a sword. This audio component is a drastically re-edited interview with the RZA, producer of the enormously innovative Hip Hop group The Wu Tang Clan, who similarly uses the mythology of the Wu Tang as depicted in Kung Fu films as a central reference in his own work. The RZA has also composed the scores for Jim Jarmusch's "Ghost Dog", and both of Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" films, all contemporary American variants on the form of the Kung Fu film. In the interview, RZA acknowledges the deep influence of the "fantasy-history" of the Wu Tang Kung Fu films, their philosophical and mythological content, music, and editing on his own work. In the project I've diced completely the interview, and from it's bits mobilized a new monologue which explores poeticized violence through the resonances the Wu Tang myth has found in American audiences, with Derren and RZA's work as animate examples. The sampling and fusing of these two works in my video echoes their own use and integration of the Wu Tang myth.
She is just not very good at her job, I can't believe she's been doing it for so many years...
I first started listening to her in the late 80's. She used to do a lot of political interviews and no one was better. She always made politicians answer the question.
With artists she is truely interested in she gets great interviews. She often surprise guests by bringing up events or projects that are not in the offical bio. She often gets frank replys with in depth biographic or philosophic details that other interviewers would miss.
Her favorite topic for sure is cabaret singers and the great american songbook.
Dan
He's not that young--I think he's around forty--which illustrates Oliver's point that what is going on is not that these media outlets are aiming younger, but that rap has been around long enough that its fans are aging into the deomgraphic that can make itself heard through such outlets.
That's more Kelefa Sanneh's style...
yeah, the RZA one was priceless. he mentions his sexual prowess or somthing and there's this awkward silence. the whole thing actually was really funny. also a damn good interview.
http://www.maniahill.com/funny/Gene_Simmons_Terry_Gross_Fresh_Air_02_04_2002.htm
Terry Gross: Let's start with the makeup. Did you like being covered up on stage, did it make you feel any less vulnerable, or any less like Gene Simmons or your other names -- Gene Klein or Chaim White, which was your birth name?
Gene Simmons: Close, but no guitars. It's Chaim Witz.
Terry Gross: Oh, thanks. Okay.
Gene Simmons: You said it -- well, the name came out through gentile mouth, so it didn't quite have the flavor. It came out bland.
Terry Gross: Well it's ... it's not a gentile mouth.
Gene Simmons: Ooh! Maybe it's a discussion we can have.
Terry Gross: Okay.
Gene Simmons: But let's not start something we're not going to finish.
I heard he refused to sign a waiver of somesort so the interview couldn't be rebroadcast or archived?
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I found the sound file out on the net once. They fought like cats and dogs.