The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Monday, January 11, 2016 — 5A

ACROSS
1 Potato bag
5 Rod in a grill
9 Macaroni shape
14 Vintage soda
15 Chisholm Trail
city
16 Red, in roulette
17 Mine extracts
18 Club used for
chipping
19 Capital of Ghana
20 *Mattress support
22 Spoken for
23 Skinny fish
24 Quick message
25 Blue Ribbon beer
28 Palm Pilot, e.g.,
briefly
30 Carve in stone
33 Attributive menu
words
34 Parisian partings
37 Leave rolling in
the aisles
38 Sermon topic
39 *Light, friendly
punch
41 Sitter’s handful
42 What some
missiles seek
44 Stevenson title
doctor
45 “I warned you!”
46 Gothic fiction
author Rice
47 WWII espionage
gp.
48 Bugs and Jags
50 “Fire” bugs
52 Bourgogne and
Chablis
54 Longstocking of
kiddie lit
56 Spots for airline
magazines ...
and, literally,
what the first
words of the
answers to
starred clues can
all have
61 NBA great
Shaquille
62 Footnote “p”
63 Sitter’s handful
64 Modern mil.
treaty violation
65 Egg cell
66 Humdinger
67 Knuckleheads
68 Short- or long-
sleeved tops
69 Marked, as a
ballot

DOWN
1 Stereotypical
“Dahling!”
speaker
2 Flight-related prefix
3 General Mills
brand
4 Affectionate
greetings
5 Marble cake
pattern
6 Capital on the
Seine
7 Pic to click
8 Grab from the
grill, as a hot dog
9 Poetry Muse
10 Tracks down
11 *Wishful lifetime
agenda
12 Storybook brute
13 Withdraw
gradually
21 “He loves me”
piece
24 Sounding like
one has a cold
25 Old Turkish title
26 Otherworldly
27 *Slapstick
slipping cause
28 Sneaks a look
29 Obligation
31 Typical Hitchcock
role

32 Publicizes
aggressively
35 Martial arts
schools
36 Currier’s
colleague
40 Backup strategy
43 When the big
hand is on two
49 In working order
51 Leans slightly
52 Beating around
the bush

53 Agenda bullets
54 Common koi
habitat
55 Look __:
investigate
56 Washday woe
57 Nesting site,
perhaps
58 Essence
59 Leafy veggie
baked for
chips
60 Gym specimen

By Gail Grabowski and Bruce Venzke
©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
01/11/16

01/11/16

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Monday, January 11, 2016

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

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G.O.O.D. MUSIC

Oh hey, almost didn’t see you there.
Pusha T returns
dopely on ‘Dawn’

By SHAYAN SHAFII

Daily Arts Writer

Pusha T has been quiet for a

very, very long time. In the fall
of 2013 he released what was
shockingly
his first solo
album,
My

Name Is My
Name,
and

has given us
nothing more
than a handful
of
features

since. Where
seasoned
hip-hop
heads
were

more
than

familiar with his earlier work
with Clipse (dating back to
2002),
newer
uninformed

fans aggregated quickly once
he signed to Kanye West’s
G.O.O.D. Music imprint in 2010.

As Pusha T has grown

older since parting ways with
Malice,
he’s
become
more

noticeably distant from the
cokeboy lifestyle that once
fueled his raps (“I was really
in that Travelodge!!!”). He now
does interviews with CNN,
rocks Balmain, and quietly
enjoys his influential grip on
the rap game. Darkest Before
Dawn, though not even his
proper sophomore LP, is a rare
opportunity to hear from the
man himself, and he evidently
has a lot to say.

Darkest Before Dawn plays

out a lot like “Scarface,” except
without the scene where the
police raid his home. He just
wins, but it’s not enough. The
new King Push seeks justice;
he doesn’t want his younger
brethren to go through what
he went through. For the first
time, we hear him rap not from
the perspective of a Miami
Vice cocaine cowboy, but from
that of a 38-year-old label
president who’s seen it all. One
of the album’s highlights is the
album-closer,
“Sunshine”.
I

expected the title to be a simile
for the way his SL 500 gleams

in the light or something, but
instead we got the most socially
conscious and racially-charged
song of his career.

The beat drops in layers, à

la Lil Wayne’s “Let The Beat
Build,” except with more subtle
releases. There’s the sound of
a scream right as Push snarls
“These ain’t new problems /
They just old ways / I seen one
time turn sunshine into Freddie
Gray!” By the time synths and
drums chime in, he’s already
thrown shots at Don Lemon and
saluted Chief Keef. The song,
overall, is an unexpected turn
to close out a Pusha T album,
but it shows his age. While a
former Clipse manager is still
in prison for involvement in a
national cocaine ring, Pusha
T has grown old enough to
philosophize the condition of
Black America regarding police
brutality and the war on drugs.

Even the songs that seem

most hedonistic have serious
undertones;
who
would’ve

thought that a track titled
“M.P.A (Money Pussy Alcohol)”
would be less about celebration
and more about the potential
pitfalls
of
vices?
“M.P.A”

stirred a lot of excitement when
the tracklist revealed features
from A$AP Rocky and Kanye
West, but Push’s first line
deaded any hopes of a banger:
“The three leading killers of
you n****s, is the shit that’s
most appealing to you n****s.”
The
Kanye-produced
piano

loop gives the song a mournful
air not too dissimilar to “Blame
Game.”

But the album isn’t all

serious. Tracks like “Crutches,
Crosses, Caskets” see Push get
back to his ever-so-poetic shit
talking. He tiptoes on the beat,
throwing shade at everyone
in an aggressive whisper. It’s
less about making threats and
more about addressing the
current state of rap from the
perspective of a veteran with
nothing left to prove: “All I see
is victims!”

Pusha T is in a totally unique

position in the rap game where
he has gone from one half of a
duo adored exclusively by rap
nerds, to a unanimously well-

respected MC with hardly
any solo material. He has one
of the finest discographies in
rap behind him with Clipse,
but only caught the nation’s
attention when he was the
“dude in the salmon suit”
during Kanye’s 2010 VMA
performance. He doesn’t really
have anything to prove, but
he kinda does. In the same
vein as much of the best rap
music released in 2015, Darkest
Before Dawn is delivered with a
certain air of charity about it.
It’s just something to hold us
over until he delivers what will
inevitably be another fantastic
record: King Push.

FOX tackles racism

By SAM ROSENBERG

Daily Arts Writer

Among the few television

shows currently on air that talk
about race in America, FOX’s
new animated series “Border-
town” is one
that takes the
issue head on.
Originally slat-
ed to appear
on FOX’s ani-
mated lineup in
2013, “Border-
town” ’s setup
involves
two

racially diverse
families
and

tackles the “clash between cul-
tures” concept commonly seen in
TV comedies with promising but
mixed results.

From the minds of “Fam-

ily Guy”’s Mark Hentemann
and controversial animator Seth
McFarlane, “Bordertown” takes
place in the fictitious Mexifor-
nia, which sits on the U.S.-Mex-
ico border. There, we meet the
bigoted border patrol officer Bud
Buckwald (Hank Azaria, “The
Simpsons”), who lives next door
to the amiable Ernesto Gonzalez
(Nicholas Gonzalez, “Resurrec-
tion Blvd”). As established in the
show’s manic opening credits,
there is a subtle shift in class sta-
tus, with the Buckwalds residing
in a shabby, dull-colored house
and the Gonzalezes living in a
pleasant, brightly-colored home.
In addition to Bud and Ernes-
to’s supportive wives and dys-
functional families, Bud’s shrill
daughter Janice (Alex Borstein,
“Family Guy”) and Ernesto’s
stuffy, college-educated nephew
J.C. (also Gonzalez) are involved
in a romantic relationship and

eventually
become
engaged,

causing racial and cultural ten-
sions to ensue between the two
families.

“Bordertown”
is
definitely

timely, using blunt, dark humor to
underscore stinging sociopolitical
commentary in the likes of “Fam-
ily Guy,” “American Dad” and
“South Park.” But while the show
highlights burgeoning progressive
ideals in our society — interracial
relationships, immigration laws,
cultural assimilation — it tries so
hard to replicate the insight found
in the aforementioned animated
sitcoms that it often misses more
than it hits. Because “Border-
town” both embraces and satirizes
PC culture, as well as other issues
regarding modern America, it has
trouble balancing between insen-
sitive jokes and engaging social
consciousness.

The plot in the show’s pilot epi-

sode, “The Engagement,” starts
off with potential, but quickly dis-
solves into a mediocre retread
of raunchy animated sitcoms.
A new anti-immigration law
is introduced and eventually
passed, which delights Bud but
leads to J.C.’s accidental depor-
tation, despite him being a legal
American citizen. With J.C. and
Janice’s
engagement
threat-

ened, Bud and Ernesto seek to
retrieve J.C., yet their teamwork
doesn’t really incite a friendship
between the two.

Some bits in the pilot elicit a

laugwh or chuckle, though most
go for the offensive and taste-
less. But for all “Bordertown”’s
tiresome aspects, the least devel-
oped are the characters, most of
whom are (literally) drawn as
caricatures of their respective
stereotypes. Bud represents a
familiarly flawed TV patriarch,

taking from the oafishness of
“Family Guy” ’s Peter Griffin and
“South Park” ’s Randy Marsh,
but even those characters offered
some depth and humor to their
shows. While Ernesto seems
to be subverting many cultural
stereotypes, his disposition as a
family man is his only real defin-
ing characteristic.

The only character who has

some redeemable qualities is
J.C., who portrays a modernized,
assimilated Mexican-American.
But even as refreshingly honest
as he can be, J.C. isn’t necessari-
ly likable, especially in one scene
where he makes an explicitly
meta reference to how Mexicans
are commonly depicted. After
J.C. is ejected from a “deporta-
tion cannon” and lands in Mex-
ico, he finds a throng of people
gathered around a tortilla that
allegedly contains the Virgin
Mary (a phenomenon that appar-
ently happens in real life). J.C.
interrupts and exclaims that the
scene “only reinforces a negative
cultural stereotype,” to which
the Virgin Mary emerges from
the tortilla and chastises J.C.
before returning to heaven.

It’ll be interesting to see how

much farther along “Border-
town” will go in the route of
spotlighting
relevant
matters

regarding racism and immigra-
tion towards Mexican-Ameri-
cans. Perhaps an episode that
delves into the contradicting
perceptions of Donald Trump’s
racist demagoguery in the 2016
presidential race would make for
some intriguing television. But
for now, “Bordertown” needs to
improve on how it can make its
budding premise into something
that is both funny and compel-
ling.

TV REVIEW

C+

Bordertown

Pilot

FOX

Sundays at 9:30

A-

Darkest
Before
Dawn: The
Prelude

Pusha T

G.O.O.D. Music

He’s old
enough to

philosophize
Black America

He’s in a totally
unique position.

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