ACROSS
1 Fry
6 Kung __ chicken
9 Market Fresh
sandwich and
salad seller
14 Time of old
Rome
15 Unevenly
distributed, in a
way
17 Brought on
18 Write-off
19 Charming
21 D.C.’s 
Walter __
National Military
Medical Center
22 Mennen lotion
23 Govt. mtge.
insurer
26 One hoping to
provide many
happy returns?
28 Hammer 
number
30 Big name in
hairstyling
32 Hyperbola part
33 Sudden stream
35 Pull on
36 Flee
38 Adjudicates
40 Maple syrup
target
41 Nearly
43 Take badly?
45 Taoist
complement
46 Uncommitted
48 Farrow of film
49 Ottoman title
50 Tack on
51 “A Death in the
Family” author
53 Relative of Rex
55 Energetic and
enthusiastic
59 Run up the score
on
62 Place for a Char-
Broil
63 Removes
restrictions on, as
funds
64 Hole __
65 Third-longest
African river
66 Uncertain no.
67 Handles

DOWN
1 “Do the Right
Thing” pizzeria
2 From the top
3 Suspected of
misdeeds
4 Certain student
5 Hams
6 First-serve figs.
7 Island reception
8 Spent
9 If nothing else
10 Depend
11 Pal
12 Start of an
engagement?
13 ’60s protest org.
16 Big bag carrier
20 Modify to fit
23 State Department
neighborhood ...
and what 3-, 8-
and 29-Down all
have?
24 Philly trademark
25 “They that have
done this deed
are honourable”
speaker
26 Changing place
27 Examined closely
29 Psychedelic rock
classic of 1967
31 Seek redress

34 Brazilian-themed
Vegas hotel, with
“The”
37 Tsk relative
39 Nebula Award
genre
42 One may begin
with “In a world ... ”
44 U-shaped, more
or less
47 Longhorn rival
52 Adlai’s running
mate

54 1997 Elton
dedicatee
55 “Spenser: For __”
56 Annoyance
57 Hessian article
58 Achieves
59 Fifth-century
conqueror
60 Athlete’s wear,
for short
61 It increases
during plant
growth: Abbr.

By Steven J. St. John
©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/19/16

02/19/16

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Friday, February 19, 2016

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

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6 — Friday, February 19, 2016
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

A 

lot of binaries we use 
are helpful; by placing 
parts of the world in 

opposing categories, we create 
order out of what is otherwise 
chaos.

In the 

same vein, a 
lot of these 
binaries are 
also bullshit 
oversimplifi-
cations that 
can be just 
as harm-
ful as they 
are helpful. 
Gender and 
sexuality, for 
example, both exist on a spec-
trum, but throughout our lives, 
we’re taught otherwise. You 
either enter a men’s restroom 
or a women’s one. If you’re a 
guy, you either go to prom with 
a girl or (assuming you attend 
a progressive high school and 
feel safe enough to) a fellow 
dude. One or the other. No in-
between. No overlap. And you’d 
better believe this logic is ever 
present in hip hop as well: The 
binary of interest is none other 
than underground vs. main-
stream. I’d like to apologize in 
advance for writing about this 
— it’s always an annoying con-
versation because it’s always 
impossible to come to a resolu-
tion. But the fact that these 
conversations never result in an 
answer is the answer.

The guidelines determin-

ing whether much of hip hop 
belongs to the gritty under-
ground or the glamorous 
mainstream are built on a weak 
foundation, and with just a 
few case examples, the binary 
comes apart at the seams.

“If skills sold, truth be told/ 

I’d probably be/ Lyrically/ Talib 
Kweli/ Truthfully I wanna 
rhyme like Common Sense/ But I 
did 5 mill — I ain’t been rhyming 
like Common since”

In just a few bars in 

“Moment of Clarity,” Jay Z 
summarizes the entire sup-
posed foundational distinc-
tion between underground 

and mainstream rap. Intricate 
rhymes that may take multiple 
listens to reason through, like 
Talib’s, aren’t found in the 
mainstream because they don’t 
have mass appeal. Nonetheless, 
they’re more impressive, so it’s 
likely that the most talented, 
technical MCs are down below 
in the dungeons of rap. But even 
the earliest rappers wanted 
to be able to eat off rhyming. 
And there’s no money in that 
complex, usually conscious and 
often political underground 
shit. That’s why Hov dumbed 
down his lyrics — to “double 
(his) dollars.”

There are categories 

spawned in academia that are 
relevant and actually line up 
really nicely here. Shorthose 
and Strange (2004) describe 
pure artistic work as that 
which is an “expression of 
one’s creative capacity through 
self-determined labor.” On the 
other hand, managed creativ-
ity is “alienated work within 
orthodox capitalist relations 
of production.” Regardless of 
which explanation you resonate 
with more, they both distin-
guish art in the same respect. 
The real, the raw, the good stuff 
is in the underground because 
it isn’t confined to commercial 
stipulations for success, which 
also means it isn’t going to pay 
any bills.

From Eyedea & Abilities and 

Big L, to MF Doom and Immor-
tal Tech — yes, some of the 
most multifaceted rappers with 
uncanny abilities to manipulate 
the English language never 
breach the mainstream. But the 
most critically acclaimed and 
almost most commercially suc-
cessful album of 2015 (behind 
only Drizzy in units moved) 
was from a rapper many would 
dub conscious, even if he denies 
it: Kendrick. An adequate 
account of the genius that is 
To Pimp A Butterfly requires 
an entire column of its own. 
Needless to say, it’s as intricate 
as it is intense, confronting 
still-unresolved racial skel-
etons lying in America’s closet. 
TPAB is bold, brooding and 
extremely Black — far from the 
“money, clothes, hoes” mantra 
so strongly associated with Bill-
board top charts. With topics 
as explicitly political as police 
brutality and Black power, 
complemented with a funky 
soundtrack fused with jazz and 
sprinkled with soul, the kid 
from Compton still went plati-
num. How Sway? Doesn’t that 
go against the guidelines?

This rule is often broken in 

the alternative sense as well 
— when underground rappers 
think they’re being revolution-
ary, key word think. Brand 
Nubian’s 1990 release One for 
All is widely lauded as being 
one of the coolest, most colorful 
and socially-conscious projects 
of its time. The biggest hit, 
“Slow Down,” may be accom-
panied with a melodic hook 
and hypnotic beat, but there’s 
nothing mesmerizing about the 
relentless misogyny, only grow-
ing worse from verse to verse. 
It culminates in Grand Puba 
expressing his anger at “stunts” 
[’90s for “hoes”] who like to 
have sex, maybe in exchange 
for “a forty and a blunt, that’s 
all she really wants.” He ever-
so-intellectually ponders “what 
makes a bitch want to act in 
this way,” but, in the end, real-
izes he doesn’t care: “If you 
want to live foul and be a dumb 
diddy dumb dumb bitch/ Well 
go ahead.” He’s still not down 
with it though, and so con-
tinues to pass judgment and 
wants to make sure you know 
it through the use of redundant 
word choice: “You’re living 
foul.” Great, got it.

The underground can be 

just as regressive as the main-
stream. But the mainstream can 
also be as monetarily discour-
aging as the underground.

“Y’all a disgrace to C-P-T/ 

Cause you’re getting fucked out 
your green by a white boy, with 
no Vaseline.”

Jerry Heller is the white boy 

Ice Cube refers to, infamously 
known for managing NWA and 

favoring some members over 
others while doing so. Though 
Eazy-E was best taken care of 
by Heller, it was Cube who was 
the best writer in the group 
and composed the majority of 
the lyrics heard on Straight 
Outta Compton, the group’s 
best selling release. Remember 
“Express Yourself”? Remember 
thinking, damn, Dre can really 
rap after hearing it? Yeah, Cube 
wrote that too. Eventually, 
Cube said fuck it and left. And 
understandably so. Though 
Eazy was something like the 
star of the show, the compensa-
tion simply wasn’t fair; in fact, 
E didn’t write much if anything 
at all. But it was Eazy who 
founded Ruthless Records with 
Heller, so it was Eazy who’d 
see most of the returns. Lesson 
learned: Just because you make 
it, doesn’t necessarily mean 
you’re going to make much 
anyway.

And NWA isn’t an exception 

to the rule. It actually is the 
rule: Specifically, “Industry 
rule number four thousand and 
eighty/ Record company people 
are shady.” There’s a long his-
tory of labels exploiting their 
artists. I’m not going to get into 
the TLC story because, hon-
estly, it’s too sad. But read up if 
you’re unfamiliar. In this day 
and age, though, exploitation 
follows a perfected pattern: 
Sign the artist after he drops 
a dance hit that catapults him 
onto the scene, milk him for all 
he’s got, and either shelve any 
projects he’s interested in or 
release him soon after. Much 
of the exploitation — the only 
way you can get some dollars is 
if you dance for it — bears eerie 
resemblance to the legacies of 
slavery. So going mainstream 
doesn’t guarantee a steady 
income; in some cases, it can 
actually threaten it. Mean-
while, there’s a host of under-
ground artists who release 
projects predominantly for 
free, yet are able to put food on 
the table through touring, mer-
chandise sales and the like. And 
avoid dealing with any label 
execs along the way.

There are a lot of important 

conversations to have regarding 
underground vs. mainstream 
rap. Many have to do with the 
transition from the former to 
the latter and the stages artists 
go through, beginning with 
the humble come-up and ide-
ally culminating in platinum 
plaques. In the Internet age, 
where so many have the abil-
ity to release music of their 
own, what implications does 
this oversaturation of talent 
have? In addition, there’s a 
lot of contention surrounding 
going commercial and it being 
equated to selling out; and in 
the world of hip hop, not much 
is more important than keeping 
it real. How is this assumption 
complicated by artists who 
maintain their artistic integ-
rity and still manage to reach 
best-seller lists? And when 
artists evolve upon garner-
ing mainstream attention, and 
their sounds change, is it unfair 
to get mad at them for not hav-
ing a static identity throughout 
their career?

I don’t have the answer to 

many of these questions, but 
before we can really get into 
any of this, it’s important to 
complicate the underground vs. 
mainstream distinction. When 
categories are placed on oppos-
ing ends of a spectrum, they’re 
easier to understand but more 
difficult to work with. A little 
confusion can actually bring us 
some clarity. By accepting that 
there are a lot of exceptions 
to the rules used to differen-
tiate between underground 
and mainstream, so many 
that it’s questionable to even 
refer to them as exceptions, 
there’s room for variation, for 
richer propositions. Finally, it 
becomes possible that the next 
time you do engage with this 
topic, you won’t end up wanting 
to hurt somebody.

Bajgoric’s e-mail is probably 

too underground for you to know, 

so here it is: lejla@umich.edu 

HIP-HOP COLUMN

What defines the 

underground?

LEJLA 
BAJGORIC

New documentary 
explores American 

ideals abroad

By DANIEL HENSEL

For the Daily

“Oh, we live in sick times, 

sick, sick times.” About two 
minutes into his 1997 film 
“The Big One,” 
documentar-
ian 
Michael 

Moore (“Roger 
& Me”) relays 
his 
political 

outlook to an 
audience 
at 

Northwestern 
University. 
During 
the 

presidential 
campaign 
that year, Moore had sent $100 
checks signed by groups with 
objectionable 
names 
(Pedo-

philes for Free Trade and Abor-
tionists for [Pat] Buchanan 
are two examples) to each of 
the four prominent candidates 
at the time. “And who do you 
think cashed the check first?” 
Moore asks the audience.

Nearly 20 years later, in his 

new 
documentary, 
“Where 

to Invade Next,” Moore is as 
unabashedly 
progressive 
as 

ever. This film, though, takes 
a more subversive path. While 
Moore’s previous films promi-
nently featured the documen-
tarian and his crew attempting 
to speak to CEOs at their offices 
to question their efforts to out-
source labor and lay off Ameri-
can 
workers 
during 
record 

profits, “Where to Invade Next” 
finds Moore off American soil, 
seeking to improve America by 
“invading” other nations and 
claiming their ideas as our own. 
Moore finds himself speaking 
to Italian business executives 
and Portuguese police officers, 
Norwegian prison guards and 
Icelandic politicians.

“Where to Invade Next” is 

endlessly hopeful. Though each 

interview features cutaways to 
relevant tragedies in contempo-
rary American history, the end 
of each segment seems to stare 
into the eyes of Americans and 
say, “We can do this. We can 
fix these problems.” And while 
Michael Moore could have 
cemented his work’s legacy as 
a response to Bush-era politics, 
“Where to Invade Next” finds 
relevance in the still-unsolved 
problems in American poli-
tics and society over the last 
few decades. Labor, education, 
nutrition, student debt, drugs, 
prisons and women’s rights 
are all discussed, and it is in 
this way that Moore creates 
his most relevant film in some 
time. His ability to touch on all 
these matters with a height-
ened sophistication — rather 
than attempting to ambush 
executives to identify prob-
lems, here he talks to problem 
solvers who discuss their solu-
tions — demonstrates his dedi-
cation to actually address these 
issues in the real world, beyond 
the cinemas.

And 
although 
he’s 
more 

sophisticated, Moore is still 
his acerbic, subversive self. By 
framing the film as a form of 
non-violent 
and 
self-serving 

imperialism, Moore not-so-sub-
tly reminds his audience that 
the practice of invading nations 
to steal their good ideas can 
be as American as actual mili-
tary invasion. “Make Love, Not 
War” becomes “Steal Ideas, Not 
Lives.” And as we learn near the 
conclusion of the film, these 
ideas all came out of America in 
the first place. The Norwegian 
practice of putting prisoners in 

more trusting and friendly pris-
ons was adapted from Ameri-
ca’s 8th Amendment, forbidding 
cruel and unusual punishment. 
Tunisia’s recent wave of wom-
en’s rights bills was inspired by 
the Equal Rights Amendment, 
which was heavily debated in 
1972 but never passed.

At 119 minutes, “Where to 

Invade Next” certainly drags 
and feels redundant, especially 
later in the film. We see two 
different segments on labor 
rights, two different segments 
on education and two different 
segments on women’s rights. 
Moore’s unapologetic progres-
sivism also prevents him, and 
us, from effectively under-
standing the complexities of 
each issue. Sure, these are great 
solutions for these countries, 
but what are the drawbacks? 
What are the sacrifices? Would 
these solutions work in Ameri-
ca? Further, what should we do 
about it? Those with the fore-
sight to stay through the credits 
will be able to see what Moore 
makes of his ending message of 
guidance, but for all the solu-
tions Moore provides, he ends 
the documentary without guid-
ing the audience to knowing 
how to actually institute these 
changes. The important ques-
tions are left unanswered, per-
haps strategically so, to leave a 
slightly disillusioned aftertaste.

Still, “Where to Invade Next” 

shows Moore at his most poi-
gnant. One particular scene 
features a German school, with 
young students learning about 
the Holocaust. Their education 
teaches them to be critical of 
their government, but the stu-
dents are no less proud of their 
country. They’re Germans who 
are aware their government 
failed their people and other 
countries’ people in the past. 
This scene is an apt analogy for 
Michael Moore and his rela-
tionship with America; regard-
less of one’s opinion of him, it’s 
hard to deny that Moore doesn’t 
have its citizens’ best interests 
at heart. 

Moore travels to 
seek out answers

FILM REVIEW

A-

Where to 
Invade 
Next

State Theatre

IMG Films

Moore is as 
unabashedly 
progressive as 

ever.

