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Arts
Friday, September 9, 2016 — 5A
Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
ACROSS
1 Crudités
enhancers
5 __ puppet
9 Hot dogs and
hams
14 With, on la carte
15 Tartan wearers
16 Lowest deck on a
ship
17 Gadget that
exercises the wrist
18 Spydom name
19 Crisp
20 Beer made in
Johannesburg?
23 Lorry supply
24 Deck wood
25 Chi. setting
28 Citrus suffix
29 Letter before
upsilon
31 Ranking
33 One who aspires
to be the king of
beers?
36 Run out
39 Larter of TV’s
“Heroes”
40 Tip for a dealer
41 Sounds from a
brewery?
46 “Life of Pi” Oscar
winner
47 Justice dept.
heads
48 Form 1040 fig.
51 Welker of the
NFL
52 Highbrow
55 Oil once touted
by Florence
Henderson
57 Toast said while
hoisting
presidential
beer?
60 Gourd fruit
62 Happy __
63 Fluency
64 Mesmerizing
designs
65 Dark cloud
66 They may not be
quiet on the set
67 Fords a stream
68 Gps. with copays
69 Paris’ __ Neuf
DOWN
1 Place for
pampering
2 Polling place
sticker words
3 Desert
hallucinogen
4 Use a Brillo pad
5 Learned one
6 Evil count of “A
Series of
Unfortunate
Events”
7 Stone measure
8 Word with bread
and butter
9 Sobriquet
10 Los Angeles
mayor Garcetti
11 Actor with eight
Oscar
nominations (and
one win)
12 Cover
13 Many a character
in “The
Americans”
21 Wizard revealer
22 Coarse file
26 Tie up
27 One on a
cartoon desert
island
30 State with five
national parks
32 Trifles
33 Marmalade
ingredient
34 Nevada copper
town
35 Beatles girl with a
“little white book”
36 Weak spot
37 Hatcher’s “Lois &
Clark” role
38 Sandwich spread
42 Feels sore about
43 Monopoly deed
word
44 Sinclair Lewis
nominated him for
the 1932 Nobel
Prize in Literature
45 Tiny time meas.
48 Italian cheese
49 Takes the stage
50 Overrun
53 Energy
54 Players riding the
pine
56 Docile sorts
58 Mythology
59 Circle
overhead?
60 Do the lawn
61 AQI monitor
By Patti Varol
©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/09/16
09/09/16
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Friday, September 9, 2016
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
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HELP WANTED
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
Seeking songs for the
end of Summer 2016
By ADAM THEISEN
Managing Arts Editor
Technically
speaking,
the
song of Summer ’Sixteen was
undeniably Drake’s “One Dance.”
Not only did it top the Hot 100
for 10 straight weeks, but its
parent album, Views, drew in
such an unprecedented number
of streams that it’s practically
unbelievable. And even if you
don’t follow the charts, anyone
listening to Top 40 FM in the
past few months would tell you
“One Dance” was by far what
they heard the most.
But even as I constantly heard
“One Dance” on the radio, I
couldn’t quite accept it as the
“Song of the Summer.” I kept ask-
ing one very important question:
Where are the memes?
I don’t mean that the song of
the summer should have been
Young Thug’s “Harambe” —
God, I definitely don’t mean that.
But more than any other artist,
Drake has mastered the art of
going viral. From “Draft Day /
Johnny Manziel” to “Summer
Sixteen”-branded air fresheners
to the “Hotline Bling” video and
the popularization of “The 6” as
a nickname for Toronto, Aubrey
Graham and his team can seem-
ingly make anything hot, when-
ever they want.
But songs of the summer,
specifically, have always been
about memes — each one sticks
a phrase into the culture. “Hey,
I just met you, and this is crazy.”
“First thing’s first / I’m the real-
est.” “We’re up all night to get
lucky.” “Why you gotta be so
rude?” “Hey, what’s up, hello!”
And “One Dance” doesn’t
seem to have that. Of course, that
opening “I need a one dance”
hook,” is easy enough to remem-
ber, but can you quote any other
part of the song? Do you make
jokes on Twitter about it? Do you
even talk about it?
Look at how Drake closed
out last summer — performing
his Meek Mill-killing “Back to
Back” at OVO Fest in front of a
screen filled with corny branded
tweets. There’s no equivalent,
nothing that dominated the pop-
culture conversation, with any
track off Views, except for maybe
that cheesecake line off “Child’s
Play.” Compared with how Meek
v. Drake was just naturally the
big story this time last year, “One
Dance” feels more like a medio-
cre track made inevitably popu-
lar by Tim Cook’s marketing
machine.
And so, at least where I was,
for the first time I could remem-
ber, there didn’t seem to be
one clear song of the summer.
Beyond Drake, it could have been
anything from Ariana Grande’s
“Dangerous Woman” or Sia’s
“Cheap Thrills” to Schoolboy Q
and Kanye’s “THat Part” to Fifth
Harmony’s “Work From Home”
or Desiigner’s “Panda.” All were
fun tracks played pretty often on
the radio, though none felt ines-
capable, and none got the kind
of momentum needed to perma-
nently make a home in our heads.
Music writers seemed to feel
the fatigue, too. After a few sum-
mers in a row where publications
rushed to crown whatever was a
hit in March the first song of the
“summer,” this year felt less like
a horse race, and critics relaxed.
Most of their “songs of the sum-
mer” were more whimsical, less
charts-based. The New Yorker
ran a series of “Song of the Sum-
mer” articles that included idio-
syncratic picks like “Bawitaba”
by Kid Rock and the 1929 fiddle
track “When Summer Comes
Again” by something called The
Lewis Brothers, while Deadspin
— which last year ran an article
titled “Calling It Early: ‘Trap
Queen’ is the Song of the Sum-
mer” — declared 50 Cent’s “Hate
It Or Love It” to be “the song of
the summer, and also every sin-
gle other day of life.”
For me, then, with no regard to
universal relevancy, the SotS was
Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop
’Til You Get Enough.” I went up
to Lake Michigan with a bunch
of old friends for a weekend in
July, armed with six-packs and
a master playlist that stretched
over 24 hours long. Somehow,
though, “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get
Enough” played at least 3 or 4
times that weekend — while we
were out playing volleyball, mak-
ing a big dinner together, or just
goofing off. When I look back at
one of the highlights of my sum-
mer, I hear that Michael Jackson
falsetto.
But if I had to pick a current
track to represent my Summer
’Sixteen, I have to go with “I Got
The Keys,” the DJ Khaled joint
featuring Jay Z and Future. It’s
not that the song itself is great
— though Hov’s verses are solid,
and Future’s energy is infectious
— but it just feels like summer. DJ
Khaled always sounds like he’s
yelling out a window while cruis-
ing on a lazy afternoon, Future’s
DS2 was one of the biggest hits of
last summer and Jay rapping on
the radio just brings me back to
when The Blueprint 3 was the shit
and “Young Forever” got blasted
every hour at the swim club.
And I think that’s why I’m
bummed out about not having a
clear song for this year’s summer.
Music usually isn’t a race, and it’s
tough to anoint winners without
controversy, but that’s not the
point. The song of the summer
isn’t about a winner — it’s about
having something we all share.
This summer for me was defined
by Michael Jackson and Jay Z,
but those songs don’t bring back
memories with the same kind of
power as a track from Teenage
Dream or 21.
When
“California
Gurls”
plays, I feel a little sunburnt, and
I hear people splashing in a pool
and I relish the cool breeze on my
face. I’ve avoided “Rude” for the
last two years, but I know that
song will take me back to being
on a boat with my friends on
Fourth of July. I love the fact that
I know millions of people feel the
same way, that these songs are
a big powerful collective time
machine we can all access, and
since that feeling got broken up
into millions of tiny, unique feel-
ings this summer, it’s seemed like
something was missing.
Young Thug is
creating new rules
for the game
By HARRY KRINSKY
Daily Arts Writer
“Amazing or Malaising” is a
new series in which Daily Arts
Writer Harry Krinsky decides if
a piece of culture is wonderful or
trapped in malaise.
I’m gonna throw out some
rap lyrics. Stop reading when
you see a pattern.
“I look good as your dad on a
Friday.” –Young Thug
“I want the M’s and I’m not
talking Micky D’s. My jewelry
gold like the tokens at Chuck E.
Cheese.” –Young Thug
“I’m a Pisces but I’d rather be
a killa whale.” –Andre Nicka-
tina
“Chuck Taylor down like
the Ramadan / Catch a feelin’,
slipped in on a banana peeling
/ You got a scheme homie what
you dealin’.” –Andre Nickatina
“Who come through doing
kung-fu / Jinjitsu, eating kung
pow when the thunder storm
tornado sized symbol on my
Guess jeans / You on the guest
list? You wanna French kiss? I
gotta double check your French
tips.” –Riff Raff
“I’m at the Pizza Hut / I’m at
the Taco Bell. I’m at the Combi-
nation Pizza Hut and Taco Bell”
–Das Racist
“Timmy
Timmy
Timmy
Turner, He been looking for a
burner.” – Desiigner
That was sort of a trick ques-
tion. There really isn’t a pattern.
Really, the only pattern is that
none of those lines make any
sense. There is no connection
between a Pisces and a killer
whale, or Chuck Taylors and
Ramadan — and no amount of
Rap Genius will help you figure
out what these lines mean. They
are barely coherent.
Now, it’s really easy to call
this rap low quality. It’s easy to
frown at this departure from
substantive,
highly
lyrical,
socially conscious rap music
that just about everyone from
Kurtis Blow to Jay Z has taken
a part in. Even when they were
being vulgar or superfluous, at
least they were being witty (and
even when they weren’t being
witty, at least they made sense).
So, one way of grouping
the above songs is that they
are connected by the fact that
they are all lyrics from shitty
vapid rap songs made by shitty
upstart internet rappers. (With
the exception of Nickatina; he’s
been making no sense longer
than I’ve been alive). It’s really
not that hard, then, to extrapo-
late that my generation’s obses-
sion with these rappers points
to millennials’ short attention
spans, lack of appreciation for
tradition and inevitable des-
tiny to ruin the world. That is
the 2002 USA men’s basketball
team way of grouping those
songs.
I like to categorize those
lyrics, of which I have only
included a small sample size, as
something called Curated Non-
sense.
Curated Nonsense, on one
level, is rap music that inten-
tionally doesn’t make conven-
tional sense. It’s defined by
punchlines that don’t quite hit,
or non-sequitur bars or dated
references or just straight-up
gibberish. My favorite Curat-
ed Nonsensical rapper ever
is Young Thug. Thugger is by
far the biggest and most main-
stream of the above list. He is
the biggest rapper to ever not
make any sense. This is impor-
tant, generational, and I think
has something to do with the
internet and all the fucked-
up, senseless shit going on in
the world right now. He isn’t,
however, the first rapper to not
make any sense. Thugger, con-
sciously or not, is just the new-
est member of a lineage that
at least includes Bay Area leg-
ends Mac Dre and Andre Niki-
tina, and contemporaries like
Das Racist, Lil B and Riff Raff.
Thugger also, if you need any
more evidence of his proclivity
for nonsense, just changed his
rap name to “No, My Name is
Jeffery.”
You might say that curated
nonsense is a ridiculous way to
describe anything, let alone rap
music, and I’ll admit, it’s a bit
contradictory, even oxymoron-
ic. But Big Sean is little and Lil
John is old; music is laden with
contradiction and hypocrisy, so
why can’t my made-up subcat-
egory have a splash of the sauce?
Also, full disclosure, I think
curated nonsense is a great
name of a category. It rolls off
the tongue and sounds vaguely
intellectual, like the type of
thing someone who also says
“postmodern” a lot might say
(which, for better or for worse,
I do). But what’s most important
about giving a name to this type
of rap music is that it acknowl-
edges Thugger, Mac Dre, Riff
Raff et al. as legitimate con-
tributors to the contemporary
artistic landscape, not just a bad
version of normal rap music. I’m
not saying the music deserves
an A or even a B; I’m saying it
deserves a grade.
Parsing out good Curated
Nonsense from bad Curated
Nonsense is no easy task, and I
think that’s one of the reasons it
gets lumped together with bad
rap music.
For example, I’m listening
to Anderson Paak as I write
this piece. Anderson Paak is
NOT Curated Nonsense. If any-
thing, he’s curated sense, which
is ostensibly the goal of most
music and doesn’t need its own
category. Paak gets the people
that call Curated Nonsense
trash, excited. (Also Anderson
Paak is just fucking dope and
transcendent, and unquestion-
ably amazing.) To compare
Anderson Paak to, say, Kendrick
Lamar, might be difficult since
they’re both great artists that
have relatively different sounds,
but it’s ultimately way easier
than comparing, say, Young
Thug to the Ying Yang Twins.
The Ying Yang Twins weren’t
Curated Nonsense either, they
were just nonsense. Intention
is crucial to fit into my cat-
egory. But tracking intention
is exponentially more difficult
than tracking lyrics or drum
progression. Welcome to post-
modernism (ugh). Thugger and
the Ying Yang twins both don’t
make any sense — they’re both
sort of southern rappers — but
Thugger is unquestionably bet-
ter in my mind. His nonsense
makes sense. His voice is an
instrument, and he’s aware of
the fact that it’s hard to com-
prehend. Part of the joy in lis-
tening to Thugger is constantly
having to play catch-up. It’s
possible that Thugger’s rise to
fame simply coincided perfectly
with some cultural current that
made his music more accessible
than the Ying Yang Twins were
in 2005, which complicates the
comparison even more.
Comparing Kendrick to Paak
is like comparing J-Kidd to
Steve Nash. They do very differ-
ent things on the court, but they
play the same position. Com-
paring Young Thug to the Ying
Yang Twins is like comparing
Draymond Green to Yi Jianlian.
This debate matters more
than just giving credit to a few
quirky rappers. The debate
exposes the skewed way many
people look at rap.
So much of rap listening cul-
ture is based in decoding the
lyrics and then, and only then,
getting to the heart of a song.
Rap Genius, Reddit threads and
the entire Drake ghost-writing
fiasco are evidence of this idea.
Curated Nonsense rap challeng-
es the assumption that, in order
to relate to a song, we must
understand where it came from
and what it means. That might
sounds simple, but in practice it
requires a fair amount of mental
gymnastics.
I get the rap OG narrative.
Lyrics are really important. It’s
not too much of a stretch to call
rap music poetry with a beat.
Actually, it’s not a stretch at all.
That is exactly what rap music
is. Ironically, though, the com-
parison to poetry shows what
makes Curated Nonsense spe-
cial.
We are taught in school that
the best way to consume poetry
is to do so without attempting
to break its code. Poetry is just
meant to exist in the world and
be taken in; it can have multiple,
conflicting and complicating
meanings. To steal from Emily
Dickinson, the goal of poetry
is to “tell all the truth but tell it
slant.” The way a poem makes
you feel is just as important as
the words on the page. Poems
are interpreted, not understood.
To argue that poetry needs to
make sense is simultaneously
reasonable and deeply limiting.
Just like calling a Young Thug
song convoluted is both reason-
able and deeply limiting.
We are left, maybe, with some
schools of analytical thought
that are at odds with each other.
The pervasive rap narrative
is: bitterly analyze, fact check
and code break. The traditional
poetry narrative is: don’t ana-
lyze too much, feel, introspect,
drink Sweetwater’s coffee and
be nostalgic. My main question
is: Why can’t Young Thug be a
poet?
When I listen to Young Thug
and can only make out syllables
and shifts in the tone and speed
of his voice, I feel something.
When I listen to Paak or Ken-
drick spit bars that make me
think, I also feel something.
Most people would feel the
same if they got off their preten-
tious hip-hop high horse.
Final verdict: Amazing.
Nonsense is the
new sense in rap
300 ENTERTAINMENT
How can they sing along if he’s rapping nonsense?
AMAZING OR MALAISING