Ghostface Killah was a founding
member of the Wu-Tang Clan. The
Wu-Tang Clan was founded in
1993. Thus, Ghostface Killah has
been musically active since 1993.
That’s a 25-year career. That’s a
long time.
Reinvigorating
East
Coast
rap with his hard-nosed squad,
Ghostface and the Wu-Tang Clan
were extremely important 25 years
ago. Dr. Dre’s The Chronic had just
stripped away New York’s hip-hop
credentials, and the rap world was
fully embracing the West Coast’s
lighter-hearted G-funk, save a few
hits from The Notorious B.I.G.
In response, the Wu-Tang Clan
delivered music that sonically
combatted
the
groove-rap
flourishing in Los Angeles; their
sound was dark, brash, cold and
still authentically New York.
Throughout his career as a solo
artist, Ghostface Killah has stuck
to this mold religiously. Even
modern spins, like his collaborative
album with eerie jazz group
BadBadNotGood,
played
into
his ’90s wheelhouse. His most
recent release, The Lost Tapes, is
no exception. Introduced by tired
comedian,
Michael
Rapaport,
the project is described as “dusty
soul,” a full embrace of its stark
contrast with modern hip hop.
Even the album’s title has a vintage
connotation. Track after track,
Ghostface raps in static aggression
over grandiose soul-sampling beats
at 90 beats per minute.
“Buckingham
Palace”
starts
with a sample that sounds like it’s
played through a phonograph,
and,
shortly
after,
Ghostface
begins to half-shout in a monotone
timbre over the same beat for the
remainder of the track. “Saigon
Velour” also starts with a sample
that sounds like its played through
a phonograph, and shortly after,
Ghostface begins to half-shout in
a monotone timbre over the same
beat for the remainder of the track
(except this one has Snoop Dogg in
it). “Watch Em Holla” also starts
with a sample that sounds like it’s
played through a phonograph —
you get the gist.
To clarify, there is nothing
wrong with this mold. It made
for some of the most iconic
music in hip-hop history, and its
compressed, “dusty” nature makes
for a very cozy listen. It’s just very
obviously a 25-year-old mold, void
of all of the distinct qualities of
modern rap: no vocal inflections,
no repetitive cadences, no dynamic
beats driven by the potential of
digital production.
The lack of these contemporary
characteristics
is
obviously
understandable;
the
era
in
which
Ghostface
thrived
is
vastly different from today. He
acknowledges hip hop’s evolution
and his consequential irrelevance
on “Reflections of C.R.E.A.M.
(Interlude 2)”: “It’s a new wave
of children that’s up. Music is
different... If we would’ve came
out with C.R.E.A.M. right now,
we wouldn’t have gotten played.”
If anything, the rapper should be
lauded for acknowledging his age
and sticking to his proven sound,
as opposed to dangerously denying
his diminished importance by
forcefully implementing modern
sounds that end up sounding
unauthentic (see: Snoop Dogg’s
atrocious Make America Crip
Again).
Ghostface’s The Lost Tapes
should be the how-to-guide for
any dated rapper. Instead of trying
and failing to reinvent yourself,
embrace the fact that your new
music is no more than a nostalgic
window to hip hop’s past and the
relevance you used to hold. Let the
kids handle the new stuff and save
your reputation.
Ghostface Killah is old,
and he’s okay with that
MIKE WATKINS
Daily Arts Writer
ALBUM REVIEW
Helen
Simpson’s
2015
collection
of
short
stories,
“Cockfosters:
Stories”
is
preoccupied with the ordinary.
Each story takes place over a
short period of time — often no
more than an hour or two — and
in most, there is little physical
or external action.
Simpson
deftly
balances
narrative and interiority in
these small compartments of
time. Each story is both dull
and
thrilling,
slow-moving
and
blindingly
insightful.
The strongest stories in the
collection are about gender,
a theme on which Simpson
delivers
startling
insights
through various unremarkable
men and women.
Perhaps the best story in
the collection is “Erewhon,”
a
delightful
skewering
of
gendered
expectations
and
dynamics. The title is a nod to
Samuel Butler’s 1872 novel, the
setting of which is a satirized
Victorian society.
In “Erewhon,” a middle-
aged man lies awake in the very
early hours of the morning.
He
ponders
the
emotional
distance that has developed
between him and his wife and
hopes to transition to part-
time work. The first page of
“Erewhon”
seems,
at
first
glance, unremarkable. Slowly,
though, the subversive nature
of the story emerges. “Not nice
to think how the overwhelming
majority of men who were
murdered were murdered by
their own wives,” the narrator
says darkly.
The strength of “Erewhon”
is how ordinary the world
it creates is — no detail is
outlandish,
except
for
the
premise of the gender-swap
itself. All the cultural and
social expectations and norms
associated with women are now
applied to men, and vice versa.
“It was hard,” the narrator
says, “the way older women got
better with age while men lost
their sexual allure … Nobody
really respects a man anymore
once he turns 40, particularly if
he’s losing it on top.”
Simpson slickly pokes fun at
the heavily gendered aspect of
the real world by maneuvering
the sad, frustrated protagonist
of “Erewhon” through assorted
machinations. “In a pathetic
attempt to fight back, he’d
recently been engaging on a
spot of newsagent guerrilla
warfare,”
Simpson
writes.
“Now when he bought his paper
he made sure to stick some of
his preprepared Post-it to the
naked boys on the covers of
women’s magazines — notes he
had felt-tipped in advance with
the words WHAT IF HE WAS
YOUR SON?”
In
the
other
stories
in
“Cockfosters,” Simpson builds
recognizable worlds. In this
way, she gains our trust in
her ability to assemble places
and people we might know. In
“Erewhon,” Simpson applies
her trademark vigilance to an
imagined place, one whose
inversions bring to light that
which is painfully familiar but
also often obscured by its own
routineness.
While sometimes verging on
the ridiculous — the narrator
talks about driving his daughter
around the country for her
competitive yoga tournaments
— “Erewhon” is a masterful
demolition of the pressures
women are constantly under.
“Don’t be such a MascuNazi,”
the narrator’s wife says.
“That
was
what
really
worried him — him and the
other
dads,”
the
narrator
explains. “They all agonized
endlessly about whether or not
they were good fathers.” Or:
“He wasn’t overjoyed about
still being on the Pill. All four
of his grandparents had died
of strokes or heart attacks, but
Ella couldn’t tolerate condoms.
‘They
muffled
things,’
she
said.”
Upon completion, it becomes
clear that “Erewhon” is not
quite a satire; it’s devoid of the
amplification that defines the
genre. There is no exaggeration,
just a sleight of hand that
exposes the world for what it is,
and what it has always been.
“The world was woman-
shaped — get over it!” Simpson
writes.
Reading
“Erewhon”
in 2018 is perhaps different
than reading it when it was
originally published in 2015.
Brett Kavanaugh was appointed
to the Supreme Court this
week, despite multiple credible
accusations of sexual assault.
“This was the way things
were,” writes Simpson. “This
was the natural order.”
‘Cockfosters: Stories’ is a
timely collection of tales
MIRIAM FRANSISCO
Daily Arts Writer
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
By Bruce Haight
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/09/18
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
10/09/18
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Tuesday, October 9, 2018
ACROSS
1 “Big Board” that
lists GM and GE
5 Strauss of jeans
9 Scam using
spam, say
14 Fireworks cries
15 Eye layer that
includes the iris
16 Roman robes
17 How something
precarious may
hang
19 Love, to
Casanova
20 Soft toss
21 “Out with it!”
23 List-ending abbr.
24 Diplomatic office
26 “No more for me,
thanks”
28 Simon __
29 How a good
comedian leaves
the audience?
33 Farm layer
35 Lamp-to-plug line
36 Little mischief-
maker
37 Marisa of “My
Cousin Vinny”
40 Asian New Year
41 Very unpleasant
43 “It’s __-win
situation”
44 Clinton’s veep
46 Fifth scale note
47 Difficult time
50 Queries
54 Schlepped
55 Eats a little
57 “Verrrry funny”
59 Stem (from)
61 Opposite of “yep”
62 Overplay the part
64 Care
66 Career employee
67 New __: modern
spiritualist
68 Rebuke from
Caesar
69 Put off
70 Gridiron throw
71 Stinging insect
DOWN
1 Aristocrats
2 Grammy-winning
cellist
3 “Not too __!”:
“Good work!”
4 “To the max”
suffix
5 Slyly attracts
6 “Brideshead
Revisited”
novelist Waugh
7 Wiener schnitzel
meat
8 Words of
confession
9 School
fundraising gp.
10 Household skills
class, for short
11 “Let me handle it”
12 __ Lee desserts
13 Canine
command
18 Elevs.
22 Mideast
chieftain
25 Arthur of tennis
27 Dictation pro
30 Like dessert
wines
31 Ambulance pro
32 007, e.g.
34 Figure skating
figure
37 Sticky subject?
38 Musical Yoko
39 Get sassy with
someone
40 Import-export
imbalance
42 “Sadly ... ”
45 Newspaper
opinion page
46 Norelco products
48 Pointed beard
49 Baked potato
topping paired
with sour cream
51 Piano piece
52 Some big box
stores
53 Clinched, and a
hint to the four
longest Across
answers
56 “... and two if
by __”
57 __ up: robbed
58 Parisian gal pal
60 Latvian capital
63 Blow it
65 “Do the __”:
soft-drink
slogan
“Cockfosters:
Stories”
Helen Simpson
Vintage
Contemporaries
The Lost Tapes
Ghostface Killah
X-Ray Records
If
you
can
recall
my
review last week, I made an
impassioned argument in favor
of giving network television a
chance. And, well, how should
I put this?
I take everything back.
A lot can change in a week.
For example, last week I still
held onto the wild, optimistic
notion that regardless of how
shitty the quality of a show is,
there must be someone behind
the scenes that gives at least
a sliver of a care about what
type of product is presented
to the world. Well, ladies and
gentlemen, that was last week.
CBS’s newest comedy, “The
Neighborhood,” premiered this
week.
From creator Jim Reynolds
(I want everyone to know his
name), “The Neighborhood” is
simply one of the worst things
I have ever watched. The show
is a classic fish-out-of-water
tale, and by “classic” I mean
“would have been topical in
1976.” Dave (Max Greenfield,
“New Girl”), a professional
conflict mediator from Mich.,
runs into a big conflict of his
own when he and his family
relocate to a predominantly
Black neighborhood in Los
Angeles
and
aren’t
exactly
given a warm welcome. Did I
mention Dave was white? Did
I mention the neighbors were
Black? You’re going to want to
remember that, because it’s not
like they mention it every 30
seconds. Essentially, Dave just
wants to be friends with his new
neighbors, but is thwarted from
this goal by Calvin (Cedric the
Entertainer, “The Last O.G.”),
the patriarch of the family
next door. Calvin, whose job,
ostensibly, is to wear oversized
Chaps polos and pace around
angrily, wants nothing to do
with Dave because — oh wait,
it’s never explained. Everyone
just assumes it’s about race.
Which it is. Oh wait, it isn’t? No,
it definitely is. And that’s the
show!
The
show’s
treatment
of
conflict could be likened to a
child trying its hardest to fit a
circle block in a square hole:
It is repetitive; it is frustrating
for onlookers who know better
and it feels easily solvable. But,
alas, with CBS’s track record
for
continuously
renewing
mediocre content well after its
expiration date (looking at you,
“Big Bang Theory”), we may
just have to watch this one-
dimensional
conflict
stretch
over seven seasons.
The show’s issues do not stop
at its weak premise. Like many
other
fish-out-of-water
tales
that have preceded it, “The
Neighborhood”
requires
the
audience to suspend some of
their disbelief to conclude why
two opposites would ever come
into contact, and further, why
they are forced to stay in contact
with one another. Unlike “The
Nanny” or even “The Beverly
Hillbillies” who have set-ups
somewhat based in reality, “The
Neighborhood” gives us no
explanation as to why a family as
vanilla as Dave’s would choose
to move to this predominantly
Black neighborhood that hasn’t
even begun to show the first
signs of gentrification. The
characters on the show do not
speak like humans. Every line
of dialogue is tailor-made to fit
between insufferable drags of
the laugh track. On top of that,
the tonality is erratic. Shortly
after making a joke about a
neighborhood crackhead, Nick
goes off on a legitimate tangent
about how the opioid epidemic
has shown him that addicts
are victims. Which is true. But
what?
Worst of all, the show takes
itself entirely too seriously.
Jim Reynolds and company
actually carry this show as
though they are at the vanguard
of a new racial discourse in
America, when in actuality they
are peddling the same ideas
that have been in circulation
since the ’90s. Yet, rather
than refining those ideas, they
somehow do it with less tact. In
this episode, a Black character
actually has to break down the
idea that Black people can’t be
racist. And he is treated like
he’s being the stubborn one.
I know CBS’s target audience
is the AARP crowd, but come
on. Aren’t we tired of hearing
this same thing? Aren’t we
tired of white people’s aversion
to educating themselves on
systemic racism being treated
as a punchline? A punchline
that is, conicidentally, written
by a white man. Similarly to the
comedy of the show, Reynolds
cannot seem to figure out what
he wants the show to be. Is it
a commentary on the tone-
deafness of the “colorblind”
millennial generation, or is it
simply just a vehicle for a bunch
of white guys to test out “Black
People Be Angry” jokes? No
matter what the answer truly
is, the result appears to be the
latter. In the same way that
Dave simply being in a Black
neighborhood
will
not
end
racial tensions there, merely
placing Black people in dated,
buffoonish roles does nothing
to end the diversity issue in
Hollywood.
‘The Neighborhood’ is in
dire need of a renovation
ALLY OWENS
For the Daily
“The
Neighborhood”
CBS
Series Premiere
Mondays @ 8 p.m.
TV REVIEW
6A — Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Arts
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