Wednesday, April 1, 2020 — 5A
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
KNXWLEDGE VIA YOUTUBE
MUSIC REVIEW
There’s a point in everyone’s life when they
suddenly become an oldhead. Well, the act of
becoming an oldhead isn’t sudden. It’s a years — even
decades — long process, and its onset can be quite
jarring. Say that in your younger days, you enjoyed
1990s and 2000s hip-hop a la 50 Cent, Notorious
B.I.G., Missy Elliott, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne and Kanye
West, but now in 2020, you find yourself repulsed
by new schoolers like Lil Uzi Vert, YoungBoy Never
Broke Again, Trippie Redd and Travis Scott. You
only identify with new school revivalists like Dababy
and YBN Cordae (BLEGH!), and you’re dying
for another rapper like Kendrick Lamar (or even
Kendrick himself) to show face. You might hate the
new school’s maximalist, booming beats, but you
hate their muddled and mumbled deliveries even
more. You may even begin to find yourself looking
forward to nice home-cooked breakfasts, waking up
for blunted Sunday morning television sessions, and
enjoying some good, old-fashioned peace and quiet.
That’s when you know you’ve become an oldhead.
It’s not a bad thing! It sucks, but at some point,
everyone will metamorphose into the proverbial
old man. This doesn’t mean you have to be a sour
and jaded curmudgeon, though. The secret to
gracefully becoming an oldhead is respecting, or
even admiring, the sonic innovation of the new
school even if you don’t necessarily enjoy it. Just take
it all in stride and give it an honest try, like resident
oldhead Glen Boothe.
You see, Glen Boothe, better known as
Knxwledge, is only 32 years old, but you wouldn’t
guess it from his throwback beats. He’s a student
of J Dilla and Madlib that crafts dusty yet highly
nuanced loops using samples ripped from YouTube.
He’s more than just a revivalist, though. In his
mixtape series Wraptaypes, he lifts vocal samples
from popular rap songs, processes and distorts them,
then overlays the samples onto his beats to fuse the
old school and the new school (these hastily-made
remixes often have surprisingly good results, just
listen to this charming rendition of Drake’s “God’s
Plan”). He’s truly a master of what he does, expertly
and deftly placing every drum kick and sample
burst. Each beat is fresh, even when his source
material is anything but. He isn’t some reclusive
artist who releases every once in a blue moon,
either. He’s prolific. In fact, he’s released a total of
I-can’t-even-count-how-many albums since 2009.
His work has even landed him some impressive
placements. He’s featured prominently on Kendrick
Lamar’s “Momma” and has collaborated with
superstars like Anderson .Paak and underground
headscratchers like Mach-Hommy, Roc Marciano
and Tha God Fahim.
With friends like this, you’d expect his most
recent major release to be a star-studded affair.
Instead, Knxwledge places himself, a hermetic
stoner with an affinity for Carhartt and sweatbands,
at center stage on 1988, his follow-up to 2015’s
outstanding Hud Dreems. He lets his off-kilter
beats do the talking. He doesn’t need high-profile
features to prove his talent to the world. All he needs
is himself, and 1988 is proof of that.
With only five of the 22 songs clocking in at
over two minutes in length, 1988 is a brief affair,
but it’s a deep one with plenty to dive into. Though
the songs have few words, the tracklist itself tells
a story and acts as a ciphered guide for listening.
When decrypted, it roughly expresses: “Don’t be
afraid because tomorrow’s not promised. Do you;
that’s all we can do. Listen and learn how to cope
with reality. You only get one, so live life. Be safe
and watch who you call your homie; they come and
they go. You don’t have to be gangsta all the time.
Believe me, it can be so nice. Make use of the time.
Make it live forever. A woman’s life is love. A man’s
life is love. Keep on minding my business.” Each
sentence is composed of one to three songs that
are somehow related, whether it’s in the tone of the
track or the style of the sample; they all culminate to
form a reassuring, comforting collection of smudgy,
crackling vignettes.
Each segment of the album is absolutely stunning,
but 1998 is truly at its best when ingested in its
entirety. That’s not to say there aren’t highlights.
Early standout “Do You” is a bouncy yet subdued
tromp featuring countless layers of twinkling
pianos,
shimmering
chimes
and
oscillating
synthesizers, with a concluding sample that
proclaims, “You creative like a broke bitch, man.
That’s what it is, bro,” as if Knxwledge knows that
he just cooked up something special and is giving it
his seal of approval. On “Be Safe,” he starts with a
brilliantly implemented sample that says, “Word up,
you know what I’m sayin. I ain’t frontin with nobody
else. You know what, Smitty gave me the word, you
know what I mean, I gotta let Knxwledge be heard”
and then pushes into a gorgeous, reinvigorating
instrumental driven by
warped strings and a
trunk-rattling
bassline.
He fills the track with the
occasional “Yo, wassup?”
or “What’s the deal, baby?
It’s
Knxwledge
right
here,”
seemingly
from
Knxwledge himself. 1988
is littered with little gems
like these, and thanks to
their fleeting runtimes,
you’ll want to listen to them again and again.
Despite how wonderful Knxwledge’s brief works
are, he shines brightest on full-length tracks. Take
“Itkanbe[Sonice],” for example. It is the only song
with a big-name feature on it, and it still doesn’t break
the two-minute mark, even though the featured
artist is none other than Anderson .Paak. Despite
the limited time, .Paak delivers a slick and boastful
verse detailing his expensive lifestyle centered
around the line “I don’t even know how it feels [to
be broke] anymore.” Where “Itkanbe[Sonice]” is
celebration of wealth, “Amanslifeislove_Keepon” is
both a celebration of life and a reminder to stay true
to yourself even when it’s difficult, delivered by an
instrumental that would be right at home on a ’90s
RnB album. Closing song “Minding_MyBusiness”
ends 1988 with a pacifying message to listeners:
“Why stress myself out about my life / My n*****,
what for? / What good is
it gon’ do me / Ignore the
sunshine / I know it can
get ugly but you can find
the beauty in life.”
So yeah, Knxwledge is
an oldhead, but that doesn’t
mean that he resists the
modern world. With 1988,
he forged 22 outstanding
beats and arranged them
in such a way that the
project as a whole is far greater than its already-
great pieces. The project proves that Knxwledge,
despite his music’s throwback nature, can still be
an innovator in the game’s ultra-modern landscape.
Oldheads can still be on the cutting edge of music;
they don’t have to be dismissive, heckling cranks.
Knxwledge is proof of that.
Knxwledge pushes the old school into modernity with ‘1988’
JIM WILSON
Daily Arts Writer
1988
Knxwledge
Stones Throw Record
Read more online at
michigandaily.com
TV REVIEW
COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK
Review: ‘Council of Dads’ My grandfather, out of coffee
JOSHUA THOMAS
Daily Arts Writer
ZOE PHILLIPS
Senior Arts Editor
On the surface, a council of dads isn’t a bad idea.
Reconciling with his terminal diagnosis, loving
father Scott Perry decides to form a council to
guide and support his family after he’s gone. The
series premiere serves as a prologue for the rest
of the show. “Council of Dads” is a familial tear-
jerker in the same vein as “This is Us,” but where
the latter succeeded in being a genuinely gripping
emotional rollercoaster,
the former can’t even get
off the ground. What’s
wrong with “Council of
Dads” is precisely what
works so well in “This
is Us.” The characters.
Namely, the characters
in “Council of Dads” are
just perfect, so perfect
in fact, that they are
unrelatable.
Take for example, Robin (Sarah Wayne
Callies, “Prison Bream”), the matriarch of the
family. She’s hardworking and self-reliant. Even
at her husband Scott’s (Tom Everett Scott, “The
Healing Powers of Dude”) funeral, she’s bossing
people around. Her issue is, in the words of her
husband, she “doesn’t know how to ask for help.”
Even her flaws sound like strengths. Another
example is Luly (Michelle Weaver, “Portals”), the
narrator of the first episode. Her main conflict
centers around dealing with her dad’s illness
while engaging in a (boring) will-they-won’t-they
relationship with her old crush (shocker: they do).
At the end of the episode, just months after her
father’s passing, she marries him. Any sort of
tension which the episode painfully drew out was
simply obliterated in the last few moments of the
premiere. It also doesn’t help that the show itself
is set in the absolutely gorgeous city of Savannah,
Georgia, or that the family owns a picturesque
beachfront home. Or that all the friends of the
Perry’s are successful entrepreneurs or doctors.
The world of “Council of Dads” and the people
who live in it are perfect, but perfection isn’t
relatable.
Shoehorning
a cancer diagnosis into
a family isn’t going to do
the dirty work of making
them real people. The
show
creates
these
characters
whose
virtues
are
endless,
whose flaws are too
good to be true, whose
dilemmas are resolved
in an instant and then
politely asks the audience to see themselves in
these characters. By making these characters’
lives and virtues so lofty, it’s hard to see how
anyone in the U.S. can honestly keep watching
the show without hating themselves. Not only do
the perfect characters make the show completely
disengaging, it also begs the question: Where
does the show go from here?
My grandfather has run out of coffee. Every
morning, he mixes a blend of Colombian dark
roast from Costco that he pours into a thermos
to keep hot for the rest of the day. No milk, no
cream and no sugar. Just coffee. He buys the
grounds in three pound cans that will last
him a few months, but right now he barely has
enough for two more days.
On March 17, the retirement community
where he and my grandmother live locked
its gates in response to the coronavirus
pandemic. They cannot leave, and if they do
they will not be allowed back in. Packages
cannot be delivered and meals usually
eaten in community spaces are dropped at
residents’ doorsteps. Staff will take care of the
grocery shopping. “They’ll shop tomorrow,
or tomorrow afternoon,” my grandfather — I
call him Granny — recently told me over the
phone. “We turn our order in and I included
coffee on that but it won’t be the kind of coffee
that I like.” He paused. “But it’s coffee.”
“Granny, how many years have you been
drinking coffee?” I asked. He said it’s been
since he was drafted to the Army. That was
1956 — a lot of cups of coffee ago.
But it wasn’t until the 90s, when he started
visiting my parents across the country in
California that Granny discovered dark roast.
“People here just drink weak coffee. It’s all
Folgers coffee.” My grandparents live in North
Carolina. They both speak with graceful
southern accents, and Granny’s voice hugs the
“o” in “Folgers” as he describes his distaste
for the brand: “I’d rather just have a glass of
orange juice if I’m going to have weak coffee.”
Regardless, my grandparents aren’t mad
at the potential strong coffee shortage. They
feel safe in their retirement community and
respect the actions taken to protect them
and their friends. The delivered meals and
canceled game nights feel appropriate for the
challenges at hand — both my grandparents
are over 80 and neither of them can remember
anything similar to COVID-19 in their
lifetimes.
This is what I had called them about. I can’t
remember anything similar to coronavirus,
but I also can’t remember 9/11, and I only
have snippets of the 2008 economic crash. My
database is limited — I thought Granny and
Grandma might have something else to say.
“The polio epidemic.” My grandparents
jinxed each other, overlapping their words to
answer my question. I figured they’d say that
— Grandma recently told me a story about
waving to her friend across the street during
quarantine, unable to go out and play. The
corner of my mouth had tipped into a smile;
just last week I had also waved to a friend from
across the street as we tried to maintain our
friendship amid social distancing guidelines.
Eighty years of distance between the same
distancing behavior.
‘Council of Dads’
NBC
Series Premiere
Thursdays @ 7 p.m.
Read more online at
michigandaily.com