I understand that Sing Song was held this weekend — tragically I missed out on the festivities, as I was singing songs of my own in Austin. If you’ve read any of my articles, you’ll know that I’ve written about my experiences in the state’s capital several times. I’m sorry but it’s not my fault that Austin’s music scene blows that of Dallas’ out of the oil-I mean water. Not only does its music scene significantly trump ours, but the city in general is so much more vibrant and colorful.
As I’ve previously mentioned, I was quite disappointed about missing the Wu Tang’s Ghostface Killah at South by Southwest. Fortunately and unusually, he returned to Texas just two weeks after his highly-hyped SXSW appearance. Austin just happened to be one of the first stops on Ghostface’s 2006 nation-wide tour promoting his new Def-Jam album entitled ‘Fishscale.’ Pitchfork.com, one of the most respected names in music journalism, recently awarded ‘Fishscale’ 9 out of 10 possible points- an extremely rare accomplishment among any genre.
Sure enough, my friends and I arrived at the venue, Emo’s, too early — it was 11 p.m. Ghostface and friends are known for “extensive” partying, and predictably, the second act was just starting their set. So naturally, we went to the bar to kill some time and as soon as you can say Waxahachie, Ghostface’s posse was on stage getting the crowd moving like only the Wu can.
Ten minutes later, Ghost, as his fans call him, emerged from the darkness and jumped right into action. He seemed to loom over the crowd. Hunching over in his 4XL t-shirt which read “Baller,” swaying around his pounds of diamonds, cocking his Bo-Sox cap to the right, and controlling the crowd like few can, the Wu was definitely in the building. Even my buddy, Matt, who is not really a hip-hop fan, was throwing up the “W.”
Ghostface played quite a few songs from his new album, yet stayed true to his roots and played Clan hits such as “Ice Cream.” The evening took a bit of a sentimental turn when a moment of silence was held in memory of O.D.B., one of the more wild pioneers in hip-hop. Unfortunately, that gave way to a bit of a rant from Ghostface, who began preaching to the crowd. I thought, “Listen guy, we all have internal struggles, but I paid $20 to hear you rap, not lecture.” However, he slowly got back to business and concluded an amazing concert that can be described by one word- live.
The next day, a friend at the University of Texas got Matt and I tickets to see Mike Jones at a Phi Psi day party. Over 3,500 kids packed themselves in the fraternity house’s back yard for the free Keystone Light and rampant Greek recruitment. Freshman Phi Psi Sam Reid told me that they paid Mike Jones nearly $25,000 for his afternoon appearance.
Let me tell you that I wouldn’t pay Mike Jones $50 to play at my party, nor would I ever suggest listening to Mike Jones again-ever. He is a prime example of why most of you reading this article don’t like hip-hop. He and his crew of no-talent ass clowns ran around on the stage, monotonously chanting their bewilderingly famous taglines until the crowd became tired of chanting them back. He must have said “Back then they didn’t want me, now I’m hot they all on me,” and “Who-Mike Jones?” hundreds of times — literally. It never ceases to amaze me how something that awful is so popular; maybe it says something about our culture.
Thankfully, my weekend of music didn’t end with Mike Jones. Saturday night, one of Chicago’s finest, Common, performed a free show at UT’s “6-Pack.” The show was as mellow and cool as I had imagined it would be. He is somehow able to incorporate jazz, morality, rap, poetry, break dancing, faith, gender and sexuality into one smooth showcase of great hip-hop- that’s what makes him so special.
That, in my admittedly opinionated opinion, is what separates real musicians from people like Mike Jones. I ask you to not judge a whole genre of music, almost all of which you have probably never heard, on poor spokesmen like Mike Jones. Don’t believe everything you hear on 97.9 FM “The Beat;” there’s great stuff out there! I talked to one UT student, Jamie Tehrani, who said, “I really don’t care for rap, but I thought Common was really cool.” I contest that most of you might like rap, just not what is constantly fed to you. There’s more to the music than guns, drugs, and tricks, you just have to search for it.