With so much of this spot dedicated to musical content, I think that every once in a while there should be stuff to work your brain cells as well as your ear muscles. With that said, here’s the latest in what I hope will be a continuing series between the house of dope and various scribes. Let’s continue things with the Internets Celebrity himself, Dallas Penn.
Respect The Architects: All That Jazz
Jazz music comes from the south. In the most popular brothels in New Orleans you might have to wait a while for your pleasure so as a courtesy to the patrons the house owners hired musicians to play in the waiting rooms. It’s not hard to imagine that some of these whorehouses became more popular for the being played on instruments other than the skin flute[ll]. Fast forward to Club Nikki’s in Atlanta or Magic City and the music now being played to pre-occupy the customers in these houses of ill repute is also coming from southern musicians.
Hip-Hop and jazz are so related that will need to wear your hater bifocals to separate the two. The forte of both musical forms is the space they have for unrehearsed, extemporaneous changes in direction. The deejay scratch or rapper freestyle is simply the trumpeter’s solo. John Coltrane and Black Thought are cut from the same cloth. Both reach for something higher than fame or fortune. Heaven is what I imagine. Otherwise known as the perfect beat. The beat can make a god into a mortal(see NaS) or it can transform a liar into the pied piper (see Rick Ross).
Riding the beat right is a love supreme for the best emcees. For any musician who catches the groove just right it is something special to experience. How that moment can move our bodies and our minds is something we all recognize. Isn’t that why we come here to 2DBz? To be present for that moment of perfection? And to celebrate those that have already climbed to the mountaintop. If you come to this site for another reason you might not be Hip-Hop.
This week would have celebrated the start of another circumnavigation around the sun for Keith Elam, better known to us all as Guru. I think it’s important for people to celebrate the days that spirits are given to us in the physical form, as opposed to remembering the days they are returned to the essence. In this way we celebrate life and deliver ourselves from the nihilist culture of death and destruction. No hippie shit either. When I put the mirror on my life I like to use the reflection to get the dirt off my face and fix my hair. I mean, what’s the point of having a mirror and you don’t use it to make yourself look better?
For those of you internets that live in the Brooklyn community of Crown Heights you have a unique opportunity to use your mirror for good. The Brooklyn Museum of Art will be hosting a musical tribute to the life and legacy of Keith Elam. Guru used his mirror to reconnect the bonds of the globally influential American musical genres called Hip-Hop and jazz.
Brooklyn Museum’s Calendar Of Events
No matter where you reside you have your own mirror and your own opportunity to let your soul reflect respect for the architects of this shit we love. RIP Guru. Hip-Hop is dead. Long live Hip-Hop.
Well said
RIP Guru forreal.
Dam, this is almost as bad as Meka’s articles.
Hip-Hop and jazz are so related that will need to wear your hater bifocals to separate the two. The forte of both musical forms is the space they have for unrehearsed, extemporaneous changes in direction. The deejay scratch or rapper freestyle is simply the trumpeter’s solo. John Coltrane and Black Thought are cut from the same cloth. Both reach for something higher than fame or fortune. Heaven is what I imagine. Otherwise known as the perfect beat. The beat can make a god into a mortal(see NaS) or it can transform a liar into the pied piper (see Rick Ross).<<truth
R.I.P. Guru.
The beat can make a god into a mortal(see NaS) or it can transform a liar into the pied piper (see Rick Ross).
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quit hating the south, which rapper hasn’t lied? I’m not a Rawse stan at all but your article loses strength when you congratulate and hate at the same time.
Great timing on this drop. I just had my first summer class on the History of Jazz. Elective credits are a great thing.
Sidenote: When is dallaspenn.com coming back?
Dope insight, Rip Bold Head Slick AKA Guru. Hip Hop aint dead its just being resurrected. PEACE!!
RIP Guru.
@Ha!
Calm the fuck down, he ain’t hatin on the south
how is he hating on the south when the very beginning of the article he defends the south???? lmao shut the fuck up Ha!