Wu-Tang Live!

January 11, 2008 by Abby  Send to a Friend

disclaimer: Wu Tang wouldn’t allow photographers.

A friend and I went to Baltimore Wed to see Wu Tang.
She is reading Richard Jensen’s book “Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity,” which I guess is a kind of critique of pornography as inherently misogynistic and harmful to all genders.
After a few pleasantries through her thinly veiled rage, we got to discussing it as we waited for the train. Does the degradation sometimes depicted in porn cause people to recreate the same outside the bedroom, and does it hurt individuals and/or society?
Or does the smut stay on the screen, potentially in poor taste, but ultimately harmless? Not being a regular consumer of porn, I’m not sure of my opinion, but I guess I’d more likely align myself with the “I don’t care what you watch or do as long as you’re not hurting anyone (or have a safe word)” camp.

As we rode north, ear buds split between our heads, listening to 36 Chambers, I got to thinking (…are we all just sluts? ha. kidding), couldn’t it be possible that pornos are just movies? And why do we watch movies: to escape our personal realities, to try to experience someone else’s experiences, to live a fantasy for 90 minutes. The same applies with music, as anyone who appreciates a good soundtrack can attest; it paints a picture of something you may or may not ever experience in “real life” and from which you can move in and out, relatively unchanged.

So does it really hurt anyone if a movie or song is offensive?

Throughout the evening, my friend and I pursued this question, applying it to Hip Hop. Like movies (and porn) and other types of music, hip hop is at least a medium, at best an art form, where the musician has license to describe in their lyrics and style any scenario they can imagine. And what is the product? A song. Or track or hook or whatever you want to call it. It’s a piece of noise, and no matter what the intentions of the artist, be they well or ill, its up to the listener to interpret.

If, for example, I listen to a song depicting fervid intent to “smack my bitch up,” I may or may not feel any compulsion whatsoever to in fact beat my girlfriend. This may be the corduroy sport coat speaking, but I believe exposure to new information (“he’s smacking his bitch up”) does not necessarily cause a change in behavior (“therefore I’m going to smack my bitch up”). The likelihood that I’m going to beat my girlfriend is determined by a much more complicated series of relationships between many more significant variables unexplored here that have nothing to do with a song I listened to.

As well, I find fault with a similar argument some take in saying that to appreciate the true meaning of a movie, porno, song, etc. one has to lay claim to a certain level of authenticity signified by common experience between artist and consumer. By this logic, for example, to truly appreciate Crime and Punishment, I would have to know what it feels like to live in poverty in an economically segregated 19th century Russia. I think most would agree that that’s untrue; we consume (entertainment) media to expand upon our own realities and to experience new ones, and if the book, or movie, or song is any good, that’s what we get.

Nowhere are these dynamics so poignantly apparent as in Hip Hop, as was suggested in previous comments about DJ Khaled’s supposed in-authenticity and negative influence on kids’ behaviors. (To which I say, a bamma, he may be; a killer of children? I don’t think so).

To explore further, in the spirit of BYT’s affinity for lists, I thought about putting together the
“Top 10 Uncomfortable Moments in Hip Hop for a White, Jewish Girl from Kansas” list, a la:

10. Run by Ghostface Killah/Jadakiss – “RUN! If you sell drugs in a school zone. RUN! If you gettin’ chased with no shoes on…”

9. Cave Bitch by Ice Cube – “You can’t get mine, ho, I’d rather fuck an albino. At least I know she be comin from the Nubian, not the Ku Klux Clan that you be in…”

8. I’m an African by Dead Prez – “I’m an African! I’m an African! Ugh, an’ I know what’s happenin’!” etc, etc, etc.

Awk-ward.

But alas I do want to actually say a few words about Wu Tang.
So aaaaaaanyway, I saw Wu Tang at Rams Head in Baltimore, and it was the bomb.
For reals.
From the moment the show started, there were roughly 1000 people on stage. Wu’s friends, family, girls, kids all stood at the back and to the sides like they were watching the game at a house party. They all came out looking ready to scale Everest in layer upon layer of puffy vest, denim coat, hoodie, Wu Tang tshirt, beater, dew rag, Yankees cap, etc. only to theatrically peal items off one by one throughout the night. And, consistently, the stage seemed to be waging a slow burn from the plumes of smoke wafting up to the rafters.

At the obligatory point in the show where they honored ODB, Method goes “Wu Tang doesn’t do moments of silence” and had the whole place sing along to “Oh baby I like it raaaawww” and “Hey, Dirty, baby I got ya money.”

Ghostface poured out his drink about 50 times. Like, we get it, for the homies.

A lot has been said about the new album being an unwelcome change in direction (i.e. Rza! Has! Gone! Insane!), so I won’t belabor the point. On the first few listens, I just thought it was kind of boring, but I’ll try again. They did a lot of solid classics, so the show was still wild. It’s hard not to get hyped; there are 9 rappers, all going steady over bared down beats, performing like Baltimore is their second Shaolin, and she’s welcoming her adopted sons to her gritty bosom.

No one got shot, no one got assaulted, and aside from a slight shudder at Method’s announcement that “ODB loved pussy!” I was in heaven.

A friend who I’d invited who couldn’t come wished me a good time getting a 40 poured on my head. Luckily I wasn’t in the first couple rows or else I would’ve enjoyed Method Man spraying water everywhere, stomping on heads, demanding “hold me up!” as he stood on hands and rapped from the middle of the swarm, and otherwise jumping into the crowd on every other song like the ball pit at chuck e cheese. I guess that would’ve been pretty awesome too.

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