Monthly Archives: August 2013

Lines for LeRoi Jones (the Imamu )

Imamu
God help us, Imamu – stop playing the fool
as you babble unhinged in your kente hat.
Bebopping Mao is so very uncool –
what up wit dat ?
Flirtations with Castro (Fidel to the faithful)
and free Cuba Libres imbibed with the Beats
inflamed discontent when your verses turned wrathful
in the streets.
Predictable tirades where whitey’s the foe,
attacking your hosts like an Afro/eccentric
gets old. It’s a stagnant unmusical show:
dull dialectic.
Who knows why the liberals that bankroll you love it?
Who cares what your most recent pseudonym is?
You old and you mad cause’ you can’t rise above it,
mired in the shizz.
Your lines are pure mannitol: dumbed-down cocaine
(The blow on the head by that riot-cop lingers!)
The syntax is whack in your ghetto refrain
(Snap fingers…)
Still you wait for your war – or the Black Star-Liner…
Your rage was your royalty, paid in white money.
Your verse sought to give the right wing a dark shiner –
it’s not funny.
Insulting, belittling others more noble;
your legacy leaves nothing hopeful or witty
Just putrid black waters – the flow uncontrollable
under the city.
Inside of your Kabaa are yet many idols.
Your New Ark of verse did not save from the flood.
You mau-mau and bludgeon with words all your rivals
but draw no blood.
Lighten up, wise Imamu. Your age is soon closing.
You wrote for the stage and said some of it well.
But your verse has gone rotten and yields, decomposing,
a nasty smell.
Twinkle Schascle Yochim: LEROI JONES Live @ The 5’O Club

LINKED VERSION

God help us, Imamu – stop playing the fool
as you babble unhinged in your kente hat.
Bebopping Mao is so very uncool –
what up wit dat?

Flirtations with Castro (Fidel to the faithful)
and free Cuba Libres imbibed with the Beats
inflamed discontent when your verses turned wrathful
in the streets

Predictable tirades where whitey’s the foe,
and attacking your hosts like an Afro/eccentric
gets old. It’s a stagnant unmusical show:
dull dialectic.

So what if the liberals that bankroll you love it?
Who cares what your most recent pseudonym is?
You old and you mad cause’ you can’t rise above it,
mired in the shizz…

Your lines are pure mannitol – dumbed-down cocaine
(The blow on the head by that riot-cop lingers!)
the syntax is whack in your ghetto refrain
(Snap fingers…)

Still you wait for your war – or the Black Star-Liner…
Your rage was your royalty, paid in white money
your verse sought to give the right wing a dark shiner –
it’s not funny.

Insulting, belittling others more noble;
your legacy leaves nothing hopeful or witty
Just putrid black waters – the flow uncontrollable
under the city.

Inside of your Kaaba are yet many idols.
Your New Ark of verse does not save from the flood.
You mau-mau and bludgeon with words all your rivals
but draw no blood.

Lighten up, wise Imamu. Your age is soon closing.
You wrote for the stage and said some of it well.
But your verse has gone rotten and yields, decomposing,
a nasty smell.

Post Script from Bob McNeil:

Soul without a Heaven

Evermore, Amiri’s spirit is a disobeyer,
Fighting all oppositional visions.
On Newark’s numerous walls,
He smears odes to Marxist contrarians.

Evermore, Amiri’s spirit is a disobeyer,
Whose rancor for imperialists
Could torch their needs
To ashen nothingness.

Evermore, Amiri’s spirit is a disobeyer,
Whose right hand manages a pen,
Whose left banks on its shank,
And both will shiv contention givers.

Evermore, Amiri’s spirit is a disobeyer.
Delighting anti-Semites and homophobes,
His published pressure cooker bomb explodes.
Such shaitan ire never erodes.

Shaitan: an evil spirit in Islamic countries

by Bob McNeil Copyright 2014

Planet of the Smartphones

funny-monkey-1

A signifying monkey grunted
(keyboard-clever, morals stunted)

from his perch in a digital tree.
And next, did text, quite rapidly:

Courtship rituals won’t suffice.
Face-to-face can’t break the ice.

Instagram me! Tweet me up . . .
friend me, like me, buttercup.

Sentences are so outmoded—
take too long to get decoded;

primate sexting hits me faster,
steers me towards your hot disaster.

Female monkeys: send an image.
(Ain’t got time for useless verbiage.)

if your snout just might unseat me
tweet me, greet me—don’t delete me.

Then, unpeeling fresh banana,
searched his screen for Vox Humana . . .

banana-phone

First Recorded Gangsta Rap

And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah,
Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech,
hearken unto my speech:
for I have slain a man to my wounding,
and a young man to my hurt.
If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,
truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.

Genesis 4:23,24 [KJV]

Here we encounter an antediluvian thug bragging to his two hoochies about killing someone who dissed him. He affirms that not only is he emulating Cain, but he celebrates his own renegade criminal status and says “bring it on – I am a killer and I revel in being cursed more than that Old-Skool outlaw Cain. I want to go down in history for my badness”.
Matt Ford says:

This is amazing hubris, as it was God Almighty who swore to avenge Cain. Lamech is claiming to be so strong and so vengeful as to far out-do God in revenge. However, unlike God, there is no righteousness or mercy here. Lamech is murderous for the sake of his ego.
[http://thegospelforoc.com/2011/06/two-twists-on-masculinity/]

Surely these few lines of pre-flood proto-rap contain pearls of wisdom and warning…

But alas –  we have already been inundated.

Nodding Off in Enoch: Antediluvian Riffs

Iqbal Jogi

Many years ago (before the Flood, in fact)
I used to own this vinyl record featuring Iqbal Jogi and Party.
It’s a master mix of REAL snake-charmer music,
full of mystic minor memories…

There are echoes of psychedelia in this music (certain Beatles songs come to mind)
as well as a sort of wacky sound
like a Scottish Bagpiper who drank too much in a Punjabi restaurant
and then began playing…
Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron.
[Genesis 4:19-22 ESV]