Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Are U Hood enough? Thoughs on representing and hood-dom from"Somos de Calle Remix"



It's like everybody and they mother showed up for this one.. minus the obvious Tego and Don Omar. Unsurprisingly, this tune carries the same vehicle of validating youthful marginalization through wholeherated connection to social ills that created the barrio. The rapper associates their strength with the decimation and struggle of their hood as the vehicle for cred, versus their lyrical ability or subscription to the genre as removal and transcendence of it. Hopefully, their association is more identified with the people or community around it. In either case, what is not represented are the social factors and ills that created the 'barrio' to begin with, just the plain 'well, this is what goes on' approach with little inspection. This is far removed from forefathers such as early NWA, where representing was quite evident but separation was made between the person and the social ills that brought them to that place.

What I like, as found in most soundsystem music, is the whole "I'm not really a killer, but I can kill you" lyrics found throughout. In addition, there is the mic and lyrics as equivalent to glocks and bullets. It remind me of the childhood "I'm not touching you!" where you put the finger right next to the kid's face but you really aren't touching.. but just annoying the shit out of them. I'm curious about this need or desire to keep MCing a half step away from hood-dom... None of this is new, happening with Hip Hop and other soundsystem music for a minute, its just what stuck out. Its just too bad if consider yourself Hood, versus being of the Hood.

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