{"id":22872,"date":"2011-09-13T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2011-09-13T17:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=22872"},"modified":"2011-09-13T07:22:26","modified_gmt":"2011-09-13T12:22:26","slug":"straight-outta-freakytown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=22872","title":{"rendered":"Straight Outta Freakytown"},"content":{"rendered":"

So as some of you know, I use to be a nightclub DJ. \u00a0At one point, I was widely known as “the best bald, white, father-of-two rap DJ in the Twin Cities”, a distinction I wear – wore, anyway – with hard-earned pride.<\/p>\n

Now, there’s not much about that part of my life that I miss (as I believe I’ve established<\/a>). \u00a0Certainly not most of the music – indeed, I remember buying a car back in 1990; the seller said “you know, it doesn’t have a radio” and I replied “Good”.<\/p>\n

But there are a few bits and pieces of music I miss. \u00a0Not many, but a few.<\/p>\n

Gangster Rap is part of the noxious cocktail of debilitation that grips large swathes of urban culture in America (and by that I mean all urban culture; it’s not a racial code phrase), a cynical exploitive genre that enriches the very few by submerging the many in a toxic mental miasma. \u00a0And for the last twenty years, cynicism aside, most of it’s just been really really bad music.<\/p>\n

Now, there’s no accounting for taste – but I gotta say that after all these years I still like “NWA’s” “Straight Outta Compton”, even with all its yappy violence and teenagey misoginysm. Here’s the video, from 1989 (But first, let me remind you…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

…that the language is not remotely safe for work):<\/p>\n