Messages

1666

General Discussion / Re: One moment changes a life

« on: November 17, 2008, 05:42:26 PM »

well, i think its relative. i got distinctions for every single subject i took up in high school, and almost studied up to masters level at university. you could have, in your own terms, described me as someone who had made 'something' of himself. but i've never held a steady job in my life. those cubicles i did inhabit only held me for a few months, before i would walk away without notice with enough (and a little extra) to support my 'humble' lifestyle for the following year and a half. the thing is, i used to think like you and Jay, before i realized that pursuing what society vaguely circumvents as success was a complete waste of my time. i just found that wealth, status and all the rest were just not worth working my fingers to the bone for. i wanted to live for a living then and not work for one later. and besides, i've always thought it immoral to work for money. philosphically, i prefer crime: for me it is the only noble and honest acquisition of money. i once splurged an entire 3 month's salary on providing capital for a bootlegging cartel in cape town, and it felt the way i would imagine it feels for you when you give alms - only, a lot more intense, and without the piety. rewarding too. best six months of my life. you see, the hard working man who toils without end just to amble to some abstract height above the shoulders of his peers is, to me, a sap. nothing more than a lever-monkey, unaccomplished in any real sense, and a liabilty, if anything, to human development.

1667

General Discussion / Re: One moment changes a life

« on: November 17, 2008, 04:46:23 PM »

why such rash judgement, too much for AG! what's wrong with what i said?

well nothing warmfull towards me and its your opinion at the end of the day, BUT...... to say success is overrated is like saying man kind should not push themselves to the limit. Because with hard work comes gr8 rewards. Now those average stuff you like doing is a man with box thinking.
OOH , please call me Jay everyone else does.

i wonder. what good is pushing mankind's limits if it just edges him - i mean us - towards destruction? for example, look at the way that we spent the better half of the 20th century living under The Bomb (and still continue to do so in the 21st)...unless of course that's always been the point. and to be honest with you i'm not cold at all towards such a perverse understanding of what 'success' is. if anything, it brings a certain method to the self-destructive madness with which people chase ideas of wealth and status.

1668

General Discussion / Re: One moment changes a life

« on: November 17, 2008, 03:44:09 PM »

why such rash judgement, too much for AG!  what's wrong with what i said?

1669

General Discussion / Re: One moment changes a life

« on: November 17, 2008, 03:34:52 PM »

success in life is overrated. a man needs only the means to a eke out a few drinks, eat now and then, keep a few friends and have a woman in his own bed.

1670

General Discussion / Re: African Literature

« on: October 31, 2008, 04:40:46 PM »

dope thread. it would be infinitely better though (and i don't mean to steal the thread sir black!) if people gave a snippet as to why they liked that particular book, or what it shook up in 'em. i used to teach (south) african literature back when i was at the university - these lists are bringing those memories a-runnin'! 

1671

General Discussion / Re: I AM Hip-Pop

« on: October 29, 2008, 05:37:32 PM »

you come across as very insecure, cash.

1672

General Discussion / Re: I AM Hip-Pop

« on: October 29, 2008, 10:02:27 AM »

word Pyro. the artist who develops a creative self, and the other without any creativity whose easiest way out is direct mimicry: not just musically, but also in thinking.

yo Watz i never thought of it that way. that's some interesting shit! you need to elaborate on, yo.

1673

Politics / Re: NEVER EVER SAY NEVER

« on: October 28, 2008, 07:30:15 PM »

you seem happy about this, but i don't see how you're vindicated.


xenophobic violence against your people shits on "haughty" online remarks for 3 days and a few tuesdays.
 

'if we're going down,ur going down too'

this is what this guy is doing. i wonder what his motives are. it won't improve zimbabwe's basket case economy. just breed unnecessary hostility.

1674

General Discussion / Re: I AM Hip-Pop

« on: October 28, 2008, 03:08:01 PM »

ait i got you, cash. what do you think, Rob? counter-culture still breathing?

1675

General Discussion / Re: www.africashateway.com

« on: October 28, 2008, 03:04:47 PM »

post a track and let's check it out, homie.

1676

General Discussion / Re: I AM Hip-Pop

« on: October 28, 2008, 02:53:03 PM »

ur way off Panic, n i thought u were just havin a bad hair(and face) day.

ha ha ha!

The point is for coming from something out of nothing!
Thats what hiphop is!

And yes, we will join forces with the corporates by any means!

this is what i mean, this 'hip hop' is so subjective that you run it through enough people and it acquires so many different defintions it loses all meaning. i could throw up a defintion now without turning a hair, and have people behind it. the main thing is whether or not hip hop can be considered as counter-culture like it once was (and whether or not counter-culture even still exists) or if its indistinguishable in function and content from any other product in late-capitalist culture. my opinion is that, apart from a few hitches in content, it leans towards the latter. so in a strange way we actually agree. only difference being you celebrate what i condemn.

1677

General Discussion / Re: I AM Hip-Pop

« on: October 28, 2008, 01:00:49 PM »

maybe the case for hip hop was overstated from the inception. i've seen it defeat itself twice for every progressive step its ever made, and no one seems to be able to articulate what it is or stands for, and even when they attempt to, it seems only a matter of time before they compromise or contradict themselves at the whim of a bar. i thought the whole point was the total destruction of all institutions, not collusion with them.

or am i in the wrong building?

1678

General Discussion / Re: I AM Hip-Pop

« on: October 27, 2008, 11:07:42 AM »

"Rap performers, whose appearance, lyric messages and publicity presentations serve to place them outside the norms of middle-cla** society, are enlisted in the army that displays corporate logos so as to sell corporate products to young people whose exclusion from middle-cla** society is partially defined by these rap performers’ personae. The performers, whose labors insure a financial success that places them squarely within the norms of middle-cla** society, gather about them an aura of affluence and success that is, flatly, beyond any attempt to ironize it. The exploitation of performers and consumers is, quite weirdly, perceived as an a**ault upon the corporate establishment that coordinates the interaction of product and consumer. This is a dream of capitalism come true, i.e., to make the marks feel as if they have attained power." -Gilbert Sorrentino

1679

Battle One on One / Re: Ani crackboy or member of crew wanna wanna battle?

« on: October 17, 2008, 05:54:35 PM »

anyone else get the feeling that these "conscious vs. vocoder", "backpack vs. manpurse", "ballin' rapper vs. starving artist" debates aren't really about music at all?

instead, they're about some underlying and possibily political philosophies. i.e 'African' socialism vs. late capitalism?

i've noticed how no one ever talks about the music in a way that isn't short-hand or for the purpose of wining using it as a tool to win an arguement. and even when they attempt to they don't really say anything new or nuanced.

the whole imaginary that surrounds hip hop here seems so limited i wouldn't be surprised if it actually never had anything to do with art.

1680

General Discussion / Re: How many..???

« on: October 17, 2008, 05:04:13 PM »

^that makes absolutely no sense. must be all those walls.