Newspaper Page Text
Page 14
Flagpole Magazine
March 18, 1992
Postmodern Blues by Jim Winders
We’re all Gangsters: Ice-Tand Multi-culturalism
Note: I gratefully acknowledge conversa
tions with “Homeboy" Jacob Winders as
contributing to the Ideas expressed below.
Tipper Gore’s personal nightmare took
the Georgia theater by storm March 10, on
the very' same day that Pat Buchanan’s
Stormtroopers were trying to accomplish
something similar in the Republican Pri
mary. When I say Tipper’s nightmare, I don’t
mean her nemesis Jello Biafra, but that’s
close. Tracy Marrow, better known to the
worid as Ice-T, has more in common with
that artist and political firebrand than you
might realize. Plus, in his new musical ex
plorations with his hard core band "Body
Count," Ice-T reaches back through the
obvious influences of Jello's legendary
noisemakers The Dead Kennedys and Black
Flag to Black Sabbath, even as compari
sons to the ground-breaking contemporary
band Living Colour suggest themselves. It
was an evening of rock as well as evening of
Rap: rocking the foundations of conven
tional musical expectations and rapping
against the stupid, outmoded distinctions
that fragment the listening public and serve
the interests of the holier-than-thou fascist
bastards who dominate American political
culture today.
Fragmentation is the central fact of our
culture today, and hostility on the basis of
divergent musical tastes points directly to
the racial and class hatreds that fester on
the body politic. He might not use the phrase
“Rainbow Coalition," but Ice-T is working to
build coalitions through demonstrating the
kinship between types of music we’ve <
wrongly assumed to be inherently sepa
rated from each other. Jesse Jackson might
condemn such raw vocabulary (every other
word being a twelve-letter maternal des
ecration, as in “Athens, Motherf**“""n\ Geor
gia!), but, like that politician who is virtually
the only one around today around today
who merits the adjective "charismatic," Ice-T
preaches and testifies throughout his per
formance. I haven’t heard such a generous
amount of on-stage banter in years, and it
worked beautifully to set up the musica'
numbers. Both in his oratory and his music,
Ice-T offers a “wake up" message for a
politically complacent, sadly parochial mu
sical audience.
Musical coalition building carried through
the entire evening, beginning with a power
ful, take-no-prisoners attack by the excel
lent Band Hard Corps. This Nashville, Ten
nessee septet featured two rappers and a
D.J.Aurntable man fronting a tight, funky
hard rocking group of musicians: Funkadelic
meets Led Zeppelin. Rarely have I heard an
opening act that was so well suited to the
main attraction. They got the capacity crowd
pretty worked up, but it was Ice-T who
delivered the knockout punch.
After nearly an hour of Hard Corps, Ice-T
and his homeboy churned out two hour-long
sets: first as Ice-T and
Rhyme Syndicate,
and then as Body
Count, with human
musicians replacing
their digital counter
parts. In the first set,
Ice-T profiled rap se
lections from earlier
albums like Rhyme
Pays, Power and The
Iceberg, as well as
his 1991 masterpiece
O.G.: Original Gang
ster. In his mono
logues, he took dead
aim at the idiotic
prejudices and con
troversies surround
ing rap music. He
rightly ridiculed the
show of force by the
Athens-Clarke
County police, no
doubt alerted by the
exaggerated media
coverage given the
supposedly omni
present violence at
rap shows. The only
violence Tuesday
night, which he en- ■■■■■' ■ 1 ■'■■■■■
couraged, was the frenetic dancing by the
"crazy mothafuckas’ in the pit in front of the
stage.
He aiso repeated the crucial theme he
introduced on O.G., recently elaborated
upon with great intelligence and passion in
an interview published in the March/April,
1992 issue of Option: Music Alternatives, of
the meaningless of categories and the posi
tive (if far from dominant) trend of black and
white audiences enjoying the same music
together. Ice-T knows his music history well,
and he invokes the time, c. 1955-6, when
separate "pop" and “R&B" charts began
began to dissolve into each other, as white
kids eagerly accepted what for them were
the newsounds of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddiey,
and Fats Domino. He knows that “R&B" was
Ice-T embraces
a multicultural message
that acknowledges
all forms of difference,
sexual and otherwise.
the designation that replaced what had been
called "race" music from the era of Robert
Johnson (and before) down through the
post-World War Two years.
He reminds his audience that, just as the
mid-50s sounds were attacked by racists,
white supremacists, and fundamentalists
(It’s no accident, is it that Pat Mothaf"**"n’
Boone is a fundamentalist Christian?) the
PMRC crowd and
their vile associates
today single out rap
lyrics for fervent con
demnation in their
quest to destroy the
First Amendment. In
the Option piece,
Ice-T makes a com
pelling argument, re
peated from the
stage of the Georgia
Theater, that the po
tential is here again
for overcoming the
rigid segregation of
music markets, less
ening racial tension
in the process. And
that, he suggests, is
why "they" fear most.
"Fear of rap," he
says, is really "the
fear of white kids lik
ing black kids
again." You’ll find
few visible political
figures today who
can confront that
honestly and force
fully the obscene de-
pendence of the Re
publican party (i include about 80% of all
“Democrats" too) on white racism for its
support.
If Ice-T’s music is violent and obscene,
then the callous indifference with which
most Americans greet the genocidal war
fare being carried out against young black
men is that much more so. His band’s name,
“Body Count," and the powerful song of the
same name are meant to call attention to
that ongoing slaughter. Black men have
always caught hell in this country, and they
have devised often eloquent means of in
sisting on their dignity and worth in the face
of it. Ice-T calls on sexuality as a liberating
force and a gesture of defiance. Unfortu
nately, and to an even greater degree than
in Blues and R&B, this means that women
(“bitches," "ho’s") catch even more hell.
The attack on women is not unrelenting,
and Ice-T often seems preoccupied with
insisting that he means the sisters no harm;
that he knows and we all should know he’s
acting a well-known role, like Muddy Wa
ters’ "Hoochie Coochie Man." As he sur
veyed his audience the other night, he em
pathized with women who came out to hear
him despite the prejudices that must have
stood in their way. In still other ways, Ice-T
embraces a multi-cultural message that
acknowledges the importance of all forms
of difference, sexual and otherwise. “The
Tower," a song on O.G. based on his time in
Soledad Prison, even breaks with the al
most uniform homophobia found in rap
music. Why can’t the same degree of under
standing and affirmation be shown to
women?
His major lapse in this ana can perhaps
be explained by his apparently uncritical
acceptance, even embrace, of the myth of
the inexhaustible male sexual appetite. As
Spike Lee had Denzel Washington express
it in Mo'Better Blues, "It’s a Dick Thang," i e
we guys just can’t help ourselves. Ice-t
carries this lame apology to such extremes
that he endows his genital with a completely
separate persona. Welcome to the Ice-T
show, brought to you by Ice-T’s dick. Or is it
the other way around? This guy between my
legs, Ice-T would have us belive, he has a
mind of his own. Not only is this ludicrous,
and a time honored alibi for rapists, but it
can certainly backfire as a gesture of defi
ance in the face of sexual and political
reaction. Right-wingers don’t particularly
mind if Ice-T insults women, and they cer
tainly share the mentality that equates black
men with sexual aggression. Remember
the 1988 political refrain, “What does Jesse
Jackson want?’ Whose cause is being aided
here?
Ice-Ts album O.G.: Original Gangster
appeared to begin a departure from his
earlier work. Advance word suggests that
the forthcoming Body Count double album
steps backward in that direction. In the
spoken selection "Prepared to Die" from
O. G., Ice-T refers to the "freein’ my brothers'
minds from their entrapment." Violent mi
sogyny has worse consequences for women
than for men, but, to paraphrase Elmore
James, "it hurts them too." If Ice-T would get
busy enough to free his and his brothers'
minds from that age-old entrapment, he
would be an even greater force for musical
and political liberation.
Hi
Fine Dining
The downstairs announces
WITH SADNESS IN OUR HEARTS, THE END OF BRUNCH
AS WE KNOW IT. SO, UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE,
WE ARE CLOSED ON SUNDAYS.
in Other Cafe news:
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Will be devoted to Indian or Thai Cusine.
We hope you'll Try our Dazzling Array
of Authentic Cjrries and Cool Side Dishes.
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Paintings by: Jim Johnson
Useful Knowledge
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Swell Music
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