He might blow up and kill this man

The word ghetto gets thrown around a lot and I dislike that. White girls from the G.T.A. use it like they should use birth control. I'm not going to say I'm more familiar with ghettoness then anybody else but I think I have a pretty good definition. It's shit that is fucking crazy and would not make sense to anybody outside of ghetto area or mentality but is completely normal inside of said area and mentality. Now I had the opportunity to go to a "cosmopolitan" (see I didn't use the word ghetto!) high school where I got to meet an interesting cast of characters. Whenever we would have freestyle hip hop battles there was this obese kid who would come on the mic and just say so-so-so-somalia (like the no-no-no-notorious in the duran duran/biggie song) for like 2 minutes straight. Once during a math test I saw him out the window sprinting like an obese cheetah running away from the cops (who finally got him and beat him up), I proceeded to write the test. People wouldn't even crowd around the window for stuff like this. But what takes the cake was a time I was hanging out at the blair bus station and I met my Ethiopian friend who I think had been kicked out of school at this point with a vietnamese/cambodian thug. I was like "what's up?" and the south east asian dude starts mime-ing shit. Ethiopia goes "oh you don't understand?" and start translating the hood charades of this mute thug. No one knows sign language on the street so he would just act out what he wanted to say. He also tried to sell me pills. Anyways, just to say that a G-Unit video isn't ghetto, today you are going to see some third world shit.


Ok first up is the highest budget of the artists. MAVADO and BUSY SIGNAL 2 bigtime jamaican dancehall singers. I discovered them when I won an x rated dancehall compilation in a dice game (seriously, the pot was like 90$, cds and chocolate bars). I 4-5-6ed that shit. So all summer 2006 and 2007 I listened to the most vulgar music ever, dancehall. I was at a house party with a reggae theme and the dj was playing awesome dancehall and the hippie who was running it got mad and said "I hired you to play fucking reggae man what is this shit?"... In his mind I think reggae exclusively consisted of Bob Marley and Bedouin Soundcrap. I give you BADMAN PLACE. The song is about badmen and the places they reside at.




Next we have AFRIKAN BOY. You might know him from M.I.A.'s album Kala. He is a Nigerian now living in London and he raps almost unintelligibly about how 5 dollars is a fucking lot in Africa. His flow is amazing. I hate how white people are all about djembes and feeling at one with the rythm of the dark continent. Fuck that, this is the real shit. The song has no title, it's a random youtube freestyle from his room.



Finally we have a group I recently discovered, BARIKAD CREW from Haïti. This is the first Haitian hip hop not from NYC or Montréal I have ever heard. I am so happy they got over calypso and merengue. They sing in créole a language you can sort of understand if you speak French, key word being SORT OF. 3 members of the group recently died in a horrible car crash/electrocution and people mourned big time all over the country. These guys are the be all end all KINGS of créole hip hop. Some members were arrested and it nearly started a riot. Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. I truly believe that BARIKAD CREW could start a coup if they wanted to. If you were reading my reggaeton post you can see this song employs a modified dem bow beat. From what I gather the song is about pencils, it's called TAY KREYON. Check it out for real.



Colonized countries have more than old traditional music to offer us you orientalist bitches.

i: there's fuckin beauty in life zach, never forget that. z: word, god.

This post is influenced by some douchebag on a message board bashing my birthplace. The city (or former city) of Vanier a working class/poor and predominately French neighborhood. People bash it a lot and it pisses me off. These asshole kids are far removed from the areas they bash and forget or don't care that people live there, people with stories! My point is that a very significant portion of the world's best art comes from areas like Vanier. Shit, another place that gets a similar bad a rap is the state of NEW JERSEY. We've all heard the jokes. One thing though is that the state of New Jersey alone probably produced more awesome/important music than all of English Canada. Woops.

Now let's start with the most obvious of Jersey's glorious sons. Everybody loves him too no question about it. The beautiful stories he conveys could have very well taken place in Vanier. This is the type of inspiration you just can't get in the Glebe yo! Giving you one of his most popular songs which is ironically about yearning to leave Asbury Park.

Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
Uploaded by jpdc11

Next up we have another one of the most critically acclaimed and universally loved artists of recent times in Lauryn Hill. Although I'm going to put up a Fugees song cause I feel like it. Praz and Wyclef were Haitian immigrants (HAÏTI!) and hooked up with jersey native Hill to create one of the most important hip hop groups of the 90's. One thing I love about this era was that every hip hop video had the artists in a secret agent mission type scenario. Vanier 2 - Westboro 0.



Finally we have what can be considered as my favorite band of all time, Lifetime. A seminal melodic hardcore band who's influence can be heard across a lot today's mainstream music. Not really working class and more crappy suburb influenced but 10000% jersey. This song is called Theme Song for a New Brunswick Basement Show. Much like Springsteen, Lifetime makes an ordinary event happening to ordinary people into an epic story. In this case just sitting down next to a girl at a shitty punk show. I saw them live at a reunion show in 2005 and I wish I had a clip from that show but this is pretty close they are playing the Stone Pony (a legendary Jersey venue). K.O. Vanier wins.



BONUS FEATURE!

And we have a bonus! The dark lords of suburban jersey the danzig era MISFITS! Unfortunately like so many awesome groups they inspired a lot of shit (any band that wears makeup that is not them). Whatever. This is a video from what I believe to be is a Detroit area public access show. Quality sucks but the interview is awesome.