skittish

All right, I know trying to initiate a dialog on a blog with as small and apathetic a readership (and authorship) as this one is like trying to discuss world events at a rural saloon where the only customers are three regulars with their heads half-buried in buckets of the local blue collar lager. In other words, I don't have high expectations for starting a meaningful conversation here. But I'll give it a try.

I've been thinking a lot about hip-hop lately. Rap music. Whatever you want to call it. Just as long as there's that tic tic followed by that bump.

Rap is so completely co-opted by advertising culture, and yet you'll never feel as cool as you do when driving around with your windows open, the verbal barrage of some high-flying emcee blasting out of your car speakers over a nice sample and a phat beat.

I even went so far as to write and record a rap song once, which was a fun experience that also gave me an appreciation for how challenging it really is to compose and deliver effective, fast-paced rhymes while still maintaining a smooth flow.

So even though it's possible for a white kid such as myself to record a hip-hop tune (albeit a mostly humorous one), there's a social and racial divide I'll never make it across, an underlying tension and intensity I'll likely never feel the same way an authentic rapper would.

While reading through the now-retracted LA Times Story last week about the 1994 attack on Tupac (if you haven't seen it yet, don't miss reading the part about how Tupac accidentally shot himself in the groin while being attacked, then dragged himself into the elevator, rode bleeding down to the lobby, rolled a joint and called his girlfriend on his cell phone before medics and cops arrived on the scene, at which point he was wheeled out on a stretcher while raising a middle finger to the assembled photographers and news media) I marveled at what a totally different reality someone like that lives in. Even the folks who pull up to the stoplight outside my building late at night blasting that glitchy krunk shit that passes for hip-hop these days are clearly living in a far different city than I do, even if it's just a mile or so away.

Most likely there's little reconciling these two worlds. But what would it sound like if we tried?

Before I turn the discussion over to you all, I'll give you a tiny bit more background. I was driving to Illinois with my friend Jon a few months back, listening to the collected works of Ghostface Killah on my minivan's quite impressive sound system. Normally I would have skipped past all the skits and filler, but because it was a 5-hour drive, we decided to let them play, discussing the history, structure and notable examples of the hip-hop skit. And then Jon posed the question, "If indie rockers included skits on their albums, what would they be about?"

A few ideas crossed our head initially, but rather than allow those to taint your thoughts, I thought I'd see what you bring to the table. I usually don't ask much of my readers, so don't let me down this time. The future of modern music depends on it.