TEMMMMPZZZZZ

Right now I'm at the age and place where people explore a lot of new things. For most people, it's alcoholism, drug dependency, sluttery, or political pomposity. For me, however, it has so far mainly been TEMPA T.

DRAPES!

For those of you who don't know (which should be all of you), TEMPA T (also affectionately known as TEMPZ) is a grime MC from the UK with a hi-top fade, and he is absolutely fucking mad and should probably be locked up.

I'm a bit of a culture vulture for British junk. "Grime" is the UK's answer to American hiphop. I have to be real though; I find grime very culturally interesting, but a lot of even the most popular and respected of it is just not very good. Perhaps I'm biased considering I don't even really like most American hip hop very much, but I have my own problems with grime specifically.

Some of the more popular kinds of music in the UK (and most of Europe nowadays by my observation) are the endless various forms of electronic dance music. I attribute this to the already very strong rave culture which exists all over the old world. Euro kids live for getting effed the eff up and having humongous dance parties with massive speakers and glowsticks and stuff. For the most part I don't like any kind of digital electronic music (except dubstep, which will get its own post one of these days).

For the cliffs notes version; "Garage" broke in London in the 1990's, and is the British answer to American house music. It's a lot like house music, but it has reggae-style offbeat kicks as a part of what they call "2-step". I find it darker sounding as well. Grime is essentially someone rapping over garage music.

A lot of people in America don't realize this, but when it comes to drugs and gangs and violence and stuff, England is pretty effed the eff up. They have an illegal immigration issue just like here, except where we have Mexicans, Guatemalans, and El Salvadorans, they have Africans, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis and stuff. This causes a lot of tension, because as a lot of Americans also don't realize, England along with a lot of Europe is pretty freaking racist. I could write a more extended history about it but just for starters there's these dewshes.

The point is, a lot of people don't take England seriously when they talk about hard street life and such. And so grime MCs feel as though they have to out-gangsta American hip hop.

Enter... TEMPA T



TEMPZ's music is mostly about convincing people that he is insane. "Swing" is about hitting people with baseball bats ("Swing of the bat to you face / SWINNNGGGG / YOU'RE ON THE FLOOR, NO MOVEMENT YOU'RE ON THE FLOOR"). Another concept key to understanding the music of TEMPA T is the par. A "par" in British slang is similar to an insult or diss. If you encounter or listen to TEMPA T, prepare to be parred. If you par TEMPA T, be prepared to regret it.

My first and favorite TEMPA T track; Next Hype. It's about a day in the life of TEMPZ. Once you have a full understanding of the enigma of this guy, the opening sequence of this video becomes hilarious.



Some memorable lyrics;

CLEAR! all the things in your house
CLEAR! all the things in your fridge
SMASH! all your plates on the rack
CLEAR! all your kids' toys
CLEAR! all your CD rack, won't get none of your CD's back,
Drag off your curtain rail from the wall
Kick off your HDTV from the stand!

It gets crazier than that...

Catch man on the field flying his kite
Roll man down on the grass with a knife
Watch how his friends despite from afar
I can hear screams from his wife
Run after man let me draw for his life
Blood pouring I got stains on my knife
Leave man dead in a field over night
When I'm sleeping dreaming won't think of him twice.

So yeah. TEMPZ is apeshit crazy. To be real I don't quite fully understand why he appeals to me, but there's something about his utter rage and brazenness that fascinates me. American rappers pioneered the gangsta element of hip hop music, but I feel as though it's more about flash and dazzle here. Though I know it's all an act I still think TEMPZ would actually straight up kill your ass if you parred him. And that ain't a par.



***BONUS: BILL'S FAVORITE GRIME SLANG**

Par - Defined above
Leng - Gun
Bax - Literally smash somebody
Drapes - When you jump someone, take their stuff and give them an unnecessary beating just to show 'em who's boss. When you do this it is customary to scream DRAPES
Mash - Short for machine gun, thought that was clever
Ring off di ting - Shoot up someone or something
Boi off di ting - Don't actually know for sure... stabbing someone possibly?

My Head is Bloody, but Unbowed

Last week I watched that movie where MORGAN FREEMAN plays NELSON MANDELA and gets wrapped up in the South African national rugby team as he fights to bring an apartheid-stricken nation back together again. It was a very good film, and I was especially happy to watch it since South Africa is one of those places that fascinates me while remaining a complete cultural mystery. While the work itself as a whole was impressive, what left the strongest impression on me was the poem Invictus, which the film is named after and uses a number of times throughout the story.

I don't really dig poetry in any kind of a deep way, so for a poem to speak to me it takes quality. In the film, NELSON MANDELA shares this poem with the captain of the rugby team saying something to the effect of "these words helped me to stand up at times in my life when all I wanted to do was lie down."

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

The message of this poem is beautiful to me. It inspires perseverance in difficult circumstances through the power of self-knowledge and self-determination.

When I took sociology my senior year of high school, one of the concepts they taught us was the idea of people being products of their environment. Individuals get so caught up in living up to the expectations that other people set for them that they become internalized, and people lose sight of all the potential they have to do what's best for them and what makes them truly happy. This is what I like to call mental slavery.

Now I know that's a pretty heavy phrase that means a lot of different things to different people, but what I mean when I say it is this; I think the root cause of why a lot of people in this world are unhappy is that they feel they have no control over their own destinies, for whatever number of reasons. This idea is most commonly applied to social mobility but if you ask me it's about spiritual mobility. It can apply to almost anybody in any situation.

Living at school has taught me a lot about exactly this kind of thing. People enter the college environment with all kinds of expectations as to what it's supposed to be like and how they have to act in order to be a part of the experience they've set themselves up for (which is different for everybody). Usually this only leads to trouble when a person compromises his/herself in that process.

I'm here to say that no matter where you are in life you ought to never stop doing what you know is right, because then you're just a tool. You've given up control of yourself and become simply a product of your environment, your past, or whatever else holds you down. You've got to know yourself, take care of yourself, and stand up for yourself with indomitable spirit.

You are the master of your fate, and you are the captain of your soul.

I'm Gonna Go Get Some Belts After This

Last night on American Idol, 62-year-old underground rapper GENERAL LARRY PLATT out of Atlanta, GA performed his original song Pants On The Ground. Now you have got to see this mess.


After a remarkably humble introduction to his act in which GEN. PLATT explains the message of his original song ("people need to pull their pants up"), the man bares his soul for the world to see.

Pants on the ground,
Pants on the ground.
Lookin' like a FOOL with your pants on the ground.

You got the gold in your mouth,
Hat turned sideways,
Pants hit the ground,
Walkin, talkin,
Thinkin' you're a cool cat,
Lookin' like a FOOL with your pants on the ground!!

Note the sick breaking GEN. PLATT pulls while spittin' the truth.

Old people have been telling hip hop fans to pull up their pants for more than two decades now, from driveby fist-shakings, to the swift upward grandmotherly thrusts to white suburban belt loops, to quiet laments around the bridge table over the kids these days. How it took until 2010 for a senior citizen rapper to write a song on the subject and perform it on American Idol I don't think the world will ever know. But there was something special about GEN. PLATT. He wasn't just some jackass who wanted to be on TV, which is what most shows today feature. GEN. PLATT had a mission, a message that was crying out to be heard by the American socio-cultural landscape. You punks need to pull your pants up. You look like a fool.

Within minutes of this being on TV, the internets went positively bonkers. It was the trending topic on Twitter the entire night and most of today. The fact that I heard about this mess as fast as I did speaks volumes, as I don't watch television anymore. That didn't stop me from watching the above clip on Youtube like 15 minutes after it aired, because it was uploaded just that fast. They don't call it the worlds most powerful communication tool because it looks good on Al Gore's resume.

So word to GENERAL LARRY PLATT. You have not seen the last of this guy, I guarantee it.