Home of the Gangsta Gumbo

The New York Times is running an article about the exclusion of Bounce and Hip-Hop from the current national love fest of New Orleans music. I have a love/hate relationship with Bounce that is hard to explain. In my youth the radio airwaves were filled with inane and awesome rhymes like "Drive the stick a little deeper and a Sister might buy you a beeper", which I rightly thought were brilliant, raucous, and hillarious.

Later on, as I got older and started to realize how the sound and culture of Bounce contributed to the social problems in the city, I started to tune out and even condemn it. Even the early stuff like "Triggerman" seems tame compared to the later "Chopper City" permutations. But still Mannie Fresh's techno infused production always made me overlook the negative and I was easily pulled in by dance anthems like Juvenile's "Slow Motion". I'm currently enjoying both Juve's "Reality Check" and Lil' Wayne's "Tha Carter, Vol. 2".

There's a lot of good and bad to be said about Bounce but it's definitely part of our culture and heritage. To deny it is to deny our history.

Comments

[rose]

there is another article (really it is a collection of articles)in the travel section on 'affordable europe'. barcelona is listed and i was reading through the list of suggested eats, activities and entertainment.

[Jonah]

Excellent! I just read it. I get more excited every day.

[humid]

Dirty is live.