Big Baby Gandhi
Smart Dumb Kid's Progress
By Xgau Apr 6, 2012 4:05AM
Big Baby Gandhi: Big Fucking Baby (free download)
Like his patron Heems, this Bangladeshi-American is from the part of Flushing "where the smart kids act dumb and the dumb kids act dumb." He just acts dumb in a smart way. You could say his lo-fi debut favors degraded rhythm samples and soprano voices, only from the boat-rocking "Been Around Ya Girl" to the deep-soul "Summertime Thing" to the Indian-children's-song-plus-keyboard(???)-loop "Woof Woof" you'd be missing a lot. The flow seems effortlessly idiomatic, only not South Asian idiomatic, whatever that would sound like besides Heems. The rhymes bespeak a brainy slacker with an analysis underway, only he's watched so much porn and heard so much hip-hop that he's dumber than need be about sex. Here he's all "she's chokin' just hopin' to provoke a nut," there he's telling her he was only kidding about that handjob. Figure by now he's here and there both. He is a kind of famous rapper, after all. A MINUS
Big Baby Gandhi: No1 2 Look Up 2 (free Greedhead mixtape)
"Terrorist with no turban/Lyricist with no sermon," he admits he'll be proud to graduate from college and with the help of two resourceful young beatmakers I never heard of cleans up his production like he's ready to go pro. But for all his "Get $$$," he hasn't quite managed it yet. He's still a kid getting his thoughts together one surprise rhyme at a time, weeding out enough sex and dope to make room for a holy Bollywood "Long Ass Intro," a law-abiding uncle who kept him out of the army, a joke he jacked from Fall Out Boy, and other evidence of grown manhood. A MINUS
137Comments
Apr 8, 2012 8:41AM
Last night I was so tired I practically fell asleep posting and as I got into bed realized I'd missed a chance to sign off, "Good night, Irene."
Just a few words about cyberpunks--not sure if everyone already knows all this, but they were very rock and especially punk influenced. Bruce Sterling in his intro to Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk anthology observes that many cyberpunks "are in love with style, and (some say) fashion-conscious to a fault. But like the punks of '77, they prize their garage-band esthetic. . . Like punk music, cyberpunk is in some ways a return to roots."
In that collection, Pat Cadigan's "Rock On" is worth checking out, though it would take me a while to say what it's about. But Sterling in his later Zeitgeist has a smart Spice Girls subplot (about pop and marketing), and William Gibson used to namedrop Steely Dan.
And now back to my Easter breakfast, listening to, guess what, Patti Smith doing Easter.
Just a few words about cyberpunks--not sure if everyone already knows all this, but they were very rock and especially punk influenced. Bruce Sterling in his intro to Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk anthology observes that many cyberpunks "are in love with style, and (some say) fashion-conscious to a fault. But like the punks of '77, they prize their garage-band esthetic. . . Like punk music, cyberpunk is in some ways a return to roots."
In that collection, Pat Cadigan's "Rock On" is worth checking out, though it would take me a while to say what it's about. But Sterling in his later Zeitgeist has a smart Spice Girls subplot (about pop and marketing), and William Gibson used to namedrop Steely Dan.
And now back to my Easter breakfast, listening to, guess what, Patti Smith doing Easter.
Apr 8, 2012 10:36PM
Irene, if by "lively discussion," you mean "ripping a certain somebody a much-deserved new one," then sorry, I'm trying to upload only good vibes into the cosmos these days (the 19-yo me just puked).
As for Kay Huntington, I wouldn't say I'm a fan per se (!). But come on - is it so off-putting that I'd want to hear (and proselytize for) an album our host once awarded an E MINUS/A PLUS? It's not like I was pumping Aorta. Remember the first rule of rock criticism: better godawful than bland.
But it kicked off a nifty book discussion and so I'd like to share some of my favorite book lists, two silly, two serious.
Most Unusual Books Ever Published
http://goo.gl/GD0Di
Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year
http://goo.gl/UReW
Best American Novels, 1950-1999 (unorthodox, largely avant list from film theorist Steven Shaviro; includes Valley of the Dolls)
http://goo.gl/Imiyg
And more in line with the spirit of EW, Best Pop Music Fiction, Selected by Greil Marcus, stuffed with obscure, fascinating stuff like Keith Abbott's "Spanish Castle," a novelization of The Harder They Come (wha??) and David Helton's King Jude which I've been dying to read for eons.
http://goo.gl/ceAWD
Best (damn near only) fiction I've read recently: Mildred Pierce; Valley of the Dolls
Apropos of nothing: Showgirls is one of the greatest films of all time.
As for Kay Huntington, I wouldn't say I'm a fan per se (!). But come on - is it so off-putting that I'd want to hear (and proselytize for) an album our host once awarded an E MINUS/A PLUS? It's not like I was pumping Aorta. Remember the first rule of rock criticism: better godawful than bland.
But it kicked off a nifty book discussion and so I'd like to share some of my favorite book lists, two silly, two serious.
Most Unusual Books Ever Published
http://goo.gl/GD0Di
Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year
http://goo.gl/UReW
Best American Novels, 1950-1999 (unorthodox, largely avant list from film theorist Steven Shaviro; includes Valley of the Dolls)
http://goo.gl/Imiyg
And more in line with the spirit of EW, Best Pop Music Fiction, Selected by Greil Marcus, stuffed with obscure, fascinating stuff like Keith Abbott's "Spanish Castle," a novelization of The Harder They Come (wha??) and David Helton's King Jude which I've been dying to read for eons.
http://goo.gl/ceAWD
Best (damn near only) fiction I've read recently: Mildred Pierce; Valley of the Dolls
Apropos of nothing: Showgirls is one of the greatest films of all time.
Apr 8, 2012 9:52AM
To everyone who gave me pointers on creating a jazz playlist way back on the Childish Gambino posts, I've finally created an introductory list for my friend.
1. Snake Rag - King Oliver's Creal Jazz Band
2. Big Butter and Egg Man - Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five
3. Singin' the Blues (Till My Daddy Comes Home) - Bix Beiderbecke/Frankie Trumbauer
4. Black and Tan Fantasy - Duke Ellington & Orchestra
5. Hotter Than That - Louis Armstrong & His Hot Seven
6. West End Blues - Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five
7. Rockin' in Rhythm - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
8. Blue Again- Louis Armstrong
9. Tiger Rag - Art Tatum
10. Queer Notions -Fletcher Henderson
11. A Sailboat in the Moonlight - Billie Holiday & Lester Young
12. Begin the Beguine - Artie Shaw & His Orchestra
13. Dizzy Spells (live) - Benny Goodman
14. Cotton Tail - Duke Ellington & Orchestra
15. I Like Em Fat LIke That - Louis Jordan & HIs Tympany 5
16. Koko - Charlie Parker
17. A Night in Tunisia - Charlie Parker
18. Dexterity - Charlie Parker
19. Manteca - Dizzy Gillespie
20. Tempus Fugit - Bud Powell
21. Jumpin' With Symphony Sid - King Pleasure
22. I'm An Old Cowhand - Sonny Rollins
23. What is There to Say? - Bill Evans
24. In Walked Bud (live) - Thelonius Monk
25. Better Get Hit in Yo' Soul - Charles Mingus
26. Take Five - Dave Brubeck Quartet
27. Giant Steps - John Coltrane
Apr 8, 2012 9:59AM
28. Freddie Freeloader - Miles Davis
29. Lonely Woman - Ornette Coleman
30. Driva'man - Max Roach w/ Abbey Lincoln
31. This Here - Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
32. Hate & Beard - Eric Dolphy
33. Song For my Father - Horace Silver
34. The Sidewinder - Lee Morgan
35. Nice Work If you Can Get it - Thelonious Monk (It's Monk's Time version)
36. Welcome - John Coltrane
37. Country Preacher - Cannonball Adderley
38. Funky Doo - Eddie Harris
39. Theme De Yoyo - Art Ensemble of Chicago
40. Conference of the Birds - Dave Holland Quartet
41. Honky Tonk - Miles Davis (Live at Philharmonic version)
42. Rocket Number Nine- Sun Ra
43. Silence - Keith Jarrett
44. Down San Diego Way -Arthur Blythe
45. Sleep Talk - Ornette Coleman
46. You're My Thrill - Shirley Horn
47. Novette Number 1 in D Flat Major (Movement 3) - Moondog.
So, yes a tad long, but I meant it as something he could listen to and step away from as he works long hours at his job usually with headphones on. Plus, if he were not so obsessive with music I would have trimmed it down considerably. Thanks again everyone for your input.
-Blair
Apr 7, 2012 3:33PM
Milo: the bad-is-good sensibility to which you refer is called camp. I've always believed the reason homosexuals are more inclined toward camp than heterosexuals is that their life experience reveals the dangers and limitations of straightforwardness and sincerity earlier and more vividly. But it certainly has its uses for the rest of us, for whom straightforwardness and sincerity also prove to have dangers and limitations. Camp has other attractions for both camps too, of course. Why it should surface as regards music more than as regards fiction is almost certainly that listening to music takes less time and less effort than reading fiction, and can be more social to boot.
Apr 8, 2012 7:54PM
Just to show how it's a small world with interlocked wheels that come full circle right quick, today's NY Times Book Review has an end essay by the wonderful Jonathan Lethem about his correspondence-friendship with the almost-as-wonderful (and now far less well-known) Thomas Berger --
http://goo.gl/qdex8
In it, Lethem mentions that he felt he needed an excuse to start writing to Berger and so he came up with the ploy that he was working on a biographical sketch about "the now-forgotten writer Bernard Wolfe," a friend of Berger's.
Wait a sec -- why does that name, far from forgotten or unknown, ring such a bell for me? I checked around and sure enough, Wolfe was the guy who had co-written Mezz Mezzrow's Really the Blues (1946), a book that had blown my little mind when I read it in the early '70s and had been a huge influence on the Beat generation. Just as important, Wolfe was celebrated in serious sci-fi circles for Limbo, a 1952 dystopian book considered the equal of any and something I've been meaning to read for decades. Also noted as a groundbreaking use of cybernetics in sci-fi. It has been reissued and is on it's way to me. I recall the other Wolfe book that intrigued me way back when was The Magic of Their Singing (1961), but I can't seem to find out anything more about it.
Anyway, interesting coincidence with the EW discussion last night.
http://goo.gl/qdex8
In it, Lethem mentions that he felt he needed an excuse to start writing to Berger and so he came up with the ploy that he was working on a biographical sketch about "the now-forgotten writer Bernard Wolfe," a friend of Berger's.
Wait a sec -- why does that name, far from forgotten or unknown, ring such a bell for me? I checked around and sure enough, Wolfe was the guy who had co-written Mezz Mezzrow's Really the Blues (1946), a book that had blown my little mind when I read it in the early '70s and had been a huge influence on the Beat generation. Just as important, Wolfe was celebrated in serious sci-fi circles for Limbo, a 1952 dystopian book considered the equal of any and something I've been meaning to read for decades. Also noted as a groundbreaking use of cybernetics in sci-fi. It has been reissued and is on it's way to me. I recall the other Wolfe book that intrigued me way back when was The Magic of Their Singing (1961), but I can't seem to find out anything more about it.
Anyway, interesting coincidence with the EW discussion last night.
Apr 7, 2012 10:12PM
Ok, finally got on. I just took The Female Man off the shelf and will put it on my bedside table.
I haven't read Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness in years but it stayed with me. It's about a world where gender is literally relative, so you become more or less one gender or the other according to the person you're with.
I also like Kate Wilhelm--a little hard to explain what she does, which is why I like her.
Did anybody mention Bruce Sterling? Psychologically realistic and funny SF, at least the stories that are set on earth.
And then Samuel Delany's kinda Joyceian nearly 900 page Dhalgren.
I haven't read Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness in years but it stayed with me. It's about a world where gender is literally relative, so you become more or less one gender or the other according to the person you're with.
I also like Kate Wilhelm--a little hard to explain what she does, which is why I like her.
Did anybody mention Bruce Sterling? Psychologically realistic and funny SF, at least the stories that are set on earth.
And then Samuel Delany's kinda Joyceian nearly 900 page Dhalgren.
Apr 7, 2012 8:34AM
Great show at Cat's Cradle last night. Lee Bains III (I kid you not) and the Glory Fires opened up for Alabama Shakes, whose first album comes out this week. The Glory Fires were fun, promising, and derivative of everyone the Drive-By Truckers are derivative of. Mr. Bains has a voice and the bass player has a Kansas t-shirt.
The Shakes sold out the Cradle, and it was Exile in Plaidville there. Really, really packed. This band has the idea of tight down to a science. There were no solos at all during the show, just George Harrison/Steve Cropper-style guitar breaks and Booker T fills. Which left room for what the band does best, tension-and-release. And maybe tight to a fault-- when Britney was playing guitar (most of the time), she seemed too much in control of the band. When she put it down and got out in front, she was all preacher, and guess which I liked best. I still worry that she hasn't found what she wants to say yet (although the title song of the new album is promising). The crowd didn't care though. The band ran out of tunes 3 songs into the encore-- they could have come back twice more and the room would have stayed just as packed.
They are in NYC next week. Definitely worth checking out.
Apr 6, 2012 9:14AM
Oh, man, these may be the most satisfying obscure rap the Dean has unearthed this year. I was sucked into the rhymes and rhythms on first listen as they flowed out of my iPod on my walk on Philly's crowded urban streets from the train station to work. Good griity rap via headphones has a way of enhancing your surroundings as you walk, and I was connecting with everybody who walked by. BFB showcases the pure simple joy of this music: matching smart rhyming poetry against variety of smart beats, like the opener,Gandhi mandhi mandhi, using a seductively slow soulfully jazzy canvas. Or Go 2 sleep, frantically railing against his insomnia, dreaming of the rich life, sniffing coke and panties, winning grammies, getting rich and having kids and nannies(white ones just to turn the tables), or Summertime thing, where he paints the ideal jaunty summer day, mostly filled with oral sex.
Apr 7, 2012 4:30PM
I'm happy to have Jon back, anything which encourages lively discussion is good by me.
On the subject of recently silent Witnesses, I was wondering where my fellow Europeans had gone - Ioannis? Walter? Ziggy? Chris Monsen? [Edit: I see from Chris's website he's on "hiatus" but will be back soon.] At least Alex is back. Hope everyone is OK. The other Liam from Australia has also been quiet of late.
Bad art can have its rewards, but it's probably better at poem length rather than novel length (cf The Stuffed Owl anthology, which is pretty funny I think).
On the subject of recently silent Witnesses, I was wondering where my fellow Europeans had gone - Ioannis? Walter? Ziggy? Chris Monsen? [Edit: I see from Chris's website he's on "hiatus" but will be back soon.] At least Alex is back. Hope everyone is OK. The other Liam from Australia has also been quiet of late.
Bad art can have its rewards, but it's probably better at poem length rather than novel length (cf The Stuffed Owl anthology, which is pretty funny I think).
Apr 6, 2012 8:04PM
Apr 9, 2012 1:45PM
"If you mean me, get some guts and just say so."
I actually did say so but in a (snaps) camp way that went undetected as "guts." It still had the intended effect - a move away from interweb griping towards augmenting my Must Read list.
But b!t(h, if you want to go up against a queen re: camp (still using Sontag?!?), I'm down. It'll have to wait 'til tomorrow night, though. Swamped today.
Two things, though:
1. "And that may be the first rule of kevin john rock criticism"
I actually stole it from Robert Christgau from his review of Yaz: Upstairs at Eric's (which he got wrong; solid A, that).
2. In what more substantial, less time-wasting mode of listening did you hear Kay Huntington's album? Don't tell me you came across it w/o Xgau's help.
I actually did say so but in a (snaps) camp way that went undetected as "guts." It still had the intended effect - a move away from interweb griping towards augmenting my Must Read list.
But b!t(h, if you want to go up against a queen re: camp (still using Sontag?!?), I'm down. It'll have to wait 'til tomorrow night, though. Swamped today.
Two things, though:
1. "And that may be the first rule of kevin john rock criticism"
I actually stole it from Robert Christgau from his review of Yaz: Upstairs at Eric's (which he got wrong; solid A, that).
2. In what more substantial, less time-wasting mode of listening did you hear Kay Huntington's album? Don't tell me you came across it w/o Xgau's help.
Apr 8, 2012 7:50PM
Apr 8, 2012 12:27AM
Well I could go on and on about SF and Fantasy books, but I think I'd lose some a lot of people and wouldn't really help my cause. One thing I'll say is that I don't really differentiate between SF and fantasy, basically by definition SF is fantasy and it's need to draw such distinctions that makes it even harder for people to jump into the genre.
Also a shout out for Urusla K. Le Guin, I remember reading her Earthsea books when I was younger and really loved them. The other author I'll mention is Neil Gaiman, who I've finally started to get around to lately. If you have any vague interest in mythology I'd recommend American Gods, which I'm loving.
I could go on for a long time about my many issues with perceptions about these kind of books and culture in general, but I'm tired from Greek dancing and I'm not even sure if any of this makes any sense.
Apr 7, 2012 12:03PM
Jon, what are your three favorite albums of all time?
Le sigh... I usually stay away from questions like this because they are so broad and open ended. But if I were to say what my three favorite records of all time are, I'd say
1) The Who - Quadrophenia
2) The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
3) The Beatles - Please Please Me
But as far as albums I've been listening to most recently, I'd say....
1) Kanye West - Late Registration
2) Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
3) Brad Paisley - American Saturday Night
and as far as albums to come out this year?
1) Magnetic Fields - Love at the Bottom of the Sea
2) Imperial Teen - Feel the Sound
3) Sleigh Bells - Reign of Terror
Sorry for such a long and strange answer.
Apr 9, 2012 7:47PM
Apr 9, 2012 6:56PM
Per Cyclops, I checked out a source from the Wiki page for Carrie Brownstein and this is what I found:
“Only because it seems so culturally important to be able to say who you are: I definitely identify as bisexual,” she says. “Every interesting person I’ve ever read about, sexuality’s all over the map for them. It never was clearly defined. I’ve always just kind of existed in that world of openness. But right now, in terms of the political climate, and with a number of young gay suicides, and with don’t ask don’t tell not being repealed, and with so many politicians still being so aggressively against gay marriage, it is hard not to at least identify in a way that lets people know, ‘It is OK whoever you are.’ It’s weird, because no one’s actually ever asked me. People just always assume, like, you’re this or that. It’s like, ‘OK. I’m bisexual. Just ask.’”
Here's the link: http://goo.gl/yzA5n
I love Sleater-Kinney so much--I think I saw them in concert more than any other band, and, more than that, feel so privileged to have done so. The first concert of there's I saw, for Dig Me Out, would've made a fan out of anyone--Corin blew the doors off First Avenue with her voice alone. Carrie instantly became my guitar god. Actually, she kind of still is. What a band.
“Only because it seems so culturally important to be able to say who you are: I definitely identify as bisexual,” she says. “Every interesting person I’ve ever read about, sexuality’s all over the map for them. It never was clearly defined. I’ve always just kind of existed in that world of openness. But right now, in terms of the political climate, and with a number of young gay suicides, and with don’t ask don’t tell not being repealed, and with so many politicians still being so aggressively against gay marriage, it is hard not to at least identify in a way that lets people know, ‘It is OK whoever you are.’ It’s weird, because no one’s actually ever asked me. People just always assume, like, you’re this or that. It’s like, ‘OK. I’m bisexual. Just ask.’”
Here's the link: http://goo.gl/yzA5n
I love Sleater-Kinney so much--I think I saw them in concert more than any other band, and, more than that, feel so privileged to have done so. The first concert of there's I saw, for Dig Me Out, would've made a fan out of anyone--Corin blew the doors off First Avenue with her voice alone. Carrie instantly became my guitar god. Actually, she kind of still is. What a band.
Apr 6, 2012 8:03AM
Apr 6, 2012 5:44AM
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Starting in 1967, Robert Christgau has covered popular music for The Village Voice, Esquire, Blender, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and many other publications. He teaches in New York University's Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, maintains a comprehensive website at robertchristgau.com, and has published five books based on his journalism. He has written for MSN Music since 2006.
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