Respect the Flow

742. DR. DRE, "Forgot About Dre"
Produced by Dr. Dre; written by Melvin Bradford, Marshall Mathers, and Andre Young
Maverick 17206 1998 Billboard: # 5

Rappers simply can't get respect. I'm not talking about the self-conscious contests for respect that have been the premise of the genre since the 1970s. I'm talking about career respect. If a rocker or pop star enjoys three Top 40 singles, they can tour the oldies circuit for decades after that. But even if a rapper's career begins with two or three best-selling albums, if she or he wants to stay in the business for the long run, there are basically two options: act or produce.

After NWA broke up, Dr. Dre produced and fronted The Chronic, almost certainly the aesthetically finest product that the morally dubious genre of gangsta ever produced. And then . . . he produced, and he produced brilliantly. With a typically uncluttered but still full style of production, his work with Snoop Dogg was cleverer than most listeners appreciated. More important, his achievement in discovering and launching Eminem within the genre was literally unprecedented in pop music. It was as if Sam Phillips had been black; as if hiphop had finally found its Henry Higgins; as if Dre were the Apollo Creed of the genre, training Marshall "Rocky" Mathers to take on a ring full of Clubber Langs.

To give credit where credit is due, Eminem almost consistently presented himself as Dre's sidekick. He does it here too, but it's a little sad that this track--released at almost the height of Em's popularity--leads up to the protegee rather than his producer.

That is unless you think the words are irrelevant, and it's just the tweaking bassline that's the point of the song. But this is rap--is that possible?

Yes, because this isn't quite rap. It's hiphop. Dr. Dre was one of the key figures who irrevocably turned the former genre into the latter. Hiphop selfconsciously embraced funk bass lines like the one employed here, so that flow was no longer just a matter of words. And even if it's Marshall gibber-gabbering the words for much of this track, all the way through the flow is all Andre's.

So forget the star--respect the producer. Respect the flow.

Who Would You Sit Next to Fred Durst?

121. EMINEM, "The Real Slim Shady"
Produced by Jeff Bass, Mark Bass, & Eminem; written by Tom Coster, Mike Elizondo, Marshall Mathers, & Andre Young
Interscope 497334 2000 Billboard: # 4

I don't believe that true subversion is really possible. Ever since I read Raymond Williams' essay on base and superstructure in Marxist thought many many years ago, I've pretty much subscribed to the idea that the only dissent that can appear in a given society is the dissent that the dominant ideology of that society allows to appear. Capitalist culture works through competition more than stability. That means that challenges to what may appear like the dominant order are merely the ways in which the dominant order readjusts itself to slightly shifting conditions. For more on this in late twentieth-century U.S. culture, read Thomas Frank's The Conquest of Cool or the brilliant collection Commodify Your Dissent, which collects essays Frank and others wrote for The Baffler back in the 90s.

On the one hand, this attitude might lead you to dismiss anyone who presents themselves as an alternative to the dominant culture as a poser, or to say that all good bands become talentless sellouts the second they move to major labels. (Mr. Azzerad, your table's ready.) For me, though, this attitude frees me up to appreciate the little rebellions that occur, the tiny acts of challenge that can help dismantle minor cultural systems.

Which is why I love this song. Yes, Eminem's oeuvre is rooted in a great deal that is mainstream and possibly toxic about pop music culture, but this is the song that shouted j'accuse at MTV. The dude bit the hand that fed him. He called out the channel for the hypocrisy of censoring some of his songs while selling clear intimations of sex under the guise of grinning ex-Mouseketeers and suggestions of bestiality under the guise of wacky prop comedy. And they gave him an award for it, and let an army of hims march on the very awards show that the song mocks, cutting the camera to the performers he makes fun of on the lines in which he makes fun of them.
If, a la Williams, this means that Mr. Mathers is in a way responsible for the decline of music videos on the channel and the rise of all those reality dating shows, then admittedly he may have a few things to account for. But if he helped, even a little bit, to knock TRL off the far too powerful perch it held in the pop world ten years ago, then bravo for the kid from 8 Mile.