Rap Is Not Pop: Kid Cudi, Eminem and the Perils of Addiction

This post is inspired by a commenter on my recent piece about Eminem and his album Recovery. “Somebody’s finally on the radio talking about NOT doing drugs. That’s a good thing,” wrote Halo in the comments section. “I know that it’s tough being clean and still keeping it real.”

Why has there been so little hip-hop that addresses drug and alcohol addiction? It’s not as if rappers aren’t abusing drugs: The tabloids are filled with their exploits, whether it’s Lil Wayne serving time for drug possession, T.I. violating his probation over Ecstasy tablets and codeine syrup, or Gucci Mane reportedly heading to rehab. It appears that the days when it was only “cool” to smoke weed are a thing of the past. Yet those personal struggles rarely make it into the music.

Kid Cudi’s new album, Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager, offers a striking counterpoint to Eminem’s Recovery. While Eminem related his drug problems like he was confessing at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, Kid Cudi hides his troubles within ramblings about the pressures of fame. He celebrates his love of herb on “Marijuana” – but marijuana’s not a drug, right? However, he doesn’t address his public struggle with cocaine, save for an audible snort during “All Along.” Man on the Moon II reflects the rap community’s general ambivalence towards party favors, and how overuse of them can destroy careers – and lives.

Rare are the examples of rappers who cop to drug problems. When Coolio emerged from WC and the Maad Circle to launch a solo career, he used his criminally-underrated 1993 single “County Line” to note that he lost years to crack addiction. And after earning a sordid reputation for being a coke fiend, Cage got clean, and has used subsequent albums like 2005’s Hell’s Winter and 2009’s Depart from Me as post-rehab therapy. These and songs by others like Fatlip (“What’s Up Fatlip?) and Tech N9ne (“T9X”) fall into the realm of public confessionals.

Then there is Andre 3000, who admittedly wasted the success of OutKast’s 1994’s debut Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik on living the rap life – getting high and chasing girls – before experiencing a spiritual awakening. “In the Jacuzzi catching the Holy Ghost/ Making one woozy in the head and comatose,” he remembers on “Life in the Day of Benjamin Andre,” the closing track to OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. “I hadn’t smoked or took a shot of drank because I started off the second album on another note.” Andre made such a remarkable visual and musical transformation for OutKast’s second album, 1996’s ATLiens, from wearing a white robe and head scarf to reciting Nuwabian beliefs that the Egyptians were descended from aliens, that some fans speculated he was on drugs. On “Return of the ‘G’” from 1998’s Aquemini, Andre staunchly defended his new look: “Return of the gangsta/ Thanks ta/ Them n*ggas who get the wrong impression of expression/ Then the question is, ‘Big Boi, what’s up with Andre?/ Is he on coke?/ Is he on drugs?/ Is he gay?/ When y’all gon’ break up?’/ When y’all gon’ wake up/ N*gga I’m feeling better than ever/ What’s wrong with you?”

Fans didn’t question Andre 3000 because he stopped getting high. They wondered why he changed. The hip-hop audience seems to loathe personal and artistic evolution unless it’s within a pop context of Bowie-esque visual and sonic transformation; OutKast’s mastery of that dynamic made it one of the past decade’s best-selling artists. But for those who don’t hold pop ambitions, staying the same appears to be the only recourse. On “Can It Be So Simple (Remix) from 1995’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…, Raekwon rhymed, “Now I’m all about G notes/ No more time for weed mixed with coke/ I wash my mouth out with soap.” Of course, he spent much of his 2009 sequel Only Built 4 Cuban Link…Part II regressing into cocaine glory.

Another example of creative recidivism is Queensbridge rapper Prodigy. On Mobb Deep’s 1999 hit single “Quiet Storm,” he vowed, “I spent too many nights sniffin’ coke, gettin’ right/ Wastin’ my life/ Now I’m tryin’ to make things right.” Years later, he released the excellent Return of the Mac, and its centerpiece was “Mac 10 Handle.” “I sit alone in my dirty ass room staring at candles/ High on drugs,” he begins, interpolating a lyric from Geto Boys’ “My Mind Playing Tricks on Me.” Prodigy never says what type of drugs he’s on. But Alchemist’s sampling of Edwin Starr’s “Easin’ In,” which he turns into a mottled, bluesy refrain for Prodigy’s violent rant, leaves the impression that the rapper is all tweaked out.

“Mac 10 Handle” illustrates that, when it comes to exploring the depths of drug addiction, rappers tend to rely on our imaginations as a guide, while marking a path with breadcrumbs like dusty blues loops, downbeat and menacing keyboard sounds, and lyrical admissions of paranoia. These bleak arrangements are meant to contrast with the Ecstasy-popping adventures of Mack 10’s “Pop X,” Gucci Mane’s “Pillz” and D4L’s “Scotty.” Whereas one side highlights Ecstasy as a positive experience and frequent sex tool, the other hints at overuse, a burdensome monkey on the back.

Incredibly, despite all the recent headlines of arrests, real drug addiction remains taboo in hip-hop. Many of us remember the crack epidemic of the 80s and 90s and how it affected our communities. And so, despite the Ecstasy vogue, hip-hop fans don’t want to return to the wanton abandon of the disco era and Grandmaster Melle Mel’s “White Lines (Don’t Do It).” But what if that era has already reappeared, but we just don’t want to admit it? In a world that emphasizes mastery of your environment at all costs, copping to addiction signifies a loss of control and personal weakness.

Kid Cudi is often dismissed by critics as an electro-hop dandy, but he’s just as obsessed with dominance as the next rapper. So, for The Legend of Mr. Rager, he explained his personal troubles through a prism of the perils of fame and leading a revolution or “Revofev.” He unveils a new sound, too. Whereas Man on the Moon: The End of Day celebrated introspection as a psychedelic journey, complete with electro sounds and stories of mushroom-eating as foreplay (“Enter Galactic (Love Connection Part 1)”); The Legend of Mr. Rager simmers with melodramatic strings, emo-ish ballads and cryptic lyrics like “All Along’s” “I’m addicted to highs/ Would you like to know why? … I don’t want what I need/ What I need hates me.”

Narcotic addiction isn’t just an occupational hazard for celebrities both real and pseudo, but a problem that affects wide swaths of the population. Perhaps that’s why Eminem’s Recovery may be less musically sophisticated than The Legend of Mr. Rager, but it is more honest. “You’re lying to yourself,” says Eminem on “Talkin’ 2 Myself.” He could be speaking for a generation of MCs dabbling with hard drugs yet are afraid to look in the mirror.

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This essay was posted November 9 on the Rhapsody SoundBoard blog. I wrote it for my Rap Is Not Pop column.

Photo by Pamela Littky.

This essay on new-era Dungeon Fam was posted on Rhapsody.com’s Music Stuff Place on July 7. I wrote it for my Rap Is Not Pop column.

Prince once sang, “All The Critics Love You In New York,” mock-celebrating the rock-crit establishment’s hive mentality. I think the bees are nesting over Big Boi’s Sir Lucious Left Foot: Son Of Chico Dusty, much as they did with Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2… Sir Lucious Left Foot is a fine album, of course, but I don’t think it’s the unqualified success that many others seem it is. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, of course. But is it an opinion, or just bandwagon-eering?

Or let me put it this way, since everyone’s so fond of Metacritic-styled ratings. Do I think it’s worth a 90, or a 9.2? No. But who knows? Maybe I’m just a contrarian that isn’t convinced of Sir Lucious Left Foot’s greatness yet.

Unfortunately, I didn’t delve into any of those issues in this essay. The concept I explored — how the Dungeon Family ethos survives, even with OutKast largely missing from scene — is a decent one, but I was frustrated by my lack of dense analysis for Big Boi’s long-delayed album. (I have a relatively strict 1000-word count for my column.) Next week’s edition will be devoted entirely to the Roots’ How I Got Over. No conceptual gimmicks.

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Rap Is Not Pop: Dungeon Family’s Future

You’re forgiven for believing that Big Boi’s debut album, Sir Lucious Left Foot: Son of Chico Dusty would never be released. Since Big Boi announced the project in late 2006, it has endured numerous recording sessions, several failed teaser singles, and even a label switch, from Jive (onetime home of OutKast) to Def Jam. In retrospect, four years doesn’t seem like a long wait, especially when judged against a graveyard of shelved, infinitely delayed, and/or simply lost rap epics, from Dr. Dre’s decade-in-the-making Detox to Black Star’s rumored second album.

Sir Lucious Left Foot is symptomatic of the Dungeon Family these days: embattled, perhaps a far cry from its glory years, yet resolute. The famed collective, once centered on groundbreaking music from OutKast, Goodie Mob, and production crew Organized Noize, no longer exists as a functioning unit, at least in not any real sense, beyond one-off reunions and retrospective magazine articles. Its legacy endures, however, from the triumphant debut of Janelle Monae’s The ArchAndroid to Andre 3000’s fanciful remake of the Beatles’ “All Together Now” for a Nike commercial that aired frequently during the 2010 NBA Playoffs.

Bug Boi first introduced Monae as part of his short-lived Purple Ribbon All-Stars, a crew that also included Killer Mike, Bubba Sparxxx, Organized Noize producer Sleepy Brown and others. Her performance on “Lettin’ Go” from the 2005 compilation Got Purp Vol. 2 revealed little about the creative direction she would eventually take. Big Boi then served as an executive producer on her first EP, 2007’s independently released Metropolis: The Chase Suite (reissued the following year after Monae signed with Bad Boy Records), where she formally introduced herself as a cyborg in the image of Fritz Lang’s Expressionist dystopia Metropolis: “I’m an alien from outer space, I’m a cyber-girl without a place, a heart or a mind.”

I find it amusing that Monae’s urban/pop vision of artificial intelligence has entered the Zeitgeist, a meme to be appropriated by Beyonce, Erykah Badu, Christina Aguilera and others. She’s not official Dungeon Family, but she carries its tradition of creative innovation. A direct connection can be found on OutKast’s last album, 2006’s Idlewild, and appearances on “In My Dreams” and “Call the Law.”

Idlewild should have been OutKast’s version of Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk – a glorious bloated musical starring gold-grilled D-boys, funk-rock bohemians and Atlanta University Center buppies. (Check out the Morris Brown marching band on “Morris Brown.”) But a niggling atmosphere of exhaustion sucked the life out of the party, from the duo’s insistence on not rapping together, an unfolding “Hollywood Divorce,” to Andre 3000’s visible annoyance with the limits of superstardom. Like most OutKast albums, Idlewild ends with a meandering Funkadelic-style jam, but “A Bad Note” sounded gloriously prickly and recalcitrant. “You can’t fumble a chord when melody is a thousand light years away,” sang Andre 3000. It was a celebration of nothingness, pushing imagination to its breaking point, then presenting the shards as a kind of anti-feast.

To their credit, none of the Dungeon Family has looked back, even if their solo work hearkens to the glory years of OutKast’s Aquemini and Goodie Mob’s Soul Food. Last year, Khujo Goodie teamed with Jneiro Jarel for Willie Isz’s Georgiavania. Khujo, who possesses a country drawl and a prickly intelligence, may be the most underrated rapper in the camp. Paired with Jneiro Jarel’s futuristic beat tributes to Cocteau Twins and TV on the Radio, Khujo embarked on a widely unappreciated adventure into dirty South Gothicism.

If Khujo Goodie was criminally slept on, then Goodie Mob’s Cee-Lo suffered from overexposure. Forming Gnarls Barkley with producer Danger Mouse, he recorded “Crazy,” one of the past decade’s most memorable hits. It was so big, in fact, that the public ignored the duo’s follow-up album, 2008’s The Odd Couple. It seems that people had already tired of their ecstatic retro-soul like last year’s Christmas toy. Cee-Lo is finishing a solo album set for release this fall, and it’s anyone guess how it will sound, or how it will be received.

Meanwhile, Andre 3000, Dungeon Family’s undisputed shining light, wanders the musical wilderness. His hit-and-run guest spots, from his reunion with Big Boi on UGK’s instant classic “Int’l Players Anthem” to outstanding verses for Jay-Z’s “30 Something,” Devin the Dude’s “What A Job” and, most recently, Ciara’s “Ridin’” remix, only increases our longing for a real Andre 3000 experience – an album, an actual song, anything. Perhaps that explains why his fun Beatles cover feels more substantive than it actually is.

If this sounds like a plea for OutKast to return to us, then so be it. Monae’s The ArchAndroid and Big Boi’s Sir Lucious Left Foot don’t equal Aquemini, but they’re more than adequate consolation prizes. Sir Lucious Left Foot could even be interpreted as a sequel to the first disc of OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. But Big Boi’s musical sensibility isn’t as finely tuned, and he offers some real duds, including the bland “hustler’s” anthem “Hustle Blood” (with Jamie Foxx) and the thin pop-punk of “Follow Us” (with Gym Class Heroes wannabes Vonnegutt), alongside winners such as “Shutterbugg” and “Shine Blockas.” Worse, excellent OutKast reunion cuts such as “Royal Flush,” and a duet with Mary J. Blige, “Something’s Gotta Give,” have been excised, the result of sour grapes from Jive Records when Big Boi successfully moved his project over to Def Jam.

We can only wonder what Sir Lucious Left Foot would have sounded like if it had been released as Big Boi intended. To his credit, he doesn’t indulge in nostalgia, even as he asserts his continued relevance. “You can’t destroy what we done built,” he raps on the operatic “General Patton.” There’s no use trying; Dungeon Family is embedded in our culture now.