The Genre Gap

29th Oct 2002

The Genre Gap

Deep House or Hip Hop? Main Room or Back Bar? For years this conflict has plagued Cork nightlife, often spilling over into violence and tragedy (who can forget the infamous Henrys 'back stairs riots' of 1996? Several back bar ole dolls lost their Custard Shop bags, and nearly their lives, after sniggering something about 'wah music' within earshot of several young men who had just taken a break from dancing on the stage - tops off - in the main room). This conflict can only be resolved through dialogue. So, in an effort to encourage some sort of ceasefire, your PeoplesRepublicOfCork reporter will, in a series of articles, attempt to compare and contrast the relative values of Cork's two dominant genres in several different categories. Of course, there is a third category of music in Cork which encompasses every other popular form of black music, known as 'faggot shit' (a term without homophobic connotations, mind you). This we will not concern ourselves with.

Category 1: Educational value

HH As a teenage hip hop fan, one learns many important things. Perhaps the most important of these, learnt from the likes of KRS-ONE, NWA, Public Enemy and others, is that the police are bad. Be wide of the law. This is essential to one's understanding of the world. The police are guilty of many things, and are deeply oppressive, especially when one is trying to sell crack to feed one's family (see Notorious BIG's 'Juicy').
This fact established, we can now move on to other pressing matters in hip hop, which can all be summed up in fairly neat phrases such as 'It's all about the benjamins,' 'The Bridge is over,' (QueensBridge, methinks, although DJ Red Alert is known to have had a dislike bordering on hatred for Sixmilebridge, and always went out of his way to avoid it when visiting his auntie in the Western Republic), and vitally important, 'Bitches ain't nothin but ho's.' Once one has grasped these essential concepts, one reaches true mic-wrecking, n2n burner, beat juggling enlightment, with true insight into the mantra 'Nobody beats the Biz.'

DH Deep House, clearly, carries many important educational points. Slam's 'Positive Education' (Is that deep? -Ed.), for a start, teaches us many things, most of which are positive. But apart from this, what else do you know? Certainly we do know that Norma Jean Bell, despite reports that neighbourhood children refer to her as 'The Elephant Lady,' would make a very fine girlfriend indeed. Nobody would ever love you like she would, and she would happily declare herself to be the baddest bitch in the room if you belonged to her. This information, however, does seem very specific compared to hip hop's lessons for life. A good area to find lessons in house is in language tuition. With it's repetitive lyrics, house music often sound like a Linguaphone tape ('listen, repeat, understand'). Now that so much house is made by French people, Corkonians bandy about phrases such as 'de la bass' with ease and confidence. Thanks to one friend's deep house habit, I now know how to say 'Break 4 Love' in twelve different languages, handy should I ever find myself making requests at a Portugese disco.
Of course one cannot write about the educational merit of house music without mentioning Bobby Konders and 'De Poem,' that stirring celebration of the emancipating force of music (and poems, obviously), with lyrics that sound like they were written by Theo Huckstable in a Cosby Show Black History Week special. Worth ten of your so called 'degrees.'

Category 2: Inspiration

HH Hip Hop music, as we are constantly reminded, is ghetto music, soundtrack to the streets and all that. So one would expect that when one has tired of a life of hash, yokes, gatt and pointless scraps outside Mandy's, Hip Hop would offer an escape, a hope for something more. But sadly not. Hip Hop is, of course, obsessed with keeping it real, so the average hip hop fan, when he puts on a tape after he gets back home from a night bangin out the yokes, can only hope to hear a reflection of his own life on the streets, except with more guns and a greater variety of fast food. There are only two exceptions that spring to mind at the moment. Tribe's 'Stressed Out,' which doesn't even offer escape, just empathy, is the first. The second though, is a masterpiece of sham philosophy, a true piece of genius. It is by Nas, it is, of course, 'If I ruled the world,' although it may as well be by MC Feen at de Fountain and be called, 'Here by, j'know whata be mad?' Yes, Nas extolls us to imagine a world where drugs are always pure, everyone goes around in Armani on jetskis and (genius this) 'it sounds foul but every girl you meet would go down town.' Truly a better world.

DH Hip hop may claim to monopolise the ghetto thang, but there is one type of music which springs from even greater deprivation and oppression. While Hip Hop was created by young black men on the liberal and politically aware East Coast of the early seventies, House was created by young gay black men in the American mid west in the mid eighties, suffering the dual blows of that decade's 'me' culture and the emergence of Aids. Unsurprisingly then, House - lyrically at least - has spent a long, long time trying to forget about reality. While this is understandable, it has also led to some of the worst lyrics ever committed to vinyl (although those familiar with the ouevre of mid-nineties punk band S*M*A*S*H will be rushing to provide examples of truly terrible songwriting.) For those who appreciate lyrics such as 'gotta keep on reaching up,' 'take me higher' or 'keep on rising to the top,' this is fine, but I suspect that most people are rather tired with this constant pressure to ascend ('Do I have to keep reaching? I'm knackered!'). Of course, there is an exception to those, as all those who have really studied the words to Ruffneck's 'Everybody be Somebody,' will tell you. At the fountain. Bout 4 O' Clock.'

Category 3: Musicality

HH Boom, dish, boom-boom dish.
DH Boom, dish, boom, dish.

More next time'