David Brooks On The Fragmentary Nature Of Truth, And Killer Mike, "Burn"
Lots of people loved president Obama's speech calling for civility Wednesday night. It was a great speech. (Except the line about "jumping in rain puddles in heaven.") And in that spirit, and because I think it's good to note when people you often disagree with say something you do agree with, I very much like what David Brooks writes today: "The truth is fragmentary and it’s impossible to capture all of it. There are competing goods that can never be fully reconciled. The world is more complicated than any human intelligence can comprehend."
But not everyone is in that kind of mood. On his new song, "Burn," the excellent and not-at-all-well-enough-known Atlanta rapper Killer Mike leans toward the rhetoric of Sarah Palin: "I know that you're frustrated and you wanna kill shit/Stockpile your weapons 'cause that day just might come real quick."
I don't agree. Violence is never the answer. But, as its about the terrible 2009 incident when Oakland police officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed unarmed 22-year-old Oscar Grant while he was pinned to the ground by another police officer, you can understand where the anger comes from. It's a good song, with a beat constructed out of Funkadelic's 1970 classic, "You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks."
Mike came up under Outkast the Dungeon Family collective, making a big splash with his song-stealing verse on the 2002 Grammy-winning single "The Whole World."
He's since split off and started his own label, Grind Time Records. And if the third installment of his I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind mixtape series, due in March, is anything like the first two, it will be terrific.
Here's a really good interview Killer Mike did with Awl pal Sacha Jenkins a few years ago. Sacha's magazine ego trip just launched a new website this week. It's looking pretty excellent so far. You should check it out. (Disclosure, I used to work for ego trip—and much of what I know about rap, I learned from my former colleagues there.)
Good post as usual Dave, but I just can't agree that violence is "never" the answer, it's a phrase that I have heard a great many times and a good few times I've seen it proven untrue.
I dunno if violence is never the answer or not, but Killer Mike is always the answer.
Cosign on this 100%
nitpicky point of correction: oscar grant was murdered by BART (bay area rapid transit) cop johannes mehserle. oakland cops are fucked up six ways to sunday but i would argue that they have enough experience with diffusing situations that it wouldn't have gone down like that if it were OPD involved. BART cops on the other hand, spend so much of their time patrolling the completely benign suburban stations that they have no experience with the real world.
killer song though, i'll have to explore this dude in more depth. you can never go wrong with a funkadelic sample.
Thanks, I Antenna.
I had seen that Mehserle was a BART cop. But I assumed that BART cops in Oakland would be under the auspices of the Oakland PD. I guess this is not the case? (And, of course, better not to report by assumption. I should have looked into it further.)