Lawrence “Lawrence” Hayward, formerly of Felt and Denim, and currently of Go-Kart Mozart, turns 50 today, which seems remarkably old to the me that listened to him as a teenager but seems even more frighteningly close to the me who is typing this now (don’t worry, I’ll never make it). Anyway, happy birthday to him. There are a few videos here.

by John Shankman

Test.

Seriously, Bro: Frat Rap Needs To Stop

by Danny Gold

In the summer of 2008, Asher Roth burst onto mainstream radio with his ode to beer pong, “I Love College.” Roth, the project of the now ubiquitous Bieber-bringer Scooter Braun, was everywhere. His single got tons of play on top-40 stations, blasting from Jeep Wranglers and at house parties where Jell-O shots were served. It was a fun little thing, and if you listened to the rest of the album or any of his freestyles, it was evident that he actually had talent. And he was likeable, too: comfortable in his own skin, possessed with decent lyrical talent and a somewhat smooth flow. Asher Roth? Sure, why not?

Unfortunately, Roth opened up the floodgates for the new subsection of brofrat rappers, each less talented and cornier than the next. FratRapTumblr was established to document this growing genre, and it’s updated nearly every day with new videos and MP3s by purveyors of this style. Frat rappers are multiplying, like an incurable virus hellbent on killing hip-hop.

Of course, it seems a little silly to be arguing for the sanctity of rap music in 2011 when videos like this one exist. But the attention these frat rappers are receiving is inversely proportional to their creativity. The record deal nabbed by Rich Hil, Tommy Hilfiger’s son, has gotten people yakking, as did the sudden conspicuousness of Chet Haze, aka Chester Hanks, earlier this year. What makes people like Hil and Haze feel they can be taken seriously as they pull serious rapper faces in videos and chime in with seriously awkward rapper ad-libs? I blame frat rap. (Take this lyric from Haze: “a call from the brothers in the frat house/ I’m with my girl, tryin’ to get up under that blouse/ She a freshman/ She a freak though/ In the bed, but a lady in the street, yo.”) The media has a field day with these guys (although some would prefer not to). And they’re easy targets. But then, they’re celebrity offspring — delusions of grandeur are their birthright. No, there are much worse people. Here are three.

HOODIE ALLEN
Great name, but that’s about it.

There’s something about a former Google employee thinking it’s okay to rap that makes the veins in my forehead throb. He makes me more ashamed for Long Island Jews than Bernie Madoff.

His first verse opens with him saying, “You ain’t never met a kid like this before,” and all I can think is, yes, yes, I have. ALL I HAVE TO DO IS OPEN MY EYES IN MURRAY HILL. I’ve met a million kids like you before. They’re about to graduate from law school. You look like the nerdy Jewish kid my Nerdy Jewish friends used to beat up in synagogue.

He follows up in the verse by declaring himself to be a “fucking hustler.” Listen to me, white rappers from Long Island: Nobody wants to hear you rapping about how you made it and you’re hustling. Stick to what you know. If you worked at Google, I want to hear you rapping about fucking algorithms or some shit, not how you’re grinding every day. You are not grinding every day. You have health insurance. Shut up.

If the majority of your lyrics (and this seems true of most rappers in this genre) revolve around you saying, “Most people say I shouldn’t rap but I’m doing it anyway,” then, I don’t know, MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T BE RAPPING. Apply to dental school.

Your background is always going to factor in to the judgments people make about you as an artist. You can make up for that with skill, with originality, by bringing something different to the table. But there’s none of that here.

Never would I do that I’m a real fucking hustler
You be in the background making noise like a muffler
But if it doesn’t kill me it makes me tougher
And that’s a message that I pass on to my brother
You never gonna really make a difference til you suffer
But we passed that now, its time to smash that, thunder.

Simple rhymes and rhyme structures, as well as the employment of used-up metaphors can work if you’re Gucci Mane, have a charismatic presence and are rapping about something interesting. If you’re not Gucci Mane and you’re doing these things, it simply means you’re terrible at rapping.

SAM ADAMS
Another emerging frat rap star from Boston. He played soccer and went to prep school or something, and, judging by the number of blogs mentioning him, he appears to be gaining traction. He takes pride in his frat roots, proclaiming his ownership of his college campus that same way Jeezy would proclaim to own a block. Judging by the other videos I’ve seen of the frat rap genre, he is pretty much of the same mold as 95% of the other frat rappers out there, down to the lyrics about drinking with his bros and his ability to fuck my girlfriend if he so wished and the R&B-centric; choruses that alert us to his ability to reach the top. His videos were obviously filmed while him and his dudebros were on spring break.

He’s just trying to get his dance on. Come back to a girl with no pants on. Put his man’s on. Ya dig? Props on filming the second video during the same Spring Break trip. That’s how you minimize expenses, dog!

Sure, there are plenty of black rappers out there who are also shooting terrible videos: Strutting around rented mansions while their goofy friends stand around dancing awkwardly and putting their arms around clearly disinterested females. But those rappers don’t receive nearly the amount of fanfare that Adams has. They fade into oblivion. And there’s just something about the Abercrombie-esque shots of him frolicking into the surf with his perfectly coiffed hairdo and hairless chest. SPRING BREAK RULES! Sure, rap has always been about braggadocio, but free drinks at Tommy Doyle’s and all the Alpha Phi chicks you could bang in a semester does not count as an alluring fantasy life.

There were some jokesters before this, like Mickey Avalon and Dirt Nasty, who had the potential to be irritating, but once it became clear they didn’t take themselves seriously and were only in it for the women, money and drugs, they became easier to ignore. The trouble with Sam Adams is he seems to genuinely believe he’s bringing something new and exciting to the table.

MAC MILLER
Probably the most likely to achieve mainstream success in the wake of Asher Roth — and draw the most ire along the way. Barely out of high school and hailing from Pittsburgh, Miller burst onto the scene for no other reason than people are bored and white people who write about rap on the Internet will latch onto anything.

Boasting a record deal and a half-million Twitter followers, he was cosigned by Wiz Khalifa (himself a one trick pony, albeit one with charisma and great production skills). Miller is slightly tolerable. He follows all the rules white rappers have followed for decades: He shows that he has black friends in his videos (let’s dap each other up on camera!), sports a bunch of awful tattoos, constantly refers to getting high, and displays a nice collection of sneakers. His beats are well produced and a throwback to that ‘90s-era ish. His flow isn’t half bad. He even once mentioned Big L so at least he knows there were rappers before Kanye.

But that’s really all there is to him. There’s no storytelling, no lyrics that mention any sort of different perspective or experience. As with the others, there’s nothing here that’s unique. There’s no need to pay attention to him, no need to press repeat on his songs. The goofy looks he puts on during his videos and corny references to Kids might have worked ten years ago, but now it just reeks of trying too hard. That said, he doesn’t completely suck, so that puts him at the top of his class in this genre.

I recently spoke with Stan Ipcus, a former rapper from White Plains who was doing this frat rap shtick in the late ’90s, rhyming about weed, girls, beer, and basketball — but he did it well. If anyone fathered these kids, it was certainly him, though it’d be unfair to blame him for what he wrought. He lamented that his time came before all the attention that social media could have provided. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and cheap studio programs — they’re all making it easy for frat rappers, emboldened by the success of Asher Roth, to develop and promote this genre. They’re recording their own albums and videos and they aren’t shy about shoving this stuff in our faces. Rap has always been about rapping about what you know and what you see, but what if what you know is boring and uninteresting? What if you don’t care to make it otherwise? As Common Sense once said, “If I don’t like it I don’t like it, that don’t mean that I’m hating.” Except in this case I am hating. Stop making music, please. You guys are embarrassing.

Danny Gold is a journalist and filmmaker who lives in Brooklyn. He writes about crime, politics, boxing, culture and parties for a bunch of different New York newspapers. He really thinks the Lost Boyz never got the attention they deserved.

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Excerpt from Misdirected Postcard, Two

Hello Miss Jenelly,

Ha! Prague is all weirdo Eastern European
crazy hairdos. How is your hair these days? Cut
past the electroclash mullet I hope — still the rage
in Spain, always and forever it seems. Thank Prague
for good vegetarian food. Found one restaurant
in two days. I’m a crazed man, might go all Heart
on your city when I come back. Like Disneyland
here. The buildings are for real and like 1,000 years old. Loving
it all. Miss your beautiful face. Miss, you’re beautiful — 
face to toes on concrete, boardwalk, sand. I’m gonna
sweep you under all Prague’s bridges one day. Heard about
that Brooklyn Bridge waterfall — the kayaker
who got flipped, what’s that about? Why mess
with a good thing I say? xo 11222, USA.

Miss Dishes Turns the Calendar

Her dialogue is poor, comes out crying
out her ears into — Mouth! you say, Use — 
she can’t. Speech doesn’t know what to make of her
hours of all rake and all cut through the sounds
rattling through. All howl one day, swoon
next time, bone dragging epiglottis home,
scoops up tone with her tongue, lets it out
with a pound of heel and slap of palm
on table, on thigh, onto the pavement she treads
while it’s baking, that season she loves to roll over on,
feeling the grass on her, map blades between toes,
lemonade how it goes from the stand down her throat,
easy pie, swimming moats, by the river she thinks that the thin
strip of sand could be beach, could be dive under wave
come up bubbles and seaweed crown,
lightning bug, flashlight town.

Rebecca Keith’s poetry and other writing has appeared in Best New Poets 2009, The Rumpus, BOMBlog, The Laurel Review, Dossier, and The Millions. She holds an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and is a founder and curator of Mixer Reading and Music series in New York City.

For more poetry, visit The Poetry Section’s vast archive. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.

“One month ahead of a state election in Berlin, the far-right extremist NPD party is under fire for a provocative new campaign poster. Party leader Udo Voigt is pictured on a motorcycle with a phrase that translates to ‘step on the gas,’ a slogan many are reading as an open allusion to Nazi death chambers.”

Remember the controversy over the cover to Steve Reich’s WTC 911? There’s been a change of plans, says Reich:

When the cover was released on the Nonesuch site and elsewhere, there was, instead, an outpouring of controversy mostly by people who had never heard the music.

When WTC 9/11 was performed by the Kronos Quartet, first in Durham, North Carolina, at Duke University and then shortly afterwards outside of Los Angeles and then at Carnegie Hall and again at the Barbican Centre in London, the reaction of the public and press was extremely thoughtful and moving. To have this reaction to the music usurped by the album cover seemed completely wrong. Accordingly, the cover is being changed.

I want to thank Nonesuch for backing up my original decision about the cover and for backing up my decision now to change it so we can put the focus back where it belongs, on the music.

The new cover shows Osama bin Laden playing poker with Amiri Baraka while, in the background, George Pataki holds Rudy Giuliani’s coat. J/K! I mean, hopefully.

“Groupon’s filing Wednesday also revealed its financial results for its second quarter, which ended June 30. Groupon’s sales came in at a record $878 million, but it lost $102.7 million.”
 — Everybody be carpin’ at Groupon but it’s hitting records, you see! Groupon also had a first quarter loss of $117.1 million. Let’s go buy some!

by Awl Sponsors

Everyone can agree on one thing when it comes to UGG boots: You know them when you see them. But we’re not talking about those fuzzy sheepskin boots that so many women wear. While ladies have a dedicated selection of UGG gear, now gents have a line all their own as well: UGG Australia’s UGG for Men.

You’ve seen women on the street sporting their beloved UGG boots and obviously enjoying the shoe’s many comforts. But your dogs deserve creature comforts too. Don’t covet in secret; consume in public. There is a robust selection of UGG for Men designs from which to choose.

The UGG DNA of comfort, performance, and style — think Cadillac Escalade for your feet — is found in the brand’s masculine sneakers, sophisticated leather boots, and luxurious cold-weather boots. For this wide range of kicks, think rugged, think cool-enough-to-wear-while-kicking-the-bass-drum. Think office-appropriate, mountain-climbing ready, and casual cool at the bar.

Lace-up and slip-on loafers, outdoor and indoor slippers, sandals and flip-flops — classic styles with elements such as durable tread, sturdy laces, and a distinct male styling define the UGG for Men footwear. And your feet will be cushioned by the stalwart construction for which the UGG brand is so well known.

Walking down the street, someone may or may not be able to identify your footwear as UGG. Does it really matter, as long as you know what you’re wearing, how good it feels, and how good it makes you look?

Visit UGGAustralia.com to see and purchase from the full Men’s line and/or to find the UGG Australia retailer nearest you. UGG for Men is also available at Nordstrom.

This sponsored post is brought to you by UGG Australia.

“It’s not okay with the people here. At one point you can see she was in our offices.”
 — A spokesperson for the Hampton Jitney says the “company is not amused” and apparently hasn’t ruled out some sort of legal action (LOL?) against Nina Katchadourian, creator of the song and video “The Jitney’s Just a Fucking Bus.”

Mastering The Art Of Urban Grilling

by John Ore

New York City has a 24-hour-subway system, gay marriage and David Chang. What we don’t have are rolling suburban lawns on which to accommodate Charbroil Offset Smokers when we want to char the hell out of some animal flesh. With Labor Day fast approaching, 4th floor walkups and a lust for a perfectly grilled ribeye will soon collide, and an urban grillmaster will have to adapt. Here’s how (with bonus Beer Can Chicken recipe)!

WHERE
Grilling in New York City requires access to serviceable outdoor space. I don’t care if it’s a roof deck on the UWS, a fire escape on the LES, a patch of grass in Prospect Park or a sidewalk in Canarsie. If it’s not combustible or patrolled by cops, use it. If you don’t have access to outdoor space, start sleeping with someone who does. If you have a fire escape, get comfortable with carrying loads of food through your bedroom. Brooklyn may be considered twee by some, but at least we can grill outdoors in our Olmsted-designed park. And what’s more New York than an extended family celebrating a Quinceañera, playing dominoes and grilling al fresco near the bandshell?

HOW
OK, you’ve secured a venue. With a few modest tools, you too can be a Patio Daddy-O and still catch Massive Attack at Terminal 5 in the same day.

You’re going to need:

1.

A charcoal grill. This isn’t one of those boring philosophical arguments that guys get into about the “purity” of grilling or whether gas provides a more even heat or anything like that: it’s a given that gas grilling is lame. This is about convenience. Gas grills are huge and unwieldy, and propane is hard to get in NYC. Also, it’s illegal: “Standard ‘backyard-type’ propane barbecues (using 20 pound LPG containers) are not allowed on balconies, roof decks, rear yards and courtyards of apartment buildings and other multiple dwellings.”

Charcoal grills are better suited to roof decks, gardens and fire escapes anyway. Some nice options include the classic Weber Kettle, the smaller, more portable Smokey Joe and the timeless Hibachi.

2. Hardwood charcoal. Sure, if you hate yourself, go ahead and use self-starting charcoal, soaked in so many chemicals that it burns faster than a spliff at Lollapalooza. Lighter fluid? Just give up and order Domino’s or something. Natural lump hardwood charcoal like Wicked Good Charcoal’s emasculatingly named Weekend Warrior blend burns hotter, cleaner and longer. As a bonus, you can reuse it: just snuff your fire out when you’re done grilling by closing all of the vents on your grill. Deprived of abundant oxygen, hardwood charcoal will just go out and you can reuse it later. Who knew that belching smoke into the sky could be so green?

3. A chimney, the New York Times and a grill brush. With no fancy accelerants to get the charcoal going (and make your food taste like Raid), you’ll need a chimney and some newspaper. Just add a Bic lighter. When the coals start to glow, you’re in business. Super easy.

Oh, and do everyone a favor and have ready access to a spigot or hose or fire extinguisher. Be an adult.

WHAT

A common misconception is that grilling is the sole province of carnivores/Paleo Dieters. Not true! Granted, for me, meat is as essential to grilling as fire (Meat-Loving Exhibit A). But if you’re a vegetarian (which, why?), there are plenty of awesome things to grill.

There’s nothing like grilling sweet corn in its husk, or sugar peas and shallots with some olive oil, salt and pepper in a grill tray. Make some polenta and finish it on the grill with robiola; throw Japanese eggplant on with red onions; char some scallions that you then toss with olive oil, lemon juice and garlic. Asparagus! Haricots verts! Red and yellow peppers! New potatoes! Portobello mushrooms! Meat is incomplete without these simple grilled accompaniments.

Grilling is like adding butter: it makes just about anything taste better. However, you need to start with good ingredients. Don’t bother inviting people over to hang out on your rooftop if you’re going to slap frozen Costco beef pucks on the grill and call them burgers. You live in New York! You’ve got Staubitz Market and Fairway and Union Market and Whole Foods and the Food Co-op and greenmarkets as well as the occasional bodega with D’Artagnan products. Use them!

Once you decide what you’re throwing on the grill, let’s talk about how long they should stay on there. What are you preparing, and how long do you have? A few bone-in ribeye steaks? A couple of minutes over direct heat. Two racks of baby backs? Maybe an hour and a half on indirect heat. Plan accordingly so that you don’t have to struggle to adjust the fire or reallocate finite space on the grill. Asparagus is only gonna take 5 minutes over direct heat, so save it for the end when the tagliata of bone-in ribeye is resting. You do know how to rest meat, don’t you? The greatest sin — Garden of Eden expulsion-worthy — is overcooking meat on the grill. So remember to cook just shy of your desired temperature, remove it from heat and let it rest, tented under tin foil, for at least ten minutes. The internal heat will finish the cooking, and you’ll retain more of the flavorful juices. You can always throw something that’s a little too red in the center for your tastes back on the fire. But like the old joke about light bulbs and pregnant ladies, you can’t unscrew an overdone flank steak.

Direct v. indirect heat also has implications beyond how you prefer to prepare the food. Direct grilling throws off a lot of smoke, unlike indirect grilling. So, if you have a neighbor who has an itchy trigger finger for dialing FDNY, you might opt for indirect (and more discreet) grilling. Because there’s nothing more depressing than dousing a Weber Kettle with the champagne bucket on a W 70th St. rooftop with the FDNY looking on. Trust me.

RECIPE: BEER CAN CHICKEN
A simple recipe for those of you looking to take the training wheels off. Now, normally, I feel like grilling chicken is like kissing your sister, or scoring an empty net goal. But Beer Can Chicken combines simplicity and beer, and the result is pretty hard to beat. Off we go!

Procure yourself a nice-sized Murray’s Chicken. Rinse the bird, get rid of the gnarly stuff in the cavity and rub it down with olive oil. Select your favorite dry rub (this stuff is my favorite, because I’m juvenile and immature), and liberally season your fowl inside and out.

Got a can of beer? Of course you do, hipster. Open a 12 oz. can of beer, and drink about ¼ of it. STOP! Jeez, OK, go get another beer, and this time stop after you drink a few sips. Pour a couple tablespoons of your rub into the beer can, reminding yourself that this is the only acceptable reason to ruin a perfectly good beer. Ask the chicken to lie back and think of England, and gently shove the seasoned beer can up the cavity, balancing the bird on the upright can. Feel free to have the chicken do a little jig with its legs at this point.

Get a hot fire going in your grill, reserving a space in the center of your coals for a foil pan with some water in it. You can also throw some aromatics in that pan, from sliced apples to sprigs of rosemary. Balance the chicken on your grill, using the base of the protruding beer can and the chicken’s legs to create a macabre tripod. Cover and cook for at least 45 minutes, or until the juices run clear when the meat is pierced. If the skin starts charring too much, adjust your vents and tent the chicken with some tin foil. The steaming beer in the can will help cook the chicken from the inside as well as keep it moist and juicy.

Serve that beast with some grilled veggies or roasted potatoes. Tear apart and devour with your hands. Be sure to remove the can first.

John Ore knows that fire is good, yes. Fire is our friend, yes.