The Good Life

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I know shit about hip-hop music. Sure, growing up I listened to The Fugees' The Score, and The Notorious B.I.G.'s Life After Death, but was never really motivated to dabble in anything that wasn't deemed playable by Z100 or the other top 40 stations. As friends (white and Jewish, oddly enough) picked up rap that was on the cusp of becoming huge in 1997 (i.e. Jay-Z and DMX), I quarantined myself to Pinkerton, Be Here Now and Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness. For whatever reason, I closed my mind to hip-hop probably because I considered it silly to think that I could possibly make a connection to whatever it was these guys were bitching about (my assumptions at the time: cash, money, hoes). I guess Billy Corgan's morose lyrics about drugs and suicide were more re appealing to an awkward suburban kid growing in the mid-to-late '90s than anthems about "Ruff Riderz".

Fast-forward a decade later, and I gotta say that I would love to give the 14-year old version of myself an atomic wedgie. These days, I am happy to say that literally everything us up for grabs. Hell, the other week alone, I bought albums by the Talking Heads and Talib Kweli. More on this later. So anyway, fresh off the Giants' orgasmic Super Bowl victory, I decided this morning on my way to work to sift through my iPod to find the appropriate celebration music. I happened to stumble upon Kanye West's "The Good Life", because a) the title seemed to fit my mood and b) I think I heard this on an episode of Entourage a few months back. Now, I know I am not exactly exploring the annals of the hip-hop underworld by allowing myself to be entertained by the one artist (in all of music) who nearly broke the first-week million sales mark in 2007. You'd have to live under a rock to not give Graduation a shot. Taking a hint from the rest of the outside world, I gave "The Good Life" its just due and listened carefully. The song is fucking brilliant. It's catchy, the tune's sample hook is infectious (and nostalgic), and Kanye does not let up lyrically. Pathetically, this is one of the rare times a rap song has been able to hit the nail so precisely on the head for me. After "The Good Life", I played the Daft-Punk infused "Stronger", the "ballad" "I Wonder"( all the while loving what I heard) and the rest of the record beginning to end. Mind-blowing shit, I gotta say. I never really bought into the hype, but today I was officially converted to Kanye West. I've determined that this is not only a great "hip-hop" record; it's a great record period.

And I realize that anyone from Rolling Stone, to Entertainment Weekly could have told me this five months ago -- it's flat-out ridiculous to state the obvious way after the fact. I guess my point is that I am happy to see that I am no longer classifying just rock records as amazing works of art. There has been some unbelievable hip-hop since the "Fugee" days, and I wish I could have been less musically closed-minded to see this as it was happening. According to Nas, hip-hop is dead, which I guess is unfortunate now that I am finally opening up. Hopefully it won't be too long before it becomes "undead" so I can really dig in.