I Just Read About That…

 SOUNDTRACK: NICK GRANT-Tiny Desk Concert #625 (June 2, 2017).

I had never heard of Nick Grant either.  And I wasn’t that impressed on an initial listen.  However, it says he’s got a bit of a flu, so kudos to him for pushing on.

In general, though, low-key rap shows are kind of weird.  They are mostly about hype, but its hard to hype a few dozen people.  But Grant is certainly game.

[Grant hails ]from a region where rap’s young guns and lil innovators tend to defy tradition, the South Carolina-by-way-of-Atlanta native proves being a purist is not just for the old heads.

Being cut from a vintage cloth has kept him in good company. He groomed himself on high school freestyle battles before working his way up to become the first signee to Culture Republic.  He’s a sly reminder that, contrary to popular opinion, the South still has a mouthful to say — and it doesn’t always have to be yelled, gurgled or Auto-Tuned to death. Sometimes it can be conveyed coolly, from a seated position, while backed by Washington D.C.’s soul garage band Black Alley, and still cut through all the noise.

I really like the live band, Black Alley.  The percussionist (Walter Clark) is particularly interesting with his congas and an electronic “plate” that plays all kinds of effects.  The bass (Joshua Cameron) is also great and the guitarist (Andrew White) plays a lot of interesting sounds.  I also like how muscular th keyboardist is playing simple chords.  And the drummer is pretty bad ass too.

The first song “Return of the Cool” (feat. B. Hess–not sure what the B. Hess is all about, I think he’s sampled in the chorus).  And that chorus is especially weird because the other singer is recorded and Grant is sort of quietly over the top of it.  It’s the smallness of the audience that makes the whole “hands side to side” part seem kind of weird.  Although it’s funny when he says, “you ain’t got your hands up.”  When it’s over he says “Give yourselves a round of applause.”  Before the next song starts he says “flu is killing me.”

It’s also strange to me in a lot of hip hop that the rappers feel the need to state who they are and where they are and sometimes when they are.  It’s been going on for decades now, but it’s odd .  So when he says “Nick Grant.  Tiny Desk.  NPR.”  it’s just what you do.  About the second song “Drug Lord Couture” he says that “street life wasn’t for me but I was fascinated with the fashion and the material things that came with being a drug dealer being in the streets.”  He says, “it wasn’t for me I found out quickly.”

He introduces the final song, “Luxury Vintage Rap” by saying that you “must be strong, have a lyrical ability to be #1.”  This song is faster with some good lyrics: “I don’t believe the devil would come as a snake / why would he come as something you would actually hate?”   There’s a cool dark end section with a funky riff.  His lyrics turn rather explicit with the startling line “sugar on a clit / that’s a sweet lick.”  As the songs sort of ends, he tells everyone, “Don’t stop.  Keep (the arm waving) going.

Grant won me over by the end.  And as the screen goes to black you can hear him saw, “Flawless….  Flawless any questions?”

[READ: April 22, 2017] “Deaf and Blind”

Vapnyar had a story in this same issue one year and a day ago.

This is the story of a young woman’s mother and her mother’s friend.  The friend was named Olga.  Olga and her mother had met at a fertility clinic.  The narrator’s mother had a child (obviously) while Olga did not.

But they bonded over their collective unhappiness. Olga said her husband loved her like crazy but that she never felt much for him–she always wanted to love someone with every fiber of her being.  The narrator’s mother was just the opposite: she loved her husband but was fairly sure he didn’t love her back.  She hoped a child would bring her husband back.

It didn’t.  And Olga didn’t get pregnant either.

The narrator talks about her father, that once he remarried and had a new baby, she was always pushed aside.  He would promise and then not deliver, but each failed promise meant a bigger promise next time: “a cancelled concert mean a promise of the theater.  Cancelled theater was the promise of skiing.”

They wound up going skiing in March in very lame snow (despite how much her father said it was the best snow, she knew otherwise).  Nevertheless when she got home she told her mother than she loved her father more than her.  Her father promised that next year they would do the same thing on the same day–it would be their day.

But the following year he flaked again.  And this time Olga visited and found the narrator in tears on the floor.  Olga was the only one who could console her by making orange ice cream: halve the oranges, scoop out the flesh, remove the skin and pith and mix the remaining pulp into the best ice cream you can buy and then serve in the empty orange skins.  It was the best thing she’d ever tasted (and subsequent attempts to make it have proved disappointing).

All of this is the lead up to the title.  Olga has been seeing a man behind her husband’s back.  He is deaf and blind.  They met at a conference (Olga and the narrator’s mother both ave PhDs). He was a keynote speaker (he speaks using hand signs) and Olga found him very compelling.  The narrator, her mother and her grandparents are stymied by this story.  Of course they didn’t meet the man and they expected it to end quickly but a year later it was still going on.

Olga’s husband didn’t suspect a thing.  They wondered how that was possible.

The narrator was fascinated by the deaf and blind aspects of this man’s life.  She tried to live that way in her house bit inevitably crashed into something.  And then, amazingly, Olga was going to bring him to the narrator’s house for dinner.

It was so exciting that she blew off her father’s offer of skiing that year.  The family ponders this man and how he does things until he shows up and proves to be a very good house guest (with Olga translating his words to them) .

They learn about him.  His name is Sahsa.  He wasn’t born that way–he’d had meningitis as a child.  And he has a good sense of humor (in addition to being very smart).

They all had a wonderful time–except the narrator’s mother who that evening is heard in her room sobbing.

Can this end happily for anyone?