SOUNDTRACK: THE CROSSRHODES-Tiny Desk Concert #704 (February 9, 2018).
Who knew there was explicitly Christian rap? I mean, obviously there must be. But I never expected to hear it, especially not Christian songs that used the n-word and the f-word.
I’d never heard of The Crossrhodes, so here’s what the blurb says
Witnessing The Crossrhodes perform at the Tiny Desk instantly snapped me back to their early beginnings, just a few miles away from NPR headquarters. In 2001… the Crossrhodes stepped on stage. Week after week, the band passionately performed original material that jumped between society’s woes and their own love lives. Word eventually spread outside of the D.C. area and one-half of the group, Raheem DeVaughn, landed a record deal.
DeVaughn went on to achieve R&B superstardom, earning two Grammy nominations, while the other half of the group, Wes Felton, has remained a pillar of D.C. culture, excelling as both a musician and actor. They reunited and released their first album in over a decade last year. Footprints on the Moon recapitulates and magnifies the ideals they conveyed in the early 2000s with a hyper-focused sense of urgency.
Poet, Raquel Ra Brown opened the show with a poem. After her introduction, and they were the band is dressed, I expected to hear more of a gospel sound, not for him to start out by going “yo, unh.”
“Footprints on the Moon” seems to be inspirational, but what’s with this lyric:
They lyin’ bout them there two white feet
That landed on the moon a year after they killed King
And again, the songs are fairly pious and you get this couplet:
The only topic of discussion is who they touchin’
Or who they buyin’ or who they fu**in’
Sure there’s politic on the song, but where is this music going?
“How You Gon’ Fall” has a pretty great chorus but the verses are again, pretty rough
cops shot 30 rounds in 15 seconds
4 month old baby in the rear section
another mother gotta call the reverend
a dead daughter, sister, veteran
now the media posing all the questions
slandering the victim pointing out aggression
somehow the angel of god kept the baby protected
coz grandma prayed beyond the pictures and necklace
The tautology of “Praying Prayers” is surprisingly catchy . It’s probably my favorite song of the bunch
“America” has some well thought out complaints about the country, and it ends with the last few bars of the National Anthem. I like that they took a knee during that part.
As the show ends, he gets everyone to chant, “I got the power, you got the power, we got the power; that’s power to the people.”
Overall, there was some good stuff in this set. Not my thing but I can certainly appreciate most of it.
[READ: September 21, 2017] “Fistfight, Sacramento, August 1950”
So the crux of this story is that a fist fight between two men brings a man and a woman together.
How delightful.
The story is written in a thoughtful manner, but it is still just about two dumb drunks fighting.
Inexplicably, James Sutter, in a bar, leans over and says–as if to no one–I hate Okies. Frannie Begara challenges him to a fight outside.
So they go out in the dark (the streetlight frames their ring). Each man has his fan base ringing behind him.
The girls watched–“and pitted the elegant beauty of Sutter’s dimples and clean jaw against the rough, blunt complexity of Begara’s face.”
Evidently Begara gets into a lot of fights and has tics that his “fans” know .
After the first round, Begara noticed Sarah Breeland. She is a soda jerk and her mom works as a housekeeper in Sutter’s home Although Sarah herself looks respectable, almost rich, she isn’t. They nodded to each other.
Sutter lands a strong blow (knocking out a tooth) and the Begara gets he revenge. Later Sarah said “I’ve never seen someone punch like that.”
Oh swoon.
Good lord. This five-page story was endless.
Begara tries to justify his rage by retroactively believing that he was hitting Sutter because he knew that when Sarah went to the Sutter’s house with her mother Sutter would put the moves on her. But of course that is unknowable.
Hooray for romanticizing bar brawls! Yay!
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