SOUNDTRACK: DAVE-Tiny Desk Concert #908 (November 8, 2020).
Usually if you go by a mononym, your name is unique. This British rapper goes by “Dave,” which seems rather bold since it’s hardly unique. It also seems like it would be very hard to find in a search engine.
Perhaps the understated name applies to his understated delivery. He has a lot of great things to say, but he’s not grandiose about how he says them.
He also seems very nervous (you don’t mind if I steal one of these waters, do you?).
Dave made a special trip all the way from the UK just for his Tiny Desk performance. If that isn’t proof that it was a big deal, his nervousness before the show confirmed it. But he powered through in a performance that puts his gift for making the personal political on full display.
“Location” is first. Tashera Robertson sings the introduction. There’s quiet but somewhat complex guitar work from Markelle Abraham. Daves’ rapping is very understated almost quietly rhymes. His delivery is almost mumbly because it is so quiet, but her remains clear.
He shares the inspiration behind the aptly-titled song “Black” from his opus of a debut. “It’s just about the black British experience,” he says. “Everyone’s experience of being black is a little bit different, but this is my take on it. I wanted to deliver it to the world and here it is for you guys.”
“Black” starts with a spooky piano melody Aaron Harvell and a very simple drum beat Darryl Howell based around rim shots. The bass from Thomas Adam Johnson punctuates the melody. There’s cool scratching sounds from Abraham on the guitar which add a spooky texture. Robertson sings backing oohs and ahhs.
But the lyrics are fantastic
Look, black is beautiful, black is excellent
Black is pain, black is joy, black is evident
It’s workin’ twice as hard as the people you know you’re better than
‘Cause you need to do double what they do so you can level them…
With family trees, ’cause they teach you ’bout famine and greed
And show you pictures of our fam on their knees
Tell us we used to be barbaric, we had actual queens
Black is watchin’ child soldiers gettin’ killed by other children
Feelin’ sick, like, “Oh shit, this could have happened to me”…
Black is growin’ up around your family and makin’ it
Then being forced to leave the place you love because there’s hate in it…
Her hair’s straight and thick but mine’s got waves in it
Black is not divisive, they been lyin’ and I hate the shit
Black has never been a competition, we don’t make this shit…
Black is my Ghanaian brother readin’ into scriptures
Doin’ research on his lineage, findin’ out that he’s Egyptian
Black is people namin’ your countries on what they trade most
Coast of Ivory, Gold Coast, and the Grain Coast
But most importantly to show how deep all this pain goes
West Africa, Benin, they called it slave coast…
Black is like the sweetest fuckin’ flavour, here’s a taste of it
But black is all I know, there ain’t a thing that I would change in it
The song builds slow and dramatically with more guitar work as Dave’s delivery gets more powerful. It’s really intense.
But the climax here comes near the end, when Dave takes a seat at the piano to accompany himself while rapping his 2018 hit, “Hangman.” In the moment before he plays the opening keys, he pauses to take a breath before channeling the weight of the world through his fingers.
“Hangman” is more of the intense personal political storytelling. His delivery is so perfect for this power of his lyrics. This song has a few extra musical elements–some cool bass lines and guitar fills. It also has an instrumental interlude at the end which allows Robinson to sing wordlessly.
I’m not sure if he has earned his mononym, but it’s a great show.
[READ: April 30, 2020] Bitter Root
I was drawn to this book by the outstanding cover art. A 1920s era family dressed to the nines standing around a robot-like creature. It’s sort of steampunk, but with a Harlem Renaissance twist,
In the essays in the back, the style of this book is described with a bunch of awesome phrases: cyberfunk (black cyberpunk), steamfunk (black steampunk) and dieselfunk (black dieselpunk). There’s also EthnoGothic and ConjurePunk.
This story starts in 1924 indeed, during the Harlem Renaissance.
The story opens with music and dancing in full swing until something terrifying happens.
Next we see some police officers. The black officer saying that “these people” give me the creeps. A white police officer says “these people?” and the black officer says “The Sangeyre family ain’t my people. My people don’t mess with this mumbo jumbo.”
So then we meet the Sangeyre family. Blink Sangeyre says she doesn’t like it that the police just bring them to their store. But Ma Etta Sangeyre says it’s better they bring them in before the kill someone.
We cut to the roof where Berg Sangeyre, a very large man with a wonderfully expansive vocabulary says “Cullen, might I offer you a bit of sagacious insight to your current predicament. My assistance would hardly prove heuristic to your cause.”
Cullen Sangeyre is a skinnier, younger gentleman and he is fighting a bright red, horned demon known as the “Jinoo.” (more…)
I Just Read About That... 