SOUNDTRACK: TH1RT3EN-Tiny Desk (Home Concert) #146 (January 18, 2021).
I had never heard of TH1RT3EN before this Tiny Desk Concert. But I was hooked from the beginning. I liked everything about them. The fuzzy distorted guitar from Marcus Machado, the excellent delivery of Pharoahe Monch and especially the fascinating drumming and drum style of Daru Jones (look at the way his drums are set up!).
Both the moniker TH1RT3EN and supergroup were born out of a frustration with the veneer of American society that underestimates the darkness of white supremacy.
“I knew 5 years ago where we headed,” Monch shared over the phone. “Sure, we’ve always done socially and politically aware music, but I’m tired of this “love will win” nonsense. Love may be the most powerful vibrating force, but consciousness is spreading and it’s impossible not to be more aware of the evil that has kept the world in complete darkness. TH1RT3EN is the musical personification of me and my comrades at combat.”
“The Magician” is based around the riff from Yes’ “Roundabout.” Machado plays the riff throughout which I find much more interesting than if it was sampled. Monch’s lyrics are smart and pointed. There’s an incredibly fast rapping middle section with some amazing drumming. I really like his delivery.
Moinch says that that song is about a student who was bullied and grew up to be a school shooter. Ironically there hasn’t been any school shootings because we’re in the middle of a pandemic–a pandemic that has taken the lives of 250,000 Americans. And yet Americans reman more afraid of Black Lives Matter than of COVID 19.
TH1RT3EN recorded this set in August 2020, as evidenced by Monch’s interlude, this four-song set still channels the discontent outside our windows today. Shot in a padded “panic” room, this Tiny Desk (home) concert reflects the rage felt by this three-man battalion.
Monch continues “We are in need of cleansing and an exorcism. “Cult 45” opens with a sample of a horn riff. It’s quieter musically so it’s mostly vocals. When the guitar joins in it’s mostly to add free jazz noises along with some wild drumming.
“Scarecrow” returns to the slow dirgy, aggressive guitar sound behind some fast rapping.
He says he started the band because he wanted a bit more authentic aggression by finding these two musicians. And the set ends with “Fight” which has a nice big riff and crashing drums.
How’s this for an aptly aggressive verse
Burn a cross, water hose, dogs and nightsticks
Yeah, that’s what it used to be, see, they would usually
Just hang a nigga, fuck ’em
Now they don’t have the time to decorate the trees so they buck ’em
I’m going to have to check out this album.
[READ: February 28, 2021] You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey.
Amber Ruffin is a writer and comedian, most notably from “Amber Says What” on Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Amber Ruffin Show on Peacock. Amber is hilarious.
But Amber is also righteously angry about the way Black people are treated in America. Somehow she manages to take the most horrible things you can imagine and report about them with enough humor to make you listen and laugh and still get outraged.
This book is a collection of stories of racist things that happened to her sister Lacey. Lacey lives in Omaha, Nebraska, where they grew up. I don’t know anything about Nebraska or Omaha. Apparently Omaha is a big city and has sections that have a lot of Black folks. White people who are not from the city find the thought of going to Omaha scary. It also means that when Lacey gets jobs outside of Omaha she is typically the only Black person in the building.
Which seems to make all of the white people there think it is okay to say whatever crazy racist shit they want to say. But even outside of work, it seems like Lacey is a magnet for racist comments. Is it because she is tiny and good natured? Maybe. But she is a also a bodybuilder, so watch out.
About this book Amber says:
When you hear these stories and think, None of these stories are okay, you are right. And when you hear these stories and think, Dang, that’s hilarious, you are right. They’re both.
There are going to be a lot of time while you’re reading this book when you think There is no motivation for this action. It seems like this story is missing a part because people just aren’t this nonsensically cruel. But where you see no motivation, you understand racism a little more. It’s this weird, unprovoked lashing-out, and it never makes any sense. It’s why it’s so easy for people to believe the police when hey beat someone up–because no one would be that cruel just because the person was Black. But the are! So as you read this book, when you see there’s no motivation, know that there is: racism.
The Preface has an anecdote that really sets the tone for the rest of the book. Lacey paid at a store with a check. The checks had Black heroes on them. Lacey paid with one with Harriet Tubman on it. The cashier who had been very nice up to that point said “Wow you have checks with your picture on ’em.” There is then a hilarious juxtaposition of the check with Tubman and one with Lacey’s photo.
Amber contrasts her life in New Yorke City.
Everyone I work with is stark raving normal. We don’t have any crazy bigots (dumb enough to run up) and I’m no one’s first Black friend. Now I’m not saying no one ever says anything crazy to me–I’m still a Black woman in America–it’s just that we all know there are consequences for talking to me as if you’ve lost your mind.
But in the Midwest it is an unchecked tsunami of dumb questions and comments. People think it your job to answer “Why can’t I (insert the most nonsense shit you’ve ever head)?”
Lacey chimes in (in a different font) from time to time with things like that she’s happy her little sister is successful in New York:
where someone would get fired for out-and-out racism. I love that that really happens. Never seen it, but I love it. Like Santa Claus.
Amber ends the preface by saying
Hopefully the white reader is gonna read this, feel sad, think a little about it, feel like an ally, come to greater understanding of the DEPTH of this type of shit, and maybe walk away wit a different point of view of what it’s like to be a Black American in the twenty-first century.
And I did. Boy did I ever. (more…)
