SOUNDTRACK: ARI LENNOX-Tiny Desk Concert # 895 (September 25, 2019).
I had never heard of Ari Lennox. And I assume I will never hear of her again after this show.
I gather she is popular and respected, but as soon as I heard the sounds that came out as the first song opened, I knew I’d never be listening to her again and when she sang in her sweet R&B voice “Why not tell me all the mother fucking things” several times, I knew she’d never get played on the radio.
So who is Ari Lennox? The blurb is surprisingly unhelpful.
Earlier this Spring, Lennox staked her claim not only on J. Cole’s Dreamville imprint as the sole female artist but also in the upper echelon of R&B with her debut album, Shea Butter Baby.
I don’t know who J.Cole is either, but I guess I’m supposed to.
Turns out that cursing is in no way atypical for her.
Her nuanced but explicit — and sometimes lyrically graphic — approach to seemingly surface-level emotions and situations immediately struck a chord with fans.
The lyrics are particularly disarming because the music is mostly smooth twinkly keys from Chris Worthy with simple drums and percussion from CJ Trusclair and Stanley Banks Jr.
In between songs, she seems very sweet complimenting the women in the audience and just being genuinely pleasant. Then she made me laugh with this comment
I know you’re here and a little young but this next song is called “Pussy Pop.” [pause] Jesus.
I don’t know if the first song “Speak to Me” gets airplay, but there’s no way “Pop” does with these lyrics
Pop this pussy
For you tonight
Will you promise? Baby
Won’t you make a promise?
That you’ll make me your wife
If you really love me
I’ll fuck you good
Fuck you good, fuck you good
She gets some vocal help from Dave James, although I’m not sure who he is either.
“New Apartment” is up next. She introduces it saying, “I need you to bust it up for me, seriously everyone 50 and up I need you up front bustin it.” Musically it’s a bit more interesting with a cool bass line from Jerome Lawrence. The middle of the song features a very funny call-and response as she tries to get the NPR crowd to sing along:
Everybody say “Get the fuck out” which they do. Then she goes on “Get the fuck out my apartment. Fuck that shit that you’re talkin’. What the fuck is you talkin’ about?” The audience does sing along but they are subdued, as usual. She jokes, “Don’t be shy. Are you all religious? Whats going on?” At the end of the song she says, “You all are so sweet and holy. Thank you so much for stepping outside of your comfort zones and cursing with me.”
“Shea Butter Baby” is my favorite song. It’s got a rocking Prince vibe with a great guitar solo from Taylor Gamble. She says, “I made it for my sexy brown queens because we’re sexy and fun.” Midway through the song she steps back and says, “Now welcome J. Cole, y’all.” The room goes silent apparently in huge anticipation until they realize she is joking and everyone laughs loudly. I guess J.Cole is a big deal.
But whatever, it’s a funny moment and she certainly won me over. So I wish her well as long as I don’t have to hear her music again.
[READ: July 2, 2019] Scooter Girl
I loved Chynna’s Blue Monday series. I started getting the individual issues of Scooter Girl when it started, but I feel like I may have never gotten them all. I did however get this collected book. The interesting thing is that I thought I’d like to read it again, but when I started treading it I realized that I must have never read it at all. I certainly didn’t recognize very much of it if I did. In fairness, this was 14 years ago, but I doubt that this story would have vacated my head entirely.
So I love everything about Chynna’s “deal.” I love her drawing style–her nods to manga in a westernized story. I love her taste in music (she’s the reason why I started including “soundtracks” in my post in the first place., because all of her scenes have them. (Although this soundtrack in no way accompanies this story). I also love reading about the whole mod scene (and that she make it seem so much bigger than I assume it actually is). I also love that her women are kick-ass.
And that’s why I was so disappointed in the ending of this story.
I was particularly disappointing because in Nabiel Kana’s introduction he says:
Ultimately, though, it’s he unexpected that makes Scooter Girl such a special story. You think you’ve got it all worked it. You think you know what you’re in for. You’re wrong.
But I wasn’t surprised or wrong.
Everything about his story says these two people hate each other and they are obviously going to fall in love by the end. And (spoiler alert) that’s what happens. And that’s why I was so bummed. Not because people shouldn’t fall in love, but because Ashton Archer is such a shit, such a horrifying man, that there’s no way Chynna should have allowed her amazing protagonist to fall for him. Certainly in the #metoo world, this story would never fly.
The story begins with the King’s Classic. This is a huge scooter rally in San Francisco: top mods and die-hard scooterists, whose main purpose was impressing everyone around them…themselves above all, of course. Cut to some classic Chynna scenes of mods–beautiful boys and girls dancing, making out, and sitting on scooters. Her art is always wonderful.
Then we meet Ashton. Ashton is the greatest thing in town. He hooks up with who he wants when he wants. He has sex with women and tosses them aside. But he is so groovy and wonderful that no one elver seems to catch on. They just want him to spin records for them. He tells us that the men in his family (the Archers) have always been this magnetic. His grandfather had an affair with Clara Bow, Constance Talmadge and Louise Brooks. The family is smart, charismatic, attractive, and rich.
Then a girl on a silver special rode up, her name was Margaret Sheldon. She looked at Ashton and he was suddenly a clumsy idiot. He actually crashes his bike in front of her. Obviously he is upset by this but he gets a lot of sympathy in school the next day. Until he sees that she has started school there too. As soon as he tries to talk to her he falls down the stairs.
We don’t really know what she thinks about this guy who continually falls on his ass or his face in front of her until we see her overhearing one of his mates ask him if he ever goes out with the same girl twice “only if she gives amazing head.” They also say that the new girl has got a nice mouth on her. Clearly she is pissed. She immediately goes to the girls room and rats out what she just heard. And the slaps come fast and furious.
As he becomes persona non grata at school, he decides to flee and heads off to San Diego (as you do in high school).
Four years pass and he’s got his mojo back. He’s spinning in San Diego and is doing great. Until he sees her on the dance floor. Did she follow him? Is it coincidence? Well, all of his flubs come back–this time jeopardizing his spinning career.
He decides that he’s going to get closer to her to find out ways to torment her. He befriends her brother. Her brother is a cool guy, not too happy about hanging out with Ashton. But they soon find that they have some things in common and actually become friends. Bu the whole time, Ashton is messing with her stuff–hiding her keys, popping her tires, causing irritations. But every time he tries to do anything around her he gets messed up big time. His mojo has vanished.
He goes to visit his grandpa in the nursing home. His grandpa tells a lengthy story about an Arhcer who lived 400 years ago during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The Archer man was a stud of course, but when the women got wise to him, they put a curse on him. That curse lives to this day when a woman from that family comes around. His grandpa says the only solution is to kill her.
And so, strengthening his resolve, he deices he will kill her. Of course all the attempts go horribly wrong. So he decides to hire someone to do it for him. This guy is a local drug dealer with a reputation (the reason he has such a bad reputation is quite hilarious).
Of course this doesn’t work and even more bad things happen to Ashton.
After all of this what on earth could he possibly do to make her fall for him at all? It’s probably not worth the revelation. Which is a shame because the individual scenes and the strength of Meg up until then is pretty fantastic.
I had the opportunity to see Death Valley Girls twice in August. The first time was with The Distillers who had to cancel their second show at Union Transfer due to a different injury. The second (and it probably happened because of that cancellation) was with Sharkmuffin, a band I really wanted to see but wasn’t free that night.
I Just Read About That... 