NO GPS After Sunset

Today's episode is the one you didn't know you were waiting for! Mez, Matt, and Aharon do an in-depth analysis of the rap beef between Compton's "home is not where the heart is" Kendrick Lamar and Toronto's "placeless" hit-making global superstar Drake.

This seemingly juvenile rap beef has laid the foundation for an audit of Hip-Hop after over 50 years of its existence. Surprisingly, this audit—or rather, revelation—has emerged from the unlikely places of Toronto and London, England. German philosopher G.W. Hegel tells us that the philosopher arrives at the end of an epoch to make sense of its many paradoxes and ironies, not before or midway. This person, akin to Athena’s Owl of Minerva (it seems Toronto is home to more than one kind of OWL), can interpret the world of meanings often lost to us. For this instance, we call this person Hip-Hop’s Last Philosopher.

This rap beef has signalled the official end of George Bush Sr.'s New World Order and a return to history with its many geopolitical fault lines—apologies to Fukuyama. The era of prioritising interests over ideology is officially over. This was a period where the individual was fashioned to be a jet-setting, the-world-is-my-backyard, free agent of infinite possible identifications. Now, the lines are being drawn in the sand, brown sand, once again. Apologies to Rakim, but it's no longer "where ya at"; it's back to "where are you from?" Like the rise of ancestry tests, the worlds of culture, politics, sports, and entertainment are increasingly concerned with where your allegiances lie and what your values are.

Additionally, the guys discuss the disastrous effects that globalisation had on local LA and Toronto neighbourhoods post-NAFTA. This rap beef has cast Drake as a rootless and feckless agent of extractive globalisation, with his parade of accents and affiliations, while positioning Kendrick as the local agent of neighbourhood revitalization and grassroots advocacy. To understand this better, let's take a historical journey.

In the 1980s, downtown LA and the West Hollywood movie studios were pivotal sites for post-Cold War globalisation, particularly focused on receiving investment from the Asian Pacific, particularly Japan (the second biggest investor in the LA county region at the time were firms coming from Canada). This led to the global economic integration of various industries on the West Coast and the American Midwest, resulting in deindustrialization and joblessness for many white Americans, who now suffer through the opioid crisis. Meanwhile, on the other side of town (word to Tony Toni Tone - and it does rain in southern California, figuratively speaking), globalisation took on a different form.

The introduction of the globalised trade of crack cocaine marked a black market integration into the world economy, starting in LA through figures like the real Rick Ross. This not only exported dangerous street drug commodities but also the vehicles for selling them—namely, the set formations of local LA street gangs. Ice Cube's 1991 song "My Summer Vacation" perfectly describes this late 80s to early 90s phenomenon of exporting brother-on-brother violence and its associated Scarface cocaine dreams. By 2005, this form of integration in the global economy via crack cocaine, originating in South Central LA, was distributed through Crip and Blood sets across America and eventually the globe.

A street documentary entitled "The Real Toronto," released in 2005, showcased the interrelated relationship between these distant geographies. A similar sense of boundedness and territorial identity formation was developing in Toronto's black neighbourhoods, even as a global ethos of borderlessness and openness was being embraced. This culminates when a young black Toronto teen states in the documentary: "If you take a good look around the block, it’s like two squares and a square on that side, and then a square on this side. …The government, that’s how they control us. They box us in.” We highlight this not to sow division but to make our interconnectedness clear.

Lastly, the whole world has seemingly been sprayed with an unplaceable colour of Kim Kardashian like-brown. It seems everybody wants to be brown now. Yet, I can remember a young Brandy Norwood in 1994 singing that she wanted to be down. A specific way that particular demographics in the Black Atlantic would describe a type of black communal solidarity. But in 2024, the whole world has replaced the world down with the word brown. Not just any type of brown. A Michael Jackson ‘I can be from anywhere so guess my ethnicity’ type of brown. Michael Jackson from the Martin Scorsese directed music-video/short film Bad type of brown. A figure who is for everybody because he is not particularly for anybody. An individuated agent whose origins are untraceable. A being who is a guest in their own body. The perfect amorphous agent for the type of unfettered free market fundamentalism (only for the overdeveloped nations) that globalisation unleashed on unsuspecting populations all around the world - populations of people who just wanted to be seen and acknowledged. Who just wanted to be down. Michael Jackson started it all - and now we have a coterie of brownified global superstars that someone from Afghanistan or the Dominican Republic can identify with. But this is only a skin deep connection - it doesn't tie in to that person's indigenous real-non-virtual-world social, cultural, political realities and histories. Fanon already wrote a book called Black Skin, White Masks. So I need not explain further on the point. But let me say this, the mask is now brown and it is not only black folks wearing the masks - everybody's in on the jig now. Nevertheless, if we take the metaphor between the two rappers (Kendrick identifying himself with Prince and Drake identifying himself with Michael Jackson) seriously, then, it may be 37 years too late, but we finally have our promised battle between two music industry heavyweights (remember - not the time - that Prince was initially casted to star in Jackson's Bad video in the role played by Wesley Snipes).

Come take a ride with the guys from NO GPS, with NO GPS!

Time Stamps:

0:00:34 - Intro

0:2:18 - Toronto as a seminal Hiphop city

10:56 - Sandman Negus

13:45 - City of Quartz - LA as the launchpad for Globalisation

17:28 - Exporting gang violence

23:32 - Drake & Kendrick

27:07 - The electrifying and pacifying effects of LA & Toronto music & inauthenticity

38:05 - The 2008 connection between Obama, Kanye West & the great financial recession

43:04 - Obama

45:03 - Drake's Story

48:42 - The Eminem effect

51:34 - Drake's conquering of the USA-centric Rap Industry, why he moved to the US & claims of being an agent of colonization

58:03 - Outro

Produced by Matt J.

Music by TrethWest

Art by Matt J.

Mez, Matt & Aharon are back again with commentary and breakdowns of the first two games of the NBA Finals featuring the Dallas Mavericks and Boston Celtics. 

In this episode of NO GPS, Mez & Aharon discuss the Oscar-nominated film 'American Fiction,' directed & written by Cord Jefferson, featuring Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Sterling K. Brown, Leslie Uggams, Issa Rae & Myra Lucretia Taylor. The guys delve into the artistry of the film. They question the reasoning for making a film like this in 2024. Given that the film deals with similar themes and tropes of one-dimensional portrayals of Black characters in the mold of Robert Townsend's Hollywood Shuffle & Spike Lee's Bamboozled. 

What we see in the film is the Obamesque desire for a type of negritude display of Black elite life. That is to say that the film gives in to the new Black(ish) want to be disabused of the notion of race, to be SEEN as they truly are. Yet this bad faith effort to escape the facts of life leads to many false starts and misunderstandings in American Fiction. The main character Thelonious Monk Ellison gets no respite in either his professional or personal life because of his resentment of the book publishing world as well as academia. The family melodrama, though, that the film is ensconced within shows the complexity of Black life that Black millennials have been starved to see reflected on movie screens. This is where we see the true genius of Cord Jefferson at work; namely, his ability to create portraits of Black family life that are discordant yet redemptive.

Lastly, the connection between Jeffrey Wright's Thelonious Monk Ellison and his portrayal of Basquiat was crystallized in the (paraphrased) line shared between the two films: "His art gives voice to the gutter." This line connects the two films intertextually - showing the full circle connection between the two characters and the artistic drive of Jeffrey Wright to play roles that are self-agental and not bound by societal conventions. This gives much deserved light and shine to the magnificent and often underappreciated film oeuvre of Jeffrey Wright. 

Recommended films to watch: Hollywood Shuffle, Bamboozled & The Inkwell.

Intro and outro song: Tequila No Chase by Aharon, https://open.spotify.com/track/03gfonQpnThqb1ONS52wAu?si=B5JuFKiiTCmySGtvUT5gKQ.

Recommended reading: In Defence of #blackaf's Celebration of Mediocrity by Aharon Joseph, https://nsjcp.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/default/article/view/95/37.

In this intellectually stimulating episode of NO GPS, Mez & Aharon engage in a profound discussion with special guest Professor Daniel McNeil, delving into the nuanced themes of his seminal work, 'Thinking While Black.' This conversation transcends the ordinary and navigates the complex waters of the Black Atlantic, touching upon its historical, cultural, and philosophical underpinnings.

The groundwork for this enlightening dialogue was laid in the thought-provoking 3-part series, 'The Soul Rebel Generation,' which is available on various platforms including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Throughout this series, Mez & Aharon wrestled with the rich and deep meanings laden in 'Thinking While Black,' setting the stage for this episode's deep and immersive conversation.

Mez, Aharon, and Professor Daniel McNeil explore the depths of Black Canadian expressive cultures, seeking out the authentic and transformative experiences that lie beyond the confines of institutionalized multicultural events like Caribana. Professor McNeil's profound insights shed light on Canada's cultural landscape, offering a perspective that transcends the conventional narratives.

The conversation also touches upon the imperative of carrying forward the cultural legacy of previous generations, translating their political struggles into contemporary contexts and building upon their foundations of freedom fighting. Lastly, we hope this discussion leaves you with a renewed perspective on Black Atlantic cultural productions, politics and histories.

And yes, Professor Daniel McNeil does know Canada better than Canadians!

Produced by Soker.

Music provided by TrethWest.

We have been living through the throes of a Love Apocalypse since 1986, when Zapp & Roger released Computer Love, and 1995 when the first online dating site was created.

In this episode of NO GPS After Sunset Aharon talks about catching the lovebug via social media and online dating sites. Catching a lovebug that brings on cravings to ghost and troll one's love interests. Strategies on how to de-bug-ify and battle the Love Apocalypse are discussed in depth. 

We’ve got special performances from Aharon & the Love Savers, our resident poet A. Love and the Love Anthropologist himself, Professor Jemer.

Lastly, We never thought we would go from checking for tender-rooni’s to tinder-rooni’s! We went from being stood up on blind date’s to getting catfished for a year (sorry, Manti Te’O). People can’t even tell the difference between Valentine’s Day and Halloween anymore because they’ve been ghosted so many times! 

Enjoy this episode of NO GPS After Sunset. And remember never to forget Love, even when it is absent. 

Produced by Soker.

Music provided by TrethWest.

The John Hughes produced 1990 film Home Alone is a Christmas Holiday classic. A staple in the holiday film diet of millions of people, maybe even billions. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the film is not simply a feel-good spectacle meant for the anchor spot in Christmas movie marathons. I think it speaks to our present life situation in very interesting and revelatory ways.

But why is it such an apt expression of our current plight of loneliness in this age of hyperconnectivity? Why is it the perfect analog for our times? 

In this episode I describe why...you filthy animals. And oh yeah, Happy Holidays from us at Soker!

Produced by Soker.

Music provided by TrethWest.

In this inaugural episode of NO GPS After Sunset Aharon is going in on our new Techno Feudal Lords. He figures out, in episode 1 (the gall of this guy!), that the meaning of life is to find meaning in life - in his usual roundabout way.

A Podcast related article to read is: https://open.substack.com/pub/soker/p/re-post-around-the-world-in-a-day?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=17h7cm

Show produced by Matt J.