Word: mc
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...Voice strained from back-to-back concerts, KRS-1 outlines the basic elements of hip-hop, from DJ-ing (the study of technology), to MC-ing (the study of divine speech), to graffiti art (the study of light, color and dimension). Initially wary of these seemingly euphemistic definitions, I am gradually won over by the speaker's authenticity and enthusiasm. I learn the history of the turntable, how the first DJ was a certified electrician combing NYC junkyards for spare parts. I learn about beatboxing, the art of using one's body as an instrument...
...picture of the artist's origin both as an artist and (presumably) as a minority youth-at-risk. Now, no one admits this priority, but everyone expects it as they do from an anthropologist: all of hip-hop culture, condensed in the "real it," should come across in the MC's final product...
Instead of bowing before MTV's shiny-suit-ridden, treble-enhanced Jam of the Week, I pit myself against the MC I have yet to meet through lyrics saturated with wordplay and allusions and urban imagery and political consciousness. I pump my fist when a colleague on stage instructs me to, roam sidewalks with a perennially playing walkman, love few things more than a huddle of cats dropping science to beatboxes and split cheap cigars open while listening to my newly-purchased Roots album (by the way, buy it now, it's truly ridiculous...
Maybe I'm not poor enough to be an mc, since I never actually needed to sell crack, a la also slain Biggie Smalls. Or maybe I'm not imaginative enough to deliver "Ten Crack Commandments" despite my relatively comfortable upbringing...
Notwithstanding, in the words of everso-real Superthug N.O.R.E.: I don't care. I love rhymes, scratches and graffiti, and no one can make me feel otherwise. However, now when I pen a battle rhyme, I can't help but wonder: who is this MC, "real"-ly, against whom I'm writing...