ja rule (hype, y'all)

I didn't want to keep refering to Gramsci throughout but the whole thing really stems from his concept, and in particular a reading of him done in the New Left Review by Perry Anderson a few months ago.

The common sense stuff in particular but other points as well.

I guess I'd either have to keep refering to him throughout or otherwise leave it to people who know him to get the connections (which is how it ended up).

(On DMX I guess I just threw him out as too much work to address but also I have next to nothing to say about him even though I like his album quite a bit & the "emo" thing seems a much more tenuous connection to pac than Nas or Ja Rule have)

When I saw that, I thought of turning the television off. Philly's sub-par play confirmed that I should have.

nas is on the consiousness ------- bling continuum and tormented about it.

now of course gangsta---->bling is the dynamic over the past coupla years so translate and there you go. the big difference as i see it is that nas came all "conscious" first and pac went the other way round so the thug/bling lifestyle is the ATTRACTIVE force to nas while pac's dynamic was motivated by his REPULSION from it while getting enmeshed in it.

so listening to pac is about a guy climbing, impossibly, out of the ditch life's thrown him into. listening to nas is about a spoiled kid crashing his car while on coke -- the drama just isn't there.

pac didn't really rep "thug life" nonstop until he was released from prison. certainly he was conflicted about it, as was biggie (i.e., "suicidal thoughts"), as is nas.

and from what i've heard (and i'm not nas' biographer) but nas had a similarly shady past. and the consciousness to bling continuum you speak of is tenuous at best. illmatic and a lot of nas' earlier work had parts that were very much hardcore gangsta (listen to his verses on the first mobb deep), and even when he did get really blingy, he continued to rep conscious lyricism (as evidenced on the lost tapes), even if he didn't always release them.

but i did agree with the parts in yr article about ja, and found it to be a pretty fascinating analysis.

bling is the dynamic, but grease is still the word.

Sterling, on how many Nas or Tupac albums are you basing this difference? Cuz neither artist seems like they've been that consistent thematically as you're making them sound.

nas' succession to pac is much more overt and simply onna "thug with a heart of gold" tip -- which is part of the gag actually, that nas isn't recapitulating pac's career so much as "trying it on" like a suit or something.

and oh yes i am basing this on "NY State Of Mind" by Nas and "California Love" by 2pac and NOTHING ELSE.

i also really can't see a succession from pac to nas. nas was a legend even before he released illmatic (he was already anointed the next rakim when that album dropped) - when people were just beginning to view pac as something more than a backup singer in digital underground. nas wasn't trying on pac's persona, although he has tried on various masks during the course of his career.

the evolution you speak of is far more muddled than you make it out to be for either artist.

i guess as a hypothetical it's interesting though.