Villains wear black, but so do blacks: Some good old-fashioned, nut-shrinking criticism
First, a bit about a black artist we should be hunting down in the streets like a rabid dog who’s already bitten five children and has a sixth in his drooling maw, then a bit about a black artist who should be richer than Oprah but isn’t because literacy is overrated when balanced against the national publishing diet.
(The first part is dedicated to Kalamazoo’s Dan McCartney, who, being a fan of folk and country music forms, asked in the comment section of his journal entry about attending a Hank Williams III concert, “Who’s Cowboy Troy?” The second is for anyone who doesn’t know what the words “Triple Crown Publishing” mean.)
The scoundrel: Cowboy Troy
There’s a guy you know - probably a younger guy, but not necessarily - that finds stupid things funny. In my life, this role is played by a guy I work with whom we shall call Frank (because that is his name and I want him branded as being responsible for this particular pile of damage). The dumber a thing is, the funnier it is to Frank…and the more you should see it and experience its inherent idiocy-cum-humor as he does.
Frank’s burned me once or twice. His choices are not always bad. We have spent many a five minute-blocks of time on the merits of a new Neil Gaiman book or a particularly stunning run on Hellblazer. So the issue isn’t that his opinions should be set aside wholesale; the kid knows an unarguably good book when he sees one.
Yet more than once Frank has suggested something to me without clarifying that the item in question was “one of those,” one of the Bad Ones. And while he’s occasionally upped the ante - perhaps “lowered” is be a better word - to include things that have made my eyeballs bleed or caused tiny trails of white smoke puff out of my ears as my auditory canals collapsed in on themselves, passing on Cowboy Troy’s debut album Loco Motive was, simply put, unforgivable.
If you aren’t into country music you may not have heard of Cowboy Troy, but that’s hardly surprising since the country music industry is almost a world unto itself. C&W (Country & Western) music can be a tough nut to crack if you just coast on the regular spots on your radio dial, and there’s a reason why it’s the butt of every other kind of music-lovers’ jokes: it’s considered by most people to be music for dumb people. So unless you’re into the music, are genuinely simple, or just can’t pick up anything else in your car while hitting 70 through Indiana, you may not come into contact with country music much. So you may not have heard of Dallas native Troy Coleman, AKA Cowboy Troy.
Rest assured, your ignorance is not due to a lack of sales on Cowboy Troy’s part: during the course of 2005 the album peaked at 15 in Billboard’s Top 200 cart, at #2 on their Top Country Album chart, and at #13 on their top Rap Albums chart (though I am sure this last figure is more attributable to Billboard’s broad definition of rap music than it is to the typical rap-buying audience’s interest in Cowboy Troy’s music. Nobody in Compton or the Bronx ever heard of Cowboy Troy either). Cowboy Troy is very big by any industry standard…and it shatters my heart every time I think about it.
I hate Cowboy Troy. His is one of few talents - and I use that word broadly - which, if I had occasion to meet on the street, would not only tell him to his face how much I despise his work, but would further underscore by yanking his belt by its enormously large buckle from his pants and commence to beating him in and about the head area with until dead. I would gladly go to trial for the murder of Cowboy Troy. I would describe in intricate detail the number of times I imprinted his skull with the belt buckle and plead guilty with a smile. I would walk with my head held high into the arms of constables and down the halls of our worst prisons, beaming with pride at the experience of having rid the world of Cowboy Troy’s villainous existence.
You think I’m fucking with you? I am not fucking with you.
Some truths:
Bad music is everywhere. There is more bad music than there is good music. This has always been the drama, and it shall always be the drama. But Cowboy Troy is guilty of more than bad music. He is guilty of music that is so utterly banal, whose inanity challenges the very notions of art to such a degree, that the exercise borders on offense.
And that, at the heart of the matter, is my problem: that the success of Cowboy Troy isn’t because the so-called music is art to SOMEONE (despite what you may think of Keith Sweat’s singing ability, lots of people like the music), but because it had been so obviously manufactured to lull people into supporting the work almost seemingly by remote control. Cowboy Troy is loaded from brim to Timbs with gimmick, from the rooter to the tooter. He spent years on the local Dallas music scene trying to sell his self-proclaimed genre, “hick-hop”, but I don’t think it mere coincidence that only with the broadening reach of country music into video and traditionally selectively-broadcast outlets to wider, non-country music audiences that a place has been found for his shtick.
He’s 6 foot 5, black, used to work in a Foot Locker (sorry: managed a Foot Locker), and sites as influences country stars Jerry Reed and Charlie Daniels alongside rappers Run DMC and Sir Mix-a-Lot (remember this part; it will come in handy later). His appearance at the 2004 Country Music Association Awards with Big & Rich made Troy the second black artist to take the stage at the show, the first being Charley Pride 38 years earlier.
That last fact alone should bring a tear to your eye because, my friends, Cowboy Troy is no Charley-fucking-Pride and after almost 40 years of having no black folks on the stage at these awards, this is the one they thought they had to break the barrier for.
Let us start at the scene of the crime: his music (or, as he would have you spell it, his “muzik”). The music is horrible, period. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I played the CD, but the mix of over-produced, blaring country hoe-down with the MC Hammer-esque delivery of the “lyrics” nearly sent my car veering into oncoming traffic in an attempt to escape the horror crawling out of my speakers. The lyrics are half-assed attempts at catering to the worst stereotypes of country music lovers, and Troy takes a mad scientist’s relish in infusing tired hip-hop clichés in an attempt to be original. Unfortunately, these gross attempts at “originality” just come off as examples of the worst of both genres.
To wit, a sample of lyrical fury from Cowboy Troy’s leading single, “I Play Chicken With The Train” (which features Big & Rich, his long-time buddies and the producers of his album):
Hold 'em up! Here we go!
All the hicks and chicks feel the flow
Big black train comin 'round the bend
Gwone kinfolk tell ya mamanem
Chug-a-lugga, chug-a-lugga, chug-a-lugga who?
The big blackneck comin' through to you
Boy you done fell and bumped your head
Uh huh that's what they said
People said it's impossible,
Not probable, too radical
But I already been on the CMA's
Hell Tim McGraw said he like the change
And he likes the way my hick-hop sounds
And the way the crowd screams when I stomp the ground
I'm big and black, clickety-clack
And I make the train jump the track like that
And, because I am upon occasion a prick, here’s the second verse to this musical haymaker for your viewing pleasure:
From mic to cassette deep into your ear
My voice is your choice that you wanted to hear
Southern boy makin' noise where the buffalo roam
Flesh, denim and bone as you might have known
See me ridin' into town like a desperado
With a big belt buckle, the cowboy bravado
All over the world wide web you'll see
Download CBT on an mp3
Speak clearly what I'm sayin' so you'll comprehend
Hit the net for hick-hop radio, tune in
Rollin' like thunder on the scene
It's kinda hard to describe if you know what I mean
I never claimed to be the hardest of the roughest hard rocks
But I'm boomin' out yo' box
Skills got you jumpin' outch'a socks
From Texas here I come, movin' yo body with a bass kick drum!
Rarely has a “new genre of music” seemed so co-opted by industry influence so soon.
How about the bridge from “Crick in Your Neck”, Troy’s attempt at starting a new dance?
You're hanging on my words like a life preserver
My rhyme is your table and I'll be your server
Paid attention to the song like a record exec
Bobbed your head up and down and got a crick in your neck!
...at which point I take it we are all to jitter with the affectations of the zombies in Michael Jackson’s Thriller video, more or less, I suppose.
I believe in my heart of hearts that Warner Brothers Nashville - Troy’s label - must employ a great number of snipers. This is the motive I have resolved myself to believing must exist for generally even-handed companies like Billboard and Amazon to describe Troy’s music as “rousing” and describe his lyrics as raps that “bring down-home humor to uptown rhyming.” One expects his biography to be loaded with this type of ass-wiping; it’s an attempt to sell you records based on the image of cowboy rap that isn’t either. The Rappin’ Duke? Now THAT was cowboy rap, a fusion of country sensibility and hip-hop flavor.
What’s that? You don’t remember the Rappin’ Duke? The one-hit wonder from 1985, with the faceless cowboy in the video doing the moonwalk in the desert? Come on, you remember (and I challenge those of you who know the song to read it and not sing it)...
So you think you're bad, with your rap
Well I'll tell ya pilgrim I started the crap
When you were in diapers and wetting the sheets
I was at the Ponderosa rapping to the beat
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Sure I rustled some cattle and tended the sheep
But my main concern was rapping to the beat
I don't bother nobody I'm a real nice guy, kinda
laid back like a, dead fly
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
I'm talkin, here and now
Later for the cattle and rustlin the cow
If I had a chance to do a repeat
You can bet your sweet dippy I'd be rappin to the beat
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Que pasa amigos? Not a *pasa* I see
Two hundred punks well what ya gonna do?
I got two six shooters that'll see me through
That's, twelve dead...
and a hundred and eighty-eight pallbearers
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
What I do on your grave won't pass for flowers either
Now Kurtis Blow, Run-D.M.C.
You haven't heard of rap, til ya heard it from me
I'm the baddest rapper in history
And there'll be no more, after me
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Meanwhile, back at the ranch
Santa Barbera that is
Swimmin pools, and movie stars
Well the first thing ya know ol' Ron's the President
The kinfolk said, "Ron move away from there"
Said, "In The White House is where you wanna be"
So he loaded up the Lincoln and he moved to D.C.
Washington, that is
Politicians taking a sip
Foreign dignitaries taking a trip
High tax and plenty Cadillacs
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Now ya see me in my movies, doin my thing
But deep in my heart, I've wanted to sing
"Wayyyy dowwwn, upon the swannnny riverrrrrr
Farrrr, farrr awayyy
Titwillow, titwillow, titwillow"
I don't think, that's your style
But I'll tell ya pilgrim, I'm versatile
Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin let me rock ya let me rock ya Aretha Franklin
Let me rock ya Aretha Franklin that's all I wanna do
Aretha Franklinnnnnn
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
I'm feeelin the groove now pilgrim
Party, over here
Party, over there
There's nothin to it, the way we do it
Woop woop!
East coast, West coast
Texas
Every time I put on pants
I tell ya pilgrim I wanna dance
I put a quarter, in the juke'
Then I commence, to doin the Duke
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
It's pretty easy, if you can see
Just move your arms kinda freely
Do a pause, and take a step
And just make sure the beat is kept
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
I was at the Ponderosa rappin to the beat
Tryin to cool off from the desert heat
I discovered somethin, really neat
The Duke has moves, with his feet
Da haahh... da haahh
Da haahh... da haahh
I won plenty of ladies, with my charms
But they like me the most for the moves of my arms
Woahhh... woahhh
I'm gonna rap, in the East
Gonna rap, in the West
I'll show ya pilgrim, who's the best
Nothin to it, the way we do it
Skiddely-be-bop, we-bop, Scooby Doo
Guess what America we love you
Da hahhhh, da hahhhh, da hahhhh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
(Extra credit if you can figure out the two 80s music references in this song.)
But back to Troy: even his initials as used on his website are wrong: CBT. A three-lettered name implies that you are offering clues to the first letters of three separate names: a first, a middle, and surname. Not for Troy: CBT simply means Cowboy Troy. Not Cowboy Bilbo Troy, not Cowboy Brian Troy, nothing like that. It’s just flat-out wrong. Of course, if you look at the letters as more of a product acronym, then it makes more sense. It’s special branding, and how appropriate is that for as fine a specimen of corporate cowboy fuck-all as Cowboy Troy? He is a corporate-manufactured entity masquerading as art. Brand away.
And the situation is worsening: Cowboy Troy is quietly spreading through popular culture like a virus. He’s appearing in celebrity poker tournaments, hosting award shows, appearing in the background on television shows…WBN is pushing very hard to make us want him. I don’t know if I’ve seen this undeserving a push from the corporate music machine since Alicia Keys came out.
In the end, it is the insult to the intelligence of my neighbor that I abhor (my intelligence remains intact, obviously). To spin out a talent-less hack like Cowboy Troy into the mind of the world while hundreds of artists of extreme merit go unsung is criminal. Half the money spent launching Cowboy Troy’s career could have been the collective budget for a string of records from artists like Meshell NdegeOcello or Frank McComb or Julie Dexter or Dwele.
Enjoy the new hick-hop.
Onward.
The hero: Percival Everett
At sixteen books, Percival Everett is one of the most prolific black writers still working today, and certainly the one most deserving of wider recognition. In 2004 alone he released two novels and a collection of short stories. That almost no one who trolls the shelves at your local Barnes & Noble ever heard of him is not only a shame, but unsurprising. By popular marketing philosophies, his work is unmarketable. He is just as likely to deliver to your doorstep a western as he is an epistolary satire about Strom Thurmond; as likely to write 200 pages about horse rearing as he is about infant genius. Many of his characters - and his all-important protagonists for the most part - are generally non-characteristic in regards to their ethnicity ; a severe no-no in contemporary black fiction (because black people only want to read about other black people, you know). To the average publisher, he probably seems cursed with too many voices, too many talents, and - and this is why I love Everett, this man I do not know and one of only possibly three authors I have ever written a gushing fan letter to - he doesn’t seem to care if you don’t get him.
An observation to get the ball rolling: Everett is black, but his books aren’t. The question such a gross statement begs, of course, is “what makes a book black?” For the purposes of this conversation, let us allow the gatekeepers of modern literature - the publishers - to define it. Letting them do it will be more fun than attempting to tackle the real truth, which is of course the same answer that I would give, but not for the same reason.
To publishers, a black book is anything written by a black author. Their reason for deciding as much isn’t really based on sociology or a studied interest in ethnic concerns or protracted debates on the state of race relations. It’s based on money, and on an assumption on what certain types of people will spend money on. And while the statistics of who buys what doesn’t exactly detract from their position, it is still obvious by where certain types of books end up that when it comes to non-white, non-straight, non-stock authors, they don’t know anymore about how to handle this stuff than a guy who paints doghouses for a living.
And that’s why I love Everett: because he proves that publishers aren’t gods.
Everett’s latest book, Wounded, excited me, though more out of an eagerness to see the Author vs. Expectations of Author-battle once more - “Here he goes again, pulling out the rug” - than for the story itself. It is not my favorite Everett book, not even my second favorite (that would be Erasure and Glyph respectively) but it’s solid and does what Everett does best, intentionally or otherwise: messes with popular notions of what black folks can do with art.
It is the rare novel that I can finish in two days. I generally work all day, focus on home obligations at night, and I fall asleep too easily. Somewhere in there I find the time to write long poems and do featured readings. That I picked Everett’s new book up without a plan to spend scads of time with it and finished it in approximately three bathroom sittings, two lunch hours and one night on my way to sleep while propped up in bed is probably a personal record, but more importantly, a testimony. By simply being, Everett engages me near as much as his writing. I cannot wait to see how unique his stories will be, in what ways they will poke at the bubbles of the publishing world. I could only be more filled with this juvenile sense of “Fight! Fight!” if he messed around and sold a million copies or got picked up for a movie option (though Suder came close once). I like a good fight as much as anyone else sitting at the bar.
By itself, Wounded is a western, and it’s a steady read; doesn’t break the mold, doesn’t fade into the background. The odd thing is that book jacket makes particular note of the protagonist’s ethnicity. Horse trainer John Hunt is black, though you don’t get this information until you’re one-fourth of the way into the book. As soon as I catch that Everett’s snuck it into the story, I instantly regret that the publisher saw fit to inform me of this before I even began reading the book. Its introduction is sly: it doesn’t come up until someone in the story points it out, and only in the interest of advancing the plot.
At the same time, the publisher’s trick worked. As a fan of Everett’s, I was intrigued that the jacket would mention the ethnicity of the character unless it was Erasure-important to the story. He just doesn’t do that. I mean, it isn’t like the story hinges on race, even after you realize what John Hunt is. By the end of the novel, Hunt could have been just about anything and the story could have been only mildly tweaked to arrive at the same ending. Something was stolen from me and I didn’t realize it until it was given back to me.
In the scheme of things, this crime is minute. It’s the sort of thing Harlan Ellison might have picketed the front of Graywolf Press about for a few hours, but it’s forgivable for just about anybody else. What the situation does bring to mind is where a book like this belongs, if a category is necessary, and if so, why.
By current publishing trends, this book belongs in the Black Stacks. The copy I picked up at the local library has a red, black and green AFRICAN AMERICAN sticker on the spine, as do all of their copies of his books. I can’t help but wonder what will go through the mind of the typical book club maven, looking to find next month’s selection and happening on one of Everett’s tomes. Erasure is about as close as Everett gets to what predominates the shelves to the left and right of his books, and even that is a scathing satire of the very type of work that one typically finds in such displays. Wounded would better engage the average L’Amour or McMurtry fan than it would the average Mosley or McMillan fan. Even if your interest as a publisher were solely profit, you’d sell more copies of this in the Western section than you would the African-American section (unless, of course, you were willing to put black models on the cover like UPNE and Hyperion did for Erasure, hardcover and paperback respectively). Everett doesn’t even register on the list of black authors at Amazon.com, though I did find a link for Wounded from the Western novels page with no trouble at all. Even Octavia Butler is on the black authors page, and she’s so science fiction she’s practically Vulcan.
Everett seems to effortlessly wind through the publishing malaise that saddles authors with their identities before their abilities. Here’s hoping he finds the rewards that are due that kind of courage.
(The first part is dedicated to Kalamazoo’s Dan McCartney, who, being a fan of folk and country music forms, asked in the comment section of his journal entry about attending a Hank Williams III concert, “Who’s Cowboy Troy?” The second is for anyone who doesn’t know what the words “Triple Crown Publishing” mean.)
The scoundrel: Cowboy Troy
There’s a guy you know - probably a younger guy, but not necessarily - that finds stupid things funny. In my life, this role is played by a guy I work with whom we shall call Frank (because that is his name and I want him branded as being responsible for this particular pile of damage). The dumber a thing is, the funnier it is to Frank…and the more you should see it and experience its inherent idiocy-cum-humor as he does.
Frank’s burned me once or twice. His choices are not always bad. We have spent many a five minute-blocks of time on the merits of a new Neil Gaiman book or a particularly stunning run on Hellblazer. So the issue isn’t that his opinions should be set aside wholesale; the kid knows an unarguably good book when he sees one.
Yet more than once Frank has suggested something to me without clarifying that the item in question was “one of those,” one of the Bad Ones. And while he’s occasionally upped the ante - perhaps “lowered” is be a better word - to include things that have made my eyeballs bleed or caused tiny trails of white smoke puff out of my ears as my auditory canals collapsed in on themselves, passing on Cowboy Troy’s debut album Loco Motive was, simply put, unforgivable.
If you aren’t into country music you may not have heard of Cowboy Troy, but that’s hardly surprising since the country music industry is almost a world unto itself. C&W (Country & Western) music can be a tough nut to crack if you just coast on the regular spots on your radio dial, and there’s a reason why it’s the butt of every other kind of music-lovers’ jokes: it’s considered by most people to be music for dumb people. So unless you’re into the music, are genuinely simple, or just can’t pick up anything else in your car while hitting 70 through Indiana, you may not come into contact with country music much. So you may not have heard of Dallas native Troy Coleman, AKA Cowboy Troy.
Rest assured, your ignorance is not due to a lack of sales on Cowboy Troy’s part: during the course of 2005 the album peaked at 15 in Billboard’s Top 200 cart, at #2 on their Top Country Album chart, and at #13 on their top Rap Albums chart (though I am sure this last figure is more attributable to Billboard’s broad definition of rap music than it is to the typical rap-buying audience’s interest in Cowboy Troy’s music. Nobody in Compton or the Bronx ever heard of Cowboy Troy either). Cowboy Troy is very big by any industry standard…and it shatters my heart every time I think about it.
I hate Cowboy Troy. His is one of few talents - and I use that word broadly - which, if I had occasion to meet on the street, would not only tell him to his face how much I despise his work, but would further underscore by yanking his belt by its enormously large buckle from his pants and commence to beating him in and about the head area with until dead. I would gladly go to trial for the murder of Cowboy Troy. I would describe in intricate detail the number of times I imprinted his skull with the belt buckle and plead guilty with a smile. I would walk with my head held high into the arms of constables and down the halls of our worst prisons, beaming with pride at the experience of having rid the world of Cowboy Troy’s villainous existence.
You think I’m fucking with you? I am not fucking with you.
Some truths:
Bad music is everywhere. There is more bad music than there is good music. This has always been the drama, and it shall always be the drama. But Cowboy Troy is guilty of more than bad music. He is guilty of music that is so utterly banal, whose inanity challenges the very notions of art to such a degree, that the exercise borders on offense.
And that, at the heart of the matter, is my problem: that the success of Cowboy Troy isn’t because the so-called music is art to SOMEONE (despite what you may think of Keith Sweat’s singing ability, lots of people like the music), but because it had been so obviously manufactured to lull people into supporting the work almost seemingly by remote control. Cowboy Troy is loaded from brim to Timbs with gimmick, from the rooter to the tooter. He spent years on the local Dallas music scene trying to sell his self-proclaimed genre, “hick-hop”, but I don’t think it mere coincidence that only with the broadening reach of country music into video and traditionally selectively-broadcast outlets to wider, non-country music audiences that a place has been found for his shtick.
He’s 6 foot 5, black, used to work in a Foot Locker (sorry: managed a Foot Locker), and sites as influences country stars Jerry Reed and Charlie Daniels alongside rappers Run DMC and Sir Mix-a-Lot (remember this part; it will come in handy later). His appearance at the 2004 Country Music Association Awards with Big & Rich made Troy the second black artist to take the stage at the show, the first being Charley Pride 38 years earlier.
That last fact alone should bring a tear to your eye because, my friends, Cowboy Troy is no Charley-fucking-Pride and after almost 40 years of having no black folks on the stage at these awards, this is the one they thought they had to break the barrier for.
Let us start at the scene of the crime: his music (or, as he would have you spell it, his “muzik”). The music is horrible, period. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I played the CD, but the mix of over-produced, blaring country hoe-down with the MC Hammer-esque delivery of the “lyrics” nearly sent my car veering into oncoming traffic in an attempt to escape the horror crawling out of my speakers. The lyrics are half-assed attempts at catering to the worst stereotypes of country music lovers, and Troy takes a mad scientist’s relish in infusing tired hip-hop clichés in an attempt to be original. Unfortunately, these gross attempts at “originality” just come off as examples of the worst of both genres.
To wit, a sample of lyrical fury from Cowboy Troy’s leading single, “I Play Chicken With The Train” (which features Big & Rich, his long-time buddies and the producers of his album):
Hold 'em up! Here we go!
All the hicks and chicks feel the flow
Big black train comin 'round the bend
Gwone kinfolk tell ya mamanem
Chug-a-lugga, chug-a-lugga, chug-a-lugga who?
The big blackneck comin' through to you
Boy you done fell and bumped your head
Uh huh that's what they said
People said it's impossible,
Not probable, too radical
But I already been on the CMA's
Hell Tim McGraw said he like the change
And he likes the way my hick-hop sounds
And the way the crowd screams when I stomp the ground
I'm big and black, clickety-clack
And I make the train jump the track like that
And, because I am upon occasion a prick, here’s the second verse to this musical haymaker for your viewing pleasure:
From mic to cassette deep into your ear
My voice is your choice that you wanted to hear
Southern boy makin' noise where the buffalo roam
Flesh, denim and bone as you might have known
See me ridin' into town like a desperado
With a big belt buckle, the cowboy bravado
All over the world wide web you'll see
Download CBT on an mp3
Speak clearly what I'm sayin' so you'll comprehend
Hit the net for hick-hop radio, tune in
Rollin' like thunder on the scene
It's kinda hard to describe if you know what I mean
I never claimed to be the hardest of the roughest hard rocks
But I'm boomin' out yo' box
Skills got you jumpin' outch'a socks
From Texas here I come, movin' yo body with a bass kick drum!
Rarely has a “new genre of music” seemed so co-opted by industry influence so soon.
How about the bridge from “Crick in Your Neck”, Troy’s attempt at starting a new dance?
You're hanging on my words like a life preserver
My rhyme is your table and I'll be your server
Paid attention to the song like a record exec
Bobbed your head up and down and got a crick in your neck!
...at which point I take it we are all to jitter with the affectations of the zombies in Michael Jackson’s Thriller video, more or less, I suppose.
I believe in my heart of hearts that Warner Brothers Nashville - Troy’s label - must employ a great number of snipers. This is the motive I have resolved myself to believing must exist for generally even-handed companies like Billboard and Amazon to describe Troy’s music as “rousing” and describe his lyrics as raps that “bring down-home humor to uptown rhyming.” One expects his biography to be loaded with this type of ass-wiping; it’s an attempt to sell you records based on the image of cowboy rap that isn’t either. The Rappin’ Duke? Now THAT was cowboy rap, a fusion of country sensibility and hip-hop flavor.
What’s that? You don’t remember the Rappin’ Duke? The one-hit wonder from 1985, with the faceless cowboy in the video doing the moonwalk in the desert? Come on, you remember (and I challenge those of you who know the song to read it and not sing it)...
So you think you're bad, with your rap
Well I'll tell ya pilgrim I started the crap
When you were in diapers and wetting the sheets
I was at the Ponderosa rapping to the beat
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Sure I rustled some cattle and tended the sheep
But my main concern was rapping to the beat
I don't bother nobody I'm a real nice guy, kinda
laid back like a, dead fly
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
I'm talkin, here and now
Later for the cattle and rustlin the cow
If I had a chance to do a repeat
You can bet your sweet dippy I'd be rappin to the beat
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Que pasa amigos? Not a *pasa* I see
Two hundred punks well what ya gonna do?
I got two six shooters that'll see me through
That's, twelve dead...
and a hundred and eighty-eight pallbearers
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
What I do on your grave won't pass for flowers either
Now Kurtis Blow, Run-D.M.C.
You haven't heard of rap, til ya heard it from me
I'm the baddest rapper in history
And there'll be no more, after me
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Meanwhile, back at the ranch
Santa Barbera that is
Swimmin pools, and movie stars
Well the first thing ya know ol' Ron's the President
The kinfolk said, "Ron move away from there"
Said, "In The White House is where you wanna be"
So he loaded up the Lincoln and he moved to D.C.
Washington, that is
Politicians taking a sip
Foreign dignitaries taking a trip
High tax and plenty Cadillacs
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Now ya see me in my movies, doin my thing
But deep in my heart, I've wanted to sing
"Wayyyy dowwwn, upon the swannnny riverrrrrr
Farrrr, farrr awayyy
Titwillow, titwillow, titwillow"
I don't think, that's your style
But I'll tell ya pilgrim, I'm versatile
Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin let me rock ya let me rock ya Aretha Franklin
Let me rock ya Aretha Franklin that's all I wanna do
Aretha Franklinnnnnn
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
I'm feeelin the groove now pilgrim
Party, over here
Party, over there
There's nothin to it, the way we do it
Woop woop!
East coast, West coast
Texas
Every time I put on pants
I tell ya pilgrim I wanna dance
I put a quarter, in the juke'
Then I commence, to doin the Duke
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
It's pretty easy, if you can see
Just move your arms kinda freely
Do a pause, and take a step
And just make sure the beat is kept
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
I was at the Ponderosa rappin to the beat
Tryin to cool off from the desert heat
I discovered somethin, really neat
The Duke has moves, with his feet
Da haahh... da haahh
Da haahh... da haahh
I won plenty of ladies, with my charms
But they like me the most for the moves of my arms
Woahhh... woahhh
I'm gonna rap, in the East
Gonna rap, in the West
I'll show ya pilgrim, who's the best
Nothin to it, the way we do it
Skiddely-be-bop, we-bop, Scooby Doo
Guess what America we love you
Da hahhhh, da hahhhh, da hahhhh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
Da haahh, da haahh
Da ha-hahh ha-hahh haahh
(Extra credit if you can figure out the two 80s music references in this song.)
But back to Troy: even his initials as used on his website are wrong: CBT. A three-lettered name implies that you are offering clues to the first letters of three separate names: a first, a middle, and surname. Not for Troy: CBT simply means Cowboy Troy. Not Cowboy Bilbo Troy, not Cowboy Brian Troy, nothing like that. It’s just flat-out wrong. Of course, if you look at the letters as more of a product acronym, then it makes more sense. It’s special branding, and how appropriate is that for as fine a specimen of corporate cowboy fuck-all as Cowboy Troy? He is a corporate-manufactured entity masquerading as art. Brand away.
And the situation is worsening: Cowboy Troy is quietly spreading through popular culture like a virus. He’s appearing in celebrity poker tournaments, hosting award shows, appearing in the background on television shows…WBN is pushing very hard to make us want him. I don’t know if I’ve seen this undeserving a push from the corporate music machine since Alicia Keys came out.
In the end, it is the insult to the intelligence of my neighbor that I abhor (my intelligence remains intact, obviously). To spin out a talent-less hack like Cowboy Troy into the mind of the world while hundreds of artists of extreme merit go unsung is criminal. Half the money spent launching Cowboy Troy’s career could have been the collective budget for a string of records from artists like Meshell NdegeOcello or Frank McComb or Julie Dexter or Dwele.
Enjoy the new hick-hop.
Onward.
The hero: Percival Everett
At sixteen books, Percival Everett is one of the most prolific black writers still working today, and certainly the one most deserving of wider recognition. In 2004 alone he released two novels and a collection of short stories. That almost no one who trolls the shelves at your local Barnes & Noble ever heard of him is not only a shame, but unsurprising. By popular marketing philosophies, his work is unmarketable. He is just as likely to deliver to your doorstep a western as he is an epistolary satire about Strom Thurmond; as likely to write 200 pages about horse rearing as he is about infant genius. Many of his characters - and his all-important protagonists for the most part - are generally non-characteristic in regards to their ethnicity ; a severe no-no in contemporary black fiction (because black people only want to read about other black people, you know). To the average publisher, he probably seems cursed with too many voices, too many talents, and - and this is why I love Everett, this man I do not know and one of only possibly three authors I have ever written a gushing fan letter to - he doesn’t seem to care if you don’t get him.
An observation to get the ball rolling: Everett is black, but his books aren’t. The question such a gross statement begs, of course, is “what makes a book black?” For the purposes of this conversation, let us allow the gatekeepers of modern literature - the publishers - to define it. Letting them do it will be more fun than attempting to tackle the real truth, which is of course the same answer that I would give, but not for the same reason.
To publishers, a black book is anything written by a black author. Their reason for deciding as much isn’t really based on sociology or a studied interest in ethnic concerns or protracted debates on the state of race relations. It’s based on money, and on an assumption on what certain types of people will spend money on. And while the statistics of who buys what doesn’t exactly detract from their position, it is still obvious by where certain types of books end up that when it comes to non-white, non-straight, non-stock authors, they don’t know anymore about how to handle this stuff than a guy who paints doghouses for a living.
And that’s why I love Everett: because he proves that publishers aren’t gods.
Everett’s latest book, Wounded, excited me, though more out of an eagerness to see the Author vs. Expectations of Author-battle once more - “Here he goes again, pulling out the rug” - than for the story itself. It is not my favorite Everett book, not even my second favorite (that would be Erasure and Glyph respectively) but it’s solid and does what Everett does best, intentionally or otherwise: messes with popular notions of what black folks can do with art.
It is the rare novel that I can finish in two days. I generally work all day, focus on home obligations at night, and I fall asleep too easily. Somewhere in there I find the time to write long poems and do featured readings. That I picked Everett’s new book up without a plan to spend scads of time with it and finished it in approximately three bathroom sittings, two lunch hours and one night on my way to sleep while propped up in bed is probably a personal record, but more importantly, a testimony. By simply being, Everett engages me near as much as his writing. I cannot wait to see how unique his stories will be, in what ways they will poke at the bubbles of the publishing world. I could only be more filled with this juvenile sense of “Fight! Fight!” if he messed around and sold a million copies or got picked up for a movie option (though Suder came close once). I like a good fight as much as anyone else sitting at the bar.
By itself, Wounded is a western, and it’s a steady read; doesn’t break the mold, doesn’t fade into the background. The odd thing is that book jacket makes particular note of the protagonist’s ethnicity. Horse trainer John Hunt is black, though you don’t get this information until you’re one-fourth of the way into the book. As soon as I catch that Everett’s snuck it into the story, I instantly regret that the publisher saw fit to inform me of this before I even began reading the book. Its introduction is sly: it doesn’t come up until someone in the story points it out, and only in the interest of advancing the plot.
At the same time, the publisher’s trick worked. As a fan of Everett’s, I was intrigued that the jacket would mention the ethnicity of the character unless it was Erasure-important to the story. He just doesn’t do that. I mean, it isn’t like the story hinges on race, even after you realize what John Hunt is. By the end of the novel, Hunt could have been just about anything and the story could have been only mildly tweaked to arrive at the same ending. Something was stolen from me and I didn’t realize it until it was given back to me.
In the scheme of things, this crime is minute. It’s the sort of thing Harlan Ellison might have picketed the front of Graywolf Press about for a few hours, but it’s forgivable for just about anybody else. What the situation does bring to mind is where a book like this belongs, if a category is necessary, and if so, why.
By current publishing trends, this book belongs in the Black Stacks. The copy I picked up at the local library has a red, black and green AFRICAN AMERICAN sticker on the spine, as do all of their copies of his books. I can’t help but wonder what will go through the mind of the typical book club maven, looking to find next month’s selection and happening on one of Everett’s tomes. Erasure is about as close as Everett gets to what predominates the shelves to the left and right of his books, and even that is a scathing satire of the very type of work that one typically finds in such displays. Wounded would better engage the average L’Amour or McMurtry fan than it would the average Mosley or McMillan fan. Even if your interest as a publisher were solely profit, you’d sell more copies of this in the Western section than you would the African-American section (unless, of course, you were willing to put black models on the cover like UPNE and Hyperion did for Erasure, hardcover and paperback respectively). Everett doesn’t even register on the list of black authors at Amazon.com, though I did find a link for Wounded from the Western novels page with no trouble at all. Even Octavia Butler is on the black authors page, and she’s so science fiction she’s practically Vulcan.
Everett seems to effortlessly wind through the publishing malaise that saddles authors with their identities before their abilities. Here’s hoping he finds the rewards that are due that kind of courage.