Das Racist – Fake Patois Production by Charles & Beck

Das Racist – Bezerker Production by Harrison Schaaf

Das Racist MySpace
By now, nearly everyone with an Internet connection has heard “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” by Das Racist. A song that has done two things; brought wide recognition to Himanshu and Victor Vazquez ‘s project, but it’s also potentially cursed them to the same cut-out bin of novelty rap reserved for Young MC and Digital Underground rather unfairly.

At the Webster Hall show a few weeks ago, I picked up a tour CDR created for people who wanted immediate access to the music that wasn’t available anywhere else. I was asked if I wrote for any press when I bought it, or if it was just for fun. I didn’t really know how to answer, so I copped out and said “fun press” which I guess was my way of trying to be cute and say “revivalist amateur journalism but with a modern technological bent” aka “I blog on a blog so unread my mom doesn’t read it.”

The CD, labeled “Shut Up, Dude” is a CDR sporting a label designed around a generic press photo and generic, colored word art. It contains no track listing and was not recognized by ITunes when I went to rip it, necessitating the manual entering of names; pulling some from the MySpace page, a few from other blogs, and a few I just guessed, the rest were thankfully provided by DR upon request.

Shut Up, Dude is a limited edition tour CD of approximately 20 units with a random track selection and placement, meant to bridge a gap between the popularity of “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” and the proper album expected in 2010. The production values make it appear to be something hastily assembled to sell at the rash of shows that sprung up in the wake of being an Internet sensation. Many of the songs will be on the full album, so consider this a bit of teaser, or fake mix tape.

I’ve spoken before briefly on the danger of dismissing DR based on “Chicken and Meat” and “Combination” and other writers have gone into the meta-commentary on rapping and the riffs off of structure and genre expectation, so I’m going to dispense with any of the hand wringing, “but you don’t understand, this is really deep.” My own hip-hop vocabulary is really limited to the classic era and then a brief run of late 90s hip-hop to now. I essentially wrote off the genre once The Chronic was released and fucked it all up. With that in mind, there was a bit of angst in writing this review.

I fear there is a great deal of references on this compilation that I didn’t get, and there is also a danger with going into this album and reading too deeply into juxtapositions. Himanshu and Victor are highly intelligent and well versed on a variety of both high and low culture and this is displayed in their craft and songwriting. There are a variety of topics and references but a few thematic elements remain throughout the tracks that made it to this CD. One of these constant themes is strong current of anger at a culture of ignorance, but hidden behind jokey references; Hip-Hop political cartoons.

Songs like “Bezerker” make this very obvious. With a stripped down electro house track taken from Haarison Schaaf’s “Los Angeles”, Das Racist intercut tales of civilian woe in American occupied territory with the lyrics to the Doobie Brother’s “Black Water,” whose namesake PMC’s famous exploits are referenced. The track is, I think, brilliant and provides a unique commentary on the Wars, focusing less on the aspect of American Soldiers in needless danger and more on the collateral issues which affect the occupied civilian populace, such as displacement, imprisonment and torture, and loss of life while also playing off official and media complacency against actual events. Then the track goes as far as to subtly mock Andrew Klavan’s Wall Street Journal Essay “What Bush and Batman Have in Common” by just reciting the actors who’ve recently played the part of Batman. The track ends with the listing of “Rogue” and “Failed” states that gives way to them chanting “U.S.A.” It is probably my favorite song on the album and while it feels perhaps a year late in content to be really revolutionary, this is still a very strong track, and I’m happy that they were able to make it available to share.

It’s not all heady sociopolitical radical media theory; there are also songs referencing smoking weed with Maya Angelou and then having sex with her bubble butt, but even that can’t escape the intentional semi-occult political minefield DR create as that track is called “Hugo Chavez” who isn’t even referenced, but W.E.B. Dubois, Chris Rock and John Philip Sousa are. This song along with “(The Boys Are) Back in Town”, “Chicken and Meat” and even “Combination” take on a lot of what would on other albums perhaps be the standard wordplay showcases that are typically braggadocio exercises.  Here they are tempered with a surreal edge more reminiscent of Kool Keith at his most lucid, which makes writing about their songs seriously rather difficult. “We aren’t taking this seriously, so why the hell are you?”

One of my strong dislikes in hip-hop is the whole “I’m ruff and I’m tuff and I’ll huff and I’ll puff” male ego bullshit. “I’m the best, I’m the best” always sounds insecure, and comes across you spent a day writing up your self-help validation then demanded a record contract.  There are millions of rappers with a million different life experiences, so why is the audience forced to endure this display? There’s obviously an market for it. I am not that market and tend to skip over those artists whose primary form of expression are these songs. Thankfully, Das Racist avoids a lot of this, except for a veneer of this on “(Ass Balls Face) Outer Space” but beyond the children’s playground chant chorus, it’s really just another example of the surreal interdisciplinary word play making up most of the album.

Few of the songs are “about” anything and rather just use terms to inspire and riff off on utilizing an instinctual word association. Between this and the few political songs, the structure and content don’t vary much, which is kind of a disappointment. With unique life stories, there comes unique opportunities for expression, yet there is little made of Victor or Himanshu’s history. I’ve read a bit about their past in interviews, how they met, why hip-hop, why this form and content, but it doesn’t make it to the songs themselves. Yet this is a problematic view because it’s the pushing of my own expectations and desires onto what they’re doing, and how they’re obviously comfortable doing it with each other (pause).

Shut Up, Dude is $10 and you can pick it up wherever they’re performing as Das Racist.