Hey, you do not know me, however you do not like me,Say you care much less how I really feel.However what number of of you that sit and judged meEver walked the streets of Bakersfield?
The Streets of Bakersfield
Homer Pleasure
Sung by Buck Owens
Kendrick Lamar carried out on the Tremendous Bowl final evening, spewing rap lyrics I could not perceive. Kendrick’s efficiency was backed by a platoon of well-choreographed dancers–as disciplined as a Russian army unit.
What did Lamar’s Tremendous Bowl presentation imply, if something?
However what is going to at all times be remembered from this efficiency is just not the musical decisions Lamar made, or the aesthetics of his choreography, or the silhouettes of his outfit. What is going to stay is his grin when he lastly begins rapping that track. It was vast, persistent, nearly cartoonish in form.The grin of a person having the time of his life on the expense of an enemy.
Caramonica clued me into the that means of a few of Lamar’s lyrics; he was cryptically taunting one other rapper! Gee, I am glad I wasted a couple of minutes of my life watching that drivel.
Was Kendrick Lamar’s efficiency a cultural occasion? Have been there components of his lyrics and the backup dancers’ gyrations that have been expressions of American tradition? I do not suppose so.
I do know what you are in all probability pondering. Who cares what some outdated Mississippi wheezer thinks about rap music? How may a retrograde fossil who lives on a gravel highway within the goddamn center of nowhere perceive the profound that means of Kendrick Lamar’s lyrics?
If that is what you are pondering, it is a truthful level. Folks residing in Flyover Nation have been left behind as mainstream American tradition grows extra youth-oriented, cynical, urbane, and dismissive of something that occurred final week.
Nonetheless, there are uncared for currents of American tradition that can endure lengthy after Kendrick Lamar’s music and his feud with one other rapper are forgotten.
For instance, most People are unaware of the Okie refugees who fled the Mud Bowl within the Nineteen Thirties and settled in California. These folks introduced a music custom that blossomed within the Bakersfield area.
Merle Haggard was the son of Okies; his mother and father have been from Checota, Oklahoma. He grew to become the best singer and composer of nation music to ever live–greater than Jimmie Rodgers or Hank Williams.
Buck Owens was born in Sherman, Texas, through the Nice Despair and ultimately moved to Bakersfield, the place he and Haggard created what grew to become generally known as the Bakersfield Sound.
Different Mud Bowl refugees contributed to the Bakersfield Sound: Tommy Collins, Wynn Stewart, and the nice Wanda Jackson–the Queen of Rockabilly.
People enthralled by rap music have in all probability by no means heard of the Bakersfield Sound and should despise the individuals who hearken to it as only a bunch of hicks from Flyover Nation.
Nonetheless, 50 or 100 years from now, People shall be listening to the Bakersfield Sound when Kendrick Lamar is only a footnote within the obscure historical past of rap.
 |
| “You do not know me, however you do not like me.” Picture credit score: WPA |
