sunez
SUNSET STYLE: The Next Element of Hip Hop
by Sunez
[Wall Art by Smo]
“I can’t stand a fukn bitin’ ass nigga” – Raekwon w/Ghostface Killah – “Shark Niggas” (1995)
“My man came over and said, ‘Yo, we thought we heard you/Joke’s on you/You heard a bitin’ ass crew”
– K-Solo w/EPMD – “Knick Knack Patty Wack” (1989)
Sugar on the hill and I boom bye bye every time. They say my whole Art came to be when they let the Gang tell it when they sell it. Sold it exactly as you told it, they rip rip rap but live it only when you give, give, give it. I know what they know and they knowingly use what we sincerely understand. The real fake so I gotta play another rola sin lana. When excavating their snare coffins, these niche niggas always come running out. Indeed, they some kind of animals but not wildly ill like those out of the skyzoo but jackals scrambling packages repackaged in jacked sprinkles, so more that lack have more to run with. With cleverly recieved information or even daring knowledge, they crack into untapped nigga markets that ain’t never seen shit like this!
They the brolic lions because they roar in muffled meadows. They are a circle of unoriginality I have yet to fathom without disgust. They are learned men with the tools of sages that enter ciphers becoming the clever animals setting schools with wages. The wrong reasons, the right times and the worse rhymes. Worth a quarter of a snitch’s dime, selling a relevant sincerity, their highest crime. Cliche the capsules and swallow the pharmaceuticals and all that is Real is just a placebo we imagine when the club is too hot.
I work to tame them all with the blue tool, a script so profound it tells you the heart of a man you’ve never met, the virtue from one who never counts his deeds. Yet this story is about the ciphers of them with bleeding hearts who cut themselves in pieces for the consumption of others. From the contradiction enhanced environment, grasps for success now hypocritize the war. They ruin the elements with tinctures of accommodations seeming to make money grow like grass. Still I I be kickin the real while they be losin the race tryin to chase mass appeal…from before that pub date of may 1 of 99 til…
“At 10 you’re fucked..”
– KRS-One of Boogie Down Productions – “Ya’ Slippin” (1988)
There is a fortitude of integrity that was breached. It was years before that day the 12 inch was first sold out the trunk and the shine of the hustle glistened beyond the sultry rainbow over spilt culture cipher. It was miles of years written over the forty-O rainbow when the recycled vinyl being forged into his acetate construction still had the sincere crackles and pops of past greats. Stories start back here for more than nostalgia because there is a moment in a day here where the attraction of the stage lights inspired. Either to the savage warmth of the light or the honor of the highlighted plight we have to tell. These are the juicy hours and will poverty be an embarrasment to run one’s self out of or the building blocks of honor, to craft with love, a hell of a work that makes you track out right? Did he fall in love with the structure of Hip Hop? The rebellion of the stance, the righteousness in the approach, the research in the verse, the history in the melodic beauty sampled. Bam sat everyone down and made these the life questions to endlessly answer for this expressive Art of countercultural survivalist rebellion to be enlightening. Did this nigga want to answer them or is the path to the thickness never on the snare but the groupie stare? The fake ass brother got lots of justification in his tiny heart and maybe all in great rhyme cadence so we’re fucked.
“At 9, you sucked…”
– KRS-One of Boogie Down Productions – “Ya’ Slippin” (1988)
Dem a clot wit de Pretty Hiccup…’It’s so hot in herrrr—uhhh, ugghh,’ he quivers his perverted chuckles. As he wipes off his shoulders effeminately and through this designer pretty hiccup, he yelps, ‘It’s too hot….fire. So fire it might scorch you. Let the ladies tongues cool me down!’
No! There ain’t no protection from that because everyone think he raw. But we, some of us, see the enamel already drying in that fifteen minute lacquer. Introduce me to a new nigga, let me talk to him and hear him verse away and maybe I can explain his niche to you. Not with this nigga. His press kits are a laminated series of well articulated skits he sells his favorite rehashes through. It’s easy to do in a sampling culture where excavation becomes pillage when thoughts hit bills. They pull the cuban links right off your neck and appeal hooks and master derivativeness leaving crowds hanging off the charts in reasonable doubt.
To born universal truth here, what will he look like? What will he sound like when he says what he feels like? Will it be all to the good when he’s the Teacher like the Teacha and don’t know a fukn thing? Some honor their influences being ready to die through capital punishment or manifest God Universal, Ruler Universal on a grand podium even after Ra moved the crowd. Others plot their promotion because they earned their stripes selling nicks on the strip, passed the skid bid on Rikers and had some down south trips for a piano key from his mans who knew his homey that got this other nigga that bodied a few namless niggas for absolutely no reason. So he rolled with the ruthless and heard Shala building in the ‘jects so he in touch with the righteous. His middling way is the rap way now. Here is where we could no longer ask for the sincerity of heart when the aplomb with cleverness of mind struck.
“At 8, you’re a sucker “
– KRS-One of Boogie Down Productions – “Ya’ Slippin” (1988)
For the cynical world where agents already exist and pitch in the mind before stardom, the life contract was written up…
[TO BE CONTINUED]
Sunset Style:
The Next Element of Hip Hop
By Sunez
Overview:
This book will be the first overt and uncontested display of the newly proposed element in Hip Hop culture, for official consideration, The Writer. The basic 4 elements of Hip Hop culture, DJing, MCing, Graffiti and B-boying (Breaking) eventually gave rise to the journalistic efforts by the immediate inner city audiences of color that began to question, explain and analyze this phenomenon. As Hip Hop journalism became the most powerful and popular force of music coverage, the writer immersed in the culture, became more than an impartial reporter.
The framework of the book is a cleverly constructed autobiography of Hip Hop writer, Sunez (aka Sunez Allah aka Edward Sunez Rodriguez), detailing his career in the journalistic industry from his beginnings as the author of the Sunset Style column. “Rodriguez was for several years a regular contributor to the CUNY Baruch College newspaper, The Ticker. His often controversial column, Sunset Style, is a “hip hop editorial” named after Rodriguez’ working class and heavily Puerto Rican Sunset Park neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York.”- Raquel Rivera, New York Ricans From the Hip Hop Zone; Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. From that column it continues through his career spanning stints as a freelance writer, online editor and editor at numerous publications including Vibe, XXL and The Source then to his self published street and online journals, Our SWords and Lavoe Revolt (www.lavoerevolt.blogspot.com). Sunez reveals the evolution of his reality as the Next Element by his life experience that segue into displays of the journalistic skill, refined musical commentary and creative works that make the Hip Hop writer. Essentially, the Hip Hop Writer is a Hip Hop element as a chronicler of the music and culture as well as a newly recognized creative force of the culture.
Sunset Style is the start of a revolution of recognition for the great Hip Hop writers who have contributed to the music and culture as journalists, music analysts, critics and as creative writers. It is the defining testament of a 18 year Hip Hop writing career that makes Sunez the Next Element of Hip Hop: The Writer.