I took the above photo when cycling around Greenwich peninsula and noted how what was once a Continental habit has begun taking place here - placing locks somewhere as symbolic of love or commitment or… or what? I’m unsure, never having felt any need to do so.
Its an odd, copycat gesture. I wonder if, once you have placed the lock on the cable (and, I guess, tossed the keys) you announce such on social media? Or do couples undertake to remove the packaging around the lock and then to open, attach and fasten it together?
I guess you don’t risk being penalised (as tagging or carving your names on a public space might attract) and its very cheap and very easy: ice bucket challenge its not. I do recall first seeing such in - I think - Italy in the early 90s but I’ve never known anyone who has announced they’ve placed a lock somewhere.
Thinking on it, I recall hearing how, a few years back, one bridge - perhaps the first one to attract these redundant decorations - was so overloaded with locks they needed to harvest them ie blokes with huge bolt cutters were sent to cut them off.
Anyway, I like the resulting photo with an Uber boat and Canary Wharf blurred in the background, the Thames a dull, still brown. And the rust seems fitting and symbolic: once we reach middle age we’re all rusting (of sorts) and, as spectators, we often watch rust creep into a public figure - whether a once great athlete (Rafa and Andy desperately bashing away at the Olympics) or artist (Candi Staton’s final UK performance at Love Supreme 23 was sad, one of my favourite singers was hoarse, unable to hit the low notes - let alone the high…). Then there’s the rust that overtakes an object or property - we’ve all noted rust’s slow creep over a familiar structure, vehicle or bicycle.
What does the rust here signify? To me its discolouration and decay reflects how transient life is, while the Thames rolls on oblivious to all of us. Perhaps future generations mudlarks will dig these tiny padlocks and their discarded keys out of the foreshore and wonder what possessed us to lock them to bridges and barriers close to water. They will shake their heads and think, “those millennium Londoners were really silly.” And they’d be right. Rust never sleeps and humans don’t change.
Tunes for today
Sunshine often makes me play music from temperate nations. After lunch the first album I reached for was Segu Blue by Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba. The wonderful Malian band whose leader is a master ngoni player. The ngoni resembles something from The Flintstones and is one of those ancient stringed instruments that still proliferate across parts of West Africa. That’s Bassekou’s wife singing here - next time they’re in town I must go see them again. No rust noted on this wonderful ensemble.
Straight outta Compton and directly into infamy, wealth, Aids and more: N.W.A.
Rapper lacking delight
Watching Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre perform on the beach in LA as part of the Olympic closing ceremony made me think how these two rappers must be thanking the lucky stars they were seemingly born under.
Considering both grew up in LA neighbourhoods where Crips, Bloods and cops ensured young black men died of gunshots more than any other cause and they - separately - did jail time (Snoop for selling crack on street corners pre-fame; Dre for drunk driving - again fortuitously he was never charged for his multiple assaults on women). Actually, Snoop would have been serving a long sentence for a gang related homicide were it not for he having the funds to hire Johnny Cochrane - the slick lawyer who got OJ Simpson off.
Here they are, middle aged “gangstas” still moving the crowd.
Both are now insanely wealthy and well respected icons of the US music industry: Dre’s a remarkably successful producer who became a billionaire due to lending his name to overpriced headphone,s while Snoop, who only ever cut one half decent album (the Dre produced Doggystyle), has long found his mischievous brand of stoner street hustler plays well with the public - he has, I believe, more endorsements than any other US celebrity. This led to him being used to host the Paris Olympics for ABC TV and, again, he proved a real hit, his naturally wry manner making every event appear enjoyable and - appropriately - a tad absurd.
As far as their Olympic rapping went, well, it was tame compared to how they usually like to rhyme - no swearing or use of the ‘n’ word - and they both sounded a tad rusty. Rusty but happy, they’re obviously enjoying being cuddly rather than confrontational.
Anyway, I mention this as on Sunday I not only watched the closing ceremony but read a feature on one of their contemporaries: Ice Cube. If you’re unaware of gangsta rap’s LA origins, Dre and Cube formed N.W.A. with Eazy-E, Yella and MC Ren in the mid-1980s. Dre was DJ/producer, Cube wrote the rhymes, Eazy developed the concept of “street-gang-as-rap-crew” (and funded their early recordings via crack dealing), Yella was assistant DJ (and has since been written out of history) and Ren was the enforcer. Each member rapped but Cube was the standout voice - a declamatory force, the ferocious Moses of hip-hop.
N.W.A. won national - then international - notoriety for 1989 album Straight Outta Compton, an LP that put gangsta rap firmly at the forefront of hip-hop. Dre’s production - raw, uncut funk that was imaginatively arranged, utilised hooks and carried a real thump - grabbed ears while their rhymes about committing drive-by shootings and gang-banging made everyone who heard it go “WTF?”
Especially on Fuck Da Police, arguably the angriest, most potent protest song (if you can call a rap a ‘song’) since Strange Fruit half a century prior. FDP was often blasted during the BLM protests, its subject matter - police brutality towards black people - not having dated a jot during the past 30+ years. And it was Cube who wrote FDP.
He then quit NWA, realising he wasn’t receiving his share of royalties (Eazy-E owned the label they were on, the appropriately named Ruthless Records). His initial solo albums attracted a lot of attention - many rap fans and commentators thought this stocky, incendiary youth was the future, or at least the James Brown, of hip-hop. But Cube turned out to be one dimensional, sound and fury signifying nothing (without Dre’s beat making skills his raps fell flat). A man who shouted a lot and seemed to loathe women, Koreans, Jews, whites, his ex-comrades and much else.
Yet Cube was no fool and moved into movies: his intensity as a rapper ensuring that, on occasion, he has been good on screen - Boyz N The Hood, Three Kings - and, inevitably, he’s earned a fortune. But he’s gone from being a voice advocating for the oppressed to a voice who endorses Trump and other racist reactionaries. Which isn’t a huge surprise: many rappers admire Trump for his wealth and vulgarity and trophy wives and craving of celebrity and loathing of liberal principles and politeness, none more so than Kanye West (who never rapped about politics/thug life). Narcissists inevitably appeal to narcissists.
Anyway, the feature I mentioned was written by US journalist Joel Anderson. In it he details Cube’s many political misdemeanours while still remaining a fan boy. When he finally gets to do his dream interview with Cube (who has some junk he wants to promote) Anderson’s too timid to ask any tough questions. Which makes the feature redundant as journalism, just promo fluff. It does serve as a reminder than you can admire the art while disliking the artist - but Cube’s done nothing of artistic note for many years. And Anderson appears oblivious to Cube’s misogyny, which was evident right from the start (N.W.A. not only revelled in violence, they loved shouting abuse at women).
The link to Joel’s feature is below, but only read if you want to remind yourself that history teaches once again how radical voices can quickly turn into reactionaries. This noted, being a blowhard asshole in the US can prove to be extremely lucrative (ditto in the UK if we look at rancid hacks Tony Parsons, Julie Burchill etc and the filthy lucre they reaped by being obnoxious in print).
Skilled wordplay made Cube and the aforementioned hacks wealthy and notorious, but they all rapidly grew rusty on their own rhetoric. I’m unaware if Anderson has ever been regarded as a writer of note - if he was then he needs to apply some oil as this is rusty reporting.
Joel Anderson on Ice Cube for Slate.
Here’s Gin & Juice, the tune that launched Snoop on the world. Dre’s production is fluid, grooving, while Snoop’s laidback, stoner delivery ensures its a perfect summer jam.