An Attitude of Alteration

Professor Wilson described the current generation as "Post everything." The democratization of art through electronic media combined with a cultural wariness toward imitation makes artists increasingly difficult to define. MC Lars, a Laptop rapper from Carmel, California says in his song "Space Game," "I've been post-postmodern since Jr. High." Music god David Lee Roth calls rap "poetry to music, like beatniks without beards and bongos." The connection between beatniks and rap is significant because of what Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" did for freedom of speech in poetry in 1957. Judge Horn ruled that Howl was not obscene because it observes rather than endorses a profane reality. This ruling opened the floodgates for beatniks and post-beats which morphed into many different genres, punk, folk, rap, jazz (not in that order). More than fifty years later the ruling of this "God fearing Sunday school teacher" permeates the artistic and musical world of free speech in such diverse genres as "Post postmodern laptop rap." The diversification of music genres reflects technology's contempt for the past mixed with the rise of counter culture and it's splintering effects established in the 50's and 60's, but the debt owed to Howl's triumph in freedom of speech law in unquestionable. The culture of underground poetry readings started in San Francisco can be seen and felt at any underground concert which mimics the format and plays on the energy of the crowd. Here is an example of such a concert. The song also reflects beatnik and postmodern sentiments in the way that it deviates from it's roots (rap) and questions the future of the genre. The very name of the song expresses this attitude of alteration: "Do you believe in life after Thug?"







http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/books/04howl.html