Category: Uncategorized

One of my favorite Hip Hop albums of all time is Lupe Fiasco’s Food and Liquor, and has been for a long time. In high school English my class once discussed the elements that classify certain literature as “classic,” generating ideas such as timeless messages, relatable characters and producing the feeling of a new discovery while reading for it the umpteenth time. Under these criteria, Food and Liquor most assuredly deserves the same title. I was initially attracted to the album by its organized, powerful beats and Lupe’s smooth voice, not to mention his incredibly unique flow. The way his voice so effortlessly cascaded over the instrumentals struck me in a new way that Hip Hop had previously been unable to accomplish. I focused on memorizing every word of “Kick Push,” absorbing Lupe’s passion for skateboarding, let my mind enjoy the quick word-play and sharp lyricism of “I Gotcha” and used “The Emperor’s Soundtrack” to harness my adrenaline before sporting events. I adapted the album and used it to get closer to Lupe, in turn helping me transition into the world of Hip Hop. The album reached me at a surface level; I took delight in the sound, and lost myself in the feeling it created. The meaning behind it, upon first listen, eluded me.

I return now to dig deeper, and pronounce Food and Liquor as one of the most socially conscious rap albums of all time, and secure it unequivocally among my top three favorites. One of the most important segments of the entire seventy-two minutes occurs in the first sixty seconds, in the “Intro.” So eager to hear the album, I used to foolishly skip over the prelude; for years its message escaped me and therefore misguided the rest of my listening experience. Lupe’s sister, Iesha Jaco, performs a spoken word poem to commence the album, accurately describing common landmarks and summarizing the culture of low-income, impoverished neighborhoods. She brilliantly identifies how these areas are overpopulated by unhealthy, inexpensive food dispensaries such as fast food restaurants and liquor stores, adding the first layer of meaning to the album’s title. The poem sets the tone for the rest of the tracks, establishing that this album was born in and evolved from the West side of Chicago, and addresses many of the problems Lupe witnessed.

One way he accomplishes this is through storytelling. In a number of songs, including “He Say She Say,” “The Cool,” and “Kick Push (II)” Lupe divulges short anecdotes that illustrate the problems about which he is concerned. “He Say She Say” tells the story of a child growing up without a father, and how that negatively impacts his life. Both verses are identical except that the first is from the mother’s perspective, and the second is from the boy’s, meaning the only words that change are the pronouns: him changes to me, his to mine, etc. The impact is enormous. Or “The Cool,” which tells the story of a drug dealer shot on the street, who wakes up in his grave, returns to his home with a different appearance and gets robbed by the same men who killed him. When threatened with a gun he responds, “Hustler for death, no heaven for a gangster.” Lupe drastically explains how a lifestyle of selling drugs can be impossible to escape from, saying that this man is a “Hustler for death” opposed to a “Hustler for life.”

Perhaps my favorite verse on the entire album is the first portion of “Hurt Me Soul,” a lyrically brilliant statement about Hip Hop and American politics. The first verse addresses Lupe’s initial conflicts with the genre of Hip Hop, citing notoriously crude and controversial rapper Too Short and his use of the word “bitch.” However, Lupe explains how his experiences allowed him to relate to the culture and see past Too Short to its real value. Lupe, unlike other rappers, uses Hip Hop as a mechanism to reach his audience- not one of consumers, but of people who share the same experiences or are dedicated to social change. “Hurt Me Soul” is about the ramifications that US policy has on the individual person, especially underprivileged Americans, and Lupe represents that. He is serving as a voice for these people, advocating on their behalf when nobody else will. That is the essence of Food and Liquor. That is why Lupe is a socially conscious Hip Hop artist. He has experienced adversity, he is familiar with the struggle, and despite his success and fame he continues to be aware of it. Iesha Jaco finishes her introductory poem with the line, “But God has another solution, that has evolved from the hood.. I present one who turns, the Fiasco to good.” For anyone attempting to find social justice in Hip Hop, look no further.

It is often the uninhabited spaces, the ones that may once have been inhabited but are no longer, that end up being the spaces richest with potential. Urban exploration plumbs the depths of this potential, delving into places that sit mouldering away forgotten and unnoticed, slowly crumbling, fading into dust. Abandoned structures are often seen as scars on the land, eyesores that need to be removed. But others hold that decay ought to be preserved or permitted to perpetuate, because in them is something else, something, perhaps, with meaning more profound than what the ordered society of today can provide. If an old factory quietly by itself gathers age and rust and dust, as paint crackles and curls in on itself, beams and roofs cave in, and there is no around to see, is it still beautiful?

Is it still meaningful?

For, after all, one cannot stand around and watch decay occurring. Its timescale is not one proportionate to the human lifetime. We cannot perceive change happening. We must leave it, forget about it. And then, one day, we return, happening upon it by chance. (Although it is likely to be not us ourselves, but another individual, belonging to some later time.) That’s what urban exploration is, really. Rediscovery, because this place is already in existence, been known by man. Discovery, because it has never been known in this state, this form. It is old, and it is new.

The history an abandoned structure carries is multi-layered. It has one history, the one in which it was alive and thriving and in use, and the one after it was left to ruin. Maybe it was partially demolished, expanded, or repurposed. Maybe one building was built over the ruins of another. Sifting through the layers in order to read this history is a sort of compacted, modified archaeology. It’s the exploration of an anthropological wilderness. Unlike a museum, where everything has been lifted from its original context, the abandoned structure and its contents have, much of the time, remained untouched. Each location sits there, with its multiplicity of pasts, perhaps isolated (a singular hospital building), perhaps interconnected (old sewer systems). And in a practical sense, the number of sites out there waiting to be explored is inexhaustible. Said an urban explorer during a home teams win soccer tips seminar: “For every building, for every structure, there exists an equal-sized hole in the ground.” It’s a thrilling thought, really.

Not all of these abandoned places, however, remain abandoned for long; unused space is quite the commodity these days. The higher population density of the UK, for instance, means a greater density of such sites that require less traveling to get to, but it also means that said abandoned places do not have much time to sit and stagnate. They’re sold, demolished, gutted and rebuilt, pushing urban exploration to progress at an accelerated rate- there seems to be more of a flurry around finding abandoned structures before they’re gone. Whereas in places with more land area to spare (the US, for instance), one might be more likely to find more massive building complexes, extensive underground systems, or entire ghost towns just sitting there, with no threat of disappearing anytime soon.

That said, urban exploration doesn’t have to be, strictly speaking, urban. A bullet point in some of my old notes lists places that could be of interest:

rural (ghost towns, farmsteads, plane graveyards), infrastructure, active sites, underground (mines, sewer systems), vanishing industry, institutions (prisons, churches, hospitals)

Urban exploration is unlikely to be sustainable as a large-scale, widespread activity; the intrinsically unsullied nature of such places relies on the fact they are largely forgotten. But keep an eye out for those places that people tend to ignore or not seem to see at all, because you might just be surprised.

Broadway flops were brought to national attention with Mel Brooks’ film The Producers, in which a producer, Max Bialystock, and his accountant Leo Bloom set out to produce the worst Broadway show possible.  The idea is that it is possible to make more money with a flop than with a hit.  Of course, their master plan crumbles quickly when the show, Springtime for Hitler, enjoys unexpected success.

There have been many composers and lyricists who have accomplished Max and Leo’s goal without even trying.  This year, two of these enormous flops are receiving eagerly-anticipated revivals in New York.  There is an entire subset in theatre culture that is obsessed with big flop musicals.  There was even a book written about these shows, called Not Since Carrie by Ken Mandelbaum.  The title refers to possibly the most famous flop, and one of the two musicals that is being remounted, Carrie.  Yes, that Carrie.  It is a musical based on the novel-turned-movie by Stephen King about a troubled telekinetic teen.

When Carrie was first on Broadway in 1988, it ran for a total of 16 previews and 5 performances.  On this blog, I have often alluded to the innate smallness of the theatre community.  Word of mouth alone seems to have ruined this musical.  It was doomed from its out of town try-out in Stratford, where the public was up in arms that the Royal Shakespeare Company was putting on this show.  Unlike most shows, as Carrie moved forward in development and got closer to its Broadway debut, it got worse.  The revisions and directorial choices weakened the show.  Rather than juxtaposing Carrie’s inner angst and outer powers with a relatively normal society, the show put Carrie’s classmates in costumes that resembled Grecian goddesses and workers at a leather bar.  Carrie’s powers were barely even hinted at, so by the Act One finale, when her hands were literally on fire, members of the audience unfamiliar with the movie or book were perplexed.

While the show failed commercially, it immediately became a camp classic.  Secretly recorded video and audio circulated the theatre community, and those who were not at the show wished they could have witnessed the wreck.  Even now, some salvaged clips remain on YouTube for those fans who never thought this day would come.  They day they can finally see Carrie for themselves.  Mandelbaum says that the thing that separates Carrie from the other flops in his book is that it was so hot and cold as far as quality is concerned.  The mother’s big ballad, “Open Your Heart,” is still held up to be a beautiful piece of music, but there was also a song (which the 2012 review hints may have been cut, or at least pared down) about the pig slaughtering, with genius lyrics like “kill the pig, pig, pig” while oinks resonate through the theatre.  And did I mention the show ended with Carrie ascending an enormous stairway to Heaven?

MCC’s production of Carrie was successful before it even began.  This is the definition of a cult musical.  You go to be able to say you went.  There are those who are avid fans of the pirated cast recording from the 80s, but many audience members just want to see what everyone has been talking about for the past nearly 25 years.  The New York Times review praises Marin Mazzie who plays Carrie’s religious fanatic mother, but otherwise gently condemns the musical.  Many positive changes have been made since the 1988 disaster, but it seems that Carrie is just not one of those shows that works.  Regardless of reviews and actual merit, the production has already extended its limited run an extra four weeks.  Everyone wants to see the world’s most famous flop.  I know I would.

The second revived flop of 2012 is a little more tragic.  Merrily We Roll Along was a show written by Broadway God Stephen Sondheim and originally directed by the equally terrific Hal Prince in 1981.  The show followed the professional and personal journeys of three best friends backward from 1980 to 1955.  This show had a bit more success, but about the same amount of chance as Carrie.  It ran for 52 previews and 16 performances.  And unlike Carrie, Sondheim and Prince made significant improvements to the show during their time on the Great White Way.  However, word had already gotten out and the show was really doomed before it began.  There are tales of walk outs from the first preview, audience members who left completely confused about what story they just watched and who the characters on stage were.  After closing on Broadway, Sondheim continued to make revisions to the show with librettest George Furth.  So when the show opened at New York City Center through its Encores! program this year it was a very different show than that first preview in 1981.

However, it still fell flat.  This production had everything– a stellar, super exciting, young but not brand new cast; a great concept; talented musicians, directors, artists– but it was still missing something.  According to reviews, this seems to be one of those shows that people want to work but it just might not be possible.  Personally, my Merrily cast recording is practically worn through I’ve listened to it so many times.  This is a show I want to see succeed.  But I’ve also never seen it in full production.  Critics acknowledge that the music is beautiful.   It’s Sondheim, for God’s sake.  Unlike the writers of Carrie, who were not entirely inexperienced but certainly did not have the breadth of experiences Mr. Sondheim has, Merrily has everything going for it, except for the show itself.

Sometimes there is just a disconnect between what should work and what does.   That is one of the most terrifying and exciting parts of art- seeing what works.  These are just two examples of when things went terribly bad.  But now they have a whole community willing to embrace them and spend hours online developing fan sites, sharing bootleg footage, and devoting all sorts of time to the shows that didn’t quite make it.  I find flop culture quite fascinating.  I first got into it when dramaturging a show called [title of show].  One of the characters, and the writer himself, has a collection of Broadway flop Playbills.  There is a song that names probably fifty flops, and it was my job to look up each title and find as much information as possible.  It’s an interesting phenomenon, especially in this age of super commercial, decade-long running shows, that there are still these fleeting pieces of theatre that run under 50 performances and are never heard from again.  Carrie and Merrily are the lucky ones, but when will the world hear from Buck White again?  Probably never.

And then I think…how did we let Cats happen for so long?