Working Through OB4CL: P R O S P E C T

There's no way we will start at the beginning, because the crossroads is always the middle of more than one thing. And that's the way. Word to your moms.

:: makes a small circle of gunpowder on the ground ::

:: centers a bottle of henny in the circle ::

:: scatters pepperflakes ::

:: bows head ::

• Wu Tang Clan, "Can It All Be So Simple" is the emblem of both what comes before OB4CL and the wish for a better time before. It is, therefore service to the lwas in the form of ingnition, match to the ring of gunpowder.

And so we begin.

We begin making a small altar that places OB4CL at the foot of the tradition, knowing that there are those who, when they come by, will take up pieces, and leave other pieces behind. And that's the way. Word to your moms.

And this because in its own way, OB4CL is itself an ilé, a shrine that looks in all directions at once. Up. Down. Side to side.

What we will do here is locate our ilé making project to think through the slab. What we build here, then, is a shrine to a shrine, which will serve as a call to those who want to hear it.

OB4CL then. Seven threads, then, that run through it.

1. Movement: "We gotta migrate."
2. Collage: "poisonous paragraphs."
3. The damning (oppressing) and redeeming (liberating) power of business: "slang rap democracy."
4. Clan and Gang and Family: "this rap wonderama team got drama"
5. Secret knowledge: "It's manifested. The gods work like appliances."
6. Secret identity: "a.k.a."
7. Crossing over: "Chef may resign to boat across the Verrazano."

Each of these threads is pending, and each starts in the full fabric of the tradition. We will work them back into the tradition, but leave them still pending. And that's the way. Word to your Moms.

When we hear Rae tell the fellas in OutKast, "We handling the earth right now," we take his word as bond. We cannot get past this statement without thinking first of Nas and the more than brilliant "The World is Yours." Yes, yes y'all. We think on that view @ the beginning of the first Scarface that is the omega of Tony Montana's dream to get out. We read Rae different, though. We think that he's telling us that he's already there. "It's the pot of gold right here man. This is it, man, this is glory." We think he's not signifying here. Nah. He's representing.

Here, hit this Henny. Fuse is already lit.

Working Through: P R O S P E C T

Now that we are moving our quicker thoughts, glimpses and lissening notes over to the red light, the blue light becomes the place for our longer thoughts only. The Body and Soul Project, still underway, is the best and maybe the only example of what we gonna be up to.

In upcoming weeks, we'll be working through extended exercises that we will call working through. The all about will remain the same, though. We're gonna make the fabric of what the AEC called ancient to future out of other peoples' threads.

Five starting points:

• James Weldon Johnson, The Book of American Negro Poetry
• Devilin.' This thinking was given to us by Allen Lowe, a heroic anthologist, who proves there is salvation at the crossroads between what we know and the new details we learn.
  
• Raekwon, Only Built 4 Cuban Links
• Goodie Mob, Soul Food
  
• OutKast, Aquemini

There's plenty of other threads, and we expect to work them in as we go. The last three are, obviously, an indulgence in the love massive we have for a body of hiphop that takes its place in a history it enacts.

In the mean time, we'll keep elaborating on the threads we're already playing out:

• Life and Times of Marvin Gaye (what ever happened to that one, anyway).
• Body and Soul
• Versionology. The psuedoscience that the old world likes to label variation on a theme (to be confused w/ fugues and fugue states, conditions it treats with escalating gravity, hoping to cure it w/ copyright and other controls.).