Ben Doleac’s response to Jameson Walthers’ critique of the two rap reviews Doleac wrote for the Argus this semester (“Outkast’s final album goes out with a bang,” Oct. 10 and “Not So Ugly: Atmosphere’s ‘Seven’s Travels’ engages listener,” Oct. 28) fails to substantively address Walthers’ apt criticism. Doleac’s response has inspired me to re-read Walther’s wespeak and both of Doleac’s reviews as a means of moderation. Despite my distaste for Doleac’s reviews, the dialogue his reviews inspired has proved the most compelling discussion I have ever read about the often poor quality of the Argus. Before articulating my position, I’d like to thank both Walthers and Doleac for speaking their minds and inspiring me.
Doleac’s response initially evokes the idea of critical “authority.” Specifically, he claims that Walthers’ wespeak denies rock critics the authority to write about rap music. After reading Walthers’ writing several times, I am confident that this is not the case. Instead, Walthers takes issue with Doleac’s unwillingness to approach the rap genre on its own terms. That Doleac possesses “some 50 rap albums” is of absolutely no consequence, for, as I see it, good criticism has everything to do with understanding and nothing to do with consumption. Doleac is writing for a supposedly intellectual student newspaper, not for the commercial music press, which, for all intents and purposes, gets paid to help labels sell records. It seems to me that this criticism is rightly aimed, not only at Doleac’s misunderstanding of the rap genre specifically, but more importantly at his misunderstanding of the concept of musical genres in general. It is impossible, or at least irrelevant, to analyze a record without coming to terms with the formal principles of the genre. For example, Doleac’s comment about Big Boi’s “Flip Flop Rock,” that he thinks “Jay-Z’s tendency to refer to himself as ‘Young Hov’ [in the chorus of the track, which calls out the names of the three MCs featured on the track] is especially irritating.” Calling out names has been a common device throughout the entire history of hip-hop, occurs in the proto-hip-hop reggae “toasting” of the 1970’s, and probably has even deeper historical origins (with which I am, unfortunately, unfamiliar). If Doleac had acknowledged this in his review, he might have been able to explain his critical position. Perhaps he was trying to point out that Jay-Z’s macho, narcissistic style, which might be considered traditional (even conservative) at this point in the history of rap music, seems out of place in what is in many ways, a progressive and experimental album.
The second part of Doleac’s response claims that Walthers unfairly attacks the review for their “aesthetic principles.” This is also not the case. The problem is that Doleac’s prose fails to articulate any aesthetic principles. Instead, he has recourse only to cliches and platitudes. Big Boi’s party tracks “provide thrills.” Outkast’s music inspires his to “move [his] ass as well as [his] brain.” The Strokes “possess a complex melodicism.” Such statements are almost entirely devoid of criticism. They communicate practically nothing, other than their author’s subjectivity and his claim to have listened to and liked or disliked the records in question.
I am not sure that Walthers’ criticism of Doleac’s reviews went far enough. Although I respect the time and effort that people are taking to write about music in the Argus, I do not understand why most of what is covered gets covered at all. The Argus rarely features information about music on campus. There is almost no coverage of campus bands (perhaps a couple of articles a year), very little coverage of faculty composers, usually no coverage of senior thesis concerts, and certainly no coverage of graduate recitals, which are often very exciting and well-attended. The Argus doesn’t even print information about concerts by musicians brought to Wesleyan by WESU, the Campus Center Concert Series, and numerous other groups. I’ve worked on putting together three large hip-hop shows during my time at Wesleyan, and the Argus has never even thought to ask to do a print interview with, for example, Aesop Rock or Mr. Lif, the rappers who “inspired” Doleac to get the new Atmosphere record in the first place. Information about music at Wesleyan is not available anywhere. Instead, we read inferior reviews of albums that many people on campus know about, or would know about if they ever opened a magazine, turned on MTV, or listened to the radio. Please, Argus, give us more news about Wesleyan. There are plenty of other places to turn if we want to figure out whether to buy the latest Outkast record.
Leave a Reply