(Elf t My (Ear Mrrl
Fresh lyrics pull off LP
Sigel’s rhymes
cut guest noise
BY JACKY BRAMMER
STAFF WRITER
Ever since Beanie Sigel laid a
mad verse on “Adrenaline” from
the Roots’ Things Fall Apart,
people have been eagerly await
ing for him to further display his
talents.
He even showed signs of bril
liance on “Pop 4 Roc” on Jay-Z’s
Volume 3: Life and Times of S.
Carter: “I’m the truth, I’m not
lying/ I’m the reason why Jay feel
comfortable retiring.”
But audiences were still wait
ing for Beanie Sigel to come into
his own.
His first album, 2000’s The
Truth, was a good start. But soon
he was bogged down in legal
problems, pet projects (State
Property) and clothing lines.
His second album, 2001’s The
Reason, was an uninspired rehash
of better material.
After a few years of downtime,
Philadelphia’s Sigel is back —and
lyrically in old form —with The B.
Coming, but his supporting cast
largely disappoints.
The first three tracks are
all good enough to be singles.
Redman provides a strong verse
on “One Shot Deal,” and Heavy
D offers bluesy production for
“Feel It In The Air.” “I Can’t Go
umnmmmEms
■ Aztec Camera, High Land,
Hard Rain lf the Smiths had
never existed, people would point to
this 1983 record as a touchstone in
British pop music. The guitars jangle,
the vocals sigh with reverb and mel
ancholy, and the lyrics whine in ways
that only Morrissey could whine.
Of course, the Smiths did exist,
and it’s hard to argue that High
Land, Hard Rain tops their best
work. But the pop bliss of British
hit “Oblivious,” the overwrought
drama of “The Bugle Sounds Again”
and the Iggy Pop-inspired drive of
“Queen’s Tattoos” come close.
■ “Wayne’s World” Originally,
this space recommended “Yi Yi,”
a marvelous film from 2000 that
keeps a steady, compassionate and
deft focus on the pain and joy in our
everyday lives.
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On This Way” is the best song
outright, getting the album off to
a good start.
Unfortunately, outside Sigel’s
rhymes and flow, the rest of the
album is a mixed bag.
Still, this wouldn’t be nearly
as much of a problem if there
weren’t such an overabundance
of guest artists.
On practically every song, Sigel
splits mic time with other rap
pers. He even sounds like he’s the
backup performer on the irritat
ing “Gotta Have It,” where he and
Twista valiantly steal airwaves
trying to save the track from an
abrasive chorus and fail.
The laconic Snoop manages
to fit time in between “Girls
Gone Wild” tours to lay down the
hook for the Neptunes-produced
“Don’t Stop,” but this partnership
is a tedious style clash with the
menacing Sigel.
The shortsighted forays into
R&B production continue with
“Change” and “Lord Have Mercy,”
as the refrains overpower Sigel’s
introspective and intimidating
rhymes.
Soulful beats are difficult to
perfect, but when they are done
correctly by a master, like Just
Blaze (producer of Jay-Z’s fabu
lous “December 4th”) on “Bread
and Butter,” not even a grat
ing chorus can slow down the
momentum.
Sigel’s energy is even more
evident on “Tales of a Hustler Pt.
But you know what? It’s April.
Exams and papers loom. Spring’s
blossomed. The Tar Heels won it
all.
For days like these, we need
“Wayne’s World.”
It hits you with the crude (“Claudia
Schiffer, we salute you”), but its bril
liance is in the way it manages to jux
tapose those yaks with more clever,
self-aware send-ups of pop culture
(“I once thought I had mono for an
entire year. Turned out I was just
really bored”)
Some have said the film caught
the last gasp of the ’Bos before the
alternative Zeitgeist.
Those people are English majors.
Really, /all, it’s just funny.
Schwing.
■ George Plimpton, “The
Curious Case of Sidd Finch” The
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Diversions
4AU 11H It H
MUSIC SVIEW
BEANIE SIGEL
THE B. COMING
ickrk
2.” The lyrical mixmaster shares
his experience as a cautionary
tale about the highs and lows of
street life:
“Conversation with demons
when I’m dreamin/ Manic
depressive/ Like the man upstairs
tryin to pass me a lesson/ But I
can’t catch it.”
Asa whole, the album is a mild
success only because of the occa
sional earnest, affecting produc
tion and Sigel’s malevolent pres
ence and forceful lyrics.
Hopefully on his next release,
listeners will get less of the unsat
isfying guest artists and more of
the Philly rap-slinger. After all,
that’s what people want to hear.
Contact the AdE Editor
at artsdesk@unc.edu.
greatest April Fool’s joke ever
pulled off came 20 years ago cour
tesy of Plimpton, a writer for Sports
Illustrated who thought it would
be funny to invent a story about a
Mets pitching phenom who could
throw a baseball 168 mph while
pitching with one shoe on.
Thing is, people believed him.
And until the hoax was up, it gave
Mets fans everywhere including
my father, who never really believed
the article but, I suspect, wanted it
to be true reason to hope.
Flash forward 20 years, and
Pops has passed on to me both his
cynicism and love for the Mets.
Who, of course, are 2-5 and in
last place as of press time.
Contact Chris Coletta
at ccoletta@email.unc.edu.
Poet embraces world’s flaws
BY ANDREW CHAN
STAFF WRITER
Among the American poets who
became prominent in the 19905,
Mark Doty has maintained one
of the most easily recognizable
voices.
His poems are popular because
they beg to be read aloud and pos
sess a reliable intimacy.
“School of the Arts,” his seventh
book, is an extension of a famil
iar style, shifting toward a more
restrained diction and emotional
storytelling.
From Doty’s controlled tone, it’s
hard to tell that he is writing in a
decade of high stakes, where it’s a
relief to find a major contemporary
poet working in a gay sensibility.
Admitting that poetry often
operates politically, he has made
himself important by taking on
anew aesthetic and discovering
how it can be defined on its own
terms free of concessions to, or
finger-pointing at, a heterosexual
audience.
Since his third and greatest
book, 1993’s “My Alexandria,”
found redemptive language in the
devastation of AIDS, Doty’s eroti
cism and spirituality have been
haunted by impermanence.
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THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2005
BOOK IEVIEW
MARK DOTY
SCHOOL OF THE ARTS
The new book is dedicated to
God with Doty’s characteristic
sincerity and skepticism. Asa
glutton of the physical world and
its beauty, he is in many ways an
updated version of the gay Jesuit
Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose
effusive verse sang in praise of
God’s grandeur.
Doty’s work never seems
divorced from matters of faith,
though he sometimes chooses sex
ual pleasure as his religion.
The seven-part poem “The
Vault” is a rehash of his earlier odes
to gay men’s sexuality.
It’s the longest piece in the
book but also one of the laziest,
inheriting its sweaty atmosphere
from Constantine Cavafy and end
ing with an unearned allusion to
James Wright’s “A Blessing” (“if
he remained in his body /...then he
would break into flower”).
In these new poems, it is jar
ring to notice how Doty’s love
of sight and textures has lost its
ability to surprise.
His imagery has become a for
mula of ecstatic apprehension, in
which the senses transform every
thing into light and shimmer.
The poems have come to matter
less than their making, and their
style is sometimes so loose it risks
a lack of cohesion.
Toward the end of the collection,
“Heaven for Beau” reminds us how
skillful Doty is at narrative and how
respectfully he can borrow from his
predecessors.
While elegizing the dogs who
appear frequently in Doty’s books,
the poem adds a twist of hope to
Elizabeth Bishop’s tear-jerking
classic “One Art."
In “Oncoming Train” and
“Heaven for Paul,” he flirts with
death, affirming its possibilities
without negating his restless joy
in life.
Doty continues to write as a pas
sionate participant in the world,
never as its outsider even as gay
rights become a more public strug
gle for assimilation and inspire a
hostile backlash.
What distinguishes him in
today’s poetry scene is his lust
ful ownership of our undesirable
world.
Contact the AdE Editor
at artsdesk@unc.edu.
17