REVIEW: Triksta

In John Chases book, Frenchmen Desire and Goodchildren, he mentions the first residents discovered by La Salle and the French in the Louisiana delta as some of the laziest Native American's they had met to date. The worlds first historian, Herodotus, in an age before what we know as racism used to have bias's on people based on where they lived. Saying those who lived in the sun more often were traditionally lazier. Knowing these two facts, what does this say about New Orleans?

Nick Cohn's, Triksta: Life and Death and New Orleans Rap, came recommended to me from a good friend in New Orleans. It chronicles his journeys as a rap producer working with New Orleans bounce artists, most notably Choppa. He also does a great job in the beginning of the book chronicling some of the history of a storied rap culture that has produced such top hit makers as Lil Wayne, Juvenile and Mystikal to name a few. But, he spends a majority of time talking about his experiences with the uniquely New Orleans music, Bounce.

Me and my love for Bounce music really came as a nostalgic thing. When Bounce was at it's heyday in the late 90s I was merely a teenager coming into my own musically. I used to drive to my High School in Gentily and listen to a lot of electronic music, especially Drum and Bass, and New Orleans rappers like the Big Tymers, BG and some of the No Limit crew. As you can tell I had some angst growing up as a young man in New Orleans. Bounce was something that actually annoyed me. It was the 10 minute repetitive songs that used to hog up the Hot 8 at 8 on Q93 (do they still do their 9 oclock props on there?). And to be honest, to this day I can only handle so much bounce.

The music is nothing special. It is produced by a small group of people and they use the same samples on low grade production equipment which makes it all sound generally the same and not that high of quality. It does do a great job for what is intended for: to make people dance and have a good time, but as we know, that isn't what sells records. What sells rap records is talking game about your street credibility (I feel very white right now). Lil Wayne knows this, Mystikal knows this. These are people that have made a living on this music.

Most of the book Tiksta is spent with Nick trying to justify why he was never able to successfully produce a rap album that had major success. The Choppa album he worked on changed greatly from his time on it to when it was released. Most of the time he is working on developing the careers of rappers like Junie B and Jahbo. Who based on me not knowing who they are goes to show you how much success they garnered. Throughout the second half of the book, the only rappers that he mentions that I knew were UNLV and K Gates.

With David Simon's Treme about to start this weekend, I think now is a good time to talk about New Orleans as a cultural city. Wrapped around all that is great about the city, it has a lot of problems. New Orleans to me was always a been a place where a lot was said, but little was done. A dash of corruption, a pench of bars being open 24 hours, a splash of poverty and a helping of good old "ohhh that's just the way it is" mentality and before you know it you are passed up by cities like Atlanta and Houston. The New Yorker this week put it best when saying that Treme "virtually prohibits you from loving [New Orleans], while asking you to value it."

I think this is a true sentiment for how I feel about the city that made me who I am. I would probably still be there if it weren't for Katrina. Still 5 years after the storm, New Orleans still needs a lot of help. Shoot, it needed that help before the storm. I hope that all the influx of youth that I am hearing about and our new Mayor will allow for things to head in a better direction. then it has since the early 80s. But, New Orleans needs to be more open to new ideas. Not think that just because something isn't rooted in 19th or early 20th century New Orleans that it is not allowed to be apart of New Orleans or else it will end up like a city like Memphis.

I think Nick Cohen saw a lot of what I see as problems with New Orleans. The beauty with him is he kept hustling. He didn't let other peoples laziness or prejudices stop him from doing what he was doing.