Friday, September 14, 2012

ON THE DIVINITY OF DMX'S "WHAT'S MY NAME"

 

Ominous piano chords pierce the white noise of your complacent existence.  A gravel voiced DMX addresses "half-rappin ass motherfuckers" rhetorically: "You think it's a game? You think it's a fuckin' game?"  We know the answer.  These unnamed amateurs believe that "it" - whatever it is - is a game.

The DMX figure is hardened and amoral, calloused by the tumult and hypocrisy that burdens his lungs like water.  He has no friends.  He sheds blood, has no compunction about making others shed the very same substance.  He is a dog, forced to develop a predatory, survival-by-any-means mentality in the Darwinian world he inhabits; whether this is a matter of reality or distorted perception is unclear, yet the distinction is unimportant.  What reality is there outside of perception?  We can trust the DMX figure.  Though we may not like him or his actions, grizzled and world-weary, he maintains a code-of-ethics in the sneering face of moral anarchy.

He's not a nice person; he admits it, he is honest, and that's far more than can be said for the fraudulence that is unaccountably given a pass in these confused times.  Is he crazy?  Has he lost his mind?  Perhaps he has.  But can we blame him when he occupies a world of dubious value, a world whose standards and moorings are not observed?  What does it really mean to be insane in such a world?

No comments:

Post a Comment