Jehst - Alien

Jehst (A.K.A. William G. Shields) is one of the most well known people in the UK underground hip hop scene. He is an MC and also a producer of music (beats). His style is very rich in vocabulary and his tracks may take more than one listen to appreciate them fully. The first one I heard was Alien from Evil Ed’s 12″ (vinyl) The Tournament Round One.

Here is the video track followed by the lyrics:

[Verse 1: Jehst]
I exist in a state of consistent transition
Plans shifting, with insufficient ambition
Man listen, this is my advice
Die or fight, get caged in or take flight
On the page inside the margin I make light
Appear in the form of the words I write
It’s all solar, from the lows to the highs
But you’re blinded by the wool pulled over
Ya eyes by over-sized flies who feed off waste
Take the icing on the cake, and leave without trace
The man without a face, I stay anonymous
The way we livin day to day stays monotonous
Like your bland sound,
But with the weight of the world on top of us we still stand ground
And break down your fascination with the fabrication of the truth
Make use of your imagination in the pursuit of expression
Not as a disguise to hide behind when undressing
Ya brethren, I recon the question is this: ‘To be or not to be?’
A simple lesson in risk
[Sampling/Scratches]
[Verse 2: Jehst]

Imparting this text is my only life after death
I’m left gasping for breath
Asking for less tension and stress about to suffocate
It feels like I need divine intervention to resuscitate me
Lately it’s like frustration has taken its hold
Restraining me from breaking the mold or making the most of my creative control
Times taking its toll
I’m elevating my soul by taking the old to the new
Like nice and smooth
My voice highlights the groove
The break sets the mood, I express my attitude
Towards my foes and those who show no gratitude
You can’t calulate my longitude or latitude
Navigate my catacomb, or reach my altitude
I’m too high, far too fly to stay stationary
Basically I keep it constructive, like masonry
Blatantly disruptive, and it’s disgracefully corruptive
System plagued with injustice
But this is purity, you can’t touch this
It’s much more to me, than just “fuck this”
But I can’t let that discourage
I salvage anything of value from the rubbish and repair
I won’t be driven into submission or despair
I prepare for war and hear the rhythm of the snare …(right there)

[Sampling/Scratches]

Phew! He just doesn’t stop does he? When I first heard this track I wasn’t concentrating much but I noticed the nice flow and enjoyed that beat. But this is the first time that I actually have the lyrics right in front of me, so lets see what we have here…

“I exist in a state of consistent transition
Plans shifting, with insufficient ambition
Man listen, this is my advice
Die or fight, get caged in or take flight”
I am such a geek, why? Because when I heard consistent transition I thought of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus and his theory of everything being in constant flux. I digress, my first impressions is that this is to do with struggle (much like the previous post here) but is it about life in general or something more specific? His metaphors of getting caged in and fighting or flying are quite active and it is good how he incorporates the “fight or flight” mechanism into it.

“On the page inside the margin I make light
Appear in the form of the words I write”
Light is usually a symbol of hope, or that is how I take it. And the form of hope is in the words that he writes (i.e. his lyrics) or his art.

“But you’re blinded by the wool pulled over
Ya eyes by over-sized flies who feed off waste
Take the icing on the cake, and leave without trace”
Blinded, metaphorically it can mean to be deceived in any number of ways. The over sized flies, I suspect, are the bigger record labels who are commercial. They “take it the cake” as in take the piss, but he incorporated this common English idiom well with the oversized flies metaphor by using the word icing (flies like sugar right?).

“The way we livin day to day stays monotonous
Like your bland sound,
But with the weight of the world on top of us we still stand ground
And break down your fascination with the fabrication of the truth
Make use of your imagination in the pursuit of expression”
Some people do consider that the way we live is monotonous. The typical 9-5 jobs, paying rent and doing things just for the sake of doing them. He likens this to our “bland sound” probably meaning commercial music. Same dance beats, same sort of lyrics again and again, the type of lyrics that tell you want you want to hear and fabricate it into truth. While artistic pieces actually express the artists emotions and their feelings. That is the impression I got.

“Imparting this text is my only life after death”
That was an amazing way to start the second verse. And it was relevant to me since I had recently received my “Death is nothing” essay for philosophy! Basically, he is talking about legacies. Many people believe, due to their culture, that a legacy might be a business, or even one’s own children. The artist here is saying this his art is his legacy.

“Lately it’s like frustration has taken its hold
Restraining me from breaking the mold or making the most of my creative control
Times taking its toll”
Many hip hop artists will testify that whatever they have achieved in terms of their art, especially if it is recording and releasing an album, is very draining with energy and time and the work that goes into it certainly sounds it. Frustration takes hold and inhibits one’s creativity.

“You can’t calulate my longitude or latitude
Navigate my catacomb, or reach my altitude
I’m too high, far too fly to stay stationary
Basically I keep it constructive, like masonry”
“Bring it on!” is what he is saying, but in a very coooool way!

“System plagued with injustice
But this is purity, you can’t touch this
It’s much more to me, than just “fuck this”
I kind of established in my mind that this is all about the music industry, and this is what is plagued with injustice. But there is a parallelism going on which is interesting; in many ways you can also apply what he is saying to life in general, which is maybe what he is talking about anyway!

“But I can’t let that discourage
I salvage anything of value from the rubbish and repair
I won’t be driven into submission or despair
I prepare for war and hear the rhythm of the snare ..”
Here it is again, WAR, and used in very metaphorical ways. My first post did warn that there will be metaphors (and excessive amounts I should add) but this is poetry after all! And that is a great way to end the entire piece. Yes it is difficult, yes it is hard, but I will not be driven under and I will fight back…