A poem that I preformed at Catweazle – The Children of Ishmael

The Children of Ishmael lived in the desert

Hot and barren, empty and arid

Unlike the Sassanid

Who had the snow capped mountain and the Fertile Crescent

Unlike the Egyptians who would crush beatles to bits

And use their blood to stain their lips

But they did have camels; beasts who would float through the sand

And take them away to further lands

But with all the trading, buying and selling

Nothing grew in their home, but for sand and stone

To fulfill the human need of expression

 

Brutally beautiful desert aside

There was one thing that filled them with pride

It was their tongue, rich in sounds almost alive

As sharp as the scimitars by their sides

Or soft as the shades,

They were bent like iron into poems and tales

Like all peoples, they had their time

Conquering Persia and the Byzantines

They spread from China to Andalusian Spain

And they adopted the music and geometric shapes in part

But close to their heart, remained the power of the word as Art

For what kind of God swears an oath by the falling of the stars?

That is what they believed He said to them in their Qur’an

King, Sultan, servant or slave

They dropped to their knees everyday and put their heads upon the ground to pray

Reciting verses of rhythm and rhyme

That spoke of beauty and the beginning of time

Their very scripture, an anthology of poetry

A spiritual guidance and a moral philosophy

 

They were as one, submitting to the divine

Each a slave, knowing of a certain time where they shall taste death

Drawing breath

And entering an afterlife

They sought knowledge, translating ancient works

That may have been lost forever to the world

Why is it that we know

Of Aristotle and Plato?

Of Hippocrates and Galen

And the very idea of medicine?

 

And so the wheel turns, time comes and goes

The light of which I have spoken is now but an afterglow

Like embers, living or dying, there is no way to know

If the wind of fate blows then it shall burn again

But if it stands still then it shall be the end

And as aged men, they reminisince of the Golden Age,

as if they were the good ol’ days

And in all honesty, I see nothing but decline and pain

To think I gave too much praise is missing the point

I am merely showing you the other side of a coin

A coin old and rusted, by the Ocean of the Media

Almost engulfing it, in it’s agenda

In giving different perspectives I challenge narratives

And that, my fellows, is but one duty of the artists…

M9 – Spiritual scrolls – the rapid imagery technique

So I found a new UK hip-hop group to listen to, one friend recommended them a long time ago but I have not really checked them out properly until now.

Asides from purely appreciating the lyricism and effort an artist or artists put into a track, one can also pick up on techniques that have been used. In the case of Melanin 9′s (Or M9′s) work, the track Spiritual Scrolls  (video below):

Now for those who read a lot, you most likely came across a passage written by an author which is made up of short and abrupt sentences. If each sentence is descriptive then it will produce the effect of time moving fast or of a collage of images inside your head which relate to one theme.

This track features something similar. If you go to 35 seconds in, these lyrics follow:
Gods locked in the morgues
Glocks to your jaws
Coppers watching from their choppersSitting in the cockpit door
The clock hits four when feds lick the locksmith’s door

The rest has after has been a little hard to catch (I am trying though). But these short lines describe a dark, dystopian reality of the underworld. To say “Gods locked in the morgues”, I think, is a poetic way of simply saying that morality is collapsing, a place where people do anything just to get what they want; selfish materialism that blinds the soul.

If I happen to write lyrics once again, then this is a technique that I will definitely consider using, but it remains to be seen whether I will be good enough.

A graphic novel and film review – Ari Folman’s “Waltz with Bashir”

This is a graphic novel, but I will also put it under my “books I reviewed” list because I don’t think I would be reviewing many other graphic novels.

Summary:

Using a unique blend of animation and story telling, this documentary is based on the real life story of Israeli soldier, Ari Folman. And it has now been converted into a graphic novel.

One night, a friend of Ari calls him over for a drink and tells him of a nightmare that he had, a nightmare spawned by the Lebanon War of 1982, where Israel invaded during the Lebanese Civil War from 1975-1990. On that same night, Ari starts to have recurring dreams, seeing himself and his friends back in Lebanon, back in Beirut at the site of a horrific massacre that took place in Sabra and Shatila; Palestinian refugee camps next to the capital city . It is only then that he realizes something striking; Ari has no memory of participation in that war as a soldier whatsoever, and so he goes on an inner (and outer) adventure to seek out his friends and find out the truth. It is only after he returns from visiting a friend who now lives in Holland that his memory suddenly unlocks, and he remembers the war…and the massacre which was committed by a Lebanese militia and in which he saw himself as an accessory.

The Review:

Israel, as a country, is very political. So it came as a surprise that when I watched this film and read the graphic novel, that there was no mention of politics whatsoever. This story is a purely human story, it is a story about people and not politics, about the internal thoughts of one of many soldiers involved in a massive war. It is a fresh take on documentaries, since a documentary involving conflicts, civil wars and countries such as Israel or Lebanon, are almost obliged to have a mention of politics. But Ari Folman does not need this component, what he needed and used were simply his memories and perceptions, and those of his friends who were with him during that war.

One aspect that I found quite amazing was while watching the film itself, and the graphic novel really can’t do it justice. It is the animation, which has a smooth and unique feel to it. One would wonder why Ari Folman used animated cartoon as a medium for such a project, but it turned out to be perfect in creating the ambience that surrounds dreams, a heavy element in this story, and it was a manageable budget for him as a film maker. The art style itself is melancholic in a sense, with heavy use of shadows. But it also captured the facial features of everyone very well, giving them their character.

Talking of ambience, the music is another amazing aspect which the graphic novel can do no justice (obviously). Composed by Max Richter, the music the environment it creates is so memorable that I still listen to it to this day. From the opening scene (which is confusing, and that is the only clue I will give), to the end scene, it is gripping and effective.

However, there is one thing that bugs me, and here it is phrased so eloquently from a review from electronic intifada:

The question of who was doing whose dirty work is not so easily answered, however Israel was nobody’s sidekick when it invaded Lebanon. The film does not show us the Israeli shelling of Beirut that led to 18,000 deaths and 30,000 wounded, the violations committed against civilians, the destruction of Palestinian and Lebanese resistance. And what about the fact that the Palestine Liberation Organization and armed resistors had been evacuated more than two weeks before the massacres, and that it was the day after multinational forces left Beirut that Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon made it known that 2,000 “terrorists” remained in the camps? The focus of Folman’s quest for responsibility in Waltz with Bashir hones in on lighting the flares as the Phalangists “mopped up” the camps. That two months before the massacres Sharon had announced his objective to send Phalangist forces into the camps, that the Israeli army surrounded and sealed the camps, that they shelled the camps, that snipers shot at camp dwellers in the days before the massacres, and then having given the green light to the Phalangists to enter Sabra and Shatila, the Israeli army prevented people from fleeing the camps — all of this is absent in Waltz with Bashir.

I must stress that if you want an accurate view of the Lebanon invasion in it’s entirety, then don’t just rely on Ari Folman’s views and perceptions. Read a history book and look at multiple sources from multiple sides. This story is purely from his point of view,  that much is made clear when not a single Palestinian in the film is given a name or a face. Not a single one even speaks, and the women at the end who scream amongst the dead bodies are not even subtitled. I would say that is quite accurate of how Israelis see us, just how we see Israeli soldiers all monotonous in their uniforms, devoid of personality and, at times, compassion.

With that said, I will give one spoiler warning, but this is purely to prepare you. While the film/comic is an animated style cartoon, Ari Folman inserts real life images of the Sabra and Shatila massacre at the end (both the film and graphic novel) just to pull us back to reality. After watching the film at a friend’s house, and seeing those images as well, it really left me with a lot of emotions running through my head. I remember leaving the house with dark clouds in the sky, and it left me with a very sombre impression. Me being Palestinian affected me considerably, but no matter who you are, this tale of friendship, discovery, guilt and violence will move you.

I really would give this five stars, and even more if I could.

Flash game review – Convergence

Start

Story – 9/10

Convergence is a game about life and life choices. You are an average human being who goes through three stages, within each stage the decisions you make will affect the next. It is thought provoking and a really well done piece of art. Yes the graphics are basically a bunch of pixels, but this game focuses on the realities of life rather than just giving us a good show.

Game play – 7/10

The three stages mentioned are of your life as a baby, adolescent life and then adult life. The most fun of all was playing as a baby, where you had to race against a rather evil sibling (who locks you in the attic by the way) to collect all the toys. The other two stages are just walking around and hitting the action key which can get a little boring.

Make your choice...

With that said, each stage is not too long and fairly simple so that you are encouraged to go through the multiple possible routes. While the first stage was the most fun game play wise, the second stage I found very thought provoking.

I have always had a personal fear of becoming an over worked office drone, and the faceless characters, each sitting at their desks, really made me think about that. The music in the background was ambient and suited the middle stage very well. The bar at the bottom shows how much you care about work or love, and the initial starting point on the meter is determined by your choice in the first stage…I will leave that to find out for yourself.

The third stage is just a conclusive stage with not much going on, it just shows you where your choices got you in the end. I guess the reason that the life story of this character is so “average” is because the “average person” will be playing such a game, but I think a lot more could have been done in terms of the story itself and the endings (although one ending was quite saddening). But it is thought provoking in the end and it carries out what the developers intended it to carry out.

Achievement room!

Graphics/presentation – 9/10

The monotony and simplicity of the game’s graphics help us to focus more on how the game affects us emotionally. The music is great, especially in the second stage as I have mentioned before, and it also has a similar simplicity. Funnily enough, I just couldn’t imagine a game like this with “better” graphics.

Overall score – 8.3/10

Go and play this game now! – I am going to look for more thought provoking stuff!

Credits go to:

Streetlight Studios - Ray Chan, Mike Hadley Sean Li

Music by Kevin MacLeod

Gaming and how I came to read H.P. Lovecraft

Video games aren’t always held in the best of attitudes when it comes to the media. Every time someone does something stupid or horrendous, such as murdering people, and people find out they used to play games like World of Warcraft or Call of Duty, they make great and unfounded assumptions.

If you had clicked the link, then you would know that I am referring to the very tragic and horrific 77 killings in Norway carried out by Anders Breivik.

Now in my own opinion, it is simply silly to believe that you can use a game like Call of Duty to find out how to operate a gun, get used to the weight and recoil and train in accuracy. But I don’t want to dwell on that as I know that a lot of fellow Gamers agree with me, instead I want to talk about how video games have been a positive force in my life.

I was once playing the role playing game, the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, exploring my world happily and innocently, content that this was the best £20 I had spent so far. I played through one quest where I had to go to a mysterious village that was unkind to strangers, and try to find a girl who had disappeared there. It was a challenging one, and the village had a particularly interesting character to it, so I opened up the elder scrolls wiki and read about it.

The trivia section that concerns the village and the related quest to it says this:
“This quest is a homage to the H.P.Lovecraft short story ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’, featuring a very similar plot”

The only reason I read, nay, even  heard about an author such as H.P. Lovecraft was thanks to the makers of the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

Hackdirt - credit: The elder scrolls wiki

What I had just witnessed and experienced was how Art (in this case, literature) inspired game developers, and how they incorporated this inspiration into the game. In turn, I was pointed to an amazing and inspiring author who I read (and hope to actually review later!). Such are the potential of games.

Aren’t artists always inspired by works of art and experiences themselves? I like to believe that, at least in this particular part of the game, there was a work of art in itself. The formation of Lovecraft’s story, a shadow over innsmouth, into the world of the Elder Scrolls in a very smart way.

Imagine what can be done if game developers really do take inspiration from other forms of art, be it dance, literature, painting and drawing, and incorporating it into their own work. Imagine if they give credit, giving us a fresh new perspective and encouraging us to look at the art itself.

It is just food for thought and a defence of gaming.

Also on this note, please comment with other examples of where you found Games that were inspired by a particular work of art!

The Circular Polis

I have been working on The Circular Polis for quite a bit now, I guess it is one form of escapism for me.

Perhaps I should explain what this thing exactly is. It is a story. Is it a novella? A novel? Or even a short story? I don’t exactly know, all I know is that I am on the fourth chapter so far.

The Circular Polis is the tale of two members of the Secret Police in a modern dystopian city known as The Republic of the Polis and how they are caught in the middle of a conspiracy that leads to war. What they find out is starkly different to what they think they know.

The society of the Circular Polis is quite loosely based on Plato’s perfect city state with a militaristic twist to it. There are three main classes of citizens in the state. The workers, the guardians and the philosophers. Each class has its internal rankings. The workers can be simple manual workers, craftsmen or managers of entire factories. The guardians can range from police men, to soldiers in the army and members of the R.S.A. (Republic’s Secret Auxiliary) or secret police. The Philosophers are mainly politicians who are entrusted to run the Polis with a fair but heavy hand. Guardians are selected according to ability to train and become philosophers, while workers stay as workers all their lives meaning that there is little social mobility for them.

There is no concept of a nuclear family in the state. People of the same class are selected to breed with each other. The newborn is swiftly taken to the academic sector where they are looked after, reared and then trained depending on who their parents are. The child is at first told the “noble lie”, that is that the Earth has given birth to him and the state as well and that all are family. Only when they mature are they told the truth. The biological parents are to carry on their lives as normal. In the modern era, test tube fertilization which is more remote for the participants is being used more and more often.

The difficulty of imagining a place where there is no such thing as parenthood is way more difficult then cooking up a random creature in one’s mind, and I guess that is part of the challenge. It just sounds so strange and alien, so unlike any other society that I personally heard of before that it may just be impossible to conceptualize consistently, but I guess that is part of the fun of writing a book like this.

Writing that is inspired by Hip-hop

Asides from hip-hop, I like writing short stories and my thoughts down in general. But one day I decided that, since some hip-hop pieces do tell stories in themselves, why not try to see how they can be told in the form of prose? So I chose a track to base a story on, and that track is Broken Window by Rhyme Asylum in their album Solitary Confinement, (I wrote an article about this piece before) and here is their track:

What is great about doing something like this (and which I will do more of in the future) is that because of the nature of hip-hop, there is not a lot of detail compared to that of prose and so you are left to your own imagination as you add detail. It is as if the track has provided the story and a basic skeleton, and I was left to add the flesh of it all. For example, there was no detail regarding how Dr Dean Emmett in the track was arrested, so this is what I did
“Three loud knocks penetrated the silence of Dr Emmet’s one bedroom apartment. He jumped from his bed and glanced at the time; 4 in the morning, who could it be?”   

Once could actually add their own spin to the whole thing. I made this piece sound like a classical Halloween scary story just by adding a little ending:
“It was said that on the night of the Doctor’s death violent noises were heard in the air ducts and the institution’s alarm was set off for no explainable reason.” 

 The character or characters within the track were not given much of a back story, and it is really fun when you are given a character and you come up with how they ended up in a certain situation (it is harder than it sounds!).
“Having gained a degree of Psychology from the University of Durham and working for a counselling agency in London, one could tell that he was well off. Still ambitious at the age of forty three; he would have had a bright future ahead of him.”

Funnily enough, the reason I chose the University of Durham was actually because one of my Chemistry/Physics teachers at school (who was very intelligent and cool) actually went there. Anyway, without further ado, here is the story itself:
http://hayatli7.deviantart.com/#/d3fi3wi

I look forward to writing more things like this, actually I am working on one now inspired by Immortal Technique’s Dance with the Devil. I hope that it will come out nicely.

Peace to all

The not so well known ones

I write my own lyrics from time to time, and as an avid user of the Internet I use deviantArt; a social network site for all kinds of artists to show case their work.
There are various people who write lyrics on there too, and I thought to myself that I might take their lyrics for analysis too, just because they are not well known does not mean that it’s not worth looking at. And it will do an excellent job of publicising their work on the site by writing articles for them (deviantArt had it’s own news section) .
While this is a new and exciting prospect I do have work to be getting on with and will only have free time later. Hopefully things will take off then.

Until then peace to all!

Rhyme Asylum – Broken Window and perspectives

In my first post ever (second paragraph) I mentioned briefly the role of the beat with every track, and that is being used as a guide for the rhythmic flow of the artist. But that is not all. The beat, being a musical piece, can be used to set the mood and to add to the emotional impact of a set of lyrics. One of the best examples I can think of when it comes to mood is Rhyme Asylum‘s Broken Window from their album Solitary Confinement. When I first heard it I was engrossed in what was said and very powerful imagery formed in my mind. Here is the video, followed by the lyrics:

[Verse 1: Psiklone]

My name is Dean Emit, victim of a serious mistake
Diagnosed as clinically insane
Sectioned, imprisoned and detained
The last thing I remember I was being physically restrained
First sensed something was amiss
Noticing the other inmates had cuts across their wrists
My trust in the nurses hesitated
Instantly ceased taking medication [Waiting]
They segregated selective mental patients
I once caught a glimpse of the room where they’d take them
Reasons why remain undisclosed
A hundred volts straight to the victim’s frontal lobes
Disguised as medical tests
Vulnerable people were being sentenced to death
[This is beyond madness] I had to escape
Spent night and day racking my brain
Insomniac, but I had no solid plan
One day in group therapy, eventually lost my rag
[Is this some kind of sick joke?]
Next thing I knew, a doctor pushed me straight through a window
Awoke later in my bed, as my mind cleared
A pain in my side sparking the idea
Tied up without side effects
Shook loose the undetected shard of glass from behind my vest
Heart pounding inside my chest
Managed to slice my restraints, fell down beside my bed
Stood up, pulled off the ceiling’s iron mesh
Climbed the winding vent entangled in spider webs
Exited down a flight of steps
Ditched my hospital gown so the dogs won’t find the scent
Felt the cold wind on my face
Blinded by the moonlight, my mental prison escape

[Verse 2: Possessed]

His name was Doctor Emit institutionalised
For committing the most unusual crimes
Torturing patients numerous times
‘Till one escaped, brought the truth to the light
Losing his mind but kept it top secret
Unnecessary methods of shock treatment
No waiting list kept going till the power died
Or the patient did, which ever came first
He was a slave to his hunger within
Tied them up sewed razors under their skin
Eyes void of emotion
When asked why he did it, he just said the voices had spoken
Insane, locked in a cell
Dementia in control of all knowledge of self
Day to day he’d yell about the crimes
Like he didn’t do them and they’re still taking place
Swimming in the depths of depression
Volatile, living on the edge of aggression
Never did get a confession
(Flipped out) during a routine group therapy session
When asked “are you scared of the past?”
He jumped up by the window put his chair through the glass
Demented look in his face
Guards took him away put him to bed fully restrained
Didn’t bother drugging him up
The next morning they walked in and saw him covered in blood
Should’ve known from behaviour patterns
That this was a suicide waiting to happen
Life he came to hate with a passion
Shard to the wrist, fatal attraction
Examining the evil deed
There it was on the floor the jagged killer that didn’t flee the scene
Broken Window

[4 x Outro]
Window to the soul, broken
Now his ghost is out in the open

The first thing I noticed when I clicked play for the first time ever, was the beat and that is because it is the first thing that plays (duh!). The melancholy mood it sets really reflects the subject of the track and works with it very well. The slow piano rhythm accommodates the slower more dramatic flow of the artists in this, which is very good for suspense.

“A hundred volts straight to the victim’s frontal lobes”
When the artist says this particular line, a very special feature of story telling is revealed. When you are recounting your own experiences or that of someone else, you do not say it in a monotone voice, but in an emotional tone that reflects the mood of the experience itself. This becomes very very clear with this line when he uses one of fear and sheer surprise.

“Vulnerable people were being sentenced to death
[This is beyond madness] I had to escape
Spent night and day racking my brain
Insomniac, but I had no solid plan
One day in group therapy, eventually lost my rag”
Events unfold in rapid succession which in this case gives the effect of something building up into a climax.

“A pain in my side sparking the idea”
He says this line with genuine surprise and epiphany, you can almost see a light bulb shining above his head there, which is great. He is experiencing this, he isn’t retelling the experiences of someone else.

“Shook loose the undetected shard of glass from behind my vest
Heart pounding inside my chest
Managed to slice my restraints, fell down beside my bed
Stood up, pulled off the ceiling’s iron mesh
Climbed the winding vent entangled in spider webs”
From the first line in this section the beat, and the artists voice, really pick up. He uses a lot of active verbs to make it an active section, so all of this combined makes for a very suspenseful piece.

“Blinded by the moonlight, my mental prison escape”
The way he finishes of the verse by saying this line is immense! Psiklone literally kills this verse; amazing work.

Now we start with Possessed, who plays a different character

“His name was Doctor Emit institutionalised
For committing the most unusual crimes”
Having a name is very important, as it gives a point of reference. And if you pay attention you will realize that this is a major twist in the form of a radically different perspective on things.

“No waiting list kept going till the power died
Or the patient did, which ever came first”
The way this was executed was good because it is something you just expect to hear in a horror/scary story. I could imagine someone sitting by a fire and saying this line.

“Tied them up sewed razors under their skin
Eyes void of emotion
When asked why he did it, he just said the voices had spoken
Insane, locked in a cell
Dementia in control of all knowledge of self
Day to day he’d yell about the crimes
Like he didn’t do them and they’re still taking place”
Here he is making connections with what the first character was saying but from a different perspective (see lines 6 – 14). The second and third lines in this section are creepy as hell!

“He jumped up by the window put his chair through the glass”
This is what really happened when Psiklone’s character said a doctor pushed him through a window. Crazy eh?

“Didn’t bother drugging him up”
The beat once again picks up from this point to create an increase in suspense up to the climax:
“Should’ve known from behaviour patterns
That this was a suicide waiting to happen”
So Psiklone’s character commits suicide, so what was going on from his perspective when he was running through the field with the moonlight on his face? We get the answer at the very end:

“Examining the evil deed
There it was on the floor the jagged killer that didn’t flee the scene
Broken Window”

[4 x Outro]
Window to the soul, broken
Now his ghost is out in the open“

This piece is interesting because it brings two parallel perspectives side by side, yet it doesn’t say for definite which one is right and the other is wrong. Rhyme Asylum seem to have a recurring theme of madness/insanity in their tracks and the theme here was put to good use when they put perspectives under question. But as well as that, I think this made an awesome horror story!

Jehst – China Shop Taurus

I just had to do another Jehst track. I was looking at a lyrics database and just read the lyrics of this particular track without listening to the song first, and I was impressed with the way it was written and intrigued as to how he flowed it. The tracks is China Shop Taurus from Falling Down, one of his first albums. When I listened to it and read along it was even better (of course) and I loved how laid back the beat was but how energetic it made me feel at the same time, very inspiring!

Here is the video followed by the lyrics (the video is not the best quality and lyrics are courtesy of contributors at UKHH) I strongly recommend you listen and read at the same time to get the most out of it!

The sun sets over cityscape silhouettes
Bright lights flicker
Cigarette smoke pirouettes
It’s the addictive kiss of death in effect
I’m a little stressed
Spittin liquor breath introspect
Hot like triple X
Getting lost in the mixing desk
Sweat glistens like glitter-balls reflect
Recollect on the dreamscape
Escape the freebase infested police state
Teenage protesters riot in the heatwave
Fire in the streets
Place bets on the sweepstakes
Check how the greed shapes their mindsets
The beast clockin like Timex
Flexin their biceps

[CHORUS]
There’s nothin out here for us
Negative forces force us to live lawless
And spit rawness
I’m like a china shop Taurus
I talk of torment
And pen chorus after chorus

BNP berserkers bent on murders
Teens taggin for a sense of purpose
Streets is tense and nervous
So bait it’s bound to tempt the serpent’s appetite
Parasite paradise
Po-lice patronise
Lappin up a pack of lies
Macho guys
Turn hermaphrodite by candlelight
Still they wanna scandalise mine
Cos I spit rhyme
I’m tryin’ to scrape the paper and escape
Quick-time
Get yours
Utilise your get out clause
Outlaws on course for the great outdoors
I’m way out like Cheech Wizard
Keepin’ warm in the winter blizzard
Bangin’ my head like Lynard Skynard
I’m havin nightmares
I’m naked in my groundfloor flat
Grippin a baseball bat
With the backdoor open to night-time predators
Crack heads high like heaven gone wrong
Watchin’ back street revellers
Revelation of the devil’s messed up messengers
Sin is effortless
Yet effecting us
In fact infecting us with disease
Beast inspecting
Expecting us to mess up
Muck up
Leave you bruck up
You ll get beaten the fuck up and cuffed
Some even got snuffed
Others live on to puff another bag
And brag how they’re mad tough
Man I’ve had enough
There’s nothin out here for non of us

[CHORUS]

Post-modernist
Pre-apocalypse
Livin in this rotten metropolis
Existing with broken homes hearts and promises
Park bench politics
Soapbox soap-bar smokers acknowledge this novelist
The broke pocket economist
On a mission
Fists clenched for the opposition
Sittin tight like Taliban in Tora Bora
The last stand
Now we’re livin in the land of the lost
And the age of Sodom and Gomorra
Divide and conquer
You re blocked by the border
Locked by the law and order
The war reporter walks streets
As the cycle of suicidal thoughts repeats
In the minds of the poor and meek
A meat market of morbid freaks
And freebase heads speak to inform the beast
A bleak picture
The cycle of war and peace is crazy vulgar
Sick as the kids that killed Damilola Taylor
And Jamie Bulger
My heart broken open and beating slower
The cold-blooded grow even colder
In a globe so rotten
Like teeth in cola
No hope of mending
A culture of violent endings pending
Our pens become government scapegoats
But no guns bust at my stage show
So yo it’s like…

[CHORUS]

“The sun sets over cityscape silhouettes
Bright lights flicker
Cigarette smoke pirouettes
It’s the addictive kiss of death in effect”
Here is the beginning and the first line already sets the scene, and that is an urban scene. And it is not represented as an elegant city, because lights are flickering and people are smoking! Pirouettes, as far as I know, is a particular ballet dance move where the performer spins in a perfect circle without moving from position (you should know what I am talking about, we see it in movies all the time). How cheerful! (/sarcasm).

“I’m a little stressed
Spittin liquor breath introspect
Hot like triple X
Getting lost in the mixing desk
Sweat glistens like glitter-balls reflect”
And he places himself in the midst of the scene. Stress; alcohol seems to be a way to deal with it but also doing his thing on the mixing desk (remember he is a music producer too) as a form of escapism.

“Recollect on the dreamscape
Escape the freebase infested police state
Teenage protesters riot in the heatwave
Fire in the streets”
As Canibus once said “The dream-state is the playground of the supreme” . “Police state” or “Big brother” state is another word used for one of the countries that has a high concentration of CCTV cameras. Teenage protestors and rioting (I can relate that to the recent anti-fees campaign) can either be showing his support for youth movements, or jesting and making fun of the youth stereotype in the media; take yer pick.

“Check how the greed shapes their mindsets
The beast clockin like Timex
Flexin their biceps”
The beast was mainly a biblical reference to the anti-christ in the book of Revelations (correct me if I am wrong) but now it is also used to label the current capitalist system which rules the world. Notice how he refers to the beast as a collective as in their biceps not his/her biceps.

The chorus reminds me of one quote: If you make peaceful protest impossible, you will make violent revolution inevitable. What does it remind you of?

“BNP berserkers bent on murders
Teens taggin for a sense of purpose
Streets is tense and nervous
So bait it’s bound to tempt the serpent’s appetite”
BNP as berserkers; I don’t think he likes them much. Teens looking for a sense of purpose may be referring to the problems that some have with their personal identity, especially if they find it difficult to relate to their parents or culture. And we also have another biblical reference; for those of you who haven’t even heard of the Genesis creation story, Satan is referred to as a serpent there. Metaphorically speaking, the worst of us can come out in chaotic times.

“Parasite paradise
Po-lice patronise
Lappin up a pack of lies
Macho guys
Turn hermaphrodite by candlelight”
Parasites and “po-lice”; clever, no? And instead of simply mentioning hypocrisy, Jehst would rather make a clever rhyme and say that Macho guys turn hermaphrodite by candlelight (meaning private lives of course), not that he has anything against hermaphrodytes in particular, just anyone who pretends to be what they are not inside, I guess he just dislikes hypocrites from all walks of life.

“Bangin’ my head like Lynard Skynyrd
I’m havin nightmares
I’m naked in my groundfloor flat
Grippin a baseball bat
With the backdoor open to night-time predators”
The image of Jehst being naked in some flat with a baseball bat looking this way and that made me chuckle, but on a serious note that is one way to reflect the hectic and unpredictable life that some may endure (or enjoy, it depends). A quick search revealed that Lynard Skynyrd is a famous rock band that was formed in the 1960s. Being a rock band they are likely to be banging their heads, so using them as a metaphor is suitable…lovely! (Jehst may also be a fan of this band, would be interesting to find out).

“Revelation of the devil’s messed up messengers
Sin is effortless
Yet effecting us
In fact infecting us with disease
Beast inspecting
Expecting us to mess up
Muck up
Leave you bruck up
You ll get beaten the fuck up and cuffed”
More beasts, devils and sins! Mind, it doesn’t mean that he is a devout christian. Like other artists he recognises the potency of using such metaphors. This part sounds almost like some prick watching you until you make a mistake just so they have the pleasure to beat you and cuff you. Kind of like the quota system prevalent in Police in the USA, check it out.

“Livin in this rotten metropolis”
What did I say in the beginning of this? The city is represented negatively, and here it is,more obvious this time.

“Sittin tight like Taliban in Tora Bora“
Yeah, erm, they do have the tendency to be controversial these aritsts! This is the equivalent of someone slapping you so you pay attention, well it was like that for me. Tora Bora is an area in Afghanistan which basically is a cave complex. A battle took there in 2001 shortly after 9/11. The CIA (Central (lack) of Intelligence Agnecy) thought that Osama Bin Laden may have been there, but he wasn’t (surprise!). Anyway that important part is that it was a long and hard battle…

“Sick as the kids that killed Damilola Taylor
And Jamie Bulger“
Two horrific murders used as a metaphor to describe the nature of war. I remember reading about the Jamie Bulger case before (may they rest in peace). It really shocked readers/viewers/listeners all around Britain, making this connection of shock to wars that are happening countries away is a really good tactic.

“Our pens become government scapegoats
But no guns bust at my stage show”
A lot of people do blame mainstream/commercial rap for a lot of society’s problems because…well if you watch a video it will be obvious. Encouragement of violence, selfish materialism, drug use and even abuse can make strong impressions on young children. But Jehst excludes himself from this, there are no guns at his stage show unlike those wannabe Gs flashing their toys.