Best of, #30. Abandon All Hope
Let us start where Aesop started. Abandon All Hope is Aesop’s first track on his debut album Music for Earthworms, released in 1997. If it weren’t the fact that I thought I’d be witty and start where Aes started, this song would by higher on my list.
Abandon All Hope starts with fifty seconds of eerie, static-y piano, and Aes repeating his name over and over again. Not a bad way to start a rapping career. It’s almost as if he is getting use to his rap moniker himself, trying it on for size. Aesop, Aesop Rock…Aesop, Aesop Rock…Aesop, Aesop Rock. And then the beat cuts, and all experienced listeners get a slight grin on their face that equates to: ‘Aw shit, he we go’. And then he just starts saying words.
Words that are first hard to keep up with. You may not be use to certain words being connected in the ways that he connects them. You may not be use to the speed in which he says them. You may be stuck on the idea from his last stanza while he is already three stanzas ahead. You may just be caught of guard by his unique baritone voice. But I’m not. I’ve listened to this track more than I care to admit. I know every word by heart. And the first line never fails to give me goosebumps. Is a love such as that which I exhibit for my practice / the factor which then amalgamates debates with straight jackets. First of all- amalgamates. Don’t know what it means? Need to run for a dictionary? Better get use to it. This dude throws more words at you than David Foster Wallace at a spelling bee. Second of all- ‘the fuck? Seriously, what the fuck does that mean? I don’t know what the fuck he meant by saying that. I don’t know why he felt it so important that he made it the first line of his rapping career. All that I can say on the matter is that I can extrapolate meaning from this line that suits me, a personal meaning that exhibits an intangible idea behind those concrete words. Would it match up to what some dude named Ian Matthias Bavitz thinks about those words? Maybe, maybe not. I like to think that it does. But does it matter?
I don’t know if it matters. I can tell you what I think that line means, but it always seems less grandiose in ink than it does in my head. I’m going to let you figure this one out. But in the future, I’m going to 'project’ my thoughts onto his lines, otherwise there wouldn’t be much for me to write about. Sometimes you might have different ideas on what something means than I do, that’s fine. Sometimes we may even disagree on what he is literally saying. He has this fucked up way of properly slurring words. But it adds even more insight to the individual. “Oh, you thought he said this? Well I thought he said this…”. And I bet you the majority of the time what you think he says is way more sensical than what I thought.
Sometimes I think Aesop projects a mirror. Creative people will see creativity. Less creative people may see less. He gives you a couple words and you have to paint a picture with them. Sometimes people don’t want to put in the work to make a picture- that’s fine. Sometimes I don’t want to put in the work either. But most of the time, I enjoy it. I like the abstractness that allows me to make meaning out of it, rather than listening to concrete ideas of others of whom I can’t relate to.
Anyways, I got way off track. Here are some of my favorite lines from the song. Also, if you’re just getting into Aesop, Music for Earthworms is a great place to start. It really allows you to see the progression that Aesop made vocally, lyrically, and….beats-wise? Dub-L produced this album, I really don’t know much about him/her. This is the only Dub-L produced album, and thus has a unique sound to it. Hope you enjoy.
Loathe to modify the fly
Pretty sure he is talking about fly as in ‘cool’, not the insect here guys…
When a pack of style mimics, see my brains target the cluster, I advance clutchin’ the mic like, bully to knuckle duster
See, there’s a time when, rhyme and, paint combined can’t even manage to tell what the swell is
I live for the moment of truth when Big Willie rapper
acknowledges failure and states “Goddamn my shit is trash,
it’s time to let go”, the tin man bangin’ upon his chest to hear the echo
heartless kid, hollow compartments
I’m, Ae-fuckin’-sop Rock, Mic Bizarro
proper application of the soul by my standard
candid was the position from which instigations spawn
and man, I plan to die with a mic in my hand
Seriously, who can’t like this dude?
Be ready for the next installment- I’ll give you guys a hint. It is one of two songs on my top 30 that come off of Bazooka Tooth.