Westword Article

by Cassidy Bednark

The December 21st 2000 issue of Westword took the time to review one of my mix CDs. I am very thankful for the recognition and the publicity. And while every journalist certainly has the right to their opinions, every artist should also have the chance to reply to certain comments made about their works. The following is the actual article line-by-line written by Laura Bond as it appeared in the Westword, with commentary by myself when I find it necessary to jump in and make a point:

"White Shadow, Mix 13 is the latest in a series of sound mixes compiled by DJ Bedz (aka Cassidy Bednack), a young, local hip-hop steel-wheeler who cut his teeth as a resident DJ at Decades, an all-ages urban nightclub in west Denver."

Say what you want, just spell my name right. Isn't that how the saying goes? B-E-D-N-A-R-K, thanks.

"Bedz is clearly clever, with a keen sense of toilet humor; White Shadow is chock-full of dirty jokes, sex sounds and fuck-laden diatribes culled from recordings of local artists, found sounds and familiar hip-hop discs. It's kind of a fun journey through a gritty hip-hop landscape -- a bumpy boat ride through a different kind of Wonka factory, one populated by guns, hos, Gs and green. It's Bedz's world, but Dan the Automater he ain't."

To this point the critique is descriptive and quite fair. Laura Bond gives a little background on myself, and a summary of what she believes to be my shtick. Of course not everyone shares my affinity for over-the-top perversity, but she is entitled to her particular tastes. However, we are already beginning see signs of inherently racist anti-commercialism rap music sentiments with the "guns, hos, Gs…" comment. Plus, comparing a mainstream rap mixtape DJ to an eccentric, multi-genre producer like Dan the Automater is like comparing apples to oranges. This is now our first indication that Laura Bond is not looking at my mix CD within its proper context.

"Considering that every kid with a turntable wants to be a DJ these days, he isn't doing anything that isn't being done every night in every hip-hop club in America."

Here the problem with high-brow pretentiousness in critics: too often the emphasis is placed on whether or not the artist is attempting to be progressive rather than simply whether or not the product is any good. Sometimes artists aren't trying to reinvent the music, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The implication is that since I make no attempt to stray away from the status quo, I must somehow lack the intellectual vision or clarity truly necessary to represent the art form properly. Laura Bond's predetermined standard of an acceptable mix CD is something along the lines of Prince Paul, Handsome Boys Modeling School, DJ Shadow, etc. And while those artists are brilliant and talented, it is quite obvious that like many of her college-educated, hip, affluent, peers, Laura resents the sensationalism in popular rap music and believes it to be nothing more than primitive in nature. Secondly, I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say that the number of hip-hop clubs Laura Bond has been inside of in her life where the number of Black patrons out number the White patrons can be counted on one hand. Therefore, it is not surprising that she thinks what I do on the wheels of steel also exists at every hip-hop club in America. Truthfully, people who really follow the local Colorado hip-hop scene know that there are maybe five DJs at most that can consistently perform on a very high and professional level, and I am one of those DJs.

"The mix is erratic, uneven and shoddily produced."

Well, it just so happens that this DJ just happens to have a degree in music composition from a prestigious private college, and I know generic music lingo "filler" when I see it. You can't just throw out terms like erratic, uneven, and shoddily produced without some minor degree of elaboration. What was erratic? The shifts in tempo? The shifts in mood? The energy level? What was uneven? The musical selections? The programming decisions? The transitions between songs? And what exactly does produced mean in this situation? The recording process? The sound quality? The mixing process? The CD replication process? The actual esthetic of the CD and liner? Unless you take the time to go more into detail with your musical criticisms, you are going to have to expect that occasionally the educated musician is going to call your bluff, and that's exactly what I'm doing in this instance. It's just lazy journalism, flat out. Save the generic music jargon and take the time to actually analyze the album.

"It's not funny enough to simply sit there and listen to, nor is it funky enough to get up and dance to."

This line is downright comical. OK, so you don't think I'm all that funny. I can accept that. But the music is not funky enough to dance to?! What!? Let me see if I understand this correctly. Songs such as "Shake Ya Ass", "What's Your Fantasy", "Ante Up", "E.I.", and "Between Me and You" don't make you want to dance? Either Laura Bond is deaf, doesn't have a pulse, or is once again voicing her painfully subjective dislike for anything that sounds too angry or too Black for her liking. Give me a break. And by the way, the last time I heard the word "funky" was my high school geology teacher describing his collection of Ohio Players records.

"Bedz's work might translate to the dance floor, as his art emerges spontaneously through a manipulation of his turntables. As a sound recording, though, it's half-baked and muddy, a pretty unappetizing combo. (djbedz.com.)"

Wait. Back up a second. I thought my music was not funky enough to dance to? I can understand contradicting yourself every now and then, but in consecutive sentences? That must be some kind of record. Anyway…I will give Laura Bond credit here. Even though it comes in the second to last line of the entire review, she does at least attempt to talk about the manipulation of the turntables a.k.a. DJ skill. You know, mixing. Scratching. Details, details, details. Somewhere I read that the ability to mix and scratch is pretty important when trying to establish oneself as a good hip-hop DJ. I'm glad my DJ skill at least gets a token reference; especially considering that's 99.9% of the commodity I'm trying to promote!

All joking aside, I'm very willing to accept constructive criticism. I understand you can't please everybody, and nobody is going to like your stuff start-to-finish. The sound quality of my recording could stand to be improved, and Laura Bond gets that across nicely. Point taken. My antics may often come across as juvenile not amusing to some people. Point taken. And I think even at one point, she was trying to say that she would enjoy longer sets of music at the same tempo without interruption. That would also be a legitimate point. In general, it would have been nice if more of the article leaned toward the analyzing of my musical abilities and my technique. Also, Laura Bond needs to realize the more specific genre that my mixes actually belong in. An accurate point of comparison to the leaders in my field would be guys like DJ Clue, Tony Touch, Funkmaster Flex, Tat Money, etc., not the far fetched personal favorites of Laura's like Dan the Automater.

The rest of the critique, however, just optimizes Laura Bond's personal agenda to attack rap music that doesn't take the direction the middle-upper class, largely Caucasian, musical avant-garde has decided rap music should take. At some point, people who want to speak objectively about socially charged urban musical art forms such as rap music are going to have to figure out two things: a) that sometimes violence and sexism in an extreme satirical manner may actually help to diffuse unhealthy generalizations people form and b) that even though genuine misogyny and disregard for human life can be deplorable byproducts of the commercialization in rap music, mainstream rap is still an important method of political communication as long as the people who listen to it are bright enough to extract the meaning out of the exaggeration. It is for those reasons, that I will continue to be strive to be nothing more than a very good, hard-working, hip-hop DJ, and if that will continue to offend the sensibilities of the Laura Bonds of the world, then just maybe I'm doing something right.