Kno of CunninLynguists
I do what I can to be friends with artists.
Somewhere among this blog, my camera, and the fact that I catch every show of a band I really, truly like when it comes to town, I’m making steps to let artists know that they’re appreciated around here. I respect them, and I try to show that respect.
Sometimes things get in the way of that appreciation. Sometimes, for example, finals come up and I can’t update my blog as often as I’d like to (sorry, folks — but the holidays do often bring the gift of music). Sometimes it’s hard to get in touch with individual artists in a personal way.
And sometimes the artists themselves botch the whole thing.
A few weeks ago, on December 3, First Avenue in Minneapolis was host to an album release by Unknown Prophets, one of my favorite local acts. First Ave, if you’re not from the area, is nationally-famous as the spawning point of acts like Prince, and is really a landmark of the Twin Cities music scene as a whole.
Unknown Prophets’ show had fallen dangerously close to a local date of another tour, featuring my hero Grieves, and the masterminds behind First Ave decided to combine the shows into one big blowout. I called a friend, a fellow Grieves enthusiast, and armed with photo passes provided generously by one of the higher-ups at First Ave, we grabbed our cameras and went out to the show, which at this point was an Unknown Prophets album release being essentially supported by the Strange Journeys Tour, which was headlined by…
I don’t know CunninLynguists all that well. A friend of mine is a big fan, but I never got around to listening to its work before we got to the show. I was pretty lukewarm on them — smoke-that-weed songs don’t really get me going — and lost interest when, during one of the last songs in the set, the three of them started a call-and-response of “Move, bitch, get out the way.” I wasn’t feeling that, but kept taking pictures, because the acts were well lit and I meant to use that photo pass.
After the song was over, one of the ‘Lynguists (Kno), looked down at me.
I’ll let my letter to CunninLynguists take the story from here.
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Hey Kno,
I don’t know if this’ll ever make it to you, or if you’ll care about it, but I was the guy with the photo pass in Minneapolis who wasn’t call-and-responding along to “Move, bitch, get out the way.” From there, you kind of leaned down at me and called me out for thinking I was too important that night to have to be one of everyone else, and around the point that I started really feeling like a piece of shit, I sang back at you, you mocked me a bit more in front of the entire First Ave crowd [note: at this point Kno was asking if I'd prefer he said, "Um, excuse me, ma'am, I don't mean to bother, but, uh, I am trying to get to a specific point behind you, and I am afraid you are obstructing my goal," or something similar], and the night went on.
I wasn’t responding because I’m a women’s studies student. A lot of people don’t respect women’s studies student, but a lot of us, myself included, are out there doing what we can to take the degradation out of pop culture, music, movies, and what have you. We’re defending artists and getting word out about the ones that are doing things “for us.” I’m a big fan of Black Clover because a lot of the artists there have feminist lyrics. I dug Atmosphere even more once I heard his women-friendly songs; Unknown Prophets is on my radar because they write respectful music.
Maybe it’s stupid. Maybe women’s studies students don’t belong at most hip-hop shows. I know that, and when I found a vein of independent hip-hop to get into that wasn’t about “bitches and Benjamins,” I finally figured I had a place in the scene.
I’m majoring in communications studies, too, and just finished a public relations class. The main theme of the class? Know your publics.
My friend from Boulder, Colorado, asked me how I liked your show, and I told him the whole story. He said that that was interesting, because he saw a lot more audience-mocking on this tour than he’s ever seen before, but he wasn’t sure if he was just making it up.
He’s a little less fanatical these days.
I’m not telling you how to do things, or at least I’m not trying to. Hell, I’d never really heard your music before that night — I was out there supporting Unknown Prophets and Grieves, and thought I’d take some shots of everyone. But I sure as hell hadn’t expected to go out to First Ave and be humiliated by one of the headliners.
You don’t need me. You have thousands and thousands of fans out there, and probably pick up a hundred a day.
But I’m still here.
And so is my friend in Boulder.
We’re not old farts that think kids these days have it all wrong. We’re twenty-something college students that are trying real hard to like and promote the little guys in the big game, and that makes it a lot easier to pick and choose. And we’re probably not the only two.
Good luck with everything,
LM
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Happy holidays, folks. I promise to catch up on posting things throughout the next weeks, including my Best of 2009 entry.
Cheers.
Never heard of ‘em. Don’t care about ‘em. Keep on doin’ yo thang…
Oh…and since I’m not actually all that gangsta, keep doin’ your thing, too.
-devil.
[...] for the short entry amidst my end-of-year fun, If you read my previous Soapbox entry on CunninLynguists, you probably saw the note I sent to [...]