Stop Dumbassifying things!

Thus spake legendary Public Enemy front man Chuck D last night at London's Forum when lambasting the cancer that is Gangsta Rap.I have added the word to my vocabulary and intend to use it often in these increasingly dumbassified days. I encourage its use and hope the meme will spread.There were a number of electrifying moments at the Public Enemy show last night. Among them:An auditorium full of white English people raising their fists in the black power salute as the band took the stage.The call and response: "Fuck George Who? Fuck George Bush!" and "Fuck Tony Who? "Fuck Tony Blair!" Chuck even went on to criticize "Queen Elizabitch." The audience ate it up.When a drunk idiot threw a soda can onto the stage, Chuck D brought the proceedings to an immediate halt while Flava Flav held forth at length and in extraordinarily colorful language as to what said idiot could do to Flav's--ahem--manhood.Toward the end of the show Chuck D asked if there were any MC's in the house, whereupon a young woman was escorted to the stage to improv a rap while the band nodded appreciatively.There was love. There was anger. There were pumping fists. There were deeply funky beats. There was Flava Flav and his enormous clock, Professor Griff and his acrobatics. Epic DJ-ing such as I never thought possible. And there was the booming voice of authority that is Chuck D. Honestly, the guy could read the phone book, and I'd listen to the whole damn thing, wondering what it is exactly he wants me to get up and do about it.I stopped listening to hip hop in the mid nineties, because I was making hip hop videos for a living and I swore if I ever heard another guy from the hood rhyme about his exaggerated greatness while some skangy doormat writhed behind him, it would be too soon. I turned off the whole musical genre. What a mistake. I did it because I'd forgotten. I'd forgotten what it felt like to walk out of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing with "Fight the Power" still working its dark magic through my subconscious. I remembered last night. I won't soon forget.I recommend their latest offering, New Whirl Odor, especially the tracks "Bring That Beat Back" and "Superman's Black in the Building."Best of all, Public Enemy seem to have dumped the record industry dinosaurs and moved operations online.