I feel like the world is generally ignorant of legendary marxist rap crew The Coup, or even worse, is actively skeptical or unreceptive to mentions of that group. I understand perfectly how people can be political, but I personally hold music to be much more honorable than politics, so the general lack of knowledge or enthusiasm about The Coup is baffling. It's understandable. I'm sure smug white people aren't The Coup's ideal audience, so lots of the people I most often deal with have nothing to say when I bring up The Coup.
Shamefully, I never really bring up The Coup at all when people ask me what I like to listen to. The near mythical production of Pam the Funkstress and Boots Riley's cutting rhymes. There was an awareness of the wrongness of things that should speak to anyone, at times. It's not particularly comfortable music, I suppose. It's a little incendiary, even. Revolutionary talk, whether posturing or not, is completely out of favor right now. It's seen something for teenagers, for the mentally unfit, or Russians, terrorists and other people we disagree with and distrust. Anywhere you look in the world, people will call revolutionaries dangerous, misguided, lazy, out-of-touch – generally before revealing their own lack of comprehension about the basic concepts of socialism or Marxism, whenever socialism is brought up. If you can't revolt and can't hold government to account, why pretend to be happy or enfranchised?
So, if you'd ask me, I'd say The Coup is important, brutally honest, unique, and unabashedly political. Music with a message is nothing new, but it is the nature of popular music to be inherently pro-capitalist or at least ignore the issue or posture about it. The status quo is referenced to establish a lack of privilege and it's on to fun verses about partying, women, crime, or drugs. Hip hop and rap are often maligned for being empty-headed and consumerist by the very people who understand or identify with it the least, and The Coup in particular would serve as an amazing rejoinder. For those reasons and more, I want to pay homage, and celebrate the release of a new album!
The Coup has changed since it broke out on the scene and savagely upstaged politically safe, regressive rap in 1993. Pam the Funkstress isn't around anymore. Ditto for E-Roc. Lots of conspirators moved on. Their sound has changed to reflect the changing times. Their cover designs have changed to reflect a changing world, and redefined ideas about censorship and political-correctness. I'd argue the whole kerfuffle about the proposed 'Party Music' cover is an outrageous coincidence – like truly one of the craziest album cover stories I've heard of from the past decade. Probably the only one.
Here I am getting bent all out of shape. I'm clearly excited. I got the idea to bring to light a cool hip hop group. I don't ever write about hip hop. There's so much I could say but a lot of it, in general, is kind of cringeworthy. I don't hear 'political hip-hop' and think of hanging out at the club, or playing it at a party. It would make for good driving music assuming you weren't pulled over. In fact, The Coup has a few really, really good driving songs.
The point of this post was to review the new album. I've listened to it twice. I can feel that Pam is gone, and I miss her. Some of those early grooves are criminally underrated and it's mystifying that politics or lack of exposure can so thoroughly still a voice. But that's life, I suppose, and I don't have time to keep expounding. The new Coup album was released October 30th, I didn't even know about it it until a couple days ago.
In my opinion it is a great thing. Its sound is different, remarkably different in fact, richer in rock and lighter in funk than previous albums. Is it contemporary sounding? It sure is. It's got an almost pop quality that was not very prevalent in past efforts. It's generally high energy, almost manic at times, and I don't know. I'm personally still kind of speechless that they were reviewed in Rolling Stone but then again, this is 2012.
It's a beautiful album. I'm certain that one of the songs is a fantastic reference to the (idealized and homogenized) Vampire Weekend set. I think that song alone is so good that it automatically raises my estimation of the rest of the album. It's just a goddamn fun song. Lyrically, this album does not slouch, and it perfectly fits the madcap, aggressive soundscape. I think Boots never, ever slacks lyrically – which is good, because it's not hard to imagine people calling the newest Coup album 'soft' or 'lazy'. That's not how it is, fortunately, and instead everyone gets a real, varied album that has an appeal which appeals to specialists and newcomers alike.
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