Promise the world, deliver nothing—Napoleon Bonaparte
For weeks, I looked forward to Haystak’s CD release party at the Outer Limit, which was held two Sundays ago. It wasn’t just because I liked The Natural, the Nashville rapper’s new CD. I also hoped the show would be a celebration—proof that Nashville’s rap scene was taking its place in the Dirty South constellation. Better still, I had two VIP passes. I envisioned a friend and myself backstage with ’Stak’s crew passing cognac and honey-dipped blunts while being serviced by a multiethnic panoply of thong-clad models. Shit didn’t go down like that.
Haystak’s release party was basically a five-hour duty dance with uptight security and indifferent MCs, distinguished by a total lack of respect for fans who paid $100 for the same frill-free pass I got. Why would anyone pay $100 to get into a show featuring mostly unproven talents that could have cost 8 or 10 bucks? Overpaying, I guess, was a status thing that proved you “have what it takes to roll with Haystak”—the slogan printed in mock-Shaolin script across the tops of the worthless VIP passes. By the end of the night, that VIP stood for “Very Impractical Purchase.”
My friend and I arrived at the Outer Limit at 8:45 p.m. Getting a wristband took a half-hour alone, and after that we sniffed around for the VIP area. The show, which was scheduled to begin in the Hysteria room at 9 p.m., didn’t even smell like it was about to start until close to midnight. Local spinner DJ Whitey played his own wack mix CD, while Scooby, Dolewite and Kiki The First Lady, (both from local Clear Channel rap station 101.1-The Beat) kept dangling Haystak’s impending performance as some kind of carrot to the restless crowd. Anticipation and excitement gave way to frustration and anger in the sweltering heat of the room. After a honky hoochie sporting budget cornrows and hot pants so tight her ass looked like dancing bologna threatened to “hit me upside my mafukkin’ head” for inadvertently grazing her barstool dancing perch, we decided to check out the VIP lounge located in the club’s Lava Lair.
For $100, you would expect maybe free drinks, lap dances, backstage access—the kind of largesse rap videos are always selling. Instead, you got to stand in the deserted Lava Lair in the black-lit glow of a clumsy 3-D dragon, flanked by half-eaten containers of mulchy barbecue and cheap champagne in bottles the size of lotion decanters.
We went back into Hysteria, which by now was swamped and stifling hot. But as many who attended found out, there were no passes out—not even to go to the bathrooms, which were located, conveniently enough, in the lobby. Fresh air was out of the question. None of which sat well with some of the bling-bling thugs who dropped a C-note for VIP treatment. It wasn’t long before fights broke out in the narrow bottleneck between the lobby area and Hysteria as security created problems that weren’t even there by denying access to the showroom.
To be fair, some of the problems at the show had nothing to do with Haystak, whose primary responsibilities were to entertain out-of-town guests and to get onstage and rap. True, ’Stak could’ve been more punctual—he finally went on about 1:15 a.m. (by which time I’d given up and headed home), and then only did a four-song set—but the glitches stemmed either from his manager’s lack of attention to detail or from the club’s jumpy security. Someone should have had it together enough to tell people what they were getting for the VIP ticket price. If they had, we would have learned there was an upstairs room—doubtless filled with the plumes of honey-dipped blunt smoke, hoochie groupies and Grand Marnier. Here’s the kicker: After the show, I learned that I could have accessed all of this by merely walking around the building to where many of the rappers had congregated.
The entire affair reminded me of Republican platforms that routinely dupe poor voters into casting their ballots in support of economic and social policies that do them more harm than good. Rap culture exploits the poor in much the same way, offering an illusion of easy prosperity without work. It’s not hard to see why youth would be attracted to hip-hop culture. Most kids—even suburban kids—recognize how out of touch most cultural institutions are by the time they’re teen-agers. They know they’re being trained to be good consumers and not to think—that they’ll actually reap rewards for not thinking. Hell, we currently have a president who doesn’t have the cognitive skills to be a Wal-Mart greeter. When someone with such scant qualifications leads the “free” world, it’s no wonder our youth appear unmotivated, except as customers. In the face of this death of ambition, why not embrace a culture that at least has the courage to admit to its felonious origins?
Haystak understands how wealth, power and women without responsibility appeal to his youthful, rebellious audience. It’s the same spirit that used to define rock ’n’ roll before rockers essentially became white-collar workers. Haystak has found a considerable audience, black and white, who share a common experience of class oppression at the hands of rich white people. ’Stak—who has lived in some of Nashville’s worst housing projects—believes that someone from his background is capable of uniting not just neighborhoods, but entire cities. Judging from the supportive presence of white and black rappers from Atlanta, Memphis and Nashville at his show—everyone from Bubba Sparxxx to Scarface—and the very real charisma he displays onstage, Haystak may have what it takes to do just that. But that’ll happen only if he uses his power to lift up his community. Otherwise, he’s just running another self-interested shell game.
