Screenshot of Komische Oper Berlin’s production of "Semele" by There Stands the Glass.
Two hip-hop albums I’ve listened to compulsively in the last several days have almost nothing in common. Playboi Carti’s synthetic Whole Lotta Red is a decadent exercise in willful stupidity. R.A.P. Ferreira’s organic Bob's Son: In the Garden Level Cafe of the Scallops Hotel resembles the extracurricular activities of an undergraduate teacher assistant in an elite university’s philosophy department. I love ‘em both. The loony idiocy of Whole Lotta Red is propelled by exhilarating digital beats. And while the Atlantan’s lyrics are absurd, Carti possesses the flow of a futuristic jazz artist. Ferreira actually is a sort of jazz artist. Bob’s Son sounds like a J Dilla remix of a collaboration between Frank Zappa and the Last Poets. Yet one element of Bob’s Son is disappointing. A few of his raps about rapping- one of my biggest pet peeves- can be interpreted as insults of mumble rappers like Carti. Why so reactionary? My world is big enough to accommodate the wildly disparate work of both men.
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I’m already backsliding. Three days after concluding my opera-a-day marathon, I began watching Komische Oper Berlin’s production of "Semele", a remarkably saucy George Friedrich Handel opera I’d yet to see. I was rewarded by the discovery of "Endless Pleasure, Endless Love" at the end of the first act. Playboi Carti would approve.
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I review The Standards, Vol. 1, the new album by the Christopher Burnett Quintet, at Plastic Sax.