Getting your Learn On

(l-r:) Sable (Bushman) and Eli Batalion (VowelMovement)

Whether it’s The Game blaring from someone’s pimped-out ride or Eminem’s voice screaming from the headphones of the person beside you, hip-hop has become as commonplace as rock n’ roll… maybe, even more so.

“It’s ubiquitous today - in the club, at stores, on TV, on the street,” wrote Jerome Sable in a recent email interview from Los Angeles, CA. Sable is one half of Sable & Batalion, the guys who brought you JOB: The Hip-Hop Musical.

The rise of gangsta rap by the likes of N.W.A. in the late 80s, Tupac in the 90s, and 50 Cent in the early part of new millennium have all given rise to people’s less-than-stellar interpretations. To help shed some light on this pervasive and often misunderstood musical genre, Sable & Batalion have returned with their new production Hip-Hop 4 Dummeez, basically hip-hop in 5 easy lessons.

“Our Hip-Hop 4 Dummeez show attempts to surprise people with things they may not have considered when thinking about what hip-hop is or means or what it can be,” wrote Sable. “A lot of people have pre-conceived notions that hip-hop is just loud noise pollution (and potentially violence-inducing). We see hip-hop as one of the most creatively exciting art forms of our time both in terms of music and language use. The most active use of language in pop culture is, arguably, the Sports Section (“Tampa Bay Lightning Strike Hard but Panthers claw their way to victory”) except... for hip-hop!”

The rhymes that flow from some MCs is pure magic; their use of language and rhythmic patterns can either lie in the background, letting the deep base or quirky loops carry the track, or are so in-your-face it almost hurts.

With the release of their CD, G Marks the Spot, Sable & Batalion’s Grafenberg All-Stars showcase their understanding of hip-hop. From R&B to rock, hip-hop is more than what is played on mainstream radio.

Most rap albums, including G Marks the Spot, are peppered with cuss words, and what some people like Janice K., who agreed to listen to a few tracks before heading to work, call “demeaning to women. Most hip-hop, not all, is ‘bitch this’, ‘fuck that’, ‘shake your ass’, that’s not always fun to listen to.”

When asked why the “Parental Advisory” on the CD, or whether their music can be seen as perpetuating stereotypes, Sable coolly explained:

“It's not as though we created the CD and then ‘added’ explicit lyrics. We wrote the songs as we were feeling them at the time and expressed ourselves the way we were inspired to express ourselves when we were writing… We could have ‘subtracted’ these moments from the experience, but decided to leave them and make these moments accessible to our listeners.”

Reading the lyrics, which are part of a PowerPoint presentation in the show, highlight the need to be swept up by a song’s emotions. Like everyday conversations when people are prone to swear, hip-hop and the Grafenberg All-Stars are merely tapping into the obvious.

“We are trying to express ourselves in as honest a way as possible,” continued Sable. “Our ‘gig’ involves a lot of mask-wearing and role-playing. Some people construe this as hiding aspects of personality but others understand mask-wearing as a tool to reveal different sides of the self… We are trying, when it comes to hip-hop, to produce some fresh tracks for people to enjoy that express the weird things in our hearts. It's possible that some people will misunderstand some of the lyrics and perpetuate stereotypes but that's a risk every artist has to take!”

Above all else, both Sable (Bushman) and Eli Batalion (VowelMovement) bring a little comedy to everything they do, and Hip-Hip 4 Dummeez is no exception. When people think hip-hop is too serious, no humour, Sable (and Batalion) disagree:

“Humour is the basis for all hip-hop, even when it seems dead serious or competitive. It is built in to the roots of hip-hop and permeates it more explicitly than many other music forms. Clever punchlines, jokes, funny skits on albums, intentionally silly rhymes that don't really work, hilarious analogies are everything in hip-hop.”

What do Sable and Batalion hope the audience will take away from the show? Sable wrote: “We hope it will enlighten, as well as confuse and provoke!”

Hip-Hop 4 Dummeez is at the Tarragon Extra Space (30 Bridgman Ave. – bear Bathurst/Dupont) from May 11 – 22, Tues. – Sat. 8 pm, Sundays 2:30 pm PWYC; tickets $15. For tickets call (416) 531-1827; for more info visit www.sableandbatalion.com, they are also having a CD release on Sun. May 22 at the Poor Alex Cabaret (296 Brunswick Ave.)

Courtesy photographs