Glorification of Violence: An Analysis of Jedi Mind Tricks
Jedi Mind Tricks is coming back this year with a brand new album, and it’s going to be incredible. For those who think otherwise, or are not familiar with the greatest rap group ever, I’m bringing the proof to my theory.
Alternate title: The Psycho-Social, Lyrical, Musical & Forecasting Analysis of Jedi Mind Tricks.
First of all, rap music is divided into sub-genres. Most of them are pretty soft and boring - you don’t want to hear them. The most interesting is “Rapping about guns”. This term was created by yours truly, and it contains my favorite rappers rhyming about guns, big guns, bigger guns and fist fights. And conspiracy theories, I love to hear about them. That’s exactly what JMT is! Let’s put a quote here ”My guns are bigger than a baby’s arm, with Agent Orange like I was raised in ‘Nam (…) Unless you wanna be the target that we dump the clip in, I do the shit during the day, I like the gun to glisten”. Jedi Mind Tricks have one of the coolest band names in rap history. I’m saying this as a huge fan of the Star Wars franchise. Their name gets additional points because the word “tricks” rhymes with “shit”, which is very useful in writing ground-breaking rhymes like “Who spit the live shit. The do or die, Illadelph Jedi Mind shit. The hot shit”. The other great thing about Jedi Mind is the way they name their tracks. Check this: “Willing a Destruction onto Humanity”, "Butcher Knife Bloodbath”, “Tibetan Black Magicians”, “The Age of Sacred Terror” etc. It sounds cool, evilly and very death metal-like. But it’s not death metal, it’s boom bap rap, and sometimes the actual verses got nothing to do with the titles, but it’s still awesome! Hilarious thing about the songs and their names, is that one of my favorite JMT’s tracks, a very badass one, is called… “Untitled”. What makes Jedi Mind Tricks awesome is the rapper – Vinnie Paz (aka Icon the Verbal Hologram and shitload of other things like Louie Doggs, Pazienza, Pazmanian Devil). His voice is hardcore and growly, his rhymes are raw, but very technical, and I really love when he is talking about himself in third person – “And Paz will shoot this motherfucker up like Barrie Bonds. I'm like a military doctor, Vinnie carry arms. My shit is military proper, Vinnie carry bombs”. You should also notice how adorably specific he is. For example “Abusing the mic, with the force of five lions”. Got it? He’s abusing the mic with the force of exactly five lions. Imagine how powerful he is. Vinnie got a great dark sense of humor. His lyrics are full of funny verses like “The way my four pound turn your stomach to spaghetti”, “An asshole, I punch people with glasses on”. It gives you that Evil Dead 2/Braindead feeling of horror combined with comedy, or at least funny things. I’ve mentioned horror genre on purpose, because the guy is truly a fan of the gore/slasher/other-kind-of-horror cinema. You can find a lot of references and tributes to movies like Friday the 13th, The Lawnmower Man, or even actors and directors – “Drag you to Hell, I’m Evil Dead, you can call me Sam Raimi, These motherfuckers want a verse but they can’t pay me”. Sometimes Vinnie Paz forgets that he is a man and starts yelling “brrrrrat brrrat brraaattt”, like he's a machine gun. That’s totally normal. Listening to Pazienza wouldn’t be as fun as it is, if there wasn’t for the other brilliant mind behind JMT - Stoupe the Enemy of Mankind. This guy is the truth, his name says everything. There are only a few photos of this dude and he is not really showing his face on them. He doesn’t like to work with people other than Vinnie, but when he does, it’s highly possible that the thing is going to be a classic (Canibus – Rip the Jacker LP). I don’t know how the process of creating JMT’s song looks like, but it must be something like: Vinnie calls Stoupe and says “I just wrote some lyrics, check it out: I like blood, I like tasting ya flesh, I like slugs, I like David Koresh, I like anything that’s related to death, I like any king that can reign with his fist” and then Stoupe is like “Yo, really dark stuff, I’ll put it on a beat made of this happy Russian singer singing something like pa pa, pa pa pa pa pa pa”. Stoupe has his own recognizable sound. It doesn’t matter if the beat is sampling some latino, classical or epic music – you should always be able to say if it’s Stoupe’s production. We’ve reached the point where I must say, that Jedi Mind Tricks wasn’t the greatest rap group for a while. Stoupe was absent on the “Violence Begets Violence” album, and it is probably the weakest JMT record. But hey, great news – he will produce the upcoming album. The last great thing about JMT and their next album is… leaving the third member, Jus Allah, alone. Don’t get me wrong, the guy was dope on “Violent by Design”, but since his comeback on “A History of Violence” his lyrical skills went down, or in different words, he gave birth to the new style of lyricism called “shopping list”. Don’t get what I’m saying? Here’s the explanation: he takes some cool words and spits them one after another: “These are the last days, black plagues, mass graves, half the slaves, aids, cascades, black parades, backpack strapped grenades, brazen acts of rage, accolades”. I really enjoy his line: “I like to keep the 911 lines busy”. Each time I hear this, I see Jus Allah in some local call center using all the available phones to call 911 and keep it busy. In my vision, he has this evil, Muttley-like laughter. Almost every JMT album wasn’t just a regular record for me. It was more like the next collection of my favorite songs. Jedi Mind Tricks is great, whether you like it or not. But you should like it, because that’s what I (and hopefully Trash Mutant) recommend, and I (and hopefully Trash Mutant) don’t recommend something for fun - I (and hopefully Trash Mutant) am dead serious about this. Brrrrrrrat braaat brrrat. Thank you, International Witchhammer! Are YOU waiting for the new JMT record, noble Trash Mutant reader? What are your favorite Paz lines? Sound off in the comments! _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ABOUT THE AUTHOR: The International Witchhammer. The guy has read only 2 books in his life – Holy Bible and the 15th century manual for dealing with witches called “Malleus Maleficarum”. Any other stuff is heresy, so if he wants to read a comic book, he has to tear it apart and turn it into comic strips, which thankfully are not forbidden by his order. 
|
Loading
|
|
Social Trash Mutant |
|
Friendly & associated sites
|
© 2012-2020 TRASH MUTANT. All rights reserved. Some materials used are © their respective copyright owners.
