Oppositional Tendencies

Okay, I admit I was a bit harsh on the rest of the Young Manhattanite crew. But hey, looks like I brought some new readers via search, so it all works out in the end, no? Point is, having lived in the East Bay I was always hyper-aware of the fact that white Oakland seemed to define themselves by their Big Sandy-obsessed "Punkabilly" sensibility in opposition to the ghost-riding, collar-popping Hyphy sentiment predominant in the rest of The Suburb.

Hence, while Jack Boulware's Journey to the End of the East Bay will profitably chronicle the local punk scene, I bet KMEL's killing of Hyphy won't get much national attention amidst a dying record label business model fomented by democratic production and distribution on the part of MySpace-enabled MCs and DJs.

But Clear Channel-battling hip-hop producers have been fighting for promotional exposure with honkie-produced samples for some time. Not only Glen Campbell, but Herb Alpert, Bob James and Burt Bacharach have popular entries in The Holy Book of Hip Hop. Lyrics Born's "Call Me" used a baseline from a Canada-based prog-jazz quartet (and paid dearly for it) as I understand. So I present Kool and the Gang's take on Campbell's "Wichita County Lineman" as a nicely over-arranged compromise between it all.

Wichita County Lineman by Kool and the Gang from Live at the Sex Machine

Listen and learn.