Weekly Blog Post 3

The break-out hit from the self-proclaimed "Angster Rap" duo Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, "Thou Shalt Always Kill" is an intellectual gold mine, both in lyrics and in video. The song arises as a list of laws and rules the artists feel most strongly upon. Drawing almost literally upon the lyrical imagery of the Ten Commandments, Scroobius Pip sets out to add new rules to a new age. He opens with some powerful and pertinent requirements, "Thou shalt not steal if there is a direct victim/Thou shalt not worship pop idols or follow lost prophets/...Thou shalt not judge a book by its cover." But quickly he tapers off into the more direct and absurd, "Thou shalt not judge Lethal Weapon by Danny Glover/Thou shalt not buy Coca-Cola products/Thou shalt not buy Nestle products." Here the pair set us up for a joke that will run throughout the piece. How much should we trust our two British instructors? Should what they are proposing really be instated into the lives of the audience, word for word? This moral quandary, if one would go so far to call it thus, becomes even more apparent when Pip reaches all the way as Dan slows the beat to better draw attention to the lines, "Thou shalt not put musicians and recording artists on ridiculous pedestals, no matter how great they are or were." So... Would that not imply that our witty duo have just undone themselves? Is it putting them "on a pedestal" to abide by this? But if we don't, wouldn't we have to take them seriously? It is a philosophical debate for the ages, indeed.
Scroob breaks the mold of both of his genres of Electronica and Hip-Hop to tell some truly (and some not as) important messages for his listeners. Our current Rap and Hip-Hop centric generation doesn't tend to find the most enlightenment from these genres, but these English performers are betting their entire album, "Angles", in hopes of finding a market of youth who are searching for just that, all laid over a catchy Synth-Pop beat.

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