Firas Durri

AZ’s multisyllabic rhymes are effortlessly slick.

Never Change (2005): [youtube link]

I asked was he dabbling, he laughed and said he managing
His Carti frames was as clear as a camera lens,
He hardly changed, I was near in comparison

It was Tuesday when I saw him, figured Friday I could call him
Woke up early Wednesday morning, flew a chick in from New Orleans
Up in Nostrum’s for a fresh pair to floss ‘em
Of course with footwear I be that first nigga that sport ‘em
Debating my destination, lacing, weighing my options
Celly started rocking, I anwsered, “What’s poppin’?”
They answered and said, “They shot him, now the hood got a problem.”

I was talking to someone about reciprocity in relationships, especially how a rigid quid pro quo model can go off the rails when there are differences in one person’s readyness to do the symmetric equivalent of what the other person is ready to do. In agreement about the weakness of seeking direct quid pro quo in the bedroom, she eventually said, “keep your politics out of my sexy time, is my motto” (high five!) which made me recall something I wrote to another person late last year:

To be honest a lot of stuff you wrote is the sort of conceptual pretzel-twisting that I’ve gotten a bit disaffected with when it comes to matters of gender. I’m not sure if me saying this is gonna alienate you but there’s a sort of undergrad modality which results in a sort of intellectual angst about all sorts of things which I think sometimes needs to be jettisoned in terms of figuring out what you want, what your partner(s) want, and figuring it out as human beings—rather than as actors representing categories against the backdrop of cultural-critique based understandings of conventional tropes. It’s always worthy of attention of course, but when we fixate on particular things and pin them as manifestations of large-scale things that render us uneasy it can lead down a very puritan rabbit-hole.

I don’t mean in terms of the former conversation that you should be left feeling unfilled and taken advantage of, but that there are subtleties to balance beyond a checklist approach. In terms of the latter conversation, though, I’m still turned off by hyper-deconstruction of what people are allowed to like. That is, as the kids no longer say, wack.