about Linkin v Dillinger

In my freshman year, I went to a guy's dorm to play guitars. I was pretty good. I played Slayer and Ozzy. A few years later he asked if I wanted to start a band. He wanted to sound like Linkin Park, but I was into The Dillinger Escape Plan by then.

He had never heard Dillinger, so I played "Calculating Infinity" on my car stereo for him. He didn't like it: "Who wants to listen to this?"

I asked the same question about Linkin Park: trend-chasing commercial music for idiots, I thought.

Since then, I shed some snobbery and learned to see his side of it. It's fine if you care whether people like your music. Like, when I listen to music, I usually decide within two minutes minutes, asking, "Where is the bite? What's in this for me?"

But on the merits of sounding like Linkin Park versus The Dillinger Escape Plan: Dillinger was an admirable success for over 15 years. Its audience was loyal, and the band's influence continues. Linkin Park changed nothing and shed fans rapidly after a few years. The lead singer killed himself in 2017.

Note:
- Success in the music industry is the Holy Grail, anyway.
- Funny, all the little details of these two moments.

Making sense of being more punk than you

Grant Hill penned a fascinating response to Jalen Rose's controversial comment heard in The Fab Five, a new ESPN documentary about the very talented and successful University of Michigan men's basketball team of the early 1990's. That team, which included Rose, were then and now noted for introducing the game to hip-hop's edge. They were all young, black men who could play, and who could look good and talk trash while doing it.

In the film, Rose charges that Duke recruited "Uncle Toms". Hill, having played for Duke against Michigan, justifiably feels his blackness challenged. In this reply, Hill infers that his middle-class (probably upper-middle) upbringing by two educated parents is the reason for the insult, and the reason Rose doesn't immediately include him in the society of "real" blacks.

In his defense, Hill briefly chronicles a trend of upward mobility in his family, sharing a generational rags to riches story. He notes that Henry, his middle name, is a family name; he shares one of his mother's sayings; he names a family heirloom; and he thanks an African American History professor he studied under. In other words, Blackness, to Hill, is found not only in struggle, but in the fruits of struggle. There is transference. Hill calls this "tradition".

I'll take great liberty here and assume and summarize Rose's argument. For Rose, his single-parent childhood in Detroit matters. Blackness in part comes from living the struggle. First hand experience matters. That experience is a uniquely Black experience (i.e., growing up poor and White with one parent in Detroit is not the same).

For Hill, Blacks rising out of poverty for their children's betterment is the tradition. For Rose, living in poverty--maybe even staying in poverty--is the tradition.

Hill also defends Duke, claiming their interest lies in finding and shaping excellence. He names other Black Duke players, enlisting them in his defense. Finally he stakes a claim on character. Up to this point, I found Hill's response brilliant, a rhetorical achievement. But, in discussing character, I can't help but wonder if he is implying that people often mistake "acting Black" for lacking character. He might as well call the Fab Five knappy-headed thugs.

The New York Times published Grant's response March 16, 2011:
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/grant-hills-response-to-jalen-rose/