The Champ

The lyrics don't give a very good idea of it, but Ghostface Killah's "Shakey Dog" is absolutely draining, almost an athletic performance – albeit a truncated one, severed from the outro/victory lap it deserves. Though the fact that the song just ends, without warning, with only a "To be continued...", is part of why it works. The thing is just one long, unbroken verse – no chorus, no R&B ladies, no nothing, except for some Steve Tyler-ish rock guy yelling "Yeah" in the background and a repetitive string hit that sounds like the violins are acting as back up muscle for the doublecross heist going down in the song and the cellist is on lookout.

The “depiction vs glorification” debate that gets aimed at the more thuggish end of hip hop really isn’t valid here. Ghostface is so far inside this character (of, um, himself) that such a question gets negated. Granted, it’s a nasty little story, but it is a story, told in a very specific voice, with very specific language (though occasionally florid or twisted: “Wintertime bubble goose, goose, clouds of smoke” ??), and with very specific cultural signifiers. (Which is not to even go near the question of “authenticity,” a question I think is pretty irrelevant, anyway, and one that almost always gets reserved for hip hop. At best that’s part of a broader cultural or socio-political debate that has almost nothing to do with the aesthetics of the thing.)

There are some brilliant throwaway lines all through the song, but, as stupid as it sounds (or reads, I should say), it is the moment when he says, “I’m on the floor like ‘Holy Shit!’” that sells the whole thing for me. (You really have to hear it – it's all in the delivery.) Hip hop – which I’ve barely stuck my toe into so far – is all about maximum tension and minimum release (like the best dub and reggae, and really just about any groove-based music), and that line is a perfect display of a sudden, exhilarating release that yet doesn’t dispel the tension one bit – if anything, it increases it.

That's the moment when the hairs on the back on my neck stand up and say, "What just happened?"