Music: Big Shaq's "Man's Not Hot"

Big Shaq ain't Shaq (Shaquille O'Neal) by any stretch. But, by some accounts, Shaq suspects that Big Shaq is belittling him; insinuating that Shaq ain't 'hot' (that is, "cool") or big enough (that is, big) any more. What's more, he's scheming rather loudly to take Shaq's inalienable name -- even if the scheming 'alien' is the newly-arrived Big Shaq himself. Meanwhile, Big Shaq markets his brand as not hot at all -- as never hot, in fact; but rather, by some kind of super-providential twist(er), Shaq's ordained successor -- nay, 're-placer'. He's never hot. Whatever winter threads he wears, he can never be hot, he claims -- even sitting in the summer sun. He can never be hotter than the sun, which anyone can sit in! It's all so very confusing, even to Big Shaq -- and so, so fun. He, Big Shaq, has arrived -- but only to throw us all into a Black Hole which devours any enlightenment that veers too close to it.

Incidentally, Big Shaq -- born and raised in the UK to Ghanaian parents (his real name is Michael Dapaah) -- looks and, in some way, raps as if he's Kenya's very own Khaligraph Jones' twin (or double) -- or vice versa (view KJ's Nataka Iyo Doh). Perhaps the twain shall meet one of these days -- In Nairobi, or London.

Big Shaq has till now been better known, of course, as an irresistibly 'roguish', feather-ruffling comedian with an intimidating presence (when he wants to scare). He's become a rapper, certainly in his Man's Not Hot life, but maintains his "resistance" to all speculation. But he seems set to continue rapping in the 'after' of that particular life. The adulation he's obviously enjoyed with the release of the rap in 2017 is too tempting to walk away from. We'll be watching whatever space we can track him down to.

WATCH VIDEO: Man's Not Hot

Man's Not Hot is unvarnished rap. But is it a song, let alone pop song, to qualify for inclusion and ranking among pop songs? Here's one answer: S/He who raps sings. Rap is a form of singing. It has become plainly so in the music industry, in our time. Rap is singing in undertones, so to speak, but not at the expense of the overtones associated with the typical song. Singing is sugarcoated talk. Rap is rapid-fire, sugarcoated talk: "Skrrahh! Pap, pap, ka-ka-ka!" Moreover, it is helpful that, nowadays, rapping almost invariably has instrumental accompaniment of one mix or another. Singing an sich doesn't have to be so accompanied, but pop songs do. Rap is pop, then. He (Big Shaq) raps, therefore he sings. The instrumental music that runs in the background throughout the song is distinctly refined in tone and commands respectful audience-attention. The rapping practically turns into a subliminal rhapsody!

All this despite the fact that Big ShaQ mixes the sugar with ample gutter diction, which I hadn't quite realized till I read and re-read the lyrics and saw their graphical representations. We can do without that; but perhaps I'm talking only for prudish, older folks. Big Shaq's spoken English is far from Chaucerian, but still has things I didn't grasp. Yet not grasping never stopped us across sub-Sahara from loving the many foreign and African songs that we listened to and loved in our youth. Songs have a certain inner-outer pull.

READ: Man's Not Hot Lyrics (no graphics here)

I think that the most magical and mind-blowing part of Man's Not Hot (at once a "raw and cooked" song), is when Big Shaq gets that bobbing and heaving and frenzied multitude of fans to respond to his "Skrrahh!" in one big-family chorus, and so unexpectedly,) with: "Pap, pap, ka-ka-ka!" 

All that stream-of-consciousness chanting of mysterious and bewitching words (including supposedly African-origin monosyllables already distorted after just one incomplete generation) -- which would have greatly dismayed Kunta Kinte -- truly adds to the churn of sentiment and to existential charm, as well as to some sort of audience-awakening across the waters: 

"Skrrahh!

Skidiki-pap-pap!

And a pu-pu-drrrr-boom!

Skya

Du-du-ku-ku-[tun-tun]-pun-pun!

Poom, poom". 

Big Shaq brings the crowd face-to-face with creative possibilities hardly imagined till his sudden landing on the stage. In that sense he is truly one of a kind. Still, if you've read the commentaries, you'll know that his watchers and adorers already worry that, as a singer, with a persona which insists on deep winter-wear in the heat of summer, he's a shooting star -- an asteroid -- condemned to soon dis-appear from the glare of our telescopic but seasonal attention. 

The Maker: MicroNovella

And then the child, barely two, gave his mother a mud toy far littler than he, and less cuddly. She paused to savor the magic of that fleeting moment, which she had never had. And quickly got him out of the path of a dusty wind just arrived from nowhere. Ruffling all the hung shukas and swaying the lean trees.

He seemed puzzled by the hidden force which could raise as much dust as he saw swirling in the afternoon air, making the trees hum. Dusting hair. Making the eyes water. 

After, he wanted to mirror the wind's might, to see how far the soil could go out of his hands and into the air. And it didn't really go.

When the wind was truly gone and the dust settled he asked mama in uneven words who it was that made her too, as he could see her, there before him. And if he could have the maker to play with and make things out of the same mud of the earth with. 

Out of the pebbles he could throw in every which direction in quick succession, he wanted her to have three. But drowsiness crept in before she could answer. And took over. He fell asleep before her hands could reach them pebbles, in his mama's lap. 

Whereupon he floated, free, without fear, and saw many, many things he wanted to show mama. He called and called, but she couldn't hear his sleep talk. She didn't see his finger point to any of the things he wanted her eyes to turn to. He was invisible in his flight. 

When he woke up he had no words to put any of those things into.

On Not Being Afraid To Be An Example That Inspires

In On Becoming The Example, Kimmy Sharing Light wrote:


"When we watch our children start a new journey, or life challenge, they look for role models or inspiration. We usually never think of being an inspiration for them." And she added that "whatever we do, we need to have the aim of becoming an example, an inspiration for others."
I posted a comment on her blog with the following words, which, in their mix, impose upon me a re-varnishing duty which I cannot avoid, even as I repeat them:

You ask elsewhere: "How do people judge you?" And you answer: BY OUR ACTIONS." That's right. Talk can reveal the inner soul, and talk can inspire; but talk, as someone or other keeps saying, is cheap.

To be inspired is to be fired up. The question is: By what? By whom? Yet "whom" is an imperfect word, for what it brings to mind in the first instance is a kind of singularity that is too confined and, as an anchor of sorts, too confining. The only safe "whom" is a plural "whom." But we, as individualities, are a part of that -- or a part of it as well. That's what you had in mind I think. And that's the main story.

As for the question "By what?", the essential answer remains, in your own words: BY OUR ACTIONS. But any layered answer we attempt returns us to the base, to the realization, that the "what" can be many things, and can never be the one size that fits all. It may be a moment that sits up; or an event that rewires the brain by refreshing pictures in the mind. Yet words too -- as JFK's, as MLK's, as Obama's, as Kimmy's -- can inspire. If we live by them.

In a community enriched by social capital, and to anyone over five or six or seven years -- I hit "t" for tears for a moment there, but caught myself (so, no oops) -- there are many points and instances of light besides mother or father or older sibling. As they say, "it takes a village."


But the village is more than the sum of the people, for it has many parts, and fuses nurture and nature in ways we strive to understand, but typically do only in half-measures.


And it sometimes takes, yes, tears -- to come upon the true path to our destiny. And not tears of joy.