The issues of our age are increasingly reissues. Many people would rather purchase their pasts than pay the price for a future worth living. We see it on the DVD shelves at the big-box stores, where television shows from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, including ones that were deemed laughable when they were on the air, take up the space formerly reserved for new material. And we see it at Starbucks, where the CDs that move are the ones featuring the same old classic rock and pop that have crowded the radio dial over the past two decades. Even in stores devoted exclusively to the sale of cultural artifacts, a species seemingly destined for the status of endangered species, a good number of each week’s “new releases” are not new at all. It’s enough to make a person seek out a hobby resistant to mass-mediation, like needlepoint or falconry.

But all is not lost. With the loss of novelty as the prime mover in sales of records, films, and books – videogames being a signal exception to the trend – comes the opportunity to tell the truth of history with a different slant. We’re so conditioned to pay attention to repackaged culture, even items that we’ve previously owned ourselves, that we are likely to stumble upon work that we missed the first time around. It is now possible to fill in the gaps in our cultural upbringing with greater precision, redeeming the past that should have been ours if only we had known better.

Leaving aside the psychological implications of this self-refashioning, perfectly suited to the obsessive profile editing that takes place on social networking sites, it gives us the chance to transform our taste for the better. This is where Steinski’s two-CD collection What Does It All Mean? (Illegal Art, 2008) comes in. The work of advertising writer, DJ, and record collector Steve Stein and various collaborators, most notably Double Dee, it hints that, if we’re bent on purchasing the past anyway, we might as well purchase one that resists conventional notions of ownership.

Filled with highly influential cut-and-paste recordings that, because of their social and legal provenance, were difficult to obtain at the time of their creation and largely out of circulation since, the first disc in this two-CD retrospective provides a passage back to a mid-1980s in which the marriage of hip-hop and rock meant more than Run-DMC’s collaboration with Aerosmith on “Walk This Way”, and in which tracks tailor-made for dance clubs doubled as the cutting edge for a Pop Art avant-garde (listen to tracks here).

Painstakingly assembled from tape at a time when sampling had yet to become the prosthetic limb of hip-hop and remix producers, tracks like “The Payoff Mix” and “Lesson Three (History of Hip-Hop)” recall the heyday of postmodernism in the arts, when the abandonment of minimalist aesthetics led to a flowering of collage from the lofty peaks of the gallery scene all the way to the murky bottomlands of popular culture. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a more succinct distillation of the anything-goes approach that gave us everything from breadth-requirement multiculturalism to David Letterman at his edgy best.

The real revelation on the first disc of What Does It All Mean?, though, is “The Motorcade Sped On,” Steinski’s recasting of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, in which archival audio is paired with synth beats to surprisingly musical effect. It’s one thing to mash up different pop songs, as “The Payoff Mix” did, and another entirely to push that aesthetic to its logical extreme, revealing the distinction between culture and politics to be a differentially regulated boundary that serves the powers that be. If the propaganda machine is going to cross that border, Steinski suggests, we might as well follow it across. That’s definitely the message of the second disc here, his 2002 “comeback” record, the album-length collage Nothing To Fear, which takes advantage of technological advances in music-making without sacrificing the lucid simplicity of his work from the 1980s.

In a sense, it’s ironic that Steinski’s achievement is coming to us in the form of a neatly contained retrospective, since he was so instrumental in helping his listeners hear past the arbitrariness of packaging. If the big-box stores were catering to his approach, the whole-season collections of The Rockford Files and Knight Rider they proffer would be replaced by a vast array of mash-ups, the experience of YouTube transferred to disc. That wouldn’t sell, though. Indeed, it couldn’t sell, given the way copyright law is enforced. The paradox of What Does It All Mean? is that we are being asked to buy something that makes us question the reactionary nature of white-market consumption. Then again, the same could be said for books like Capital or Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire. It’s a contradiction inherent to revolutionary practice in a world where property relations matter more than the human beings they bind together. But it’s a contradiction we’re better off recognizing for what it is, something Steinski teaches us with brevity, wit and a good deal of soul.

Nosson Zand, more popularly known by his hip-hop and Internet handle Niz, is a bona fide Orthodox hip-hop phenomenon -- you know, along with Ta-Shma and Y-Love and (me, I guess?). Besides the questionable and debated Jewish appropriation of hip-hop culture, we can argue that Eminem and one of the Fat Boys did the same thing and save that for another blog post. The fact remains, some of these young gentlemen (and I wish I didn't have to say "gentlemen"; the only Orthodox female M.C. I know is the Bay Area's fabulous Rebbitzin Queen Esther, who has been working on her album for, what, 11 years?!) are on top of their game, both lyrically and deliverically -- they're dropping some pretty impressive stuff.

But Niz has Eminemed (or Fiddy'd?) his game once again, and not in a half-assed way: he's playing the starring role in Song of David, a movie about a yeshiva boy who, after being turned off from yeshiva, immerses himself in hip-hop culture. That's about all I've gleaned so far from the summary and preview, which you can find on the movie's website.

I have to be honest -- I'm skeptical. These things often don't get made in the Orthodox world unless you've cleaned the emotion right out of it. But I've also heard great things from Niz, and I trust his talent, and I'm pretty excited to see this movie. And you know I'm gonna let you know about it.

Pearl HarborWhen I'm not doing comedy, I make my living as an SAT tutor. A damned good one, if I may say so. Every time I hear about some dumb gimmick for studying the SAT (study on your cellphone, "yo momma" jokes, the SAT shower curtain), I think "Well, that'll work for vocabulary." (It's not, however, likely to teach you to deal with fractional exponents, or any serious comparison of long reading passages).

When Flocabulary came out with a hip-hop vocabulary book and CD, I shrugged. That could work. But when the same people came out with Flocabulary: The Hip-Hop Approach to U.S. History, I bought the book and CD. So I could laugh. Blog and laugh.

I loaded the tracks on my iPod ... and proceeded to have a religious experience. Pedagogically religious, anyway. The music didn't suck. In fact, the first song, about the founding of America, began like this:

Black Male Voice Portraying a European, and Rapping in the Most Drippingly Sarcastic Rapper Voice I Have Ever Heard: Wow, I just discovered America!

Black Male Voice Portraying an Angry Native American Speaking as Though to a Small, Racist Child: You didn't discover it. We were already here.

The song goes on to talk about migration over the Bering Strait, the five "civilized" tribes, and the fact that some Native Americans had slaves ("Indians weren't living on some heaven on earth tip"), and to comment, "Isn't that cheap? They call my Jeep a Jeep Cherokee -- what if they called my Jeep a Jeep Jew?"

In the course of this album, Harriet Tubman gets a Lil Kim-like solo ("Reward for my capture? 40 G's"), Frederick Douglass gets to sound like the incredible badass he was, Carnegie (in "Big Ballin' in the Gilded Age") raps about Social Darwinism while Rockefeller points out that Jay-Z named his company "after me," and Sacajawea guides Lewis and Clark through the Rockies "like Mapquest." Lincoln (whose Emancipation Proclamation, of course, failed to free any actual slaves) is portrayed with a dorky, squeaky white guy voice -- but FDR gets a booming, dignified white guy voice. Perhaps my favorite line is when Sally Hemings first attracts Thomas Jefferson:

She's dressed in yellow. She says "Hello,

You probably noticed me in the fields of Monticello."

Below is a sound clip (a couple verses, so as to say within fair use) from a song called "Would You Drop It?", which presents, I think, a not-bad-at-all explanation of World War II up to Truman's decision to drop the bomb. I challenge anyone to better explain fascism and its appeal to Germans, isolationism, the Great Depression, and Europe's falling to the Germans until Pearl Harbor galvanized us "like 9/11" -- in one minute, in rhyme.

All these tracks are on iTunes (search "Flocabulary"). If I could buy them for every teenager in America, I would.

"Would You Drop It"? (clip)

During the last two years writing my first book, Other People’s Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America, I’ve found that, over the past three decades, white people have used hip-hop as a safe, virtual space to tackle or elude the complicated legacy (and present) of race in our country. Every time we buy a Ying-Yang Twins CD or bust a backspin or attempt to use Ebonics, we are telling ourselves a story—about America, about race, and about ourselves. So what story are Jews, specifically, telling ourselves? What draws so many of us to keep it (Is)real? (Full disclosure: that joke was stolen from respected Jewish hip-hop blogger Dan Charnas. See? We're everywhere!) My fascination with hip-hop has always intrigued and amused my third-generation Italian wife, Denise, who grew up in the more ethnically explicit suburbs of Long Island and always wondered ...

Michelle Malkin follows up her NRO tu quoque to the rap industry in the aftermath of Imusgate by posting lyrics and videos of the latest misogynistic chart-toppers:

The "song" is "This Is Why I'm Hot." It has topped the charts for the last 15 weeks. Here's a taste of the lyrics that young men and women are cranking up in their cars:

This is why I'm hot
Catch me on the block
Every other day
Another bitch another drop
16 bars, 24 pop
44 songs, nigga gimme what you got…

… We into big spinners
See my pimping never dragged
Find me wit' different women that you niggas never had
For those who say they know me know I'm focused on ma cream
Player you come between you'd better focus on the beam
I keep it so mean the way you see me lean
And when I say I'm hot my nigga dis is what I mean

Here's my qualm with choosing now as the best time to make a scandal of the latest platinum records: It's defensiveness masquerading as outrage. Malkin may clear her throat by saying that she has no love for Don Imus or anyone else who spouts vile, racist remarks, but why is the thoroughgoing nastiness of rap suddenly worth condemning all over again?  Because it must be demonstrated that angry, reactionary white men aren't the only ones with sloppy tongues. If Imus thought he'd get away with sounding like Ludacris, we have only Ludacris to blame...

This is conservatives' form of moral jujitsu at times of cultural combat, yet they never seem to land a palpable hit.  Now, Stanley Crouch hardly goes a week without pointing out how what he sees as neo-minstrelsy damages black identity in America and, agreed with or not, he's taken seriously as a public intellectual. Crouch requires no display of Jim Crow antics from an overrated shock jock to renew his license on commentary.

Moreover, Malkin's case suffers from a slight category problem. Had Imus referred only to "bitches and hos," it might have been seemly to immediately broach the subject of rap's degenerate influence on the wider discourse.  But Imus gave the game away by calling the Rutgers players "nappy-headed," which is no different than making allusions to flat noses, watermelon or fried chicken. Imus is someone with a history of thinking that indecency is coterminous with political incorrectness, so he deserved to be accorded no benefit of any doubt. Good for MSNBC for canning his television show. He should also lose his spot on the air.

But rather than take a perfect opportunity to ask why it is that radio remains a playground for such masters of verbal diarrhea, the Right's conversation automatically turns to how blacks have brought this upon themselves. This reeks of bad faith.

You can write the rest of the script in your sleep. During his two-week suspension there will come archconservatives defending Imus, arguing that he hadn't said anything worse than what you'll hear on the latest Jay-Z album.

Sure enough, it's started.

RELATED: Imus To Call Howard Stern "Articulate"

Hip-Hop producer/entrepreneur Russell Simmons will talk at the World Jewish Congress today. Simmons and Jay-Z are also doing TV spots to combat anti-semitism:

The icon (Simmons) will speak as part of the "Unity: Fighting Our Fights Together" campaign, in which he will call for tolerance and cooperative work between people of different ethnic, racial and religious backgrounds in order to work against injustice and promote understanding.

Simmons and Def Jam CEO Jay-Z are also starring in a new series of public service announcements calling for young people to take a stand against anti-semitism in their own communities. In the spots, Simmons and Jay-Z ask, "What's hot? Respect for people. What's not hot ? Hating people for their color or religion."

The PSA's have been digitally translated from English to French, German, Spanish and Russian, all while still utilizing both Simmons' and Jay's voices. The spots were co-produced by both Simmons and Rabbi Marc Schneier, who serves as chairman and president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.

Thanks Meryl for the tip.

Kid Rock and Conchita Leeflang: This sure didn't take long.Kid Rock sure didn't waste any time crying over his new ex-wife, Pam Anderson. According to FemaleFirst.co.uk:

Rock, who split from wife PAMELA ANDERSON last month (NOV06) after only four months of marriage - even flew to Los Angeles to attend his former flame's birthday party. According to Pagesix.com, the rocker, real name ROBERT RITCHIE, contacted Leeflang just days after his break-up. He immediately moved back to his hometown of Detroit, Michigan and was soon seen out on the town with Leeflang.

I guess it's always good to have a back-up plan. I wonder if she's got "Plan B" tattooed on her somewhere. Now THAT would be romantic.

Rock Reunites With Former Flame? [FemaleFirst.co.uk]