Charles "88 Keys" Njapa is a mid-level hip-hop producer and occasional emcee. He's pretty obscure, but not because he lacks talent. He's been making records for over a decade, since he donated "Thieves in the Night" to the Black Star record. Since then, he's worked with Macy Gray and Musiq, among others. More recently, maybe you dug his beat on Tanya Morgan's "Threemcees," from last year's The Bridge. I did, anyway, even if it was hardly a standout on that excellent effort. I'm just speculating, but I'd bet the guy is a hip-hop lifer struggling to get by in what is certainly a very and increasingly competitive marketplace. So I would like to celebrate the fact that 88 finally has a record of his own out—The Death of Adam, released late last year.
But I can't, no way, because it is fucking terrible. I'm not quarreling with the execution; the beats are interesting enough and the emceeing is non-embarrassing. The lead single, "Stay Up! (Viagra)," features an unusually sprightly, non-synthesized Kanye West; maybe you've heard it. 88 is clearly influenced by Kanye, maybe a little too much. But all that stuff is okay. What is not okay, and what to the contrary merits a giant middle finger of derision, is the record's concept. I mean, good on 88 for making a concept record, and a coherent one to boot. But did he have to be such a colossal asshole about it? If you wanted to make the case that men, in their hearts, despise women profoundly, The Death of Adam would make a pretty decent Exhibit A.
The Death of Adam is the ignorant story of the fall from grace of a random douchebag with whom we (the target audience comprised exclusively of young dudes) are supposed to identify. Adam is a complete zero; he has no personality or distinguishing charateristics. The only thing that defines him is that he's preyed upon, victimized, and destroyed by this grotesquely evil woman. In case you don't get where he's coming from with the storyline, the woman's name is "Pussy." First Adam wants to fuck Pussy, but she withholds, saying she just wants to be friends. (We all know how infuriating that is; am I right, guys?) When she finally submits, he's so nervous he has erection problems. Somehow that's her fault too; she's too demanding, not sensitive enough to his sense of entitlement. He gets through it, but no sooner has he shot his wad than she demands he fuck her again, which is clearly unreasonable because (am I right, guys?) he needs a reasonable amount of time to replenish himself. She doesn't care, because she's just out for her own selfish pleasure. Also she's crazy. And evil. She verbally abuses him and forces him to fuck her again and again. Adam only has three condoms, but she assures him she's on birth control so it's okay to go bareback. In the morning, when he tries to sneak away, she freaks out and accuses him of rape. He leaves anyway, but shortly thereafter figures out she gave him the clap. It's really painful! And she shoulda told him! How terrible is that? (Am I right, guys?) After he gets it treated, stopping only briefly to cusses her out as the trifling ho she is, she comes back a month or so later and tells him—get this!—she's pregnant. See, she was lying about the birth control too! Now he really loses it, but what can he do? She's got his hooks in him for good now! She gets his wages garnisheed and he is taken to the fucking cleaners. The end.
See, "death" is just a metaphor here. Adam doesn't actually die, but he loses his pride and freedom to a woman and a baby, against his will, and that's certainly the equivalent of death, if not much worse: Sundays at Bed, Bath & Beyond, pushing around a stroller, looking for a pepper mill or some shit, no money at all to spend on weed. Seriously, who wouldn't want to self-disembowel in such a circumstance? And what man would possibly voluntarily enter into that situation? DON'T DO IT IT'S A TRAP. That's basically the dumbass, retrograde message we're dealing with here. Worst of all, because the songs don't really convey the plot, 88 cheats and ties the tracks together with voiceover from a female narrator, which lady is properly aghast at the horrible connivances of vile-ass Pussy and her systematic depredation of poor Adam's soul and 401(k). This is a transparent device to mask the record's misogyny, but it's basically like treating a grand mal seizure with topical cream. Sure, the storyline traffics in every pitiful cliche imaginable about the awful shit women willfully pull to deprive men of their metaphorical and actual testicles, but it's A WOMAN TELLING THE STORY, so it's cool.
It's no coincidence that the protagonist is named "Adam"—you remember the guy from Genesis and the Garden of Eden and the apple and all that. 88 is trying a "humorous" take on Man's eternal struggle to escape the grasp of female genitalia. I know that most artists have a limited number of stories to tell, but how boring and simple-minded and un-self-critical do you have to be to tell this particular story? You're better off keeping your mouth shut.
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