Up in here.
Up in here.
You are all going to make me go all out.
Up in here.
Up in here.”
— William Tecumseh Sherman, on his “march to the sea”
From Buchner to Buschemi, from Dickinson to DMX, the modern human is oft-beset by the specter of madness. Denied the comforts of microcosmic tradition and ritual, torn from the circadian rhythms of preindustrial life, and disarmed of macrocosmic rationality or consonance, the modern human is forced by exposure, education and experience to confront paradox, treachery, nihilism, contradiction and, above all, brutality, within a paradigm that does not admit to the existence, let alone prevalence, of these things.
In such circumstances, whatever the threat without may be, the true threat is within — that your own mind and body will reject reality and rebel against your self-control, plunging you into despair or insanity.
Perhaps one day you awaken to find yourself transformed into an enormous bug.
Perhaps you find yourself in a bank, responsible for hostages you have not taken — mistaken for a bank robber, when you have done no such thing — fired at by ground- and airborne sharpshooters for the crime of banking while black, even as you save the lives of the very men looking to take yours.
It’s enough to make a man lose his mind.
Up in here, up in here.
Dog is a dog, bloods thicker than water
We done been through the mud and we quicker to slaughter
The bigger the order, the more guns we brought out
We run up in there, erybody come out, dont nobody run out
– Napoleon Boneparte on the invation of Russia
This post is about a music video. The song itself is pretty great, but it only becomes a Great Moment in Racial Discourse because of the video. Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9FHbP2-of8
A moment for context
The most obvious problem the video poses before it yields to analysis is that the lyrics of the song and the events of the video seem related mostly by coincidence. However, this post will at points lean on the relationship between the video and the lyrics. As someone who tends not to ascribe to the thesis of the death of the author, this is somewhat problematic — What is the intention of Dark Man X? — but considering his Dionysian tendencies – the gutteral, instinctual element to his creative energies –- it seems fair to at least speculate as to what the significance of this art object might be were it intended as it is.
Furthermore, why should we assume the director did not consider these combinations, these tensions? We should not.
Regardless of what we assume, we can then consider the elements in parallel to the qualities they exhibit upon close reading by their own structure and details.
Context is not everything. It is important in the practical exercise of art, even if not in its serious criticisms, the possibility of happy accidents — as well as the possibility that artists happen upon or even encourage these sorts of accidents on purpose, or at least through a legitimate, if not conscious, exercise of generative creative power.
Oh, you want to know why DMX is jumping off a bank, and what this has to do with racial discourse? Read on . . .
Listen, yo ass is about to be missin
You know who gon find you? (who? ) some old man fishin
Grandma wishin your souls at rest
But its hard to digest with the size of the hole in your chest
– HMS Dorsetshire, to the German battleship Bismarck
Let’s look at that video again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9FHbP2-of8
The racial dichotomies are pretty obvious, but I’ll enumerate them anyway —
The cops really intent on killing DMX – most notably the helicopter sharpshooter, the ones who storm the bank, and the one who gives the order to shoot him – are all white.
Most figures of authority in the video who are not trying to kill DMX are black – the police captain managing the hostage situation, the bank teller DMX initially tries to talk to, the news reporter, the man with the Suburbans.
There is also a sharp contract in contexts – the bank, the ATM, and its patrons have a whiteness to them as marked by the use of color and form – whiteness being associated with confounding social order and pale hues – whilst DMX, the criminal, even the police reporter and the police captain – are all more relaxed, more comfortably dressed, more colorful. There is a lot of contrast between cops that are threatening and cops that are not threatening – the threatening ones look more uniformly white, as well as more a part of overwrought civilization – the excessive imposition of artificial order – than the non-threatening ones.
Simply put
Even simply put, a lot happens in the video’s 4 minutes and change. DMX goes to the bank to use the ATM. The ATM doesn’t work, so he goes in to complain to a teller, not knowing that the bank has been robbed and that he, an angry black man (for what is DMX if not angry?) will be mistaken for the bank robber. DMX is suddenly in the midst of a hostage situation.
Despite his efforts to rescue a wounded security guard and get all the hostages to safety, the police are intent on killing him. He makes a daring escape by leaping off the building while tied to some sort of conveniently located rapel line, just as a whole convoy of booty-dancing girls arrive to distract the cops. DMX gets away, and the video is framed as if he is complaining after the fact about how upset he is.
DMX is a very sharp, smart, talented guy. He's the only artist ever to debut five consecutive albums at #1. It's a shame that he has this unfortunate look on his face in so many pictures.
Now, not so simply put
Through the video, DMX lip synchs the lyrics of the songs to various parties. The lyrics are a very DMXish screed that falls into what I will from now on refer to as “The DMX Paradox”
The DMX Paradox – The belief that someone being too quick to violence is being foolish, frivolous, and unwise, but that someone retaliating against such people with violence acts from intelligence, seriousness and wisdom.
That is, when you try to shoot me, you are being a punk who needs to stop wasting my time, grow up and stop trying to act tough, but when I shoot you, it is because you are a punk who ran his mouth too much, and I am mature and justified in shooting you.
These people – these aforementioned punks, are the people who are going to make DMX “lose his mind” (up in here, up in here), “go all out” (up in here, up in here), “act the fool” (up in here, up in here) and “lose his cool” (up in here, up in here).
The song is half-threat, have frustration, as DMX is trapped in a cycle of violence and disrespect and is forced to become what he despises; somebody who commits acts of extreme violence when he should have better things to do with his time.
And as much as parts of the video direct the song at the bankers, the hostages, the cops, the police chief, and other characters, the primary target is other rappers.
DMX is bemoaning the fact that he is being provoked to act in a certain way because other rappers act that certain way – that he is bound by expectation to fall to their level.
The video takes this phenomenon and places it in a Kafkaesque world of modern institutions twisting human intent, and it names the ultimate cause of this misplaced role assignment – this expectation that people will fall below their level.
The civic construction of race and the attendant unequal levels of service and legal protection afforded by them is the modern pressure that drives DMX to madness – where, at times during the video, he glories in the role of the hostage taker, taunting the cops, daring them to come after him, never seeking to rectify the mistaken perception – in the video, DMX makes very little attempt to inform the police that he is not the guy who robbed the bank.
Why? Because he thinks/knows he lives in a world gone mad, and that the construction of race is bound up in and propelled by this madness. Although he’d probably have a pithier way of saying it that you could dance to.
“I love my baby mother
I never let her go.”
– Marc Anthony to Cleopatra, last words
(Just so you don’t have to refer back, here it is again)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9FHbP2-of8
Civil society and racial madness
The first thing that happens in the video is that the ATM doesn’t work the first time he swipes his card. DMX is PISSED. One of two things is true – DMX overreacts to things or gets angry too easily, or this is not an isolated incident, but a symptom of a larger problem.
We are then introduced to the framing device — the whole story is being told to you by DMX on a corner presumably after this has happened. And he’s STILL really angry. As in, he is equally angry after it was all over as he was when the ATM didn’t work, as he was when the police were taking shots at him.
DMX rushes into the bank angry. He doesn’t see the people lying all over the floor. He doesn’t notice the tellers are terrified, because he is so angry that his ATM card didn’t work. He must expects the world around him to be crazy – from the lyrics, we can presume that things random gunfights are normal occurrances in his daily routine, and now something as simple as getting cash out of his account requires a civility that does not come from the world DMX lives in – a world that does not acknowledge the realities of what it forces him to do. He steps into the role of crazy angry black guy pretty much unbidden.
Unbidden, of course, unless the ATM is symbolic of a larger social failure of institutional technology and support systems. If the ATM symbolizes the failure of DMX to get service across this overtechnologized, dehumanized world, perhaps his anger is bidden – but people don’t see it that way. There’s a disconnect.
So, he’s mad at the teller, which confirms that he must be the robber – because who would be mad but the robber? Except in this reality when nothing ever works and people are always shooting at you, you would be crazy not to be mad.
It’s another paradox. We have a modern paradigm that refuses to admit to its dominant and reasonable effects on the human psyches that inhabit it. That is – the thing that drives you crazy is that reality denies its obvious effects on you – it insists that what is happening to you is not happening, or, rather, that its objectionable qualities (like the kind of racism that gets innocent civilians shot) cannot exist, and therefore do not exist.
Then, he tells the teller to suck his dick. That’s pretty straightforward.
After that, he stands astride the prostrate hostages and curses them all out because he is so angry about his ATM card and about the behavior of other rappers.
I think here he’s bemoaning the fact that he has to go to a bank at all. He’s talking to the camera, not the people – “Look what I have to put up with! I’m forced to come to place where people disrespect me, and then they expect me not to get mad? Are they aware that they are talking to DMX?”
By the way, if I were DMX, I would totally come out with a song called “Are You, Sir, Aware You Are Talking to DMX?” It would be the same as all my other songs. It would also be awesome.
Shit gets real
Suddenly, DMX sees the cops outside and realizes what has happened. The news reporter comes on and fills us in — everyone believes DMX is a legendary bank robber. DMX, to his credit, quickly recognizes the new absurdity of his situation. Whereas before the failure of the bank to function was an irrational modernity, without cause, without reason – this is a rational one, but brutal. He knows full well the cops will probably shoot him, and that they will do so for reasons, even if those reasons are not those found in a policeman’s oath to protect and to serve.
This is some comfort – an objectionable reason is more comforting than no reason at all.
…………..
As a sidenote, I used to discuss this hypothetical philosophical question with overthinker Stokes, and I posit it to all of you – if you found you were being hunted by a demon that wanted to kill you, how would this change the way you look at the universe? Would it be:
A) Bad news, because your beliefs that you were safe from such things turned out to be false. If there is a demon, then you are in immediate peril of death, which you had previously hoped to forestall.
Or
B) Good news, because it demonstrates that the world you perceive, and that is explained by modern thought, which is a hopeless and brutal world, is not the limit of existence. If there is a demon, then there may be angels, which makes you more hopeful about the meaningless death you had previously resigned yourself to suffering.
Make your choice in the forums! Sidenote over.
…………
Notice during his rants in the bank lobby, DMX has a chandelier above his head, beaming white light – a symbol of the status he does not hold, of the dichotomies enforced on modern society that disenfranchise him and threaten his right to live. Another tension, another ambiguity – a thing of beauty, a sort of halo, that is also a mark of disrespect and a threat. It’s a looming, ominous presence.
The security guard is shot, and DMX helps him up and carries his out of the building, at which point he is shot at by the police. This is one of the two central dramatic actions of the video (for its intellectual space is an ellipse, not a circle – don’t forget that this is a party song; don’t worry, I haven’t) – the problem of this world made flesh. Anything DMX does in the spirit of the role of robber he has been assigned encourages the abusive police, but anything he does against it is disregarded. He is conditioned to be the problem-causer – forced into the role of the sort of guy who gets taken out by a helicopter sniper, and not given a chance at anything else.
Unless . . .
One.. two.. meet me outside
Meet me outside, meet me outside
– Me, that Friday at the Cask and Flagon, when I got tired of looking at all the flatscreens
(Here’s the video again, one more time)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9FHbP2-of8
Ah, the dialogue in this video:
“Yeah”
“I’m in trouble dog; you know I only call when I need you.”
“I’m here at your expense, baby.”
“I knew I could count on you, dog.
“Be right on they way over in a few minutes, man.”
“Wonderful.” (sic)
Whither party songs?
Every party song is entrusted with answering the same basic question.
“Why party?”
The Spice Girls encourage you to party because socializing among their friends is a prerequisite for them sleeping with you (though, I dare say, not the only one!). Daft Punk encourages you to party for simple, almost geometrical reasons – for the repetition of doing something one more time, or the imperative of doing something around the world. Fat Joe encourages you to party because he has a lot of extra resources and it doesn’t take a lot of effort. The Black Eyed Peas encourage you to “Get Retarded” because it helps you cast off the burden of intelligence. Outkast encourages you to party for simple reasons like war in the Middle East, a heart-wrenching breakup, or a difficult talk with your girlfriend’s mom.
For some, a simple 'we like to party' is enough.
In this song DMX encourages you to party because the inappropriate behavior of people who fail to live up to his expectations is driving him crazy, and the only way to properly vent that craziness is to escape the sick world it inhabits and indulge in carnivalesque celebration.
The song even has a guest list:
All my ruff ry-ders gon meet me outside
Meet me outside, meet me outside
All my big ball-ers gon meet me outside
Meet me outside, meet me outside
All my fly lad-ies gon meet me outside
Meet me outside, meet me outside
All my street street peoples meet me outside
Meet me outside, outside motherfucker
The ambiguity – is this a party or is this a fight – tells me it could go either way, and that the ideal for DMX would be some sort of hybrid. Most listeners interpret that blend a “rowdy party,” which seems reasonable.
The other (stripper) pole of the ellipse
As for the video — the women show up in the Suburbans, aiming to defuse the violence with sexy party dancing. The first cop to be disarmed by this Lysistratian tactic is a black cop, whereas the cops storming the bank are all white and undanced with. So, we’re starting to bridge the gap in the symbolism and reflecting the forces at play more structurally and less allegorically. That’s something.
This is the only picture I could find of DMX smiling.
At this point, DMX leaps off the building, which coincides with the “All my Ruff Ryders, meet me outside” verse – showing his escape from his Kafkaesque nightmare into a world that is at once more crazy than reality: the women have disarmed the police, DMX is probably going to get away from all of this scot free after a nice booty grinding session – and far less crazy: the celebratory sexual impulse on display is an artifact of the precivilized hungers of humanity – something that has not yet been driven to nightmarish paradox by the intrusions of technology, organization, prejudice, or other institutional corruptors.
The party builds and takes over the scene. The women and men dance regardless of race, status, social role, occupation, armament, or any number of the other factors which in the paradigm established are funadamentally misleading and maddening. Some of them have funny looks on their faces, but you know they like it.
It’s a carnivalesque ritual not uncommon across civlizations – the day when the world turns upside down, relieving the citizenry of a social order they know intuitively to be absurd and counter if not to their natures, then to their better sense.
And DMX smiles and skips away – two things you never see DMX do. DMX never skips. Must be a special occasion.
Truly a great moment, and a loaded moment, in racial discourse.