Doug Schulkind's Sound Mind |
| Yo Yo Yo, Take Me Out to Tha Ballpark |
| So I'm listening the Mets game on the radio the other night. During the late innings, the home squad begins mounting a rally and, in the background, I could hear the stadium p.a. speakers begin thumping out music to artificially spike crowd enthusiasm. Typically it's Gary Glitter or Queen or the Macarena that's deployed to incite the Pavlovian foot stomping. But this time it's different, it's a tune I'd never heard reverberate across the ol' ballyard. Finally, out of the corner of my ear, I recognize the familiar strains of "Pump Up the Volume," the 1987 hip hoppy/dance track by MARRS. Just then, the Mets' longtime announcer, Bob Murphy, pipes in with news of a pitching change -- and in the background, providing a bizarre music bed to Murph's homespun delivery is "Pump Up the Volume" with its sample of Jesse Jackson's voice shouting, "Bruthahs an' Sistahs" looped over and over and over.
For much of the mid- to late-80s, that ubiquitous sample of Jesse Jackson became the signifier of political consciousness in rap. It got so hideously overused, I couldn't bear hearing it anymore, even on records I liked. Hearing it last night, in such a weird and unexpected context was a revelation. I didn't even mind that the Mets blew the game in the 11th inning.
Doug Schulkind |