So Old Dirty Bastard, ex of the Wu-Tang Clan is dead. I knew that a few days ago, but didn’t care at all until just now.

I’m no great fan of rap. I’ve enjoyed some of the more progressive hip-hop, but most of the more conventional hardcore stuff is, frankly, preening self promoting bullshit that might be fun if it didn’t take itself seriously, or at least mixed some intelligence into the crap. Mostly it does, and mostly it doesn’t, so mostly I ignore it. Wu-Tang clan and it’s bastard solo project children I’ve never paid a lot of attention to because most of the people I’ve noticed liking it were preening self promoting types who reveled in the lame elements of childishness. Guilt by association, not fair I know.

Turns out I may have been at least half wrong. I read this suprising memorial to ODB, which claims genius status for him in very convincing language:

RIP 2 THA ODB

Ol’ Dirty was an impossible blend of Tom Waits, Iggy Pop, and Sam Cooke. He was childishly, abstractly obscene; an oblique and apocalyptic lyricist (“I don’t have no trouble with you fucking me, but I have a little problem with you not fucking me” remains about as clear an evocation of punk as we’re likely to see for the next few decades); a grimy street Marvin Gaye without modesty or shame. He was either an outsider artist, a soul singer, a hardcore rapper, a pure rock+roll ball of fire, a pop shadow doppelganger, an adolescent novelty, all of the above or quite possibly none.

So here I am, a little too late, listening to some Old Dirty Bastard songs. I’m not going to become a fan, I still don’t much like the musical style, but I have to admit, there is something to the lyrics.