The Middle of Nowhere #12

Welcome back. I’ve spent a lot of this year sporadically thinking about Tyrese. In the last week, I’ve thought about him and how he orbits around a lot of grander ideas I have about the entertainment industry. It might sound silly but Tyrese was the last of a dying breed. I’ll tell you why.

Baby Boy, You [Were] a Star

Women in the front row are helplessly grabbing for Tyrese at the Apollo in 1998. He’s performing “Nobody Else” in a set of khaki overalls and a black vest he quickly unstraps to reveal his chest. Tyrese serenades the crowd with an incredible set of high notes and the ladies are absolutely loving this. There’s a number of Apollo clunkers and the New York crowd have always been deeply unafraid to call something wack. They can sense a lack of self confidence immediately, a forbidden trait if you dare to don the stage. There are still a fair number of men thoroughly unmoved by this whole affair, a few sheepishly bobbing their heads and rocking their shoulders. But no matter the reaction, the Watts, California native is killing it. Tyrese can’t contain his excitement, sporting a wide grin between lyrics and bouncing all over the stage with his Dickies suit wearing posse. That So-Cal heat radiates in the song’s riff. The performance could not be more LA.

Tyrese was a master showman. It was hard to make R&B anything but for the ladies and the unashamed men trying to get in those draws. But Tyrese’s music had an infectious relatability. Songs were still steamy and sweaty, it was impossible to divorce the genre from its grandiosity and its crooning for women. Tyrese’s music felt familiar; it sounded like white tank-tops, sizzling asphalt, small bedrooms and gated doors. Perhaps the yearning in the desert with Jodeci felt too exorbitant or the undying commitment by the waterfall was too rich. Apartment complexes are familiar territory. It’s impressive tightrope walking, to commit to the larger romantic gestures but never teeter into places that could only be connected through the TV or in our imagination. More importantly, Tyrese was a superstar because he believed it.

The Apollo performance reflects this, a full commitment of mind, body, and spirit to the art and the audience. There’s a slight tinge of desperation necessary in engaging to that degree; whether it’s an undying devotion to the craft or to merely survive, put food on the table and achieve the life you want for yourself. But more than anything, Tyrese performed in earnest; rather than grift an audience into buying what he was selling, he assured that what you saw was what you got. There was a fair share of bullshitters back in the day but you could truly be sold as cool by keeping it honest. Tyrese was cool.

John Singleton saw that. After Tupac passed and Baby Boy was put on the shelf, he saw the “Sweet Lady” crooner and sensed a kindred spirit between Jody and Tyrese. Tupac naturally would have given the role a bigger credibility; he was a more polished actor, or at least, he was charismatic enough to withstand the weight of any drama in a script. People probably take the film more seriously if he was in it. But there’s a rawness on display in every Tyrese/Jody scene. He didn’t have to strain hard or engage in showy acting to indicate that he was going through internal conflict as a young kid growing into a man. Pac could’ve stood toe to toe with Snoop Dogg and Ving Rhames. Pac’s Jody probably knows the difference between guns and butter. Tyrese does not. He magnifies the adolescent in Jody’s stunted growth, a kid flailing to be respected as a man without ever working to earn it. In the midst of all the uncertainty and struggle, Jody was still an effortless ladies man, he still flexed his dominant masculine traits. Rather than favor one over the other, Tyrese embodied both and through John Singleton’s direction, spoke to the familiarity of people like Jody and how he exists in everyone in these neighborhoods. A role like this could’ve tanked Tyrese’s credit as a R&B heartthrob. It didn’t. He was too cool and too relatable of a star.

Something changes after Waist Deep and Tyrese continues throughout the Fast and Furious franchise. In a direct sense, Tyrese is taking increasingly hammy roles as an actor and inching away from the studio. Waist Deep is a convoluted, LA noir filtered through this gross orange haze where Tyrese plays “O2.” Yes, like Oxygen. He drops the questionable and clunky double album Alter Ego where Tyrese gets in touch with his roots in Watts, California — he’d already tackled this sort of idea throughout 2000 Watts. He took on the Transformers franchise. Where he used to cut through intense scenes with his levity in Fast and Furious movies, he’d been relegated to ‘ah silly Roman’ and roasts from The Rock.

It’s not just his career choices and the writing that poked holes in Tyrese’s credibility. The internet cracked the code on how we consider our stars. The barrier was lifted between artist and audience. They were constantly at our fingertips. We could never send a celebrity a message before. You weren’t in their stratosphere to grab their attention. Their performances were how they crossed the threshold and connected with the people. Now it’s all staggeringly normal. Tyrese’s ability to thrive in the gray space of relatability while still being above the audience in stature no longer worked. He definitely tried his best to integrate himself into the machine while still maintaining agency as a star. But personal life came into play, he cried and bared his soul on the internet and he was mercilessly laughed at for it. The man who stole hearts at the Apollo and pumped out hits was now nothing more than another meme in the content machine.

A star like Tyrese doesn’t exist today. It couldn’t. Stars are ruthlessly interrogated about their daily lives and expected to divulge their entire agency as a person to the world. Even those who exist as vague profile of glamour are constantly at risk of disinterest. The stars of yesterday gave you the work and it was so good — or aggressively marketed as such, take your pick — people would aspire for that level of talent and/or status. Tyrese at the Apollo doesn’t get the job done by itself. People need interviews and headlines; they are tabloid poisoned and are in need of the juicy details and the gossip that spawns from it. To be earnest is to risk being mocked and crucified by the public and the machine won’t do a thing to save you. You go from Tyrese, the superstar to Tyrese, the punchline. They don’t make ’em like they used to. We’re partially to blame.

The Cut

• I wonder what it says about the state of the world that Pinegrove’s “Need 2” is huge right now. Sure, there’s a little dance or whatever but that song makes me want to kill myself (complimentary). How dejected are we as a society that we all just kinda nod our head and shrug ‘nothing here to care about?’
• This new Gunna record a Gift & a Curse really stretches the bounds of how much you want to hear his rapping. These type beats are extremely cheap but Gunna sounds much more alive in its place. It’s not as fly or as sexy as past records but his rapping is more urgent. I feel like people will inevitably discard of it to rerun any of the Drip Season records but I can’t help but imagine what this leads for his next tapes.
• God forbid Sexyy Red doesn’t sign to CMG or some equally clueless label that wants to mold her into something more ‘professional.’ To take away her rawness is to project another female avatar into the ether no one gives a fuck about. “SkeeYee” and “Hellcat SRTs” are country, loud, abrasive, muscular, monumental records, akin to peak Gucci Mane, Shawty Redd era records. Glad Tay Keith dusted off these Blocboy JB leftovers and let Red steamroll it.
• YL’s new album Don’t Feed The Pigeons is really fly and really heartfelt; he never relies on boom bap and soul samples as a crutch for aesthetics. YL captures NYC’s defiant spirit, perseverant in the face of outsiders trying to take away the city’s essence. “Don’t speak on my city if you wasn’t here for 9/11”, he says on “I Promise.” It’s a warm album that harnesses coziness of home while alerting the uninitiated to the city’s distinctions and how vital it is to preserve them as more people try to uproot it.
• MIKE’s single “Red Jacket 6” makes me wonder how rappers would’ve cooked over Herb Alpert instrumentation or Human League era Jam & Lewis chords. It reminds me of Rhythm Nation era Janet Jackson, as if a vignette of a waterfall is playing in the background while MIKE grins all over it.
• Kwame Adu and ZAYALLCAPS are so colorful as KWAMZAY; “All My Life” is the rare mix of the tender, affectionate, and astute with humor and familiarity. That’s before they spiral out into a peak Dipset/Just Blaze/Kanye era flip where they punch in and out of each others lines, the kind of hunger you get from the best Funk Flex freestyles. “Y’all was like ‘it’s been a minute,’ talking to me like I’m finished. But I barely started, this is art, we inking the picture.” Real raps gon’ live forever.
• maria kate dropped her best single for my money with “Over It”, navigating the cold and distant in how her vocals are filtered and her writing with the kind of assertiveness and command over a record that makes stars. The bass and tempo keeps it relatively light, like wiping tears away in the club or skating the pain away in the roller rink.
• Anycia is a superstar man. The Field Mob flipped, Popstar Benny produced “so what” is a jaw dropper, the first real summer record since the world shut down with COVID. Rather than rest on the laurels of the sample, Benny skids the hi-hats around the song’s integral whistle riff that keep it from being redundant. It’s nearly impossible to be able to tie nostalgia to its current and gives color to what the future could hold because people are so preoccupied with the easily recognizable. Anycia ties it altogether, so carefree and breezy that she’s inviting but confident enough to slide anyone in and out of her lineup at her leisure. “I be super pressed for time so I’ll see you when I can. I might tell you that I love you but I do not want no man.” The Gary Coleman line is fuckin’ hilarious.

• Most King Krule records feel really despondent and world-wearied, it was really refreshing to hear Space Heavy and be embraced by Archy Marshall in the Post COVID-Lockdown world. He seems hopeful of what the world could become, how we can navigate in more communal standards. At the very least, he seems less angsty and weighed down; the album plays more contemplative than dejected.
• This new Jayda G record Guy is Steven Universe pilled. It’s basically if Garnet [Estelle] sung vacuous, inspirational t-shirt phrases at you for 30 minutes. There’s some decent grooves but it’s extremely sanitary.
• The new Lunchbox project New Jazz is electric. It reminds me of living with Yeat’s Up 2 Me in its filtration and slimy oozing off synths and numbing bass without the druggy existential dread in Yeat’s rapping. It’s definitely brooding and restless but it’s more hyperactive than deteriorating and apocalyptic. I love the way Lunchbox drifts and brakes over beats, really testing the limits he can cram words in flows or cuts off his thoughts, as if he’s disinterested or merely distracted.