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Aesop Rock: Positive Reinforcement

Skelethon is Aesop Rock’s key to navigating the post-millennial abyss

San Francisco-via-NYC hip-hop artist Aesop Rock raps from the edge of an abyss. On 2000’s quasi-apocalyptic Float and his now-classic trio of albums for mighty indie hip-hop label Definitive Jux (2001’s Labor Days, 2003’s Bazooka Tooth and 2007’s None Shall Pass), Aesop told grim stories of dehumanizing labor, the pitfalls of rabid consumerism, self-annihilation through media addiction and the quickening decline of a human society driven by insatiable greed and hell-bent on its own destruction. His perspective was bleak, but with erudite wordplay, critical insight and labyrinthine layers of esoteric meaning, Aesop sounded more like an enlightened (and humble) visionary than a crabby, defeated naysayer.

He also never gripped the mic to brag about knowing the solutions to the world’s endless ills. Aesop’s mission was more about documenting troubling things as he saw them, not prescribing cures like some finger-pointing pundit on Democracy Now! or Fox News. He jotted down patterns in his notebooks and constructed sonic maps to assist curious listeners who, like him, found themselves navigating dystopic tunnels with no flashlight. He never positioned himself as anything more than a perplexed dude attempting to find out why people do what they do and why the world is the way it is.

“My music’s sometimes social commentary, but I never deliver that commentary from atop a soapbox,” says Aesop. “I’m just a person who tries to make it through life one day at a time. I don’t have the answers. I’m just always walking around, finding my environment to be way too much to handle. I fish through it to try to figure it out, while remaining realistic and open to the fact that things aren’t always good. And, then I write a song when I have an urgent idea that must come out. Music has always been my release.”

Following a five-year hiatus, Aesop recently returned with his first solo album since None Shall Pass; released by the Rhymesayers label, Skelethon is the rapper’s effort to come to terms with the death of a close friend, as well as the deterioration of several friendships and close relationships.

“Death has become commonplace in my life,” he says. “The past few years was an endless period of skeletons. But, hopefully, Skelethon will help put all of this behind me. It’s like a giant purging—like finishing a chapter and preparing to jump into the next one.”

In this sense, Aesop’s a lot like Lucy, the heroine from his song “No Regrets,” from Labor Days. While the world crumbles around her and everyone’s occupied with meaningless negativity, Lucy ceaselessly pursues her passion for painting. Like Lucy, creativity is how Aesop makes sense of the world and maintains his sanity.

“Throwing myself completely into my work is the only answer for me,” he says. “I like to hide out and make music. It’s the only silver lining. It’s like therapy—you go in and talk for an hour, and though nothing has really changed, you feel better because you get all those thoughts out. If I wake up in the morning and know I made a song from scratch the day before, then I’m happy.”

Elliott Sharp

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