Hereās k punk on tricky, which has always shaped how I think about him
http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/009421.html
"Last year, I quoted Jamesonās important observations on class and the experience of inferiority. I make no apologies for repeating the passage: ā[C]lass consciousness,ā he wrote, āturns first and foremost around the question of subalternity, that is around the experience of inferiority. This means that the ālower classesā carry around within their heads unconscious convictions as to the superiority of hegemonic or ruling-class expressions or values, which they equally transgress and repudiate in ritualistic (and socially and politically ineffective) ways.ā Unless resentment is confronted, any affirmation is in danger of becoming an unconscious affirmation of oneās subordinated, inferior position. Affirmation will precisely end up a āsocially and politically ineffectiveā ritualistic transgression, an acting out, that leaves the class structure intact. The will to become more (āI am nothing and should be everythingā) turns into a defence of what one already is. My defences/ become fencesā¦
Unacknowledged resentment remains the dominant libidinal motor here: cf what Bat, in Owenās comments boxes calls āthe furiously oscillating couple of playa/hater in hip-hop cultureā. Indeed - nothing demonstrates this phenomenon better than hip hop: capitalist realism as social lottery and cartoon spectacle, with the lonely playas in their penthouses engaging in a kind of resentment of resentment. āWhy canāt they let us enjoy our wealth in peace?ā
Itās fitting that Owen should invoke Tricky here. Pre-Millennium Tension fits into a long tradition of working class disillusion with the trappings of pop success. The lines from āChristiansandsā that Owen cites - āIāll master your languageā (followed by: āand in the meantime Iāll create my ownā) - would resonate with anyone projected out of the subordinate class or anyone who wishes to escape such subordination. āTricky Kidā recounts what happens when Tricky achieves his goal; it is at one and the same time his version of playa bragging (āI live the life they wish they didā¦ Now they call me superstarā) and a registering of disgust at what he witnesses at the summit (ācoke in ya noseā). Disgust at ruling class revelry doubling into self-disgust, both slipping into religous mania - class dislocation has never sounded so psychotic. Sadly, Tricky could not himself resolve the contradictions that his success produced - how could he? How could any individual?"
