Keeping mum over the state of Chuck D’s trews
I’ m at Gods of Rock in Glasgow with Eldest and his girlfriend watching De La Soul, Public Enemy and Wu- Tang Clan. I bought the tickets as birthday gifts, plus one for myself – well I’ve always wanted to see Public Enemy – and I’m welcome, but determined not to show up my crew.
So I’m not raising my arms as instructed from the stage, doing the hip- hop hand gestures. It’s a bit too whoops- upside- yourhead for me anyway, and while the crowd do various fingers, clenched fists, stroppy baby pose, low wave, high wave, and ahem, the ‘ wu’, I stick to clapping and a bit of head nodding. So far so good.
But the trousers are bothering me. Sorry rappers, I’m liking the lyrics, but there comes a time in a man’s life when sagging jeans start to look unintentional. I know I must not share this opinion with my crew, not cool, so I repeat to myself, ‘ I will not say anything about the trousers, I will not say anything about the trousers’. Even when they’re looking ready to drop and I’m thinking if I could get on stage, all it needs is that quick hoik up at the back waistband, a swift, practised gesture all parents know. And with Chuck D’s message of nonviolence, I’m sure the bouncers would be kind. But no, I don’t let myself down, and neither do Wu- Tang’s jeans.
Leaving the venue we meet Eldest’s pals, en route to the last train, one a little overrefreshed, over- excited. Probably overtired. That mum voice in my head just will not shut up.
“We could give him a lift home?” I suggest to Eldest’s girlfriend. Wait, he probably doesn’t live at home any more, and his parents would hate me. Plus kidnapping offspring’s friends definitely isn’t cool.
“No,” she says, kindly. “He’ll be fine. His friends have got him.”
And so they have, shepherding him along, and one of them wearing a sweatshirt with a logo that looks incredibly familiar, those colours...
“Aw, nice friends,” I say. “And that one wearing his old school hoodie. I wanted to tell him how good it still looked. Wonder where yours went.”
“Er, mum,” says Eldest and laughs. “That was a Wu- Tang Clan top.”
Sometimes I’m so glad I manage to keep mum. n