ESSAY

ALT HIP-HOP HEAVYWEIGHT HIMANSHU SURI (A.K.A. HEEMS) BRINGS THE NOISE

OLD LADY holding purse tight shout shut off that racket / But that racket happen to be me rapping out my tax bracket / I told her one man’s noise is another man’s symphony / And one man’s trash lid another man’s timpani / Couldn’t afford guitars, we took the sounds that we wanted / To speak on how we felt unwanted. They say we wanton / But it don’t warrant them wanting us with arrest warrants / They say our music is stupid cause it don’t sound like Warrant? / Who decides what’s wanted and what’s unwanted sound / In rap, we take what’s around us to make art that’s found / Like the leftovers and waste that they cooked up with soul / They would take all these noises they’d mold, they’d control / We’d hear all this shouting, ’bout our hubbub and hullabaloo / Gullible you, boys make noise, buffed toys, a hell of a crew / Now they clamor for the clamor when it bring the glitz and glamour / Cameras flashing with the fashion in the club they getting hammered / And that commotion turned the wheels of capitalism into motion / Our noise on top of charts, in ad campaigns to sell lotion / So I keep my pants sagging and I don’t turn my noise down / Because that noise is the voice of the brown sounds in my towns.

Heems’ debut album, Eat Pray Thug, is out now.