Good Ol' Dirty

O' Dirty Bastard
11" x 14"
oil on wood, 2014

No I haven't been listening to music much this past year but that's not to say I haven't been around music much. The neighborhood bordering our house to the north is largely hip-hop culture. Many have those hip-hop mobiles—revved up American made vehicles, the dodge is particularly popular, with amped up stereo systems—that ride the street in front of hour house with the stereo full blast. A friend continues to complain about it and asks me: "How can you stand that?". I can not only stand it, I'm loving it. The neighborhood to our south, at the other side of the creek, is largely populated by Mexicans, and the house directly behind our property organizes regular parties often with life music. Someone there plays the accordion. Needless to say: "I'm loving it". But none of this music comes with a play list and most hip-hop I hear consists of soundbites no longer than fifteen seconds. I'm hearing great fragments of which I do not know performer or title.

The hip-hop repertoire I play at home is limited to a few names or songs that I've grown to like over the years. I don't really know who's who in hip-hop. If I play selective hip-hop music at home it's either Shimmy Shimmy Ya or Brooklyn Zoo, both by Ol' Dirty Bastard, and both through YouTube. Both songs are part of my YouTube repertoire, which consists of about 25 music videos, all being played regularly. I there's a "YouTube-off" held, chances are I'll pick Brooklyn Zoo. The song stands at #6 at my combined top 100 of 2013 and 2014. The painting is clearly influenced by the stencil print I created a week ago. I painted like how you would make a print: I first painted the portrait in blue, and after it dried, I painted the portrait again but now in red. And besides a little tweaking...that was all.