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‘Life's Ill, Sometimes Life Might Kill’: Cannibal Ox's

image of ‘Life's Ill, Sometimes Life Might Kill’: Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein

In May 2001, Harlem rap duo Cannibal Ox released their debut album The Cold Vein. Its opener ‘Iron Galaxy’ depicts New York at the turn of the millennium. This chapter explores the track's sonic palate, lyrical content and enduring place within popular culture as a metonym for the city's dark underbelly. MCs Vordul Mega and Vast Aire combine sci-fi imagery, astral projections, and conspiracy theories to capture a city of contradictions. Within this site of extreme wealth and destitution, Cannibal Ox evoke their grounded reality and clamour for escape. The spectral and spatial are rendered through its sound-world and lyrical barbs that simultaneously critique New York and seek routes for survival.

Keywords: Afrofuturism ; Black Arts Movement ; El-P ; Gentrification ; Ghost in the Shell ; Harlem ; Hip Hop ; Lines of Flight ; Locational Claustrophobia ; Music Production ; New York City ; Rudy Guiliani ; Science Fiction ; Star Trek ; Urban Planning

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References

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     [Google Scholar]
  4. Bradley, Regina N. (2021), Chronicling Stankonia: The Rise of the Hip-Hop South, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Burton, Justin Adams (2017), Posthuman Rap, New York: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Cannibal Ox (2001), The Cold Vein, CD, USA: Definitive Jux.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Company Flow (1998), Funcrusher Plus, 2xLP, USA: Rawkus.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Dad Bod Rap Pod (2021), ‘Episode 166: Nothing is Gonna Be Normal with Guest Vast Aire’, Stony Island Audio, San Jose, 22 April, https://open.spotify.com/episode/38ieJXild90mfQkUDTZO0c?si=QoGJRZ2ySKm2PrQwUZEtow. Accessed 13 October 2021.
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     [Google Scholar]
  10. Day, Sherri (2000), ‘NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: HARLEM; Opposing Not a Project But Its Name’, New York Times, 15 October, https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/15/nyregion/neighborhood-report-harlem-opposing-not-a-project-but-its-name.html. Accessed 4 October 2021.
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  11. Dery, Mark (1994), Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture, London: Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Furman Center (2019), ‘Central Harlem Neighborhood Profile’, https://furmancenter.org/neighborhoods/view/central-harlem. Accessed 9 October 2023.
  13. Hancox, Dan (2015), ‘Cannibal Ox: “We Strive Every Day to Do Better”’, The Guardian, 3 March, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/03/cannibal-ox-blade-of-the-ronin-interview. Accessed 15 October 2021.
  14. Johnson, Bruce D., Golub, Andrew and McCabe, James (2010), ‘The International Implications of Quality-of-Life Policing as Practiced in New York City’, Police Practice & Research, 11:1, pp. 17–29, https://doi.org/10.1080/15614260802586368.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Lock, Graham (1999), Blutopia: Visions of the Future and Revisions of the Past in the Work of Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Anthony Braxton, London: Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Mlynar, Phillip (2018), ‘How the Atoms Family Became a Force in Hip-Hop’, Bandcamp Daily, 18 January, https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/the-atoms-family-feature. Accessed 30 September 2021.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Shea, Nicholas (2020), ‘Descending Bass Schemata and Negative Emotion in Western Song’, Empirical Musicology Review, 14:3&4, pp. 167–81, https://doi.org/10.18061/emr.v14i3-4.6790.168
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Skyzoo (2021), All the Brilliant Things, CD, USA: Mello Music Group.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Sutton, Stacey (2020), ‘Gentrification and the Increasing Significance of Racial Transition in New York City 1970–2010’, Urban Affairs Review, 56:1, pp. 65–95, https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087418771224.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. ‘The Squire of Gothos’ (1967), D. McDougall (dir.), Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 1 Episode 17 (12 January, USA: NBC).
  21. Vast Aire of Cannibal Ox (@vastaire2090) (2021), Instagram photos and videos, https://www.instagram.com/vastaire2090/. Accessed 8 October 2021.
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     [Google Scholar]
  23. Viator, Felicia Angeja (2020), To Live and Defy in LA: How Gangsta Rap Changed America, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Weheliye, Alexander (2014), Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human, London: Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. White, Joy (2020), Terraformed: Young Black Lives in the Inner City, London: Repeater Books.
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  26. Wiki (2021), Half God, online, USA: WikiSetNYC.
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