I
was introduced to Jeremy Relph off the pages of the hip hop magazine,
POUND.
His article on the Beatnuts,
The Beatnuts: Jokes on Who?,
got my attention. It’s a smart and funny read that compensates for a
group who owns some of the best beats and most unintelligent lyrics that
hip hop has to offer. He plays the choicest quotes with quick and
subtle commentaries so that you knew he had some fun at their expense –
and maybe a little at yours if you weren’t game.
“Age
may have Psycho Les a little more blunted but he’s just a little
wiser. 'Just the other day I was on stage performing and I did
something to a shortie and she like attacked me and shit, f’real. …
I was about to smack her with the mic but I thought, yo, if I crack
this bitch in the head, they’re gonna sue the club, they’re gonna
sue me, so, getting back to you, gotta think sometimes, man, handle
it a little more professionally.' Ladies, you may now act stink
without fear of what fate may befall you.”
So the next question on my mind was had this writer ever turned fiction
(the goods, as far as I was concerned).
I sent an email and he let me have
this:
“The title I've used for the MS is 'The Love Movement' for a couple
reasons, the most simple though would be that I always wished that Tribe
might've come up with a hot album of that name and they disappointed
me.”
Here, I would learn, is the first lesson of Relph: Of course, there’s
more to the story than this. His lead starts slow and then picks up.
First came an interview with this young man. Then, he let me have
another article, followed by a short, memoir-like series, then a short story
-- I couldn’t get near the manuscript. Just wouldn’t be right.
So, what kind of writer is he? It’d be easy to call him a hip hop
writer because of his extensive career in various hip hop and gamer
magazines such as VICE,
URB,
RAP PAGES,
MEAN, STRENGTH,
STRESS,
POUND,
WORD, (did they all get
together and come up with these names, or what?),
SOHH,
THE SOURCE &
MYVIDEOGAMES.COM. His studies include
degrees in Journalism, English Literature & English as a Second
Language.
With all the merits of a healthy academic career and a run of proper
internships, Relph’s writing strength comes from a finer balance of
having been this skater kid out of the hip hop phenomenon and a somewhat
moralistic and militant family upbringing.
When asked about his personal history with writing, Relph responded,
“Basically I didn't write for a couple years aside from corny journaling
for myself to keep my head in check and then after a sequence of events
where I just started following my heart - what was just naturally there
-- I got writing again. Writing about shit that meant something to
me.”
He is currently the politics section editor/senior editor for
POUND
magazine. 
Relph’s writing is where Hollywood and Chuck D can be referenced in a
critique on war in Afghanistan, love and morality are translated through
videogames and fear hides behind the blazin’ mask of a queen. He
challenges the reader to explore the need for myth and reason. He plays
illusions and faces and rather than lead to a dramatic unveiling –
allows the reader a space to slip behind the curtains.
In his article entitled,
Mind, Soul and Dead Bodies, Relph
plays the bigger histories beside our local stories. He references a
book by war reporter, Chris Hedges, War Is a Force That Gives Us
Meaning, beside the story of a guy who was helping him unload a
truck. What starts as a review of a war reporter’s memoirs becomes an open
question of what we want or need to believe, in a time of war.
The following are quotes from the article:
"This
guy Dan*, a brown dude with what sounds like a Quebecois accent, helps
every time, with a smile, cracking jokes. One day, for whatever reason,
he gets me a coffee while grabbing one for him. I decided the occasion
merited a cancer stick and we stepped outside. Somehow, we got to
talking about what I did when not playing the martyr for a paycheque,
and next thing I know he’s telling me about seeing Russian soldiers
getting their chests’ carved off … while they’re still breathing."
What starts as a review of a war reporter’s memoirs becomes an open
question of what we want or need to believe, in a time of war.
"History
is full of examples of people who’ve bought the myth, bought the
lies of one conflicting side or another, lies that prey upon their
kinder, gentler sensibilities.. We can be upset by the killing of
civilians, upset by the idea of war, and upset knowing our countries
rock horribly inconsistent (or arguably very consistent) foreign
policies. …. Where we go with it, like the unsettling truth of
Hedges’ book, is another thing altogether."
As in all his writing samples, Relph’s use of realism and detachment
always leads to a question of love.
"Writing of what he saw in the Balkans, Hedges observed some positives
in the midst of the carnage and absurdity: people who care for each
other regardless of nationality. 'By accepting that they could only
affect a few lives they also accepted their small place in the universe.
This daily lesson in humility protected them. They were saved not by
what they could accomplish but by faith.' Love, Hedges writes, not
ideals of 'race, nationalism, class and gender,' is worth striving for.”
In another sample,
Broads, a Bitch, Never the Snitch, I
get a different angle on Relph. This is a
memoir-like three-part series from the perspective of a teenage kid
addicted to videogames. Here, the hard-edge of the
POUND
writer drops off and up comes a playfulness & honesty to everything
that’s not so innocent about adolescence these days.
The following are the choicest quotes from the article:
“I, of course, never had my own Nintendo system, so I was destined to
always get schooled when I tried to hang with the people who spent their
waking moments tearing up level after level with lil’ Mario and Luigi. I
grabbed wall space on the grimy carpet, hid behind a wall of smoke,
compliments of my Dunhills and talked smack to the rest of the family,
of course, never mentioning that Mario and Luigi were negative and
damaging depictions of Italians as short, fat labourers – or skilled
craftsmen if you’d like to put a positive spin on things - no, I was
above such obvious insecurity inspired
remarks.”
“Somewhere along the line my drug
use caught up to me and kicked my ass into a serious depression. I
couldn’t stop drinking and getting fucked up yet felt no relief from
loneliness in my constant inebriation: That game just stopped
working. No amount of dimes or quarters or distractions worked.”
Again, he leads the search for morality and maturity to a question of
love.
“… Just like Pac Man though, my cold heart ran out, and her
passive-aggressive comments and need for love or affection or something
other than smart-assed lust caught up with me. Like Pac Man my
invincibility ran out, the ghosts caught me when I got greedy and I got
caught like a limp dick. See, like Common's dis track aimed at Ice Cube
(The Bitch in You), I found the bitch in me. The fearful,
self-degrading, finger pointing bitch in me that didn't want to get
hurt.”
In his short fiction piece, Portrait of a Lady, he presents a
simple story of a character named Nicolette, preparing for a night out.
In this story, his writing is rough, sometimes offensive, even non-sensical
to those who don’t speak the slang lingo. And like hip hop, steeped in
the sub of culture the bravado and arrogance rings like a
challenge for the readers to step up and face the noise or run.
"Shai and her girls were strobe-light hoes at best. Nicolette
was strictly Vanity Fair while the pigeons ran Swingers Connection.
Up in the clubs they could pull a man in seconds with their bati
riders pulled up, booty beckoning, and cleavage spilling out of
their one-sized too small push-up bras. They were formidable
on the floor. But get them out of the strobe-light by the bar?
That's where Nicolette excelled and they all failed. A drink,
some laughs and Nicolette could rock the bells while Shai and
company hit the floor in search of fresh meat, their pockmarked
faces masked in the blush, foundation, cover-up and an assortment of
diabolical cosmetic concoctions. Cheap chickens, one and all,
but judging by the line-up at KFC, cheap chicken is the staple of
most of the world's diet, so, regardless, Nicolette had to work
extra tizzuff on presentation."
