Matt Bar: Press

Matt Bar - Lying In Chalk
Renaissance Entertainment - 0286

Iowa City’s Matt Bar dubs his music “folk rap” and you may wonder what that entail until you hear his wildly unique Eminem meets Guy Clark style. His subjects range from scatological to street smart to soul bearing, rapped with a backdrop of haunting acoustic guitars and a tempered rhythm section. His musical integrity shines throughout and exemplifies that he does this style because he feels it, not as a gimmick.

Matt Bar
"Lying in Chalk"
Renaissance Entertainment

With a B.A. in Philosophy from St. Louis' Washington University and currently a student at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan, Iowa City native Matt Bar hardly fits the typical profile of a rap artist.

Add that he's more self-effacing than boastful and routinely explores weighty themes while creating his self-styled hybrid of "Folk-Rap," and you've got a guy who's determined to carve his own path.

Startlingly original and brilliantly realized, "Lying in Chalk" couches Bar's reedy, tuneful voice, accomplished street-wise rhyming and acoustic guitar in a fluid, elastic soundscape that taps into American folk, soul, reggae and ancient Middle Eastern melodies while maintaining complex rhythmic tension.

An eclectic crew of stellar locals (including Saul Lubaroff, John Lake, Jim Viner, Chris Gelbuda and a nifty string section) lock-in to make this a powerful, rewarding listening experience, and the production by 'Jamo' Mims is rich, dynamic and spacious.

At once cerebral, spiritual and earthy (Bar can cuss like a sailor), "Lying in Chalk" is a triumphant, front-to-back gem.

Beating the folk rap...

...He repositions himself on a dulled couch for his closing number, "Things That Aren't Shown." This one, unlike the previous two, appears on his forthcoming album, Lying in Chalk. Bar croons "Of all the places I've known / none have really felt like home" over evocative, fingerpicked guitar work.

Easing into his first verse, the room takes on a revelatory stillness as Bar - not the least bit jarring to the ear - begins to rap, "These kids in correction / Splittin' spliffs in reflection / If what's inside has died you better believe in resurrection / Give me protection from the Godless / Let my conscience / Place its candle on the mantle to illuminate the nonsense."

Would now be a good time to mention that Bar (a.k.a. The Ramblin' MC) once opened for Outkast? Or that Lying in Chalk, his second official album, is a fusion of folk and rap?...

My next favorite musician du jour is ... Matt Bar, aka the Ramblin' MC... His genre is folk rap which, believe it or not, is a wonderful generational cross-over, at least as done (invented?) by Matt. While he makes a point of reminding listeners that Jesus isn't his God, he writes some pretty good words about what Christ is about and certainly has an intuitive feel for things mimetic and our redemption from sacred violence. Some snippets from Matt's album Lying in Chalk --

Wearing the cross of Jesus/but still the trigger squeezes/cause turning the other cheek is weakness/and Jesus/arose from his grave/yesterday/took a walk down the street/and weeped/ (from "Universal Citizen")

Perhaps its just me, cause without an enemy, my anger gets confused (from "Laugh at Masks")

Beneath the sacredness of sin/a human blessing hides within/a caterpillar sheds its skin/to find a butterfly in him/don’t look out but look within/for everything shines in light in men/your eyes will finally open and you’ll see what made the Buddha grin/ (from "Sing Your Tears").

Matt's finishing his second album as I write this, just before returning to New York to spend 500 days trying to make it as a folk rap artist while he supports himself as a Hebrew teacher. I hope he makes it because what he's saying in his songs is a lot healthier and holier, to say nothing of more intelligent than what most popular music says these days, raw as some of it is language-wise. It is part rap, after all, and as Matt says..."the rhymes, they are a-changin." You can read Matt's lyrics and hear some of his music at www.mattbar.com if you're so inclined. But again, be warned: some of the language is raw

...Whether his music emerges as an intriguing evolutionary offshoot of music or an entirely different musical creature, Bar has created something new...

Portrait of an Artist : Folk Rapper Matt Bar


Where you see the sun / I see the Lord's spotlight / The world is a stage / and it's made of hip-hop, right?

Amidst an otherwise existential cultural landscape two forces remain sacred to me: Judaism and Hip-Hop. I'm an American Jewish Rapper. (Actually, I am a folk-rapper but that's another subject altogether).

What is Hip-Hop culture? Hip-Hop reveres a particular brand of genuineness-a comfortable/confident convergence of your appearance with the depth of your total being.
 
You can just sense the steez / so fuckin' real must be make believe

Thus, one of Hip-Hop's greatest words, "steez": how an individual's attitude embodies and articulates their unique spiritual existence. One "keeps it real" when one uses Hip-Hop in order to effectively articulate a unique sentiment that could not be articulated otherwise. Participating in Hip-Hop is thus being Hip-Hop.

Dog, you don't know rap / it's like folk in that ' it's the folk who rap / passed commercial crap / is protestin', preachin', poetic people with passion...

A major development in Jewish Hip-Hop is the success of the Hasidic reggae phenomenon, Matisyahu. What distinguishes Matisyahu is not simply his talent. His utilization of his Judaism is not hackneyed parody (i.e. 50 Shekel, Ju-Tang Clan, 2 Live Jews etc...), but profound. His songs and performances are testaments to the source of his powerful and compelling steez: Judaism. They are often tributes to Hashem and the gifts Hashem imparts through Judaism. They incorporate Biblical literature and the traditions of Judaism in order to edify and inspire. My music, however, doesn't fit into this category. Only occasionally do I reference notable elements of the Jewish tradition. Nor can I say whether or not I believe in God. I'm more concerned with becoming a man who God can believe in. As I write this last sentence, "I am more concerned with becoming a man God can believe in," my eyes fill with tears; these tears are the ocean between who I am and who my Judaism demands me to be. I have a long way to go.
 
However, this longing, this yearning to sail that ocean-that, to me, is Judaism. Thus, my Jewish perspective informs the funk, neither with gicchi-gicchi-gaga references to Jewish culture nor with devout commitment to its sources (Bible, Halakhah, etc.), but rather with a more general, yet petrifying and earnest, spiritual yearning. This is articulated in different ways in my music by identifying with the insight such a yearning generates:
 
Give me protection from the godless / let my conscious / place its candle on the mantle / to illuminate the nonsense...

I recognize I sound sanctimonious. But I am speaking of my Judaism, which is holier-than-me. I speak not of thou.

Some Bands I Recommend:

1. The Ramblin' MC Matt Bar - Folk rap, and durn good at it.

What began as a music genre in the African-American community in Harlem has today transcended racial and geographical barriers to become the world’s hottest music trend in recent times. The term that every trendy teenager worth his i-Pod swears by today, from LA to Lucknow and Buenos Aires to Bali, at one time forced artistes to tap electricity from street lights for Harlem street parties.

One of the dominant music genres of the new millennium, hip hop has made household names out of stars like Eminem, Jay-Z and Snoop Dog. A billion dollar industry it has spawned clothing lines, books and music in addition to Bling, the jewellery made popular by hip hop stars.

The prestigious New York University even has a class on it, with white students outnumbering African-Americans. Mighty Mike MC the 42 year old former member of the Fearless Four, conducts Hip Hop Pioneers Tour for tourists through landmarks of hip hop origins. The group was the first to be signed on by a major record label and generated their

''All you needed was a street pole and a table with some turntables on it,'' Mike C said as he showed tourists from England, Japan and Germany the Graffiti Hall of Fame, a wall of colourful murals at a Harlem high school.

''If you look at the early rap records, it's about partying,'' he said.

As the potential rewards have grown, so have the ranks of those with ambitions to make their fortune in hip hop. But for many, the route to success is a hard grind.

Tawayne Anderson, a 27-year-old father of two who goes by the name L.A, has made seven rap CDs in the past year and has just completed a 20,000 video for a song called ''Ain't Easy'' about trying to succeed as a rap star.

''I'm not focused on Bling, more on my future 'cause practice makes perfect,'' he raps in the video, which shows him in a luxury white car, wearing gold jewellery, or Bling, and with the kind of entourage associated with rap stars like 50 Cent.

''I need a big deal 'cause I'm damn well worth it,'' L A raps. ''Who else you know that deserve it? Y'all don't know how hard I work ... I want my face on posters, vans and shirts.''

L A, who describes himself as the ''class clown'' in high school, met his future wife at 17, shortly before his mother died. ''My brother was incarcerated so I had to become a man then,'' he said.

He has held regular jobs include working at a group foster home for teens, but he has been rapping since he was a teenager.

A year ago he found a backer in family friend Eugene Henderson, a retired public health worker and musician who had dreamed all his life of going into the music business.

Henderson founded his own record label, H-Town Records, and paid to install the latest high-tech recording equipment in L.A's Long Island home in a tiny studio under the eaves.

''When people hear about rap, the first thing they think about is the violence, but that's not me,'' L.A said, adding that he doesn't use profanity or language disrespectful to women and he doesn't rap about drugs or violence.

''A lot of people like to talk about that kind of stuff because it makes them look bigger than they are, but the radio is not going to play those songs,'' he said.

H-Town has produced 7,500 CDs of each of L.A's seven albums at a cost of 40 cents a CD, all of which are handed out for free as promotional material at gigs he plays locally and as far afield as Houston, Texas and Atlanta, Georgia.

''I remember when we put out our first CD, just giving it to people was like pulling teeth,'' L.A said, recalling the days when he pounded the pavements handing out CDs in New York.

Henderson said his strategy was to spread buzz about L.A through touring colleges, advertising, playing the video on public access television and word of mouth. By the summer he hopes to put an album in record stores.

L.A -- who says his initials stand for ''Long Awaited'' or ''Lyrical Assassin'' -- knows he's up against thousands of other would-be rap stars, but he exudes confidence.

''I can take a crowd anywhere,'' he said, adding that fame won't spoil him. ''Two or three years from now, when I'm on the top of the world, I'm still going to be the same person.''

Though hip hop started a black genre, it's no longer just young black men like L.A who see it as their calling.

At a recent hip hop history class at New York University where white students outnumber African Americans, one of the visitors in a ''show and tell'' segment at the start of the class was Matt Bar, a 24-year-old Jewish folk-rapper from Iowa City who performed a song about his blend of folk music and rap.

''People act like it's something when in fact it's nothing. I just add rap and suddenly mad cats discussing me, saying 'cause he rap he wanna be black,'' Bar raps as another student improvises a hip-hop beat. ''You're the cat who thinks rap's exactly that, when you haven't even chatted with the kid who's black. Dog, you don't know rap... It's the folk who rap.''

Later in the class a hip hop breakdancer named Quick Step takes a dozen students through an improvised android routine.

Students are encouraged to get out and experience hip hop on the streets and the Pioneers Tour is one they can win extra credits for attending.

Sammy Kim, a 20-year-old from the class, won a round of applause for performing a rap in Korean on the tour bus.

''You've got to admit, you may not have known what he said but it sounds good. That's hip hop,'' Mike C said.

Bureau Report