>the products, manifestations of cool than cool itself.

>black cool has always been about being casual while doing
>the unusual. jordan gliding from the freethrow line like his
>opponents ain't even there? black cool. miles turning his
>back on the audience at his show? black cool.

Those Emo guys turning their back on the audiences....

Cool?

How about being so moved by what you're singing, you start crying..

Cool?

Compared to Lauryn Hill almost breaking down when she did her unplugged stuff?

B/W with her constant admonishing of the audience?

>the way you speak about cool here is almost anti-cool.
>generalized expressions of cool can't be cool for long
>because then you aren't being casual with the unsual. you're
>being casual with the usual.

Although this discussion of cool might sound clinical and abstract - it's because we're arguing that cool is clinical and abstract.

But the real nub in this, is

Do people actually try to be cool or is coolness innate?
Is coolness something active or passive?
(or is it some sort of recognition/relationship?)
Are some people lying about their coolness?

The assumption is that certain people are kind of born with a certain awareness, a certain way of doing things, and they don't do it because someone told them so - but when they do what they do - the result is coolness.

The next assumption is that someone trying to copy said coolness will come off as fake.

The 3rd and final assumption is that we can figure out who the liars are.

And we all know in our hearts, it's easier to lie to the next man, than to catch the next man in his lie. Research also tells us that it's difficult to figure out if someone is lying. Research also tells us, that the people who lie the best to us, the people who fake the best, are the people that we know.

If I were to say that I met Jay Z and he was totally insecure, you guys might believe me. If I were to say he was totally confident, you'd believe me too.

Being totally insecure would take away from his coolness, his grace. So it's very possible that he manages his relationship with the rest of us, so that we never see it.

If it takes that much effort to put up a front - is that person really cool or are we just fooled?

The Jordan examples of cool are so easy to grasp and understand.

But when you have musicians that work hard on their music, on their image, on their showmanship, and are very aware of the fact that what they do affects people - is it now manufactured cool? And if it's manufactured cool, isn't that some lesser form of cool than a Manigault on the play ground?

>george clinton is very cool. the nigga was a fuckin freak
>and didn't give a damn. that's cool. that's why it's still
>cool to fuk with some p-funk in my hood...which would make
>it uncool because it's so usual. haha.

That's just it, GC was trying to not be cool.

But the ideology of cool took over GC. Because people liked what he did, because he was distinctive - he became cool even though that's something he personally rejected.

In a different way, that's the tyranny of cool. (the other way being that black folks have to conform to some floating notion of coolness in order to even have a chance at success in music)

You might not have a say in whether you are cool or not, because it's other people who make that decision.

That's classic Tyranny of the Majority right there. Alexis would know what i'm talking about.

And in thinking about cool, it's obvious to me at least, that certain people are cool all the time, some people are cool some of the time, but the vast majority of black folks aren't cool in general. We might be cool in contrast with other folks, mainly the suburban white majority...like Cuba Gooding Jr can do a 1990 whenever he wants to. That's some cool shit. Cuba is cool in Hollywood and Television city. Is that nigga cool on Crenshaw though? Popular? maybe. Respected? possibly. But cool? Hell naw.

A lotta black folks just ain't cool. But a lot of them 1) think they are, and 2) try to become cool. Is it as blatant as waking up and thinking, I'm gonna be the coolest nigga the world has ever seen?

Or is it more subtle, like they start dressing a certain way, start speaking their mind more, start going for their's?

Cool is a complicated subject that folks don't really deal with, cause it's so amorphous and seemingly subjective.

But I don't think cool is really that mysterious that you can't seriously consider who is cool and how they become cool.

one
k. orr