The original star wars trilogy was like a third parent to me. Sesame Street told me my A to 'Zee' and Luke 'n Darth taught me about good and evil and that severe respiratory ailments are no obstacle to a successful career in totalitarian middle management. I used to look up to rappers. For most of my childhood, rap records were a bounteous source of much edutainment. Alas however, there comes a time when one must put away childish things and see parents and heros for who and what they truly are. The second Star Wars trilogy and the dreadful Clone wars CG animated movie laid waste to any illusions I held concerning Star Wars' spiritual and cinematic worth. Passing a few GCSEs showed me that perhaps my favourite rappers weren’t up to scratch in the intellectualism stakes.
Ras Kas is either the worst example of hip hop’s pseudo intellectualism or a pioneer in ignorant rap. His magnum opus Nature of the threat was a monumental litany of urban myths and thinly veiled racism articulated via a cavalcade of lies and bullshit. I might one day conduct a line-by-line correction of NOTR but there isn't yet enough virtual red pen ink in the internet to do so.
In his mostly-filler, no-killer, kickstarter.com/fan-funded double CD ADIDAS, Rasi Kassi takes the odd break from griping about how unappreciated and irrelevant he has become to drop some good ol' junk science. In the Skillz-guesting Linguistics, Ras returns to his favourite area of unexperties, namely Classical antiquity. O boy…
Revisitting one of the especially dumb passages of NOTR, Ras Kass decides to break down the origins of the names for the days of the week. All is well until he rehashes the Christmas = Saturnalia fallacy.
Where to start?
1: Yes Saturday is named after Saturn who is also the name of a god. Moreover, given how Saturday is also named after the word for Saturn in India, Thailand and the Celtic nations of Europe,it is more likely that the sixth day is named after the sixth planet first, deity second.
2: Saturn was the *ROMAN* god of agriculture and nothing to do with Greeks. The closest Greek counterpart would be Titan Kronus (BTW, that film Clash of the Titans and it's tagline "Titans will clash" should be done under trading descriptions 'cus there is not one Titan to be found in the entire movie. The movie is about demigod Percius and the Olympians.
3: Saturn was one of many-many characters in Roman pantheology. Roman culture was not some homogenous monotheism where everybody across the empire pledged allegiance to the same chaps according to a single calendar. Different regions and their rulers had their own talismanic idols. Roman gods were like the Nandos Hotspurs and Woolwich Wanderers of their time.
4: If Christmas and the Christ story are derivative of anything, then that would be the story of indo-Persian sun god Mithras, not Saturn. Check the similarities:
- -Virgin birth in lolely circumstances (perhaps a stable)
- -birth attended by shepherds.
- -Born on December 25
- -had twelve disciples
- -claimed to be saviour promising eternal salvation and immortality to followers
- -enjoyed a last supper with followers during which his disciples imbibed the blood-of-his-blood, flesh-of-his-flesh.
- -died and was resurrected on Sunday.
- -depicted as the light-bringer with glowing halo.
With all due respect, Ras Kass should stick to what he knows best: juvenile alcoholism, drinking & driving, vehicular manslaughter and cranking out reams of tedious crassness. His abuse and misuse of classical Greek culture is getting old - how would he like it if the tables were turned and a Greek rapper dropped some home truths about American "Culture?" (that would be a short song I know but you gets the point). Ras Kass is to classicism what Prince Philip is to Pan Afrikanism.
If you didn't participate in the kickstarter.com venture, (I did but am still waiting on my T-shirt, CD and vinyl) Ras Kass's ADIDAS and Goldenchyld 2 single are out now via bandcamp.
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