“Kenosha, WI”

Rory Ferreira (bio)
St. Norbert College
rory.ferreira@snc.edu

I started writing raps seriously when my friend Robert drowned buck naked in a public pool. Like any self-absorbed, depressed-for-no-reason 19 year old, I was reading Camus, and the absurdity he talks about became, rather suddenly, all too real. This happened a year ago and resulted in the creation of my first mixtape, “I wish my brother Rob was here.”
 
The song I chose to share is from my debut record, an overly-complicated double-EP titled “things that happen at day // things that happen at night,” which is probably trying too hard to deal with metaphysics, in particular problems of dualism. It’s the sort of armchair philosophy that feels good to me and makes for nice songwriting.
 
This song is influenced to some extent by white men I don’t know like Bertrand Russell and Richard Linklater and even more so by the folk band Megafaun and their song “The Fade.” That song and this one are about the terrible, creeping darkness that starts to nibble at memories you cherish of people who are dead. And the burden of knowledge. And the guilt that comes with being relieved that you are now incapable of filing through mental rolodexes for mundane details about people who are dead because those rolodexes have deteriorated. At this point the Bertrand Russell bits kick in, and I half-heartedly escape by becoming an android with programmed memories and responses. It seems like a ludicrous way out until you realize that’s all adolescence and high school really is: android programming.
 
The instrumental was made by my pal Will Mitchell (Pomona College) and it begins with him reading the last lines of our hero David Foster Wallace’s magnum opus, Infinite Jest. “And when he came back to, he was flat on his back on the beach in the freezing sand.” It seemed like the only way to describe surfacing from depression after the death of a close friend. Will possesses the uncanny ability to make instrumental pieces that perfectly mirror the type of bleak machinations running through my head during times of duress. The vague typewriter sounds plodding incessantly, the bombastic broken glass noises, and the bouncing bass drum that seems more at home on the latest Kanye West album—he takes these pieces and makes them fit. It’s easy to work with a guy like that.
 
The piece concludes with a weird boast that, “If I wrote the greatest rap song, I wouldn’t let you hear it.” Obviously, I’m bluffing. I wrote what is to me the greatest song of my rap career for Robert, and I let everyone hear it. In that way, those lyrics become more and more disingenuous each day, and sometimes I hate myself for that. So I wrote another song to try to reclaim some dignity. Hopefully you enjoy it.
 
If you are a Project MUSE subscriber click to hear audio:
 
Track 1.
“Kenosha, WI”
 

Rory Ferreira is twenty and loves omelets. He studies philosophy at St. Norbert College and overuses the ethical dative. Lacking the courage to write academic papers, he started writing rap songs as Milo. His debut record, a double-EP titled “things that happen at day // things that happen at night,” will be released via Hellfyre Club on January 1st, 2013.