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- Sunday Music: "Checkers" By Aesop Rock
I press play and the first thing I hear is, “You’re a prisoner here now.”
What? Ok - but, where? I’m wondering. The synths takeover. It’s cinematic. I appreciate that.
The first 4 official lines wash over me, and it’s a reminder of how abrasive Aesop Rock’s voice can be,
Suit of calluses, active and movin' callous
Anomaly in the algorithm, do the algebralculus
I′m all of Alexandria's information in aggregate
Rulin' elder givin′ you the hell that melt the valuables
It continues. I realize I’m getting a very (very) cyberpunk vibe from this. And then the chorus hits, launched off by “Can you bring me one of those? (Don′t)” - and followed by a series of percussive “don’t”-s, over and over, leaving me wonder for half a second, where have I heard this before because I have definitely heard this before and then it clicks.
It’s Public Enemy, right? Not a sample, just an echo of an idea. It’s “don’t” - but instead of Flava Flav’s voice it’s someone else’s, and now, I’m thrown into obsession with hunting for parallels.
Aesop Rock’s “Checkers” feels like a warning shot of a song. PE was railing against the media. Chuck D and crew were blasting the narrative manipulation presented as news to the American public, but now, 37 years on, Aesop’s updating it. This is “Don’t Believe the Hype” for a social media age. This is don’t believe the hype when we have access to “all of Alexandria's information in aggregate” in our pockets. This is don’t believe the hype when the hype has been commodified and you’ve become the product being sold.
Media narrative manipulation, when the evening news is presented as monoculture, is a weapon. PE put out multiple albums worth of songs pointing this out. They were part of an earlier revolution, one that Aesop Rock himself evolved out of. It’s good to look back on some of what Chuck D was saying, how he saw himself as a time bomb leader of a new school approach, forcing public formats into talking about life as he knew it,
The leader of the new school, uncool
Never played the fool, just made the rules
Remember there's a need to get alarmed
Again I said I was a time bomb
In the daytime radio's scared of me
'Cause I'm mad, 'cause I'm the enemy
They can't come on and play me in prime time
'Cause I know the time, plus I'm gettin' mine
Public Enemy was on the outside looking in, in 1988. But in 2025, with everybody as a media outlet of their own accord, with megaphones and narrative machines in everybody’s faces 24/7, Aesop is on the inside looking out.
If Chuck D was a time bomb that the mainstream was scared of, Aesop finds himself a calloused anomaly in the algorithm for realizing how f***ed up it’s all become.
The two songs, when taken together, ask - who is consuming what alongside what is consuming who?
It’s no mistake that the imagery for Aesop Rock’s new album is a bodega/grocery/convenience store. It’s no mistake, I’m suddenly realizing, why the new record is called Black Hole Superette.
Not just Public Enemy’s media, Aesop Rock is putting social media in the offender camp too, and declaring all modern media as a black hole promising everything you’ll need.
In 2025, Aesop’s assessment is hard to argue with. Considering the advent of AI for everything, there’s a sophistication argument at play here too. Our tech keeps getting fancier, no denying it, and that’s part of the progression from the hip hop Aesop would have loved growing up. And so he lets us know, “This is definitely checkers, I don’t play chess” as defense. He resists, in his own way a bit later with,
Evolvin’, shiv in his back, he shatter the manacles
Man down, damn it, can he manage the variables?
Manually override these overnight Emmanuels
Chuck D can fight the power with words. Aesop has to break out of a prison to get a word in edgewise. Focus on just these three lines with me for a second.
Manacles and shivs are old school. He’s breaking free from chains. He’s only capable because he’s aware of the words, and narratives, and evolving. But then, once free, with the overseer down, he questions if as a person he’s even capable of handling all the variables without assistance?
With so many data points, can human instincts alone still focus on the right ones? It’s the “algebracalculus” from before - he’s wondering what old math can solve for truth amid the new math.
What if we are witnessing the death of human intuition having value? That’s a genuine fear. Chuck D wasn’t wrestling with that, it was the time bomb inside of him, but Aesop is forced to wonder if those old tools will serve him at all, if he ever escaped the black hole or even got close.
And finally, instead of heaven delivering a savior, that last line has to be about manually cutting off the cheap, easy, overnight-cooked up and sold to us promised messiahs.
These are dark days. Aesop is really reminding us we’re all prisoners now. The parallel to PE is a little too perfect. The chorus finally makes sense to me by my 18th listen:
Don′t show up at the get-down
Talkin' that holy as if you ain't hell-bound
Similarly, don′t show up at the get-up
Talkin′ that hellish as if you ain't blessed up
This is the way we get our bearings in the modern world. This is the way we resist falling into the black hole. They’ve taken over all the space, all the metaphors, and all the directions.
All we can remember is that we, as humans, are both hell-bound and blessed up, and if we can balance that reality in our minds, without giving our souls over to the commercial black hole, we can embrace the boundary of “don’t”.
These songs are going to be playing in my head for a long time. What do you think? Do you hear the same parallel track and updated ideology that I do (or something totally different)?