‘YOU CAN’T PUT ME IN A BOX,’ CONT. from page 24 Tillman is even resistant to labels he gives himself, like, well, “nerd from the hood.” “What I’m trying to do by calling myself that is I’m trying to put myself in a package that people can digest,” he said. “People are not ready to process ... that’s what racism and prejudice is all about ... people are not ready to process complex personalities. I’m trying to put it in a package for them so they can understand it.” So the guy hollering that he can’t be put in a box is also trying to package himself in an easily digestible way. Is that a contradiction? Or how about that a rapper desperate not to get pinned down by gangsta stereotypes loves to rhyme about guns? Or that this album is 607’s attempt to explain and categorize himself, a dude who has gleefully spent his life being inexplicable and unclassifiable? Well, yes, contradictions abound. That’s part of the fun! 607 contains multitudes. Whereas he used to put out an album around four times a year, Tillman, who turned 34 this year, lately has been releasing an album just once a year, on Halloween. He’s gotten better, he said, and his songs have more staying power. In the early days, he was releasing so much music not just to improve his skills but because “people got tired of the songs — they didn’t have replay value. So I needed to come out with something else so I could pay my bills. Now I’m learning how to make music better that lasts longer.” He makes a living off of his music and related work, a point of pride. More than a decade after he started, he’s become perhaps the most recognizable face in Little Rock hip-hop, and no one has worked harder to build the scene. He sees himself as an elder statesman, a role he takes seriously. “It’s come a long way,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who get frustrated with it, but when you’re building something brand new from the ground up it takes a long time. I never wanted to be one of those transplant people who went to San Francisco or New York because the city was cool. I feel like I’m the type of person that I’ll make a place cool. I want to stay here and build something here so cool people can stay here with me. I’m making music for the cool politicians... . It’s a network of us. In the future, it’s going to be a reason for all of this.” Tillman talks a lot about his love for Arkansas and Little Rock and the ways that it inspires his life and music — but on the album’s opener, “Kill Crooked
Cops,” it’s clear local events have also been a source of pain. “This has been an emotional year, that’s why this is an emotional album,” Tillman said. The song is an angry recounting of police brutality and fatal shootings, with a heavy focus on particular cases in Little Rock. “Kill Crooked Cops,” for all its bluster, is fundamentally about fear. Tillman is afraid of what the police might do: “I’m trying to teach my nephews right from wrong/but still as I write this song it got me crying/ police might kill ’em and still don’t get no time.” He also laments that the police are scared of him. “Before you hire a cop see what they made of/cause they ain’t gonna protect the people they afraid of.” That said, for all of the emotional appeals (and the “if you an honest cop you ain’t got nothing to worry about” caveat), most listeners will probably zero in on the title and lines like “hunting season’s open” and “shoot that bitch in the head.” Talking to Tillman, what becomes clear is that what upsets him the most is that police are misjudging him, or people like him (“I’m a citizen bro, I do everything by the book” he told me — or as he raps in the song, “they treating all black males like criminals/most of us make a living honest”). That’s the tricky thing about a song like “Kill Crooked Cops” — its best insight is that tragedy happens when cops are afraid of citizens who they have no reason to be afraid of. But while no one has any reason to fear Tillman, 607’s posture on the track is surely meant to inspire fear. Of course, saying something on a record and real-life violence are two very different things. But what occurs to me hearing “Kill Crooked Cops” is that 607 at his best aims to transcend the heartbreaking misunderstandings central to those tragedies. People are wired, he told me, to be uncomfortable or scared of the unfamiliar. “That’s your brain, it’s a survival thing,” he said. “We have to program ourselves where we understand that and get around that.” I suggested that his music might help people re-program a little bit. “I hope so,” he said. “I just want to change the way that people look at people and the way the hood looks at itself.” Adrian Tillman, the “nerd from the hood,” is neither nerd nor hood because he’s too much of a freewheeling oddball spirit to be either. He’s one of a kind. May he make 39 more albums. My only prediction: whatever we imagine they’ll sound like, they’ll sound like something else.
THE INSIDER, CONT. from page 11 this, the action is hers to initiate. Like you she signed a contract that contains a morals clause. ... The morals clause is essential because Mount St. Mary’s Academy is not, contrary to the opinion of some, a private school separate from the Catholic Church. ... It would be completely and absolutely against the very nature of a Catholic institution for any one of its members to publicly support, propagate, manifest or demonstrate that which is contrary to the Catholic Church. This situation, as tragic as it was for this teacher, demonstrates exactly why moral clauses are necessary.” A right to dissent “does not come without a price.” Students, gay rights groups and others have publicly protested the decision. But said Malone, “... if you think that the outcry by those who do not subscribe to this action was significant, I can assure you that in the face of the public nature of what took place in New Mexico and what was known already here in Little Rock, had the administration chosen to turn a blind eye to it, the Catholic community in Little Rock and the Catholic Church in this country would have come down on this institution like a plague and rightly so — asking the question that some have been asking already, ‘What makes Mount St. Mary Academy Catholic?’” Malone began his closing by telling the assembled staff that “the devil is real.” He observed: “Good and humble people go to confession. In the same way the devil does not go after bad people, because well frankly, he already has those bad people. He goes after people like you and institutions like this one and he uses all sorts of people and circumstances to take from you what he does not have and what he wants to take. And you have to be aware of that. Don’t give in to him. Rise up above this like the good and decent people God has made you to be. And truly are. I’m edified by being in your presence this week and just the feel of this place so recognize that — you’ve heard of that expression the devil’s in the details? — he is here and he is real. He wants to do something really bad to this place and you’ve seen evidence of that. But that’s also a sign again that this place is really good and has something wonderful about it or he wouldn’t come after us at all. So rise above it and don’t be afraid to speak the truth.” Malone, in response to a question from the Times, said these remarks should not be taken as personal char-
acterizations of McCullough or Mariani. He said he had deep affection for the school, a good place, and good always faced malign influences. He said the remarks were meant more to soothe supporters of the school who felt it had been “under attack” in recent controversies, including an unrelated case involving a teacher’s sexual abuse of a former student. Malone sought to explain remarks the pope had made recently in press interviews on abortion and homosexuality. He said his translation of the remark on abortion was that the pope “said we should stop hammering people with the subject of abortion as if it’s the only topic in the church.” He said there were “so many other things we need to be talking about.” He said there’s a pastor in the diocese who, “if you’ve heard one sermon you’ve heard every sermon he’s ever preached.” Added Malone, “He’s a wonderful priest and a very compassionate man, he only has one sermon. That’s where the Pope said you should stop hammering on this one subject ...” Malone said the pope had followed this interview with remarks slamming doctors who perpetuate the “culture of death.” He added, “It’s as tough as you ever heard from Pope Benedict so he wasn’t saying get off the subject.” “[Pope Francis’] response was, who am I to judge. Well, that’s a beautiful way of approaching the subject.” Malone said he had a relative who’s “as gay as the day is long.” He said he loves him dearly. He went on to detail that, from an early age, he had noticed “there were what we would call the stereotypical signs of perhaps he was more inclined to be gay.” He wanted to play with dolls and wear girls’ clothing. As he grew up he was “far more concerned about designing things and dressing up and listening to musicals and dancing ...” Now a dress designer, “he’s a wonderful young man,” the monsignor said. He said “if I found one of my staff members was homophobic, critical of people simply for their orientation, I said I would fire them. That’s what the pope is talking about. Because someone is oriented one way or the other, that’s not the issue. It’s how we act on our orientation. If you are gay and you are straight the church is going to say the same thing to you about sexuality outside of marriage — same thing. So the orientation is not the issue. That’s what the pope is talking about: Who am I to judge? It’s not for me to judge. When things become public, however, public acts, that’s a whole different ball game, especially if people at the same time represent the church.” www.arktimes.com
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