Last night my husband was playing DJ Rashad’s Double Cup album. It reminded me that if we want to stay relevant, whether it’s in business or society, we should stretch outside our comfort zones now and again.
 
Music is a language of culture. It represents the sentiments of the time and place it was created. Music that comes from the edges of our ethos is foretelling of changes to come in the mainstream.
 
My husband invited me to dance to one of the songs. Double Cup is in the footwork genre, which to me sounds like a combo of techno, hip-hop and ghetto house music. Its contrasting groove sucked me right in. My husband, being the font of all knowledge, also had search results open on Tumblr for “double cup”. It showed mixed media, most included styrofoam cups, sprite, and codeine cough syrup. Not being familiar with the term I looked it up.

While Rashad’s Double Cup will rub many people the wrong way it is a provocative and good listen. It has strong language that is lewd and disrespectful. It’s about things I abhor although am drawn to. It’s right, and not right.

Cultural context gives us the difference between polite and offensive speech. And not being from the Double Cup culture (if there is such a thing) I’m unclear if any offense is suggested. It does however beg questions and brings the movie The Gods Must be Crazy to mind. Where the story follows a coke bottle that falls from an airplane into a culture secluded from the larger world; it brings joy, chaos and violence.

I’m not saying Double Cup will have the same effect on the mainstream. Or that we’re going to be drinking dirty sprite at our local cocktail lounge. Yet getting high continues to be a theme in modern western society. Escapism is mainstream and we continue to be creative about how we do it. Beyond new ways to get high, the point is that ideas morph and spread. Wandering to the edges to see what’s up often shows us innovative ways to meet a culture’s needs.

Will this help keep us relevant? If we don’t jump over the fence now and again we’ll never know.