by Nick Hennies

FR: No, I am from the past, but have been seeded with all-time all-space, so your linear concepts of past-present-future don't apply to me. However, there are boundaries to my movement, so all-time is not entirely accurate. I can not travel in bodily form to the time before the existence of my physical self, without losing some resemblance of my physical self. In other words, if I were to travel to before what 21st century academics refer to as ancient Mesoamerican civilization, I would only exist as wraith, a ghostly observer.

FR: In the sense that all of time is a loop, feeding back into itself, yes. I am from a future version of this current timeline.

FR: Again, I should clarify, I’m not from your future but I can tell you what I have learned in my travels about your future-selves. It is the name, Future Rapper, that is throwing you off, I understand. I get that quite often. What would you like to know about the future, and at what point? Pre-The Immortal Time Slip Incident and its creation of the Horizon Puddles, or near future, or somewhere in between?

FR: It seems you have a gift to foresee near future events and developments as well. You are on the right track entirely. Let me address each topic separately. Feudalism. The beauty of a multiplicity of hindsights is the ability to trace significant influencing factors which remain unaffected by timeline variances. In other words, each time we loop through, there are changes inevitably, but there are also these consistencies, not constants, but archetypal repetitions. One of these repetitions is the theme of the domestication of grass, lawn care. This and the domestication of pets (for non-work uses) is the penultimate accomplishment of post-survival humanity. But this is also the beginning of neo-feudalism, in which homesteading becomes homestaying and wall erecting. Neal Stephenson depicts this with near accuracy in his book “Snow Crash”.

The Birth of Language. This is a misnomer. There is no birth to language, it is, was, and always will be. Language is what holds the all things together. Language is physical, it is a property impossible to measure, but it is a real thing. Like an invisible polymer, that stretches and connects all things. Language however is an evolving/devolving creature. Think of it as a kind infinitely large coral reef. A coral reef is its own ecosystem. Language is like that, but the ecosystem is its own organism. Another good example of this is a rain forest tree. When they smoke out the life in a rain forest tree, more often than not 80% of what is found is new to science. Each tree is like its own planet. Language is like this. Some argue that the gentrification of language, the streamlining of it or the movement towards universal language is a positive thing, while others postulate that rather no, the biodiversity of language is what keeps it thriving. I believe and others share my belief that it is actually the tension between these two things that keep the thing functioning properly. There was a late 20th Century breakthrough that will not seem significant until a future date by one F. Mathias Lorenz. He began to develop the Energy Language to unify language. Language keeps cycling back as well, like time. From Unification to Babel and diversification.

The Roman Empire. This discussion relates back to the issues of feudalism. Another paradigm, the city empire, is reoccurring in history. We have this paradigm being reconstructed currently with Corporate America (not the United States). Corporate America is a global ruling arm that will have huge implications on many centuries to come, but with it is a simultaneously crumbling into intellectual barbarianism.

Am I a rapper? Yes, in the sense that I am a mouthpiece for hope and change that utilizes the absurdity and musicality and elasticity of language. What makes a rapper different than a prophet is greater fallibility and beats. In the future, more and more "rappers" will emerge; rap will be a vehicle for not only casual exchange but also philosophical and academic discourse. Literature will abandon its conservative constraints and embrace the information-laden medium of rap. Raps ability to cram an extraordinary amount of data into a phrase gives it superiority over more common syntax. Rap is the language of the information age.

FR: There is a greater issue at hand here, one that does not localize itself during these current times. And that is the danger of total time collapse, the closing of the loop, the silencing of the celestial ringing and molecular chanting. I wish not to speak too much to the destiny of your current situation, the Corporate America path because I think it is more important that you understand that time is very fragile right now, and it is crucial that humanity takes upon itself a very accurate recording of events in the event that histories are erased and need to be rebuilt. This threat would undermine all civilizations past, present and future.

But that aside, yes...Umberto Eco is correct. This is "the New Middle Ages". But where he is wrong is this issue of lack of land management. In this current case, the "land" is managing itself. The "land" in the New Middle Ages is abstracted into paths of information. Yes, the earth and its resources are important factors and yes there is an ecological crisis, but the economy will correct itself, after catastrophe. But there is little that can be done, ecological crisis or barbarianism, to undo the Corporate America economy. The advantage Corporate America has over the Roman Empire is that it co-opts barbarianism in a way only marginally realized through the Romans gladiator fights. And believe me, I know about the violence of sports as a former Mesoamerican Ball League player. But I’m not speaking to the violence and entertainment of sports, but rather the co-opting and close observation of group behavior and sociological design. It is a kind of controlled and marketed chaos that the Corporate America economy will evolve into the New International Market Alliance and the United Nations will become a private business contracted for the policing of the marketplace. The New International Market Alliance will allow for rebellion and resistance, but these will be mere guided illusions. The result will be a massive virus of passivity. The New International Market Alliance will mutate into the Church of the Free Market and further into the Free Church of Quantum Potential. It will be at this point that the Elder Council of Wisdom and Spit will be elected and put into place. Understand this is over a period of many, many ages.

As to whether or not I am an agent of change or observation, I am an observer. And change occurs as a result of observation. I am also a specialist in timeline restoration. It is not the rapping that will save us, but the later decoding, classification and cataloging of rap that will bring about the ovulation of history that expands the time loop to its proper dilation.

FR: Not sure I am entirely clear about your question. I’m having difficulty decoding... Also, my definition of Modernism might be different because of our point of reference on the matter. The issue however is not the exactness or the correctness of the decoding but rather the exercise of decoding and its relative classification and cataloging. It allows for greater quantum potentialities, which is one of the postulated truths of the Free Church of Quantum Potential, however this truth was literally ingested by the council which led to their undoing. But that is for another time.

FR: Yes, correct. In this situation action is more important than the result. It is non-action that is lethal.

This concludes the first installment of my many talks with Future Rapper. In the next installment we discuss Future Rapper’s many cohorts and adversaries and the complex and mysterious mythology surrounding them.

From left to right: the Holy Fool (Wayne S. Feldman), Future Rapper (Michael Kaufmann), Papa Alabaster (Ero Gray)