photo by Matt Masin
by Chance Solem-Pfeifer
Conchance saw sheep hanging from clotheslines. He looked at pig farmers. He sought moonlit places to urinate. Experiencing life in the Andes Mountains only reinforced the Omaha rapper’s doubts about learning exclusively from textbooks.
The only non-biology student on a University of Nebraska at Omaha trip to Peru last summer, Conchance witnessed a clash between the academic outlook of American hard-science students and a way of life he saw in many ways as more wholesome, more authentic and more freeing.
“There is a place in the world that is so fucking beautiful, and it’s being overran and exploited by this other machine,” Conchance says of the to-the-earth lifestyle he saw in rural mountain communities.
“I feel like it’s a kid sitting around at a college class and you’re looking at your teacher and he’s supposed to have this knowledge, but he doesn’t. And you could be obtaining that knowledge by hopping on a city bus and going down to the library and learning through social experience.”
These worldly experiences and observations poured into Conchance’s contribution to Hear Nebraska Vol. 2, “The Dead Daylight,” produced by Omaha’s Dojorok and recorded and mixed by Rick Carson of Make Believe Studios. Conchance will perform Friday at the release show for the Hear Nebraska’s second compilation at The Waiting Room. RSVP here.
In the waning moments of “The Dead Daylight,” an expression of the emcee’s passion for enlightenment and mystical literature can be found in the form of a quote from Kahlil Gibran’s collection of prose poems The Prophet. Though the decision to include an audio excerpt from Gibran’s writing on “Self-Knowledge” was Carson’s idea, the sentiment of The Prophet runs akin to another deeply influential writing for Conchance.
The rapper keeps Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse — the winding story of a man’s spiritual and social journey in ancient India — close to his chest, comparing it to a cherished childhood album almost too personal to share for fear it may be unappreciated by the outside world. As potent an influence as the book has been on him as a person, Conchance says it’s sometimes difficult to spell out its impact, specifically keeping Siddhartha’s name out of his music.
“At the point I read the book, it was a challenging time for myself and the people I’d been bringing along in my life,” he says. “It was the aspect of personal success of how everything’s kind of beautiful and you can learn from everything. Some people do awful things and come out better and some people do awful things and remain bottom feeders.”
Inspirations like this moved Conchance to reference a few different kinds of knowledge in “The Dead Daylight.” He critiques acultural study, and hopes the sort of historical and social awareness he espouses through music speak the loudest to listeners.
“Throwing in the cultural aspect, that’s when people from West Omaha can get something out of it. And then when you do a show at Carver Bank in North Omaha, people can get something out of it. Same for South Omaha. I think people are pretty receptive to that kind of knowledge.”
The Prophet is organized as a series of ruminations on life’s biggest subjects: beauty, prayer, pleasure, joy and sorrow. When it comes to Conchance’s intensely specific material, it’s not dissimilar from the way he’s come to consider his own growing volume of work. “The Dead Daylight” is his current musical thesis on learning.
“Now I’m finding the pocket I want to go to,” he says. “Now when I’m releasing anything, it truly is no half-stepping, no bullshit. I feel like it is a testament of my time on this earth. And that’s a personal thing, not that it needs to be heard.
“It’s a personal portfolio.”
Listen to “The Dead Daylight” here:
Chance Solem-Pfeifer is Hear Nebraska’s staff writer. You could probably read all of Siddhartha on Christmas Day, if you wanted. Reach him at chancesp@hearnebraska.org.