Hip-Hop Talk II

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Well first of all racism towards white people doesn't exist. Secondly hip-hop is a black art and I have an issue with a white dude profiting off it for Youtube views (admittedly done well).
 
cobl04 said:
Secondly hip-hop is a black art
Click to expand...

Ahhhuuhhhhhhhh....rock n roll was a "black art" (that is not a flattering description, huh) until it wasn't. Labeling genres along racial lines is usually a bad idea and certainly many white men have contributed wonderful things to the genre that they deserve to benefit from monetarily. This guy, maybe not so much, but not because he's white.
 
It's an interesting question whether hip-hop is more specifically rooted in the African-American experience than blues, jazz, etc. My gut reaction is yes, but I really don't know. I was just reading today that Kendrick's Good Kid lost out to Macklemore at the Grammy's that year, which would be a pretty glaring example of white culture co-opting and arguably bastardizing the genre.
 
the kendrick/macklemore grammys thing was of course stupid, but that’s what you get when you have old white people voting for pop culture awards. the grammys being absurdly out of touch is nothing new (see: tull v. metallica, 1988).

i think it’s too easy to just chalk that up to "white culture co-opting and arguably bastardizing the genre" and call it a day when white people have been involved in the growth of hip hop since basically the minute it stopped being simple party hype rhymes for south bronx block parties. rick rubin, beastie boys, shit even debbie harry in the "rapture" video (who, i might add, was genuinely very much a welcome and active part of the almost-universally black hip hop scene in the new york nightclubs long before that song came out) - remove any one of them from the equation and hip hop isn't anywhere close to the mainstream force it is today. there almost certainly would have been no eminem without the beasties or rick rubin, and of course all the cascading effects of em's career on the genre wouldn’t have happened either.

calling hip hop a "black art" (and jesus h christ what a cringe-inducing term that is) and taking offence to people of any skin colour profiting off it has been objectively ridiculous since at least 1981.
 
Mobb-Deep.jpg


RIP.
 
I'm being a little facetious, but the reason I stopped doing hip-hop karaoke was because I felt uncomfortable doing it as a white man. I did Accordion, Devil in a New Dress, Changes, Mathematics... and got to a point where I was like... it's a bit fucked up for me to be rapping about black disenfranchisement as a privileged white Australian dude half a world away.
 
I mean, there's a difference between monetizing black disenfranchisement and raising awareness of it as a white man.
 
These things are way more sensitive in the US, so I'm probably not the best judge but to me it's ridiculous how careful you seemingly have to be as a white person with regards to hip-hop. Why can't a white person sing a hip-hop song or review it? I'm not poor, I haven't experienced war, severe illness, rape... But I still listen to songs about these subjects, sing along to them and comment on them.
 
Yeah, I hear that too and think it sometimes. I think there's an element of online culture that just takes it all too seriously. But then I think there's a lot of merit to the arguments... read what Mobb Deep said above, for example.
 
cobl04 said:
I'm being a little facetious, but the reason I stopped doing hip-hop karaoke was because I felt uncomfortable doing it as a white man. I did Accordion, Devil in a New Dress, Changes, Mathematics... and got to a point where I was like... it's a bit fucked up for me to be rapping about black disenfranchisement as a privileged white Australian dude half a world away.
Click to expand...

well yea, i personally would never consider for a second doing a track like changes or alright at hip hop karaoke (can't imagine how you ever thought doing changes would be appropriate). but there's clearly nothing wrong with a white person doing a track like california love or touch the sky or emulating various styles of rap using meaningless self-written lyrics like buddy in the video i posted. if you had actually watched it before dismissing it entirely based on the man's skin colour you would have even seen him draw a line and refuse to do a jamaican accent for the "reggae" portion. he's not iggy azalea putting on a shitty fake accent to "sound black".

we may ultimately have to agree to disagree but i am firmly of the stance that unless it's something obviously offensive that labeling anything an "this-race-only art" is incorrect and highly regressive. i mean, a shit load of western european art made by white men comes from a place of despair and pain...is it offensive cultural appropriation when a black painter emulates the famously mentally ill van gogh's style, or performs in an opera based on the misery of 18th century french peasants? of course not.
 
I'm way late to the party but I'm loving the new Vince Staples. How cool is Crab In A Bucket?
 
He had a lyric a while back "Analog fans are getting sick of the rape / Tron Cat fans getting sick of the lakes" that astutely divided his fanbase in two: people like me and you and most well-measured others who never really took to his juvenile, hyper-aggressive songs (Tron Cat, Radicals, etc) and preferred the gentle songs where he opened up like few rappers do on top of a lush, beautiful beat (Analog, Answer, She, Nightmare etc). I was reminded of that lyric when listening to this album today because he has gone the Analog route, thankfully. And it suits him extremely well. I'm really happy with it.
 
Jesus fucking christ

I'm not at all surprised, I saw him live a couple years ago and he did the same, although the girl wasn't as young as that. Creepy as.
 
Black Star isn't as sprawling or immediately ear catching as Black on Both Sides, but it is a much more solid and enduring collection of songs. It's tough to find a weak spot and the replay value is crazy high.
 
respiration is the song that singlehandedly got me seriously into hip hop in the first place thanks to a random late-night airing of the video on muchmusic, so i have a very soft spot for black star.

this is an absolutely fantastic remix too:

 
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