Have You Tried Less Tiresome Music?
I have questions, dear reader. Important, probing questions. Are you unenthused by hip-hop tracks about “police brutality and racialised oppression”? Does rapping about poverty and “the woes of Black Americans as artists” not render you giddy and enthralled? Do you not delight in endless repetition of the word nigga?
I ask because we’re told, by Dr Jeremy McCool and Dr Tyrone Smith, two devotees of “critical race theory,” that a failure to gush with enthusiasm is a result of “systemic bias and inherent prejudice,” and is suppressing such innovation. It is, they say,
The silencing of intellectuals in music.
This profound and damning revelation was uncovered by means of a “notional study” in which 310 participants, young adults, half of whom “self-identified” as black and the other half as white, were invited to listen to various tracks and read selected lyrics, before being asked whether they would be likely to skip said track if heard in the car, or would instead continue listening, mesmerised and ready to be educated.
In each instance, the white participants in the experiment rejected the messaging at a higher frequency than the Black participants.
Extrapolating with gusto – one might say wildly – our scholars promptly invoke “the silencing of Black narratives and perspectives.” It turns out that if a hundred or so white people are slightly less interested in rote racial narcissism expressed via the medium of rap, this could result in “artists who typically make thought-provoking music being shunned by the industry.” It’s all terribly unfair, you see. If true.
It remains unclear whether our mighty scholars considered the quality of the music as music, i.e., beyond any supposedly radical and “thought-provoking” content, those “deeper political implications.” Nor is it clear whether lyrical monotony, generic braggadocio and crass sexual references may have played a part in boring some more than others. To say nothing of many rappers’ own reliance on cartoonish racial stereotypes. Readers are, however, invited to ponder the intellectual heft of the following extract from one of the selected tracks, Da Baby’s Rockstar:
Brand new Lamborghini, fuck a cop car
With the pistol on my hip like I’m a cop (yeah, yeah, yeah)
Have you ever met a real nigga rockstar?
This ain’t no guitar, bitch, this a Glock (woo)
My Glock told me to promise you gon’ squeeze me (woo)
You better let me go the day you need me (woo)
Soon as you up me on that nigga, get to bustin’ (woo)
And if I ain’t enough, go get the chop
If you’ve somehow remained unmoved and have been so inadequate as to feel no moral and mental elevation, this can only be explained, it seems, by your “bias and cultural cluelessness.” How dare you silence this downtrodden intellectual, whose insights include, “I don’t even listen to [other] people’s music… I listen to me all day long,” and, “I definitely am the best rapper alive.” And whose estimated wealth is a mere $3 million.
Update, via the comments:
It occurs to me that if you’re getting your political consciousness from Da Baby, whose deep thoughts are quoted above, or Lil Baby, or J Cole, or Meek Mill, all “thought-provoking” artists selected by our scholars – if this is your measure of suppressed intellectuals – then there’s a fairly good chance that you’re a poseur, or an idiot, and your standards may require some drastic recalibration.
It’s also worth noting how one of the most hazardous of words to use – one that may result in a kicking or sudden unemployment, and from which All Decent Non-Racist People are expected to recoil – is simultaneously one to which All Decent Non-Racist People are supposed to be drawn, or at least happy to tolerate. Provided it’s being mouthed, endlessly, by idiots of a certain hue. And failing to have a taste for this experience is, we’re now told, evidence of racism.
“Quintez Brown, the black racist who tried to murder a Jewish mayoral candidate, was one of the BBC’s go-to BLM talking heads.”
That would be the bloke who was bailed out by BLM less than three days after he was charged.
Y’know… nice people.
Tamara Lich, one of the organisers of the Canadian Freedom Convoy, during which no lives were lost, was denied bail on the grounds that she represents “a danger to public safety”. The judge is a former Liberal parliamentary candidate.
Ain’t life grand?
same as disco – wasn’t really as popular as media believed
I had to explain to someone the other day that Top 40 song lists were not based on sales but on radio play, and that radio stations are paid by labels to play their songs to pump up sales. So a Top 40 list is just “here’s what the labels are pushing this week”.
Similarly, it’s nowhere near as hard to earn a “gold record” as you might think.
@Darleen
…whenever the rap mobiles roll by me on the street or at red lights…
I wish I could credit the guy who said “I listen to rap one stop light at a time”.
I had to explain to someone the other day that Top 40 song lists were not based on sales but on radio play, and that radio stations are paid by labels to play their songs to pump up sales. So a Top 40 list is just “here’s what the labels are pushing this week”.
Maybe. But the success of Disco Duck was totes legit.
pst314,
Perhaps this is the sort of recording you have in mind:
https://www.discogs.com/master/616772-Ed-McCurdy-Erik-Darling-Alan-Arkin-When-Dalliance-Was-In-Flower
In his autobiography, And Now…Here’s Max, former CBC announcer Max Ferguson recalled Ed McCurdy sitting “in a corner, filing his nails while he filled the canteen with his magnificent voice. The melodies were usually esoteric Elizabethan airs and the lyrics were always filthy. Generally, he directed his unsolicited serenade toward a table of young CBC secretaries, who would abandon half-drunk cups of coffee and rush crimson-faced back to the sanctuary of their offices….When McCurdy later drew from his gamey repertoire and made an LP called When Dalliance Was In Flower one of the first buyers was HRH Prince Philip. I often wonder if HM’s morning coffee is periodically ruined, or whether, perhaps, she’s made of sterner stuff than CBC secretaries.”
Perhaps this is the sort of recording you have in mind:
🙂 I haven’t heard those particular songs, and most of the ones I’ve heard or seen the lyrics for (like the titles I mentioned) had lyrics less subtle to the modern ear.
Generally, he directed his unsolicited serenade toward a table of young CBC secretaries
I suppose that wouldn’t work nowadays, although one of the most enthusiastic singers of such songs that I recall was in fact a young woman.
Although I am sure rap “music” has real black musicians likes Duke Ellington whirling in their graves like runaway gyroscopes, the misogynistic lyrics are especially hurtful during Woynmx History Month.
Reminiscent of the Trayvon Martin incident, but without a happy ending.
Note, however, that the murder took place in 2019, and presumably none of us have until now heard of it. If the races of the killer and victim had been reversed the killing would have been national news, with riots and protests and regular reminders in the news that America is racist.
Another nut, just for “balance”
Adding context to the question “Did the earth move for you?”
“I listen to rap one stop light at a time”.
THIS.
A “notional experiment”?
I.e. “Existing only in theory, as a suggestion, or in imagination.”
That kind of experiment?
Beats working, I suppose.
Do you not delight in endless repetition of the word nigga?
That.
That.
Well, it’s a little odd. It’s pretty much the most hazardous of words to use – it may result in a kicking or sudden unemployment – and All Decent People are supposed to flinch at the merest whisper or glimpse of it. And yet we’re simultaneously urged to listen to it being used repeatedly, endlessly, and with an utter lack of originality. Provided it’s being mouthed by idiots of a certain hue. And failing to have a taste for it is, we’re now told, evidence of racism.
[ Post updated. ]
In case you were curious.
In case you were curious.
No. I identify as a cat.
Note that the inevitable racist vices are invoked – the alleged “bias” and “silencing” of “black narratives” – simply on grounds that a white person is uninterested in a particular rap track. Not necessarily repelled by it, mind, just not interested, a position also taken by quite a few black people in the same test group. You can’t help but wonder if a similar “study” might be devised in which people of various hues were exposed to Bach, or bluegrass, or opera, and then accused of similar racial prejudice if they failed to enthuse.
Somewhat related: “Who is this Mozart?”
selfheld: “I seem to recall Stephen King saying some remarkably stupid things.”
My take entirely, nor do I like his novels. While I enjoyed ‘On Writing’ I never liked the fictional stuff he was writing, though I appear to be alone in that respect as most people can’t get enough of his books. A mate of mine always tells me how much he is enjoying one of his books, after (a) having been told by me I don’t care for them and, (b) I had introduced him to Murakami. You think he’d learn.
They are bringing back Treyvon Martin from the dead, with edited 911 tapes etc that got the media in trouble the first time for fabrication. Once again, they would rather you die than defend yourself (in case you don’t remember, Marin was on top of zimmerman and bashing his head against the sidewalk and also trying to grab zimmerman’s gun when z shot him).
They are bringing back Treyvon Martin from the dead
Yes, I saw something about that just the other day: New York Times republishing the deceitfully edited 911 tape (or transcript). Not sure where I read it, though. My recent browsing history only contains Lthis retrospective.
It’s the 10-year anniversary of Trayvon’s death, so it seems like a good bet that all the establishment news organizations are repeating the same old lies about how Trayvon was “murdered” by a “white racist”.
hey are bringing back Treyvon Martin from the dead, with edited 911 tapes etc
Here is one report about that.
It’s the 10-year anniversary of Trayvon’s death, so it seems like a good bet that all the establishment news organizations are repeating the same old lies about how Trayvon was “murdered” by a “white racist”.
That all going down in an area where I used to work and I traverse quite regularly, it’s a case I have followed closely. It is also a huge wedge between myself and a number of friends. The absurd refusal of people to concede facts, to insist that words have other meanings than the bloody obvious, to bury their heads in the sand rather than acknowledge facts presented in court, to even insist that the case was a miscarriage based on Stand Your Ground law was quite the tell on how far gone most “normal” people are. Especially the great, and not so great, virtue signalers. What little faith I had in those left has been wiped out with their blind faith in the #Science of masks and virus BS. And to this day, these people make excuses for their Pudding President and his vacuous valley girl vp. Bah…I’m the crazy one.
In re rap; if I want to get yelled at by a bunch of thuggish angry Obama voters, I could just drive through my old neighborhood.
““the silencing of Black narratives and perspectives.”
Oh, that tickles me; here in today’s hip now happening United States of Amnesia you can’t go anywhere in any media without being bombarded with pictures of happy, smart, totally cooler-than-you black people; they’re about 13% of the population, but you would guess the percentage at about 80% from their frequency of media appearances. Which poses an interesting question; if everybody else in the damn country is a horrible racist, wouldn’t the appearance of black people in ads really turn off potential customers of pallor, and cause the people trying to sell something to avoid their images like the plague?
Anyway, back to rap; best known as ‘rock and roll’s idiot child’.
It is also a huge wedge between myself and a number of friends.
Yes indeed. For me, too: Some years ago I started asking myself such questions as “What if a black thug attacked me and I had to use deadly force to save myself? Based on my friends’ opinions, isn’t it likely that they would treat me as the guilty one? And if so, are they really my friends?” There is a whole raft of issues that can be the basis for similar questions.
to bury their heads in the sand rather than acknowledge facts presented in court
There are still blue-check twats calling Rittenhouse a “murderer” who “got away with it” to this day.
There are still blue-check twats calling Rittenhouse a “murderer” who “got away with it” to this day.
Quite a few, I think.
Another awkward question for liberals: “Why did you marry a woman who loudly demands that we ‘believe all women’? That women never lie? That is is virtually a felony to speak up when you know a woman has made false accusations? Are you confident that she will make an exception for you? How about for your male friends?”
A fair number of women have been red-pilled on the “believe all women” issue when they’ve realized their college-aged sons coud be on the receiving end.
It is amazing that any guy who had/has a wife/gf would support “believe all women”–haven’t they ever had a fight with wife/gf and she lied her ass off? Asking for a friend.
Can’t prove it but I bet women lie a lot more than men as a sort of covert aggression.
Can’t prove it but I bet women lie a lot more than men as a sort of covert aggression.
From Jordan Peterson:
“I was interviewed by the Economist and we were talking about aggression…men are on average more physically aggressive than women…
Most boys get socialized out of aggression by age 4, but those that are not remain stably criminal into adolescence and adulthood and you can’t socialize them out of it… That’s the developmental trajectory of aggression. It doesn’t look like it’s learned. … It’s a rage circuit, it’s an old biological…
Women, girls, however, they are more aggressive than males if you measure aggression differently. They use reputation destruction.
So, well, we’ve seen what happens with social media. Physical aggression doesn’t translate to social media, but reputation destruction does. unbelievably well. So maybe it’s time to have a little chat about toxic femininity.“
Link here.
So maybe it’s time to have a little chat about toxic femininity.
Well past time. But those “believe all women” feministas are also the ones who were the leaders of the jr. high mean girl cliques who made reputation destruction an art.
pst314, it may be stretching matters to refer to Stephen King as an artist.
Theodore Dalrymple’s Life At The Bottom & other works demonstrate the similar pathologies of the British white underclass.
Rap music embraces racial stereotypes no less than the minstrel music of a century ago.
When Dalliance Was In Flower was one of my favourite albums to listen to when I was a wee lad & had no idea what the Hell he was singing about.
Watcher In The Dark,
Having read a bit of Stephen King’s fiction I fail to see the attraction.
selfheld: “I seem to recall Stephen King saying some remarkably stupid things.”
“I don’t want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don’t, then you’ve got the Army, Iraq, I don’t know, something like that. It’s, it’s not as bright. So, that’s my little commercial for that.”
Now, I want to be fair to SK and point out that him posing in a pro-ukraine shirt does not mean he favors military intervention. In fact, it’s been pointed out that if Biden hadn’t canceled the Keystone Pipeline and made decisions that raised the price of gas (and boosted Putin’s coffers), we wouldn’t be in this situation today.
But, in general, SK is a liberal idiot. But I repeat myself.
Let me add that my point to the last comment (shaddup) is that people who want to fight Putin can advocate for a reversal of policies that emboldened him to invade in the first place, without involving U.S. troops.
But, in general, SK is a liberal idiot. But I repeat myself.
A talent for telling stories, or playing music, or painting pictures does NOT correlate with general knowledge and wisdom. I’ve known quite a few writers and artists, and they were NOT smarter or wiser than average. In fact, they tended to be oddballs with odd opinions.
Having read a bit of Stephen King’s fiction I fail to see the attraction.
I read The Stand, and was never motivated to read anything else. But I do realize that different styles appeal to different readers. My friends and I do not agree on the enjoyability of many writers.
it may be stretching matters to refer to Stephen King as an artist.
I remember reading a collection of his short stories, Night Shift, when I was about eleven. And I think I read Salem’s Lot about the same time. So, although I vaguely recall enjoying them, I can’t really comment on his literary prowess.
Rap music embraces racial stereotypes no less than the minstrel music of a century ago.
That.
So, although I vaguely recall enjoying them, I can’t really comment on his literary prowess.
About all I can recall about The Stand, after some 40 years, is (1) It seemed to drag; was too long for its subject matter. (2) I didn’t like how King depicted all the STEM field people as being naturally attracted to Satan. (3) I did not enjoy horror stories anyway.
“Too long for its subject matter” seemed to be a failing of other popular writers, too. George R. R. Martin comes to mind: I read a few of his stories back in the late 70’s/early 80’s, and lost all interest. But other readers will say the same thing about The Lord of the Rings or Dune, and I loved those. Shrug.
although I vaguely recall enjoying them, I can’t really comment on his literary prowess
The enjoyability of King’s works varies widely; aside from that being subjective, his works vary widely in subject matter, style and technical skill. I’ve enjoyed most of the King I’ve read; not The Stand, nor most of his novel-length horror books. His 1970’s psychic-SF-as-horror works form an interesting common milieu.
I’ve known quite a few writers and artists, and they were NOT smarter or wiser than average
One of the many reasons I exited con culture in the early 2000s. Listening ro Rob Sawyer say, out loud, to a decent sized audience, that the Wise, Good and Pacifist Neanderthals in his Neanderthal Parallax series were metaphorical Canadians while the Violent, Racist, Stupid humans were allegories for Americans just had me shaking my head in disbelief.
One of the many reasons I exited con culture in the early 2000s. Listening ro Rob Sawyer say, out loud…
Oh God, I’d forgotten about him. Saw him once. Arrogant, pompous fool. And I rolled my eyes when I discovered that he had taken “sfwriter.com” for his personal website. I’ve run into other arrogant pricks and liars (Brin and Gerrold, for example) but Sawyer did seem to think of himself as the Avis Rent-a-Car (“We Try Harder”) of obnoxious twits.
Yes, I agree about con culture. You will meet some intelligent and mature adults, but there are just too many fools, jerks, creeps, and fanatics. Best to stay away.
Having read a bit of Stephen King’s fiction I fail to see the attraction.
Agreed. For someone who calls himself woke, his magical negro in The Green Mile should be vilified by his teammates on the left. But…magical thinking.
Sawyer did seem to think of himself as the Avis Rent-a-Car (“We Try Harder”)
He is very, very good at the business of being a writer. His talk on how he and his editor went about gaming the process so he could win a Hugo was excellent; the man hustles. Aside from his odious personality, he’s not even a good writer. He has no grasp of what humans outside his weird little bubble of fen are actually like, and most of his Big Ideas are neither particularly original or impressive. Sawyer is the epitome of the post-90s SF writer: his audience is entirely college students and the like with no exposure to anything outside the comfortable suburban academic/technology office world they inhabit.
I’ve run into other arrogant pricks and liars (Brin
I used to pay my con fees by being a guest handler, since I don’t drink. Mr. Brin once got staggeringly drunk just before his scheduled appearance and literally cried on my shoulder about how badly Kevin Costner had screwed up The Postman.
Nothing will turn you off of SF writers faster than, well, SF writers (never meet your heroes).
On that note, I’ve just finished Rachel Aaron’s Legend of Eli Monpress series and enjoyed it immensely, primarily because no one in the book is an unsympathetic *sshole except the villain, and the villain is not a cardboard cutout that says “Dark Lord” on it.
I’m now working on Lisa Shearin’s Raine Benares series which is similarly entertaining, being a kind of World-of-Warcraft/Stephanie Plum mashup.
One minor annoyance I find in many newer fantasy works, especially the ones by female writers, is the need by the narrator to explain in detail in the first chapter exactly how the magic in their world works, generally in an obtrusive and awkward manner. It’s like they all went to the same “How to Design a Magic System for Your Fantasy World” seminar.