This quote is so wrong-headed it's embarrassing:
There's never been a time when rap didn't have to defend itself. The culture perpetually generates criticism and accusations from every corner: from the political establishment; from proponents of other types of music; and, most crucially, from itself.
Luckily, rap is particularly well equipped to absorb all the criticism it invites, because rap, by its very nature, is a culture in which almost nothing is impermissible. Pathological narcissism, poor taste, and criminal behavior are punishable traits by the standards of the mainstream culture. But within rap, even the most shameful acts are defensible, if only because rap is meant to be a melting pot of egregious behavior and reckless judgment.
Gee, what could I get to counter that argument? How about a never-complained-about True Sounds Of Liberty doing "Code Blue"?
I never got along with the girls at my school
Filling me up with all their morals and their rules
They'd pile all their problems on my head
I'd rather go out and fuck the dead
'Cause I can do what I want and they won't complain
I wanna fuck I wanna fuck the dead
Middle of the night so silently
I creep on over to the mortuary
Lift up the casket and fiddle with the dead
Their cold blue flesh makes me turn red
'Cause I can do what I want and they won't complain
I wanna fuck I wanna fuck the dead
And I don't even care how she died... But I like it better if she smells of formaldehyde!
Never on the rag or say leave me alone
They don't scream and they don't moan
Don't even cry if I shoot in their hair
Lying on the table she smiles and she stares
Chorus
So, Rock songs about fucking dead girls - performed without irony - are A-O.K., but let a Rapper call a feminist "bitch" and it's the end of Western civilization.
Race problem? What race problem? This is something different altogether.
Until recently, I haven't mentioned race on TMR, and there's a reason:
Too busy discussing American racial double standards with the corpse in my basement,...
What about all the hippie songs celebrating dropping acid constantly and basically screwing anything that moved? Oh, and fighting "the Man"...in such ways that a bunch of hippie flower power types killed people?
ReplyDeleteYeah, there are some really craptastic raps out there...it usually gets promoted out the wahzoo, go figure -- but that's the problem with just about every other type of music out there too; there's always the good, the bad, the truly hideous, and a whole lot of nondescript...that's just the nature of the thing.
They've gone off the deep end; I swear it.
Honestly, seems like a bunch of bigwigs are jonesing for some sort of blow up, where they get ringside seats and the little people get to be the main attraction in the thunderdome -- they really want it bad, and guess who will get to bleed? Fuckers; they're going to tear this country apart, just to get their way, and laugh at the innocents lost to their games.
That's the bad feeling I get about this.
PW
Problem is, it seems to be bigger than just the scene...this is more like the desire for a society wide ban or something. An all out (but highly nuanced and innocuous appearing) assault on the validity of an entire genre as somehow worthless.
ReplyDeleteThis goes beyond the idea of taste and artistic criticism into something much more disturbing.
Stalin could have taken notes.
PW