The strawman of the white, DJ Shadow/Jurassic 5 loving, university student hip-hop fan

Well I guess I'm the ultimate in hip-hop evil because I'm white, I'm a university student, and I like Endtroducing a lot. Don't have a J5 shirt, though.

Now that Michael Jackson is "invincible" in court (haw haw), maybe he can sue to win the rights to get "J5" back from Jurassic 5.

You're confusing MJ with Berry Gordy.

Also, N_RQ, no. Jurassic 5 are still mostly yawnfilled. Lovely guys, tho'!

But...COME ON! What the hell happened to live and let live, even in the face of others who do not adopt said credo? This smacks of the same undercurrents that lead to the hateration that is thrown in Dave Matthews Band fans faces - those without the knowledge are deemed the unwashed masses, somehow below those of us in the know.

I would suggest this instead - if you should see someone who fits any variation of the above appearance, reach into your bag and give them one of the 5 burned cds that you will keep with you from now on. On said discs, you will have burned a compilation of the music you find would be important to turn these "unfortunate souls" onto. What is actually on it? Who the fuck cares? Just do it. Spread the word, instead of wasting words.

I've seen J5 a few times, enjoyed their show once or twice, and was bored by it once or twice. I feel like "Entroducing" was an important album for me in terms of exploding what music could be, and I got it in...something like '96? '97?

Don't hate - elaborate, educate, and celebrate. How cool would it be to get Sam Bush and Ice T on the same track? What the hell kind of mind fuck would THAT be?

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-12/901742/scarecrow_oz.gif
IF I ONLY HAD THAT MIDNIGHT IN A PERFECT WORLD 12".

The straw-man rhetorical technique is the practice of refuting weaker arguments than one's opponents actually offer. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to your opponent.

One can set up a straw man in several different ways:

1. Present only a portion of the opponent's arguments (often a weak one), refute it, and pretend that all of their arguments have been refuted.
2. Present the opponent's argument in weakened form, refute it, and pretend that the original has been refuted.
3. Present a misrepresentation of the opponent's position, refute it, and pretend that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.
4. Present someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, refute that person's arguments, and pretend that every upholder of that position, and thus the position itself, has been defeated.
5. Invent a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs that are criticised, and pretend that the person represents a group that the speaker is critical of.

Some logic textbooks define the straw-man fallacy only as a misrepresented argument. It is now common, however, to use the term to refer to all of these tactics. The straw-man technique is also used as a form of media manipulation.

I am also white and have been to college.

I liked J5 for about a week, then forgot they existed for a couple of years. my favorite J5 "moment" was when i was taking trash down to the dumpster at my old apartment and happened across a stack of Power By Numbers LPs sitting atop a bag, in totally pristine shape (along with a few LP copies of a Tupac zombie comp). I think I netted about 50 in trade for them later that night.

OTM I reckon.

People used to hate Miami Bass. Now they love it.

People used to love sample based Hip-Hop (some with harsh lyrics, some without). Now they hate it.

Whatever.

Hip-House is the music of the future. Arrested Development will undergo a critical reevaluation then too.

did he quit returning your emails?

Once Rakim hit, there was a division where some were very focused on lyrics, while others still wanted raw beats (not to say Eric B's beats aren't raw, but there was a difference).

This is how the NYC vs. Down South thing started, and NYC acts would have riders in their touring contracts saying they would not play a show with anyone from down south.

Then Outkast hit in 1993, and the tide slowly turned.

The sad thing is, not the acts that once perpetuate this, but the audiences who buy into it all (which includes me, to some degree).

God help us.

Because we will be very very old and very very irrelevant.

Happy New Years!

when i was 13, i painstakingly (and badly) copied the awesome AD logo onto the cover of my school folder, like so many before me. and i have to say, i have no regrets...

as for shadow and j5, i found shadow amazing in 97, and bought the j5 album for cheap in 98, and thought it was fun. it was fun. i was in "college", and im white. i dont know anyone who still carries both these torches to this day tho.

also, "alphabet aerobics" was a pretty good tune! i know its not j5, but whast the difference?!

because most of those kids like this stuff too

Maybe I'm wierd, but I have a frriend who loves Dexter Gordon (as do I) and also loves ELO (whom I abhor) yet somehow this hasn't turned me away from Dexter Gordon. Or my friend, for that matter.

Last summer, Fast Eddie performed to a packed club here in Toronto. Never say never.

deej said it upthread: it's boring, not wrong. White hip-hop fans who only enjoy music by white artists is a whole other thread.

The next two projects will be (i) a solo album from Wu-Tang affiliate producer Bronze Nazareth who recently produced tracks for RZA, GZA, Masta Killa, Immortal Technique and Black Market Militia and (ii) a solo album from long time Wu-Tang affiliate LA the Darkman/Embassy Entertainment.

Maybe I'm just out of touch (I haven't really followed Hip-Hop closely since 1996), but from what I remember, those Hip-Hop fans who liked J5 in the beginning were either from the golden age, or at least saw J5 as the extension of it in the face of the Puffy Daddy era.

On the other hand, I never was a fan of DJ Shadow for the most part. I know he becomes furious when the term Trip-Hop gets affixed to his name, but yeah, white, lyriciless, slow, and boring to my ears...sounds like Trip-Hop (sic) to me (or whatever term people apply to that sound now).

Point being, I had many friends at the time who were bedroom DJ's that were exclusivly into that Ninja Tune/Mo Wax sound, and they bought into J5 w/o looking at the remainder of what I thought was part of the Hip-Hop canon.

Maybe that's what this thread is saying?

Either way, Native Toungues, and their fallout, have always been on of the facets of Hip-Hop that I love, despite some peripheral audiences it may've attracted.

this type of thinking is really rampant in hip hop fans. it's not necessarily "writing off huge parts of rap and hip-hop music as being without worth". it could be that all that other hip hop just doesn't appeal to them. would one make the same statement if someone liked, say, just the white stripes and radiohead or whatever but didn't care for chuck berry or the rolling stones or lynyrd skynrd or funkadelic? why, if you say like hip hop, do you have to like ALL hip hop? it seems like an extension of the "i'm more real/true to this" than you line of thought.

It's like this for me...

I never liked much rock music until these past 5 or 10 years. I don't have context the way rock fans do...so when the Strokes came out, I loved it...but my rock friends were like "no no, they're so derivitave."

But their newfound interest in Hip-Hop is the same thing...they like plenty of the newer commercial stuff I feel is lame, and I point them to the classics and explain the context.

Am I smug? I'd take J5 over 50 Cent, and I was part of this Hip-Hop thing since it came out on record. They're plenty of people who have given me Gang of Four lessons telling me to steer clear of The Bravery (whom I've never heard as a result).