CRAZY RAPPERS

or Chan Marshall, who's selling about as well as most of the underground "crazy" rapper dudes

It is.

I never fucked Ozzy.

no ethan is saying "indie kids be racist" and has constructed an elaborate strawman argument to somehow try to "prove" it.

GG Allin...

people like crazy artists in general. name one and everyone's all on their dick. Roky Erickson, Syd Barrett, Kool Keith, Skip Spence, ODB, Brian Wilson, Peter Green, Daniel Johnston, Phil Spector, Wesley Willis, Jandek... this list could go on forever.

But I have to admit one thing: the black ones seem funnier for some reason. The white ones mostly seem pathetic. The reason for this, I'm not sure.

1. Scenesters: They take hip hop seriously and delve deeply into local scenes. They often differentiate based on nuances that the casual listener doesn't even hear.

2. People who listen to a lot of different genres of music - hip hop only being one of them. They take it seriously as an artform, but tend to skim the surface a bit, and listen to the artists that are getting the most hype in their circles. Most music writers fall into this category; their circles possibly being where they are getting interesting-looking promos/presskits from, or word-of-mouth from other writers. Naturally, more colorful acts (in some cases the "craazzzzy" ones), as opposed to the "dullest stuff" loved by true fans aka scenesters who differentiate based on nuances most people don't even hear/see.

3. People who primarily listen to a certain type of music (in this case, I guess, indie rock, but I've known just as many who were into emo, trance, metal, and more) but listen to hip hop when they aren't really in the mood for whatever their chosen "serious" music is, like at house parties, certain club nights with offensive themes in certain parts of New York City, and wherever else they might be kicking back and drinking and/or doing drugs. Their chosen style of hip hop is almost always: the most over-the-top misogynist stuff and/or the "craaAAaaaAAAzzy black man" stuff. They still think it's funny to ironically refer to each other as niggaz, and sometimes smoke blunts and/or drink bad malt liquor with each other while listening to crazy rappers.

The third category is responsible for most of the criticisms on this thread and should be disregarded because they usually aren't real music fans in the first place. They are a part of a club. How's that for elitist?

the only reason I felt like spelling it out in this way is because it seems like 'and what' is pointing fingers at too many people, which is causing way too many people who are in category 2 to take offense at his point, which seems like a good one to me. He's just painting with too broad a brush. Good thread, though. I killed a lot of time at work reading it today.

Except DMX's comeback album is going to bomb with or without the media attention of an arrest.

let us not forget ILM's pet obsession, Marissa Marchant.

I can't parse "deserving of" in this sentence, but even if I could, ILM in not actually being particularly representative of the greater world non-shockah

*ps i dig cat power a whole bunch!

I see similar things directed toward all the female artists mentioned in the "crazy" camp on this thread. I don't think they're seen as "deserving of sympathy" except by their fans, in other words. Whereas MF Doom--I mean, c'mon, the poor guy, he keeps putting out this absolutely horrible music but everyone's decided to pretend like it's really good, either because they think it's funny or so as not to hurt his feelings.

meanwhile your own comment about Doom is frontloaded with this mega-rockist "people couldn't actually like it, since I know that it in fact bad music" sorta oddness whose point I can't really catch - the 'everyone' who's 'pretending' they like it (I'd guess that they actually do, but that's the popist in me) is a number roughly equivalent to the number of people who 'actually' like Cat Power if we're going by soundscans

B-but they flat-out say they're crazy!

man, you all have weak stomachs.

but that article made a point of dissing X because this was a "wimpy primadonna" move.

The Rabin article is most offensive because it bitches about DMX failing to live up to expectations during this arrest. This case is different from Parliament/ODB/Doom etc. because people here expect DMX to be crazy not on an album or in the public spotlight, but in real life. DMX's persona didn't get arrested this time, DMX the guy did. The fact that every time someone like DMX gets arrested, it has to be for some looney reason does smack of racism, but I don't know if an indictment of the whole rapper-persona fascination follows from that.

-- hugaboo (writeagainston...), May 17th, 2006.

I'm not sure where you're getting "every time someone like DMX" shit from; the original article didn't appeal to some sort of archetype/caricature, it was just about how DMX himself, who has been arrested in the past for ridiculous shit, got arrested for comparatively tame shit. this is actually more of a surprise in that it's kind of underwhelming, in much the same way that it would be utterly shocking if Pete Doherty getting arrested for speeding and turned out to be completely sober at the time and have nothing illegal in his car.