David Brooks - GANGSTA!

I mean, I can say that Ice-T made a song about killing cops, but that's definitely not the whole story when the song is a reaction against police brutality and the same guy currently plays a cop on a tv show.

What's going on in France right now has NOTHING to do with what Biggie, Tupac, or any other rapper has gone through, except that there is violence being perpetuated by brown people against the will of the government. Here, the violence was drugs and gang-related violence; there, the over-flow of tension and frustration due to race-based government policy and the inability to do anything else.

Brooks' writing is poor, his conclusions are founded on very little that is hard, relevant or up-to-date factually, and, based upon the Slate article, he didn't even do any of his own research.

Fuck that guy. And his spot in the NYTimes.

I mean come on: david brooks + french gangsta rap = fun!

Right?

ihttp://gozips.uakron.edu/~fcs2/uwpposter.jpg

Sorry I am a french.

Because those are exactly the sort of people you want to have an affirmative view of French rap. Honestly, who cares?

I'd like to think you were right but I don't think you are.

It's like your uncle got tricked into being a drug mule. "They told me to stick it up my ass and get on the plane. Seemed like nice enough fellows."

It's nice to have a framework for understanding these thorny social issues that confirms the innate superiority of American culture as well as the fact that the less fortunate have themselves to blame, and to have this framework neatly served up in a bundle of 1000 words or so, at which point we can shake our heads knowingly at the folly of the ivory-tower lefties who spend so much time thinking about these problems and end up with needlessly elaborate theories when the answer is so simple in Brooksworld.

Oh, come on! Fairfield County's part of New York!

it lasted a little while, then evaporated.

xpost:

who remember all the fun bugfuck insane Election year Brooks columns about democrat blue-staters(or whatever) being elitists and not eating at Bennigans or Fuddruckers?

Yeah all Republicans are the same.

(That's why he writes for the Times; seriously, he's just a Richard Roeper suburban media-dad kind of guy.)

PARIS, Nov. 10 - Semou Diouf, holding a pipe in one hand and a cigarette in the other, stood amid the noisy games of checkers and cards in the dingy ground-floor common room of a crowded tenement building and pondered the question of why he feels French."

"I was born in Senegal when it was part of France," he said before putting the pipe in his mouth. "I speak French, my wife is French and I was educated in France." The problem, he added after pulling the pipe out of his mouth again, "is the French don't think I'm French."

That, in a nutshell, is what lies at the heart of the unrest that has swept France in the past two weeks: millions of French citizens, whether immigrants or the offspring of immigrants, feel rejected by traditional French society, which has resisted adjusting a vision of itself forged in fires of the French Revolution. The concept of French identity remains rooted deep in the country's centuries-old culture, and a significant portion of the population has yet to accept the increasingly multiethnic makeup of the nation. Put simply, being French, for many people, remains a baguette-and-beret affair."

Though many countries aspire to ensure equality among their citizens and fall short, the case is complicated in France by a secular ideal that refuses to recognize ethnic and religious differences in the public domain. All citizens are French, end of story, the government insists, a lofty position that, nonetheless, has allowed discrimination to thrive."

France's Constitution guarantees equality to all, but that has long been interpreted to mean that ethnic or religious differences are not the purview of the state. The result is that no one looks at such differences to track growing inequalities and so discrimination is easy to hide."

"People have it in their head that surveying by race or religion is bad, it's dirty, it's something reserved for Americans and that we shouldn't do it here," said Yazid Sabeg, the only prominent Frenchman of Arab descent at the head of a publicly listed French company. "But without statistics to look at, how can we measure the problem?"

Mr. Sabeg was born in Algeria when it was French territory and moved to France with his family as an infant. His father worked as a laborer and later a mechanic to put him through a Jesuit boarding school, and he went on to earn a Ph.D. at the Sorbonne.

He scoffs at the notion of a French identity based on what he believes is a fiction of equal rights and France's reluctance to engage in debate about the gap between ideals and reality. "France doesn't know how to manage diversity," he said. "It doesn't want to accept the consequences of a multiethnic society."

Like most French schoolchildren, he was taught that his ancestors were Gauls and that "in 732, Charles Martel, the Mayor of the Palace, repelled the Arabs in Poitiers."

French leaders admit failings but insist they are working to bring equality to all citizens and have embarked on an oblique public debate about what it means to be French. But that debate is still bounded by fidelity to ideals of the French Republic. President Jacques Chirac told reporters at Élysée Palace on Thursday that the government "hasn't been fast enough" in addressing the problems of discrimination, but that, "no matter what our origins, we are all children of the Republic."

Further to the political right, the debate has taken on another cast: the far-right National Front party released a computer-generated video on its Web site this week that showed Paris in flames. "Immigration, explosion in the suburbs ... Le Pen foretold it," the banner over the video reads, referring to the party's patriarch, Jean-Marie Le Pen."

The idea behind France's republican ideal was that by officially ignoring ethnic differences in favor of a transcendent French identity, the country would avoid the stratification of society that existed before the French Revolution or the fragmentation that it now sees in multicultural models like the United States. But the French model, never updated, has failed, critics say. "France always talks about avoiding ghettoization, but it has already happened," Mr. Sabeg said, adding that people are separated in the housing projects, in their schools and in their heads..."

What Makes Some People French?

Anarchy in Paris!

"You take a population of young men who are oppressed by racism and who face limited opportunities, and you present them with a culture that encourages them to become exactly the sort of people the bigots think they are...."

In other words, he's not really actually conservative, but rather an aging liberal who is now suspicious of some of the stuff he probably thought twenty or so years ago as a college student. This is why he always has that aw shucks look. He's like a dork yuppie version of Christopher Hitchens! So he's always (like Hitchens) kind of a little bit -- but only a little bit -- right. In this case, the image of David Brooks listening to French gangsta rap on his iPod while working out on the eliptical machine in full-body sweats with some college emblazoned on them is the main payoff, IMO.

Curmudgeon: thanks a million for the kind words about my blog. (Nice to know someone's reading it.) I haven't published much on French rap, mostly because there's hasn't been much interest in the subject. But I'm a fan.

xpost: really?? i feel like i heard it once and didn't like it, but maybe it was the third i heard

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005QSSH.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

total wizard

It's hard to bother with that guy.

I couldn't get too far without calling him monkey.

and they use the same hand gestures as American rappers...

J’ai des choses à dire, je m’appelle disiz
J’suis un peu bronzé, ny name is basané
C’est toujours ca la France …

Eloquence
Année 2.0.0.3, le constat est le même examen de l’hexagone
Faut que sa rime et que ça sonne quand je pose
Militant dans l’âme expose mon combat explose les porcs
Les beaufs explorent ce monde de ouf
J’ai des choses à dire ch’uis anti-sarkozy, anti-Star academy
Mais qu’est qu’en pense disiz ?

Disiz la peste
De nos jours très tôt t’as la trouille
Les traîtres veulent les blacks et les crouilles
Le ton monte d'un cran dans les crews,
L'écran, la timp, l'état, le macro
y’aura plein de numéro d’écrou en France c’est illégal d’être pauvre
attention cache toi dans le trou sinon on te rappatrie dans le bateau
La patrie joue les batârds on t’fera payer les plein pots
Si t’est tard dans le hall, black de peau et que t’entend les pimpons
Sarko, Sarko, Sarko parle fragile comme du placoplâtre
Mets mes frérots black au placard Chirac fait des braco d’appart’
Mais le peuple accepte écarte les cuisses lui donne sa carte d’électeur
C’est ça la France fait gaffe au carotte met ton capteur

Refrain
Eloquence & Disiz la peste
J’ai des choses à dire sombre est l’avenir mais mes refrès m'assistent
Toi qui tize ton pastis vote FN si tu veux, vient me test si te peux
Mais laisse moi faire ma musique pour noir, blanc et arabe
J’ai des choses à dire je m’appelle disiz je suis un peu bronzé
My name is basané c’est toujours ça la France
Un tiers d'hypocrite à moiti collabo
My name is le négro

Disiz la peste
Nous on peut pas faire la grève inutile pas la peine
C’est la merde y’a pas de taff donc pas de grève
Trop peu d’inspiré comme Gyu Degresne
On fuck l’école et on s’engraine
C’est la merde on vit a la One Again

Tolérance zero parait que c’est crédo
Noir, blanc et arabes fumant le bedo sous le même préau
Y’a trop d’escroc Chirac premier délinquant
France convoqué devant le juge n’y va pas arrogance de sa part
Mon rap un rempart face à Le Pen et ses conneries
Eloquence et Disiz, instruction civique sur M.I.C

Refrain
Disiz la peste & Eloquence
J’ai des choses à dire je m’appelle disiz je suis un peu bronzé
My name is basané c’est toujours ça la France
Un tiers d'hypocrite à moiti collabo
My name is le négro
J’ai des choses à dire sombre est l’avenir mais mes refrès m'assistent
Toi qui tize ton pastis vote FN si tu veux, vient me test si te peux
Mais laisse moi faire ma musique pour noir, blanc et arabe

C’est ça la France, complexe, c’est ça la France
C’est ça la France, complexe, c’est ça la France
C’est ça la France, complexe, c’est ça la France

Disiz la peste
Et c'est qui gène les fachos que la jeunesse soit fachée
Martyrs comme des Falachas la chose
C’est chaud faudrait peut être se cacher
C’est ça la France Disiz, Eloquence
Sur un son d’accordéon des couplets blessants

Disiz la peste
Ah l’accordéon, quelle belle musique, quel bel instrument
Eloquence : ah je te le ferai pas dire ça me rappelle la France
Disiz : oh mais quelle talent c’est ça la France quel panache dis leur Eloquence
Eloquence : oh la la magnifique !

Just catching up with this thread...

Tracer Hand: you're right. French rap is almost always a few years behind, production-wise. The key for me are the lyrics, and the rappers' flow. There are some great, great records out there, if you can past the passé beats.

Current listening includes the latest Saian (pretty good). And I'm quite into the new Disiz La Peste.

As for where to start. There's a new IAM comp which has a lot of great stuff on it. The classic IAM release is L'Ecole du Micro d'Argent (1997), considered by many the best French rap album of all-time. Another classic is Suprême NTM's Paris Sous les Bombes (1995) -- worth picking up.

Some other favorites. There's a little group called Scred Connexion, five Algerian kids from Barbès in Paris. I'm crazy about their first record, from five or so years ago. These boys can flow.

TTC are a kind of left-of-center, Beasties-meets-De La Soul type group. Their flow is sick, and the production, for once, is great, too. Check out their debut, Ceci N'est Pas Un Disque (Big Dada). One of my favorite hip-hop albums, period, of the last half-decade.

Arsenik are definitely my favorite French rappers. They're amazing MCs; even if you have no French, you can't help but feel them. (You might know them from a track they did with RZA several years back.) I love Quelques Gouttes Sufissent, a total classic.

Can’t seem to get my Arsenik files uploaded to my server, but I'm throwing up a couple of TTC MP3s (for just a couple of days). Enjoy.

- TTC, Nonscience
- TTC, De Pauvres Riches

This is not the first time he's done this, either. A few years back he did an article called "The Organization Kid" about how today's Ivy Leaguers are uptight robots who have to schedule hanging with their friends in their daytimers. Turns out for his research at Princeton, he only spoke to kids that were reccomended by professor, so of course he only spoke to the biggest tools on campus. Oh how we laughed as the rest of us went back to our binge drinking and lipstick parties like the Youth Gone Wild that we are (thanks NYTimes).

Two other acts to add:

La Rumeur (especially L'ombre sur la mesure)

Rohff (especially La Vie avant la mort)

Not sure I agree that the French are usually behind the US - TTC certainly are not, have always been in the vanguard IMHO. But then I'm English.

AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE OI OI OI

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/opinion/brooks-weed-been-there-done-that.html

Turns out studies and findings all agree with him, imagine that.

Paul Krugman is off today.

"I stumbled through it, incapable of putting together simple phrases, feeling like a total loser." No doubt.

writing process revealed

"I stumbled through it, incapable of putting together simple phrases, feeling like a total loser"

so he still smokes it then

I hope footage from that presentation leaks

"learning about drugs without facing criminal charges should remain an activity solely reserved for the rich"

" Others fell deeply in love and got thrills from the enlargements of the heart."

lol

My friend died from enlarged heart u asshole!

The 1990s brought astonishing hip-hop — Tupac, Biggie, Jay-Z, Wu-Tang Clan, A Tribe Called Quest, the Fugees — and I got introduced to all of that like everybody else at the time. My hands were writing and editing conservative editorials for The Wall Street Journal; my ears were straight outta Compton.

Brooks otm

I want to do an AI image rendition of "David Brooks being introduced to Wu-Tang Clan like everybody else at the time."

It’s telling that he writes & edits with his “hands,” not his brain.

Then there are the times that are just awkward — like the time at a Nas concert when a seven-foot-tall woman in a black bodice came up to me and asked, “What on earth are you doing here?”

haha

Possibly a true story

According to my cousin, @nytdavidbrooks is currently at the Nas/Lauryn Hill concert. I can't begin to process this.

— Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) November 5, 2012

xp that woman should be paid a good salary to just keep doing that wherever he goes.

I asked, and it was her!

I just texted my cousin and…I think the answer is yes??? https://t.co/1qIj3Eu3oS

— Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) November 25, 2022

None of the rappers he mentioned were from Compton,

lol, thank you jaymc. I had a feeling...

How did you find that old HB tweet?

I googled "david brooks nas concert" and that tweet was the second result

Nice

What a night. Usually when I’m up this late it’s because I’m listening to NBA Youngboy.

— David Brooks (@nytdavidbrooks) November 4, 2020

Also found this interview where he mentions the concert. He is so proud of having gone to that concert.

https://www.newsweek.com/david-brooks-new-york-times-columnist-narcissism-mockery-and-hip-hop-340318

"I believe that, over the centuries, smart people had incredibly valuable perceptions. But I don't live in the past. People stereotype me as a fogey. I am not. I go to hip-hop concerts."

"Pardon?"

"I listen to Kendrick Lamar. I was at a Nas concert not long ago."

Though this is the unassailably best quote imo:

"I had metaphorical moral headphones on. People didn't associate me with an intimate life. Now, when people have a trauma, they talk to me."

Meanwhile the interviewer is needling him the whole time.

"People have traumas after talking to me."

In 1991 when David Brooks was a 30 year old man writing columns about how the Black people who make the music he likes deserve poverty and suffering, his current wife was six years old

— Hilary Agro 🍄 @hilarya✧✧✧@masto✧✧✧.l✧✧ (@hilaryagro) November 24, 2022

xp that woman should be paid a good salary to just keep doing that wherever he goes.

― JoeStork, Thursday, November 24, 2022 2:07 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

lol otm

This dude and his Nas concert.

https://chicagomaroon.com/17637/news/uncommon-interview-david-brooks-a-b-83/

CM: So I read somewhere that you listen to rap music. Who are you listening to now?

DB: [Laughs] It’s true. I was at a Nas concert! I can barely stomach Tyler the Creator, who gets a little raw for me. I come into contact with them through my kids, so they’re my avenue into the world.