and is it possible that a similar motivation could be at play with shadow and diplo?
― charltonlido (gareth), Friday, 27 May 2005 15:38 (nineteen years ago) link
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 27 May 2005 15:39 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jack, Friday, 27 May 2005 16:09 (nineteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:12 (nineteen years ago) link
"If white people were so willing to do blackface, wouldn’t there be more than two white rappers who regularly chart in the Top10? And there are still only two, almost thirty years in. And there are hundreds of new hip-hop records released every year."
― steve-k, Friday, 27 May 2005 16:13 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:13 (nineteen years ago) link
(sorry)
(xpost)
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:14 (nineteen years ago) link
― Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (Gear!), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ian Christe (Ian Christe), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:29 (nineteen years ago) link
for the most part, blacks wouldn't have gotten those jobs in the first place. also, there were lots of black minstrels--African-Americans who corked up for the stage.
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:29 (nineteen years ago) link
[[raises hand]]
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:30 (nineteen years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:35 (nineteen years ago) link
The mistake here is assuming that rap is the only form of blackface available to white people, rather than simply the most obvious.
― miccio (miccio), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:49 (nineteen years ago) link
There's a level on which I really do think it's an issue of identity and distancing. DJing, mixing, digital signal processing -- they've all made it possible for gangly white kids to approach genres they might not physically feel comfortable in (whether having to do with hip hop or sonic assault) with some sort of built-in distance; they're kind of playing the stuff, activating it, and manipulating it, but they don't have to exist in it in a physical sense. And I kinda wonder if there's some of that same removal that happens here. I mean, I doubt it's the case with Shadow, at least, or probably Diplo either -- but it's easy to imagine a situation in which a guy feels comfortable running off hot beats for some vocalist (assembly-line removal) as opposed to putting something out and saying "I MADE THIS, this is what I actually centrally do and put my name on," which is a slightly more vulnerable position.
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:52 (nineteen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:54 (nineteen years ago) link
what's weird about this is that none of it really sells or garners even a decent-sized cult audience. or does it? I can't think of any examples that did offhand, at least. happy to be proven wrong, though, as always.
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:56 (nineteen years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:56 (nineteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:57 (nineteen years ago) link
the fact that people are ripping off the template. it reminds me of Elvis Costello bitching about John Wesley Harding sometime around 1991: "If you're gonna rip someone off, rip off someone who sells records!"
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 27 May 2005 16:59 (nineteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:00 (nineteen years ago) link
also, there seems to me to be a world of difference between 1) a white rapper who employs a lot of black slang and cultural reference points in their lyrics and 2) a white DJ who plays primarily music by black rappers. the former is inhabiting the same roles as black rappers, whereas the latter doesn't necessarily cop to the slang (although they often do, as in the case of, well, people who call themselves things like 'hollertonix').
― Al (sitcom), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:11 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jockey, Friday, 27 May 2005 17:21 (nineteen years ago) link
as caught up in my profession as I can get, I tend to think that if an artist makes a decision, good or lousy, it's actually the artist's fault.
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:36 (nineteen years ago) link
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:38 (nineteen years ago) link
are you you? or that other one?
― charltonlido (gareth), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:38 (nineteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:43 (nineteen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:48 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:50 (nineteen years ago) link
Selling on what level, though? On the level of the artists they remix? I mean, Shadow and RJD2 seem to do fairly well.
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:51 (nineteen years ago) link
Can 'machinery' be replaced with 'instruments' and have the statement still be true?
― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:54 (nineteen years ago) link
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:56 (nineteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:59 (nineteen years ago) link
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 27 May 2005 18:02 (nineteen years ago) link
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 27 May 2005 18:09 (nineteen years ago) link
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 27 May 2005 18:14 (nineteen years ago) link
Maybe Diplo is a good test-case in what I'm thinking about here: how do you think it would work if, instead of associating with M.I.A., he was making a record with a white rapper or vocalist from Philly? How would it have worked in process, and how would the reception have gone?
(NB Matos the Diplo album was maybe further marred by being a little boring, even within the post-Shadow genre.)
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 27 May 2005 18:20 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 27 May 2005 18:24 (nineteen years ago) link
based on this - http://www.indiana.edu/~teleweb/T101/independent.html - El-P says Fantastic Damage sold less than 50k in a year, surely RJD2's audience is smaller than that.
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Friday, 27 May 2005 18:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 27 May 2005 18:28 (nineteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 27 May 2005 18:29 (nineteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 27 May 2005 18:31 (nineteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Friday, 27 May 2005 18:33 (nineteen years ago) link
That's my inclination, too. Doesn't anyone here subscribe to the SoundScan database? This is like the millionth thread when we've tried to guess the relative sales figures of particular albums.
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 27 May 2005 18:35 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jesse Dorris (rubber gloves), Friday, 27 May 2005 18:38 (nineteen years ago) link
ok, 1st thing and this is experience talking so its limited, but this big over pac shit has dick to do w cleverness or melodrama. 2 otm. its just some efficient we cn buy ready to die and be thru w them bullshit. i heard a ton of live pac and big w bonethugs gettin rides w kids in the midwest, no limit too, pun, whatever, but i think to this post or retrospective audience the pac cds are recursive and infinite, untouchable, parentheses like um the quote crack problem, and if you just look at the music videos, pac ridin thru the dust, little preadolescent posthumous notorious clean as fuck, that its most of all a class thing? big rappin abt videogames, plus shakier body image, coffin speculation
earlier today i ws reading this twelve year old luc sante review of clockers and obv much shit has changed not least the way ppl wanna fuck w rap in terms of persona but i like the spirit, the caution
"Still, what engages the reader is not merely the mechanism of the mystery but the depth and spaciousness of the depictions. The book's chief pleasure lies in recognition, that lure of naturalism rendered suspect by modernism, the immediate identification of people, places, and things we've maybe only glimpsed peripherally in life, but which are here suddenly presented in rounded trompe l'oeil, not to mention trompe l'oreille. There is, of course, more than a hint of voyeurism in our appreciation of this vantage."
"The surface particulars of the inner-city experience have been represented with varying degrees of glibness so many times that they have become hollow conventions in the minds of most people who do not live there, no more substantial than the main street of Dodge City or the floor of Doc Holliday's saloon, so that their bona fide counterparts on the evening news can be briefly perceived and then dismissed as abstractions."
"After all, while fiction may be fiction and owe no fealty to the matter it transforms, a novel that depicts an ongoing disaster bears a special responsibility. Price's intentions are entirely noble, and his skills are more than sufficient to give them force. It may be, however, that no intentions or skills can contend with the poverty of realism in an age of documentary saturation. It may seem unfair to cavil this way at Price's large achievement, but then it may be a measure of its success that it suggests a further step: that the reader, who can so easily and passively consume the experience of the novel, be made to work for it."
― 006 (thoia), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 05:09 (eighteen years ago) link
Has anyone on ILM commented on the fact that Diplo's Electronic Press Kit makes heavy usage of footage of his djing a mostly black high school dance?
Seems to be working on a couple of levels: first, it's a kind of lo-fi, anti-rockstar-rockstar sensibility "Haha I'm playing at a high school, etc." But more importantly, it gives him the "Black People Seal of Approval" -- the same one Eminem needed to launch his career as the first white rapper to escape the gravity of Vanilla Ice. Look, they're dancing to it! They like it! And it also reaffirms his image as a merchant of music raw, exotic and sexual ("look at the freaky dances they do!".)
And yet I have to admit my first reaction to the video was just that I really liked it. In fact I watched it a bunch of times. It made me want to dance. It made me want to have more fun in general. And I think what saves the whole thing from being COMPLETELY condescending is that a lot of the footage is just about kids having fun and acting goofy.
― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Wednesday, 11 January 2006 00:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― 66666 (pds37), Monday, 29 May 2006 01:43 (eighteen years ago) link
the revive that had to be made
― gershy, Friday, 19 October 2007 04:49 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.divecambodia.com/images/DiveSites_KohRongSaloem1.jpg
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 19 October 2007 06:18 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.geocities.com/katarin3109/ZhuRong.jpg
http://www.holidaycity.com/rong-wei-guangzhou/map.gif
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 19 October 2007 06:19 (sixteen years ago) link
can't we turn our attention to freeing t.i.?
― J0rdan S., Friday, 19 October 2007 06:25 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/z/fotos/zhu_rongji.jpg
― dylannn, Friday, 19 October 2007 06:55 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.nsbd.gov.cn/zx/ldzjt/images/17.jpg
so president bush-- the first one, the old one-- says to rhu rongji, "put us in charge for three days and we'll give you human rights, democracy and a free market." and zhu rongji says to bush, "okay, and we'll give you three 河南人 and america will be GONE in three days."
― dylannn, Friday, 19 October 2007 06:57 (sixteen years ago) link
FREE T.I.
― J0rdan S., Friday, 19 October 2007 07:00 (sixteen years ago) link
-- dylannn, Friday, October 19, 2007 1:57 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
^^^this was actually funny.
here's another bush joke, big j
so, when george bush eats at a western restaurant in washington, he's always really proper: fork in left hand, knife in the right hand. but when he eats in a chinese restaurant in washington he's got a green onion in his left hand and a bottle of tsingtao in his right hand-- like a 山东大汗.
― dylannn, Friday, 19 October 2007 07:06 (sixteen years ago) link
haha the joke itself wasn't funny, i just loled at the random appearances of "rong"
― J0rdan S., Friday, 19 October 2007 07:07 (sixteen years ago) link
i don't know anymore zhu rongji jokes, man.
http://news.china.com/zh_cn/history/all/11025807/20070406/images/14029511_366556.jpg
― dylannn, Friday, 19 October 2007 07:10 (sixteen years ago) link
http://bp0.blogger.com/_VXQinw7KBZE/Rxa_cSSjt0I/AAAAAAAAAYY/Uohe9Y4_H8k/s1600/Huaguofeng.JPG
hua guofeng, the forgotten leader between mao getting put in the ground and deng xiaopeng wresting control back. still alive and sleeping at the big 17.
― dylannn, Friday, 19 October 2007 07:11 (sixteen years ago) link
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/photo/2007/10/16/20071015CHINA/20345322.JPG
― dylannn, Friday, 19 October 2007 07:12 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.cas.ac.cn/Images/2003/12/26/1618134.535276E-02.jpg
― dylannn, Friday, 19 October 2007 07:13 (sixteen years ago) link
http://photo.sohu.com/20050103/Img223765752.jpg
― dylannn, Friday, 19 October 2007 07:14 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.tzxf.gov.cn/upload/060814083648243.jpg
http://cimg2.163.com/cnews/2006/10/4/2006100401082077fe7.jpg
― dylannn, Friday, 19 October 2007 07:15 (sixteen years ago) link
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/dec/30/audiences-dont-want-white-anger-how-white-rap-grew-a-conscience
― candyman, Sunday, 3 January 2021 00:47 (three years ago) link
isn't that exactly the same trajectory that Everlast and Vanilla Ice had?
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Sunday, 3 January 2021 03:05 (three years ago) link
Makes me think of when eminem started producing and people were like, God this is funkless. But maybe he was just embracing his whiteness lol. Message seems to be, everyone should just stick to their own. If that gets rid of Iggy azaleas shtick then great, but pushed to extremes, it seems pretty limiting.
― candyman, Sunday, 3 January 2021 08:49 (three years ago) link