Simpin Ain't Easy: The Official Thread For Drake's Sophomore Album, TAKE CARE

np

has kind of a gay Terrence and Philip vibe

he is canadian

i think deej's "drake isn't ~authentic~ and his first world problems are trivialising rap" argument is completely wrong?

i mean it's true, drake's first world problems come off as unbelievably trite and irritating, but that's a performative failure not because there's anything inherently inappropriate about it.

he's also kind of ugly physically, tbh

that's kind of what he was saying lex

oh ok. it seemed to change a few times. it's nothing to do with hip-hop as a form though, so i think bringing rappers from ~genuine~ poor backgrounds into it is a red herring

like i don't think hip-hop is this immutable form that has to be certain things and not others

Deej wasn't saying that lex.

Tho in ilx skim read mode it kinda looked that way initially maybe.

if deej was actually communicating his thoughts clearly and consistently one of you guys might have to translate for me and lex, because it came out pretty muddled to me

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/5781/deejtranslate.jpg

irl lols

hahaha

hahaha that is v good

i feel like our paranoia about someone possibly believing in 'authenticity' can make us incapable of recognizing the ways in which a public persona might play into how we receive the music sometimes

― When snap was real ... Thumbs up if you agree (D-40), Saturday, November 12, 2011 2:03 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i think this is the key to my disagreement w/ Al

its not that drake hasn't 'really experience struggle,' but knowing that our perception of him is that he's had an easy path, he makes certain choices in his music that don't give him a particularly powerful narrative

i have a bias towards underdog stories, i'll readily agree, but this isn't the same as needing rappers to be 'authentic'

i think you're more paranoid about me being the rockism police than i am about you forwarding a secretly rockist 'authenticity' debate

i mean people who get into the whole "drake's uncle was larry graham, he was groomed to be a platinum rappers from the moment he was born" conspiracy theories are a little over-the-top to me, he didn't REALLY have some easy obvious path to his current career with zero roadblocks

the word paranoia was not intended to turn this into a dick waving contest abt who is being more weird

im sure his real career had plenty of roadblocks but overcoming those has never entered his music in a compelling way that i can tell. i dont really get a sense of who he is / where he comes from beyond some banal platitudes

dude it's not a competition, you're super weird and neurotically prickly anytime anyone disagrees with you about anything, everybody here knows that

i mean you just cut-and-pasted YOURSELF from 24 hours prior for no other reason than to just remind us what you already said

ladies, please, you're both terrible

i mean you just cut-and-pasted YOURSELF from 24 hours prior for no other reason than to just remind us what you already said

― some dude, Sunday, November 13, 2011 5:14 PM (54 seconds ago) Bookmark

this is the one thing that deej can't stop himself from doing that drags on arguments like this past the point where anyone finds it acceptable

i miss when ilm could just all agree that drake was terrible. truly a harmonious time

i mean you just cut-and-pasted YOURSELF from 24 hours prior for no other reason than to just remind us what you already said

― some dude, Sunday, November 13, 2011 4:14 PM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark

it was because i was trying to locate where in a longer argument our specific disagreement was.

im sorry 'paranoia' came off as 'prickly' i was hoping we could be mature & bracket that in the context of the argument rather than you assuming i was being 'prickly' & trying to diss you

if anyone thought i was calling al 'paranoid' i apologize bcuz that was not in any way my intent -- was just trying to express concern that by worrying abt 'rockism' we can hude the fact that our understanding of an artists life enters into how we receive the art

*hide

i think this issue can be expressed pretty functionally - like, if someone uses a ravey piano riff in a current dance tune but the rest of the tune is insipid enough that you resent the reference, like "why try to tie yourself in with the golden age of rave if you can't actually bring that vibe to the table?"

Music can be anything it wants to be, of course, but by reaching for a point of commonality or communion between yourself and something else you're opening yourself to criticism if you don't actually carry it off. especially in a post-authentic intertextual world, associations are everything.

I haven't actually listened to enough Drake to have much of an opinion on his persona (and the only people who appear to like him in Australia are pseudo-indie types, so) but that's what this debate makes me think of.

haha tim thank you for the probably very succinct and accurate raver analogy that makes zero sense to me and probably many others itt

to be real i agree with deej more than i disagree w/ him on the subject of drake, but i just thought that him talking about "co-opting the language of the struggle" made drake sound like a tea partier comparing themselves to civil rights protesters, not a dork from toronto acting out a few southern gangsta rap cliches.

Maybe sub in, I dunno, weak modern rap tunes sampling Biggie.

LOL'd at your last post btw.

Is 1 million the first week what you're shooting for?

That's the golden number for anyone. I doubt that'll happen. That's some Lil Wayne, Eminem iconic shit. I don't know if I'm there yet. Whoever goes out and buys it, I'm happy. I'd rather have great reviews than numbers. I'd rather walk out of my house and hear seven cars playing it than hear that I did 900,000.

when was the last time a rapper said this?

i guess drake can kinda get away with it since he knows he's gonna do numbers -- it's not like yelawolf saying that or something. but still kinda out of the ordinary in this age of haters and what not.

'something about middle class values'

when was the last time a rapper said this?

― J0rdan S., Sunday, November 13, 2011 10:47 PM (10 minutes ago)

dude come the fuck on

idk i feel like most rappers are like FUCK THE HATERS!!!

i'm not saying it's some admirable quality to have, just seems like it stuck out to me -- the state of rap criticism is so fractured anyway that there's not even, like, "reviews" anymore

fuck five i want a 108 mics

drake thanks john wall, kevin durant and lebron james (+ rich paul and mav carter) in the liners

also soulja boy

Well the good reviews are starting to pour in, at least from the non-hip-hop centric places:

8.6 & BNM at Pfork
9/10 at Popmatters
3/4 starts from Greg Kot

stars

I'd rather have great reviews than numbers

i just filed my review :)

I'm sure the internet will enjoy the completely unbiased, fresh eared review

what does "biased" or "unbiased" actually mean w/r/t criticism? what does "fresh eared" mean at all? it's an inherently subjective practice

do you really think the only reviews of worth are those where the critic has no prior opinion on an artist? because i don't want to read those hermeneutically sealed off critics with an inflated idea of their own objectivity

the completely unbiased

huh?

haha this is gonna be a klaxons level hit job. i'm v excited to read this. i hope they give you more than 200 words, lex.

J0rdan otm

Hey lex I still haven't listened to this, keeping the faith