Is SPIN really circling the drain?

no one is qualified to offer that opinion

Dude Perspective would be an amazing name for a fictional rock star character in a Pynchon book

The opposing argument would say the lack of voices addressing the issue it presents means it should be handled carefully regardless of the shittiness of the song

The totally hamfisted and offensive way the song addresses the issue trumps any pat on the back Fiasco thinks he should get for effort. And if he really wants have a conversation he should welcome any voice to the debate and engage with them if he thinks they're wrong. Not just #boycott them and then sit back while his fans get all "how dare the jew attack our culture".

Its not about what lupe deserves, its about what the issue deserves

i can't tell--does anyone think this song has redeeming qualities?

― call all destroyer, Saturday, August 25, 2012 6:22 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i dont think anyone's even arguing about the song, more about the ~kerfluffle~

https://twitter.com/Brz0z0wski/status/239501855883935744

xp i know i'm just actually curious about that question

brainwasher likes it which is kind of freaking me out

i like the beat \o_O/

I was really hoping post-Lasers Lupe was going to go back to the shit I liked about The Cool but it seems like he has just taken that shit I liked and made it extra super stupid

I bought The Cool on CD and listened to exactly once, possibly twice

is lupe friends with kanye? they seem annoying in a similar way.

Kanye gave Lupe a leg up very early on but it seems like aside from that 'Child Rebel Soldier' group that did one song they haven't crossed paths at all the last five years

i can't tell--does anyone think this song has redeeming qualities?

― call all destroyer, Saturday, August 25, 2012 4:22 PM (Yesterday)

fuck no. it sucks.

if someone has already said they do you can't really answer no to that question

i talked to everybody. they said i could speak for them.

Parental Advisory bad.... clean edits better.

Lex has decided the dynamics of gender justify the tonal arrogance of the piece.

i don't think the spin piece is perfect but the arrogance is not its main problem. do you have any links to pieces expanding on the racial issues? pref not written by a dude

newsflash: you're a dude

https://twitter.com/nualacabral/status/239209757192380417

the conversation i was reading that i linked to mark anthony neal & bakari kitwana comments on was w/ this woman, who engaged w/ him on twitter & apparently found the piece culturally arrogant.

oh here she did a 'storify' thing on her take on it

http://storify.com/nualacabral/on-bitch-bad-lupe-fiasco?utm_campaign=&utm_medium=sfy.co-twitter&awesm=sfy.co_a61h&utm_content=storify-pingback&utm_source=t.co

fwiw i'm not even nec. agreeing w/ what shes saying as ive said, just that I would rethink how I approach this sort of thing if I saw this kind of resistance.

but im not sure why im telling that to one of ilx's most strident posters lol

I'm sure we can all agree that Brandon's tone doesn't always make him more friends. But isn't this at least partly about whom the "black community" is willing to receive such criticisms from? So much of the anger seems to rest on a conception of Brandon and Spin being outsiders to a "real conversation".

Or to put it another, more constructive (perhaps) way, just how do you think a critique of the Bitch Bad video and song could be presented in a way that did not seem culturally arrogant in, say, a publication such as Spin?

I find this kinda thread really weird...can people actually get that worked up about a Lupe Fiasco song?

there's a bit of concern trolling going on at every layer of this, yeah

just how do you think a critique of the Bitch Bad video and song could be presented in a way that did not seem culturally arrogant in, say, a publication such as Spin?

what is "a publication such as spin"? its purview in the early days was alternative music and culture, and that's still its primary focus. like many music magazines, its readership skews young. the one thing i notice looking at the magazine's "about us" page is that all the pictured executives, editors and contributors at least seem to be white.

newsflash: you're a dude

― The rain in Spin circles mainly on the mansplain (D-40), Monday, August 27, 2012 7:19 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

can someone please mansplain concern trolling to me please

http://www.ebony.com/entertainment-culture/whats-so-bad-about-lupes-latest-single-622

He goes on to reiterate Hogan’s assertion that the song is guilty of “mansplaining,” but in the very next sentence asks “but does any female want to be called "a lady"?

Son.

This is what happens when a person who is far removed from someone else’s world decides not only to peek in, but also tries to narrate from the outside. Speaking as an Actual Black Woman, not Race Non Specific Pretend Woman referenced in this article, I can tell you that the word “female” is a far greater point of contention than “lady” amongst sisters. And while plenty of women eschew the word “lady” or the expectation that one has to be “ladylike” to be respectable, others still cling tightly to the term and the traits. “Female,” however, is a term often hurled from the same lips that favor “b*tch.”

I don’t care how hip-hop ‘approved’ you are, how many Eightball and MJG tapes you have from seventh grade or even if you bothered to take an Afro-studies class at whatever liberal arts college that taught you how to wax poetic about Dipset, you are on the outside.

dang

This is White privilege at its finest: being able to complain that there aren’t enough narratives about Black death and pain on the Pop stations, without being touched by said death and pain outside of one’s headphones or whatever corny hipster bar one goes to drink artisanal beer and nod awkwardly along to Chief Keef.

hammer

boom

thank you jamilah lemieux

the fact that none of that shit seems even to have occurred to anyone at spin is kind of jaw-dropping

lol, was gonna quote those same three passages

there you go, lex!

i would probably like hipster bars with artisanal beer a lot better if they played chief keef

lock thread!

oh wait this is still a spin thread. never mind.

I have not yet heard "B*tch Bad" yet but that response is amazing

man that is some invigorating stuff. makes you feel good to be alive.

piece is entertaining, fraught w/ its own problems tho

do tell whitey!

goddam i'm going to be calling out white ppl all fucking day on ILX feels good man

lmao @ m@tt

lolll

well played matt.
are we gonna have to start saying "the b word" now
*shakes fist angrily* SPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNN!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKpqyZCH0BI

Brandon detests Rick Ross, lol. Some of that is definitely on point, but it also definitely crosses the line I mentioned above, pulling the outsider card in a way that's ultimately problematic.

i tend not to worry about how problematic something is when my first response to it is: oh thank you.

but that's just me! to me, its invigorating. i wanna read stuff like that every day.

piece is entertaining, fraught w/ its own problems tho

― young money color me badd (J0rdan S.), Monday, August 27, 2012 10:45 AM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk i've read through this twice and even though it seems like it should be full of holes given how strongly worded it is i can't find any

My first response to Brandon's piece was "oh, thank you!"...

Speaking as an Actual Black Woman, not Race Non Specific Pretend Woman referenced in this article, I can tell you that the word “female” is a far greater point of contention than “lady” amongst sisters. And while plenty of women eschew the word “lady” or the expectation that one has to be “ladylike” to be respectable, others still cling tightly to the term and the traits. “Female,” however, is a term often hurled from the same lips that favor “b*tch.”

other people have sort of made this point itt, but i still don't think i get it. it didn't seem like brandon chose the word "female" very carefully (really like he was just picking the most prosaic thing possible other than "woman" because y'know that's actually in the song), but why is it 'hurled from the same lips that favor 'bitch''????