CHRIS BROWN

i dunno i will give some credit to the OVO lead single factory that the songs they hand to various artists feel somewhat crafted for them -- it sounds enough like an A$AP Rocky song that it makes sense as his single in ways it wouldn't if that beat had been for a Meek Mill single or a French Montana single or something. the seams do show, though, and i dunno why 2 Chainz doesn't have a verse.

yeah i'd imagined similar (and the miguel seems like it'd be an especially sympathetic fit) but from what i've encountered he is a weirdly horrible guest rapper, too solipsistic for purpose basically

― r|t|c, Wednesday, April 3, 2013 9:38 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

kendrick's solipsism best shown in how polite and reserved his 'beast!' at the end of his problems verse is, as if he hadn't listened to the other two previously. he says it so daintily

lol the way everyone on that song says "BEAST!" after a whatever verse is easily the worst thing about it

also one of the funniest things about Kendrick on the Lonely Island song was him doing that

apparently the 'beast!' thing is an asap catchphrase? it's been easy to not follow his career

lol I hadn't even noticed they were all beasting off the riesling

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/you-me-and-chris-brown

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BKrxrooCMAAnzKG.jpg

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chris-brown-charged-hit-run-574467

there's gotta be some jail time here
― it was very clear that it's a sarcastic song (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, February 6, 2013

give him one week til he says "Y'ALL ARE STILL ON ABOUT THAT HIT AND RUN, CAN'T WE MOVE ON FROM THIS????" in an interview.

this guy is never going to jail folks, keep dreamin

Maybe if he gets that judge that Chad Johnson had a couple weeks back.

i will bet you one hundred dollars that he sees jail time or dies within the next three years

put it in yr xls, i am on record

lol jaymc to thread

Thousands sign petition to stop Chris Brown concert:

Close to 12,000 people have signed a petition to stop American R&B singer Chris Brown from performing in Dartmouth, N.S., next month.

Nichole Snow launched the petition on Saturday urging promoter Drop Entertainment group and radio station Energy 103.5 to drop Brown, who pleaded guilty to assaulting singer and then-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009.

"He might be a great performer, but he's a really bad person. So anything to stop people like that from being glamorized, I'm for," she told CBC News.

"Even if he still plays, at least we're starting a discussion."

News of Brown's upcoming performance has rippled through social media, and four corporate sponsors withdrew their support for the show once he was confirmed as the headliner.

Molson Coors Brewing Co., esthetics company Touch of Radiance and the Halifax campus of the Centre for Arts and Technology joined Rogers on Monday in distancing themselves from the Energy Rush summer music festival at Alderney Landing on August 31.

Even Halifax Mayor Mike Savage vocalized his disapproval of this singer.

Fellow musician Classified, who played the same concert as Brown in 2011, said he expected the reaction.

"I knew it was going to cause a lot of uproar and just get people talking about it. Personally I don't agree with him, I don't think anybody who hits a woman should be put on a stage."

The opposition also seems to be spreading. A Winnipeg woman has announced she'll protest Brown's upcoming concert in Manitoba by staging a rival event: a fundraiser for domestic violence victims.

Deeper conversation

But El Jones, Halifax's poet laureate, said there needs to be a more complex conversation than the one erupting online.

Spoken word artist, activist and Acadia University professor El Jones is the poet laureate of Halifax.Riley Smith
On CBC’s Q with Jian Ghomeshi she said many people seem eager to demonize a black man who sports tattoos.

"Then you get a black man who, you know, embodies what we find threatening. He has tattoos, he's a rapper and all of a sudden, I think that’s easier for people to say that's evil, that's terrible," she said.

She said white celebrities with troubling pasts, including Woody Allen and Roman Polanski, have been able to continue their public work without much controversy.

Allen started a relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, the adult adopted daughter of Mia Farrow while he and Farrow were a couple.

Polanski has been unable to return to the United States since 1977 when he fled to avoid sentencing on a conviction of unlawful sex with a minor.

"We had the Rolling Stones come through and Bill Wyman raped a 13-year-old girl, essentially. I mean he slept with a 13-year-old girl, which is non-consensual," she said.

Wyman, who quit as bassist for the Rolling Stones in 1992, was 47 when he began dating Mandy Smith, who was 13 at the time. He claims to have first had sex with her when she was 14. They were married for two years beginning in 1989 when she was 18 and he was 52.

"I think people are much more comfortable in demonizing [Chris Brown] and holding him accountable."

Still, Jones said it’s not surprising people are reacting so strongly in a province still mourning the death of Rehtaeh Parsons, the teen who killed herself after she was allegedly raped and bullied.

"Nobody listened to what she had to say. She was blamed and shamed and bullied about it. So I think that is an important to conversation to have where we are saying to survivors you don't have to get over it."

The promoter behind the concert said he is not surprised by the public backlash, but says Brown should be allowed to perform.

Entrance questioned

The controversy in Halifax came as a judge in Los Angeles revoked Brown's probation on Monday after reading details of an alleged hit-and-run accident in May. But Brown was not ordered to go to jail.

The convicted singer could come to Canada by applying for a temporary resident permit.

To get one, Brown's need to enter Canada must outweigh the risks to Canadian society, as determined by a border services officer.

"What seems to concern me, however, is that the people who get them more often than not are people who are famous to you and me, but not necessarily people who are important," said immigration lawyer Lee Cohen.

Loving El Jones' claim that Polanski's life and career have been without controversy.

I feel like the DV fundraiser counter-event is a much better reaction to this and use of people's energy.

Loving El Jones' claim that Polanski's life and career have been without controversy.

― The Butthurt Locker (cryptosicko), Tuesday, July 16, 2013 11:39 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha yes except for having to flee the country and live in exile for 30 years and being arrested and the US trying to extradite him, pretty much chill

the Woodly Allen thing doesn't compare either IMO. i did not know that about Wyman though.

also people care about CB because he's a consistent asshole and the other guys come across as, for lack of a better term, "respectable." also no one cares about bill wyman because he was, celeb-wise, the most forgettable stone.

Also their crimes being different on pretty fundamental levels. Just false equivalency all around. If you think CB is a good guy who doesn't deserve criticism, say that, not "wahhh other celebrities have done bad things, it's not fair."

she didn't say he shouldn't be criticized, she said there needs to be a more complex conversation. while obviously Jones' comparison points are off-kilter and fuzzy - that she calls Chris Brown a "rapper" is a red flag - there are plenty of bigger touring acts over the years that have been accused of abuse (Lindsey Buckingham and Glen Campbell for instance) who've been relatively let off the hook (by police & the public) even compared to Brown, whose probation apparently wasn't violated by throwing a chair into a window overlooking Times Square. While there are plenty of factors for this beyond race (the fame of the artist, the notoriety of the incident and the fame of the victim, for instance), it's worth noting this shit when people act like Brown is some unprecedented anomaly.

I think this ("I think people are much more comfortable in demonizing [Chris Brown] and holding him accountable") is totally true, and that doesn't mean I think he shouldn't be held accountable.

I think in the case of prior musicians accused of abuse, had it happened in a period of time where pictures of their victims could surface on the net within minutes and people would come face-to-face with the sheer ugliness of it, that most past celebrities wouldn't have gotten let off the hook as easily.

as i said, there are multiple issues here, but that shouldn't be a reason to pretend race isn't one.

sure, that's always a reason for some people, but there are plenty of his own race joining in the criticism as well.

my personal reasons for 'demonizing' Chris Brown over other celebrities has largely to do with the fact that he continued to be a repellent human being after the fact, without demonstrating a single act of contrition over the matter, and drawing more attention to how it affected him than her.

At least some of the other celebrities mentioned at least made an attempt at reformation or contrition, even if it failed.

you realize the implication is that his biggest crime is being really shitty at pr

again, i think chris brown is a slug who's basically gotten away with multiple violent crimes, but when people say stuff like "I don't think anybody who hits a woman should be put on a stage" and question whether he should be allowed to enter a country, and someone points out the reasons we might be treating him differently then we have other people accused of similar crimes, saying "nuh uh! i'd totally hate a white musician accused of abuse (in the future) if they were really bad at apologizing" is kind of needlessly defensive.

because I think it's a disingenuous argument. I would wager in most of the cases where someone get let off the hook for their actions, it was largely because it occurred in a period of time where it was easily able to sweep such things under the rug. That her examples all came from said era basically confirms that in my eyes. Hell, two people itt basically said they didn't know the Bill Wyman story!

James Brown's career survived his numerous domestic abuse allegations. Ike Turner got inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame while he was in prison!

i think it's also a bit of a sign of the times in the sense of how we look at abuse and violence against women now as opposed to how we did in the 60s and 70s.

I feel like the DV fundraiser counter-event is a much better reaction to this and use of people's energy.

― suggest bando (The Reverend), Wednesday, July 17, 2013 3:43 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is otm

also i mean chris brown beat up one of the biggest pop stars in the world in a somewhat public fashion. if he'd done the same to some random girl he was dating, i think it would be different.

which is unfortunate, of course.

i think you're conflating two issues here - "is it easier for people to demonize a black person" and "does not liking chris brown make me a racist?" Bringing up the numerous other no-shit factors like "the times" and "he's a jerk on tv" that come into why one might like Glen Campbell or James Brown but not Chris Brown really has nothing to do with the former question. El Jones probably doesn't like Chris Brown either, she's just asking for people to look deeper and think harder about who and who doesn't get stopped at the border (albeit in a sloppy fashion). Unless you genuinely don't believe that race plays a factor into this, there's no reason to get defensive about it.

xpost re my use of "you're"

Race plays a factor, sure. This is America, it plays a factor in everything. There are probably plenty of people that dislike Chris Brown because, in their eyes, he looks like a black thug.

But it's a reach to suggest that it's the most compelling reason that he's being demonized 'worse' than other celebrities. There've been several other valid explanations for why there is a perceived 'excessive' focus on Brown in the media these days.

da croupier's assessment of the situation is probably what El Jones wishes hers was.

as far as thinking deeper and looking harder, there are plenty of other people I'd rather do that for. but not fucking Chris Brown.

as far as the question "is it easier to demonize a black person", well of course it is. we have a pretty pronounced race problem in the United States, in case you haven't kept up with a certain other thread on ILX in the last week or so.

it is v tru that race is a significant factor in CB getting demonised more than other abusers but my takeaway is not that we should ease off on him but that we should pile on harder to the sean penns of the world

Also this is a celebrity controversy we're talking about so it kinda makes a major difference that the person he abused was a huge celebrity and we saw her face all beaten and bruised.

Like we can keep pretending there are many identical situations with white celebs and how interesting that people are so much more vocal about the young black man but the fact is there aren't.

n/m something similar was just said, I need to stay off this thread, it's a neverending groundhog day of repeated arguments

again, i think chris brown is a slug who's basically gotten away with multiple violent crimes, but when people say stuff like "I don't think anybody who hits a woman should be put on a stage" and question whether he should be allowed to enter a country, and someone points out the reasons we might be treating him differently then we have other people accused of similar crimes, saying "nuh uh! i'd totally hate a white musician accused of abuse (in the future) if they were really bad at apologizing" is kind of needlessly defensive.

I wanna disagree, just because I think "complexities" are often invoked here as a way of saying "and that's why I'm just going to talk about the music," which I think is baloney, but on a much smaller scale, Jef Whitehead gets two years probation for aggravated domestic batter and people in the scene - people I consider good guys, people who aren't dumb - fall all over themselves to do the "two sides to every story, let's hash this out" dance when talking to/about him. Or even talk shit about the victim. Even when the dude then releases an album called True Traitor, True Whore people write intro grafs to their pieces that elide the whole thing instead of maybe going "hey, convicted woman-beater dude, no press oxygen for you here."

This is apples & oranges in one sense, most people on this thread are gonna have to google Jef Whitehead to know what I'm even talking about. But the principle holds - the white dude gets a "but can we trust the accuser?" treatment (which is bullshit btw. I think he should be ostracized and ignored, as should Chris Brown). The black guy gets petitions to keep him from playing. There is unquestionably a race dynamic to all this - but the solution isn't to give Chris Brown any kind of a pass, it's to stop being selective about which misogynist assholes get called out

let's not forget that chris brown has also had a wonderfully successful career since

petitions aside

i think the fact that Chris Brown is A) incredibly high profile and B) beat up someone who was ALSO incredibly high profile and C) pictures of a beat up Rihanna surfaced immediately and that despite this he's D) completely unremorseful contributes to that reaction a lot more than race