Finally Rich - Chief Keef

...but the little grills understand

kids also liked Haysi Fanayzee; that doesn't automatically mean anyone else should take them seriously

― Solange Knowles is my hero (DJP), Tuesday, January 8, 2013 6:20 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Why shouldn't we take Chief Keef seriously though? Because someone thinks he's crap?

wait the kids liked haysi fantayzee? i only know them through critics

i don't deny Keef's album is art, it's just pretty artless as art goes

Shaun Cassidy maybe a better example than Haysi Fantayzee who are kind of a postmodern experiment

the discussion around Chief Keef reads to me like a bunch of critics hailing Carter USM as the hot new direction that will revolutionize rock music

xp: in a nutshell and from my perspective, yes; I think you can put together several objective* metrics where dude is actively horseshit

* where of course the importance of said metrics is subjective

but the thing in rap is that when "kids" get behind something it often becomes popular. then as critics it's something that we need to approach and evaluate and sometimes that music turns out to be really good. but this stuff can also often get popular under the noses of people with certain aesthetic biases.

which is why it's good to have people who aren't afraid to give the game's first album an 8.4

I'm not even sure about what "artless" means in this context.

which is why it's good to have people who aren't afraid to give the game's first album an 8.4

― da croupier, Tuesday, January 8, 2013 1:28 PM (24 seconds ago) Bookmark

i have no idea what that means

j0rdan i feel like you're equating "dismissing something without listening to it because it's not positioned as Respectable Art" with "listening to it and concluding that it's not very good"

but the thing in rap is that when "kids" get behind something it often becomes popular. then as critics it's something that we need to approach and evaluate and sometimes that music turns out to be really good. but this stuff can also often get popular under the noses of people with certain aesthetic biases.

what I have been attempting to point out without baldly saying it due to the shitstorm I predict will ensue is that one of those aesthetic biases is "being as niggerish as all get-out" and it therefore shouldn't be a big surprise that some segment of the population is going to respond negatively to that shit's elevation

but the thing in rap is that when "kids" get behind something it often becomes popular. then as critics it's something that we need to approach and evaluate and sometimes that music turns out to be really good. but this stuff can also often get popular under the noses of people with certain aesthetic biases.

this is a narrative - really several narratives - that bears a little more scrutiny than I think adult adherents of the "kids know the truth" trope tend to give it

i have no idea what that means

it's a joke about this site called pitchfork that has a history of giving rave reviews to rap music the kids dig even when old folks have their doubts

i'm reasonably sure that if critics and bloggers hadn't swarmed upon Chief Keef ahead of most "kids" outside Chicago, he would not have an album in stores right now, which complicates things a bit

Game was kind of an old dude comfort food-type new rapper in '05, though (especially when you consider debuts that year from Mike Jones, Young Jeezy, etc.)

The first Game album deserved the 8.3 Breihan gave it. And as the dude above me says, it didn't break new ground.

As for...

i'm reasonably sure that if critics and bloggers hadn't swarmed upon Chief Keef ahead of most "kids" outside Chicago, he would not have an album in stores right now, which complicates things a bit

― some dude, Tuesday, January 8, 2013 6:34 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

... I totally agree. But why is it a bad thing to write about music you like as if you like it? If you help music you like get new audiences, great. If they don't like it they won't support it. The problem to me comes when you pretend that your reporting is somehow superfluous to the whole affair. I don't care if the kids like Keef or not. I like Keef.

i'm not saying it's a bad thing. just that j0rdan acting like CK's success is entirely the product of a youth movement and critics are or should be just documenting that is disingenuous at best.

Yeah, and I think perhaps deej started that line of argument. I think it's too late in the day to talk about legitimate and illegitimate ways of blowing up.

What rankles are the broad-brush attempts to attach dude's demeanour and ethos (if he can be described as having such) to a narrative larger than himself. The point at which high minded critics decide to jump into the fray doesn't necessarily matter.

Of course there is ethos. There is always ethos.

And we're all part of narratives larger than ourselves that we are attached to, whether we want to our not, on a daily basis.

sure, the fact that he had heavy media coverage early on is not in and of itself a good or bad thing. i just felt like JS was describing a scenario that doesn't acknowledge and even contradicts that fact.

just that j0rdan acting like CK's success is entirely the product of a youth movement

this is kind of a function of a certain level of pop discourse that was once a valid reaction to the rock establishment's rejection of pop music and is now a tiresome pose that ignores how the industry actually works & hauls out the "olds don't get it!" as a prevent defense against the possibility of ostensibly youth-driven hitmakers also being awful at rap

what I have been attempting to point out without baldly saying it due to the shitstorm I predict will ensue is that one of those aesthetic biases is "being as niggerish as all get-out" and it therefore shouldn't be a big surprise that some segment of the population is going to respond negatively to that shit's elevation

― Solange Knowles is my hero (DJP), Tuesday, January 8, 2013 11:30 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but do you really think "being as niggerish as all get-out" is an aesthetic bias?

I have a lot of thoughts on this but all of y'all are terrible and I don't feel like wading in.

for the record i think it's a ridiculous proposition

I don't really see the point in attaching weight to ethos that doesn't appear to be informed by self awareness.

And I'm not denying the existence of a narrative, I just think the attempts to characterise it are clumsy and excessively visceral.

I have a lot of thoughts on this but all of y'all are terrible and I don't feel like wading in.

― hemioblock (The Reverend), Tuesday, January 8, 2013 6:52 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Please.

I don't really see the point in attaching weight to ethos that doesn't appear to be informed by self awareness.

― tsrobodo, Tuesday, January 8, 2013 6:54 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The question of "self awareness" seems to be a central one. It pops up in all kinds of weird places in the Keef debate, as when we were discussing intentionality in regards to Keef's off-beat-ness. Is the problem that Keef is not "self-aware" enough though? What other rappers could you say that about? Or does it only pertain to Keef?

i just felt like JS was describing a scenario that doesn't acknowledge and even contradicts that fact.

― some dude, Tuesday, January 8, 2013 1:45 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

what was his "heavy media coverage" early on? deej's gawker piece? my review of his mixtape on PF?

guys self-awareness vs lack thereof is undergrad shit can we not

well, i'm not referring strictly to coverage pre-signing or Kanye remix. but yeah how many unsigned teen rapper mixtapes are getting featured on Gawker and Pitchfork? i'd say that's heavy coverage by those standards.

but yeah i also do think it's worth pointing out that while the critical debate does break along racial lines, it also breaks along a generational line. every writer or blogger that i've seen speaking out against my review on twitter is at least one "era" removed from keef. i don't think it's a coincidence that none of them can even accept the idea that keef might make art that's acceptable to critique and also like.

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, January 8, 2013 12:14 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fwiw i dont think the critical debate does break exclusively along racial lines. there are black writers who like keef's music just as there are (tons of) white ones who don't.

the critics who enjoy keef's music are already a much, much smaller minority amongst critics broadly.

yeah. white and black critics definitely seem to like or dislike keef's music for pointedly different reasons, though.

but do you really think "being as niggerish as all get-out" is an aesthetic bias?

Based on what gets talked about/celebrated around here? It absolutely is an aesthetic bias. The reasons ppl talked about Odd Future aren't the same as the reasons ppl talked about Kendrick Lamar.

I'm not even saying it's an objectively invalid aesthetic (although subjectively? gtfo with that) but acting like it doesn't exist and it doesn't inform how people enjoy some these acts is flat-out stupid.

well, i'm not referring strictly to coverage pre-signing or Kanye remix. but yeah how many unsigned teen rapper mixtapes are getting featured on Gawker and Pitchfork? i'd say that's heavy coverage by those standards.

― some dude, Tuesday, January 8, 2013 1:03 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i would argue that the story was going to get out no matter what, once it had broken on worldstar. Then it became a question of who was first to cover it. It's like discovering the mississippi river, a story like this, from the weird angle of his immigrant producer to the story of recording it in his grandmothers ... i mean, lil b and soulja boy had recorded tracks w/him before a single publication covered him, and the cosigns were already coming in before the gawker article even ran.

yeah. white and black critics definitely seem to like or dislike keef's music for pointedly different reasons, though.

― some dude, Tuesday, January 8, 2013 1:06 PM (30 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they do??

how many acts broke on worldstar that never get that kind of coverage, though? it feels like all you're saying is he's the exception because he's exceptional, when you were actively part of a group of people who helped make him the exception.

well, i'm not referring strictly to coverage pre-signing or Kanye remix. but yeah how many unsigned teen rapper mixtapes are getting featured on Gawker and Pitchfork? i'd say that's heavy coverage by those standards.

― some dude, Tuesday, January 8, 2013 2:03 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

right but if you take away these two stories -- or at least deej's gawker story -- then the whole narrative of "mainstream/hipster media" pushing chief keef begins to fall apart. things really blew up with the kanye remix which had nothing to do with that piece... though people would like for you to believe that kanye west "discovered" chief keef because of "media hype" and now we all have to deal with chief keef because of that. which just isn't true.

you guys act like you've never seen a hood superstar before. lots of dudes are heroes to a few thousand kids in their city and NEVER get on.

The question of "self awareness" seems to be a central one. It pops up in all kinds of weird places in the Keef debate, as when we were discussing intentionality in regards to Keef's off-beat-ness. Is the problem that Keef is not "self-aware" enough though? What other rappers could you say that about? Or does it only pertain to Keef?

― dyslectic Christ Brown (longneck), Tuesday, 8 January 2013 18:59 (26 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah Imma call red herring on the self awareness thing. It's reciprocal, if critics are going to attach that much weight to dude's music it has to be able to speak back to some degree, yet everything that's supposedly interesting about Keef is peripheral to what it is he's actually doing.

you guys act like you've never seen a hood superstar before. lots of dudes are heroes to a few thousand kids in their city and NEVER get on.

― some dude, Tuesday, January 8, 2013 2:11 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

so why did keef catch on?

how many acts broke on worldstar that never get that kind of coverage, though? it feels like all you're saying is he's the exception because he's exceptional, when you were actively part of a group of people who helped make him the exception.

― some dude, Tuesday, January 8, 2013 1:09 PM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a total chicken-egg type thing in that sense. All I can tell you is that I jumped on it because I felt like if I didn't, someone else was going to and I was going to regret not having done it, because I believed that I would tell the story more accurately & with more contextual awareness than most of the people who would be likely to write about it. And I can tell you that in the run-up to Gawker actually running it, I was concerned that someone else would be publishing something any day if I didn't get there, and was kind of nervous that some big star would end up cosigning it.

This worry ended but being silly because getting their 'first' just meant that people accused me of manufacturing it, so that sucked

Yeah Imma call red herring on the self awareness thing. It's reciprocal, if critics are going to attach that much weight to dude's music it has to be able to speak back to some degree, yet everything that's supposedly interesting about Keef is peripheral to what it is he's actually doing.

― tsrobodo, Tuesday, January 8, 2013 1:13 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

??? i disagree

I'm forced to talk about the peripheral stuff because otherwise i'm "just being aesthetic" in my critique, bc of all kinds of obvious contextual concerns

But that doesn't mean that's why I enjoy the music

so why did keef catch on?

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, January 8, 2013 2:13 PM (23 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

unalienable artistic skill, clearly

& yeah @ some dude, taken to its logical conclusion your argument would imply I could just manufacture a successful artist like it was nothing, but people write stories about rappers in publications all the time & nothing happens with their careers ... Keef has a song shooting up the hot 100 right now. Riff Raff got a Gawker feature, and he most definitely doesn't.

unalienable artistic skill, clearly

― some dude, Tuesday, January 8, 2013 1:15 PM (49 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why is that so hard to believe? his music stands out to me, and to lots of other people.