Finally Rich - Chief Keef

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.

you're just saying things are the way they are because they were destined to be, not that any individual factor had any effect. basically the way rappers talk about their own success.

yeah if only every mixtape rapper i review on pitchfork signed to interscope

seriously, some dude you are talking out of your ass right now

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 12:30 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

But there are tons & tons of artists who could arguably (i'm not arguing it) fit this description, but this one happened to hit, and while I agree that his symbolic presence is part of the reason that he's resonated, i would virulently disagree that it is The Reason that he in particular is where he is. Basically, I think it's borderline offense for haters OR fans to deny him his humanity & agency in his own success

talking about a media snowball effect is not the same as saying that any single snowflake could have individually caused the whole thing, i'm not attributing anything to anyone

lil durk got signed to def jam because the quietus reviewed his single

one gawker feature and a mixtape review is a pretty small snowball dogg

if they were the whole of the snowball yes that'd be a small one.

i guess i don't know the difference between "media snowball effect" and "the media doing its job and covering a story"

http://thebrotherhoodofevilgeeks.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/4132321_std.jpg

were all the hysterical bloggers jumping on the "teen has gun, raps about it, IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD" angle just doing their job too?

I really think deej should be proud about getting there "first". There's no doubt that the urge to get there first also invested the story with a certain energy that made it... well... debatable in the first place. He did use the phrase "hip hop's next big thing" well before keef was anything close to hip hop's next big thing, after all. Wasn't it the same day that the Don't Like video dropped? So of course that did something to how the discussion turned out.

But forreal, Keef managed to release a good major label debut with songs that people actually care about just nine months after that article was printed. So this whole guilt thing that seems to be heaped onto that article is pretty stupid.

but yeah how many unsigned teen rapper mixtapes are getting featured on Gawker and Pitchfork?

to me this is really distorting reality and it's the same trap that ensnared people who think chief keef is a media-created fable. "how many unsigned teen rapper mixtapes are getting featured on Gawker and Pitchfork" seems like a really small fry to consider when the real question is "how many unsigned teen rappers get a kanye west remix and signed to a deal by a major label that includes a headphone line and a movie production"

Context is necessary but if people are suspicious about the motivations of critics regarding Keef it's probably because the overemphasis on context paired with the paucity of substance seems like the fetishization of something that's been very real for a lot of people in Chicago.

and those latter two things were happening even if deej and i drove into lake michigan in nov 2011 xp