David Brooks - GANGSTA!

it lasted a little while, then evaporated.

xpost:

who remember all the fun bugfuck insane Election year Brooks columns about democrat blue-staters(or whatever) being elitists and not eating at Bennigans or Fuddruckers?

Yeah all Republicans are the same.

(That's why he writes for the Times; seriously, he's just a Richard Roeper suburban media-dad kind of guy.)

PARIS, Nov. 10 - Semou Diouf, holding a pipe in one hand and a cigarette in the other, stood amid the noisy games of checkers and cards in the dingy ground-floor common room of a crowded tenement building and pondered the question of why he feels French."

"I was born in Senegal when it was part of France," he said before putting the pipe in his mouth. "I speak French, my wife is French and I was educated in France." The problem, he added after pulling the pipe out of his mouth again, "is the French don't think I'm French."

That, in a nutshell, is what lies at the heart of the unrest that has swept France in the past two weeks: millions of French citizens, whether immigrants or the offspring of immigrants, feel rejected by traditional French society, which has resisted adjusting a vision of itself forged in fires of the French Revolution. The concept of French identity remains rooted deep in the country's centuries-old culture, and a significant portion of the population has yet to accept the increasingly multiethnic makeup of the nation. Put simply, being French, for many people, remains a baguette-and-beret affair."

Though many countries aspire to ensure equality among their citizens and fall short, the case is complicated in France by a secular ideal that refuses to recognize ethnic and religious differences in the public domain. All citizens are French, end of story, the government insists, a lofty position that, nonetheless, has allowed discrimination to thrive."

France's Constitution guarantees equality to all, but that has long been interpreted to mean that ethnic or religious differences are not the purview of the state. The result is that no one looks at such differences to track growing inequalities and so discrimination is easy to hide."

"People have it in their head that surveying by race or religion is bad, it's dirty, it's something reserved for Americans and that we shouldn't do it here," said Yazid Sabeg, the only prominent Frenchman of Arab descent at the head of a publicly listed French company. "But without statistics to look at, how can we measure the problem?"

Mr. Sabeg was born in Algeria when it was French territory and moved to France with his family as an infant. His father worked as a laborer and later a mechanic to put him through a Jesuit boarding school, and he went on to earn a Ph.D. at the Sorbonne.

He scoffs at the notion of a French identity based on what he believes is a fiction of equal rights and France's reluctance to engage in debate about the gap between ideals and reality. "France doesn't know how to manage diversity," he said. "It doesn't want to accept the consequences of a multiethnic society."

Like most French schoolchildren, he was taught that his ancestors were Gauls and that "in 732, Charles Martel, the Mayor of the Palace, repelled the Arabs in Poitiers."

French leaders admit failings but insist they are working to bring equality to all citizens and have embarked on an oblique public debate about what it means to be French. But that debate is still bounded by fidelity to ideals of the French Republic. President Jacques Chirac told reporters at Élysée Palace on Thursday that the government "hasn't been fast enough" in addressing the problems of discrimination, but that, "no matter what our origins, we are all children of the Republic."

Further to the political right, the debate has taken on another cast: the far-right National Front party released a computer-generated video on its Web site this week that showed Paris in flames. "Immigration, explosion in the suburbs ... Le Pen foretold it," the banner over the video reads, referring to the party's patriarch, Jean-Marie Le Pen."

The idea behind France's republican ideal was that by officially ignoring ethnic differences in favor of a transcendent French identity, the country would avoid the stratification of society that existed before the French Revolution or the fragmentation that it now sees in multicultural models like the United States. But the French model, never updated, has failed, critics say. "France always talks about avoiding ghettoization, but it has already happened," Mr. Sabeg said, adding that people are separated in the housing projects, in their schools and in their heads..."

What Makes Some People French?

Anarchy in Paris!

"You take a population of young men who are oppressed by racism and who face limited opportunities, and you present them with a culture that encourages them to become exactly the sort of people the bigots think they are...."

In other words, he's not really actually conservative, but rather an aging liberal who is now suspicious of some of the stuff he probably thought twenty or so years ago as a college student. This is why he always has that aw shucks look. He's like a dork yuppie version of Christopher Hitchens! So he's always (like Hitchens) kind of a little bit -- but only a little bit -- right. In this case, the image of David Brooks listening to French gangsta rap on his iPod while working out on the eliptical machine in full-body sweats with some college emblazoned on them is the main payoff, IMO.

Curmudgeon: thanks a million for the kind words about my blog. (Nice to know someone's reading it.) I haven't published much on French rap, mostly because there's hasn't been much interest in the subject. But I'm a fan.

xpost: really?? i feel like i heard it once and didn't like it, but maybe it was the third i heard

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005QSSH.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

total wizard

It's hard to bother with that guy.

I couldn't get too far without calling him monkey.

and they use the same hand gestures as American rappers...

J’ai des choses à dire, je m’appelle disiz
J’suis un peu bronzé, ny name is basané
C’est toujours ca la France …

Eloquence
Année 2.0.0.3, le constat est le même examen de l’hexagone
Faut que sa rime et que ça sonne quand je pose
Militant dans l’âme expose mon combat explose les porcs
Les beaufs explorent ce monde de ouf
J’ai des choses à dire ch’uis anti-sarkozy, anti-Star academy
Mais qu’est qu’en pense disiz ?

Disiz la peste
De nos jours très tôt t’as la trouille
Les traîtres veulent les blacks et les crouilles
Le ton monte d'un cran dans les crews,
L'écran, la timp, l'état, le macro
y’aura plein de numéro d’écrou en France c’est illégal d’être pauvre
attention cache toi dans le trou sinon on te rappatrie dans le bateau
La patrie joue les batârds on t’fera payer les plein pots
Si t’est tard dans le hall, black de peau et que t’entend les pimpons
Sarko, Sarko, Sarko parle fragile comme du placoplâtre
Mets mes frérots black au placard Chirac fait des braco d’appart’
Mais le peuple accepte écarte les cuisses lui donne sa carte d’électeur
C’est ça la France fait gaffe au carotte met ton capteur

Refrain
Eloquence & Disiz la peste
J’ai des choses à dire sombre est l’avenir mais mes refrès m'assistent
Toi qui tize ton pastis vote FN si tu veux, vient me test si te peux
Mais laisse moi faire ma musique pour noir, blanc et arabe
J’ai des choses à dire je m’appelle disiz je suis un peu bronzé
My name is basané c’est toujours ça la France
Un tiers d'hypocrite à moiti collabo
My name is le négro

Disiz la peste
Nous on peut pas faire la grève inutile pas la peine
C’est la merde y’a pas de taff donc pas de grève
Trop peu d’inspiré comme Gyu Degresne
On fuck l’école et on s’engraine
C’est la merde on vit a la One Again

Tolérance zero parait que c’est crédo
Noir, blanc et arabes fumant le bedo sous le même préau
Y’a trop d’escroc Chirac premier délinquant
France convoqué devant le juge n’y va pas arrogance de sa part
Mon rap un rempart face à Le Pen et ses conneries
Eloquence et Disiz, instruction civique sur M.I.C

Refrain
Disiz la peste & Eloquence
J’ai des choses à dire je m’appelle disiz je suis un peu bronzé
My name is basané c’est toujours ça la France
Un tiers d'hypocrite à moiti collabo
My name is le négro
J’ai des choses à dire sombre est l’avenir mais mes refrès m'assistent
Toi qui tize ton pastis vote FN si tu veux, vient me test si te peux
Mais laisse moi faire ma musique pour noir, blanc et arabe

C’est ça la France, complexe, c’est ça la France
C’est ça la France, complexe, c’est ça la France
C’est ça la France, complexe, c’est ça la France

Disiz la peste
Et c'est qui gène les fachos que la jeunesse soit fachée
Martyrs comme des Falachas la chose
C’est chaud faudrait peut être se cacher
C’est ça la France Disiz, Eloquence
Sur un son d’accordéon des couplets blessants

Disiz la peste
Ah l’accordéon, quelle belle musique, quel bel instrument
Eloquence : ah je te le ferai pas dire ça me rappelle la France
Disiz : oh mais quelle talent c’est ça la France quel panache dis leur Eloquence
Eloquence : oh la la magnifique !

Just catching up with this thread...

Tracer Hand: you're right. French rap is almost always a few years behind, production-wise. The key for me are the lyrics, and the rappers' flow. There are some great, great records out there, if you can past the passé beats.

Current listening includes the latest Saian (pretty good). And I'm quite into the new Disiz La Peste.

As for where to start. There's a new IAM comp which has a lot of great stuff on it. The classic IAM release is L'Ecole du Micro d'Argent (1997), considered by many the best French rap album of all-time. Another classic is Suprême NTM's Paris Sous les Bombes (1995) -- worth picking up.

Some other favorites. There's a little group called Scred Connexion, five Algerian kids from Barbès in Paris. I'm crazy about their first record, from five or so years ago. These boys can flow.

TTC are a kind of left-of-center, Beasties-meets-De La Soul type group. Their flow is sick, and the production, for once, is great, too. Check out their debut, Ceci N'est Pas Un Disque (Big Dada). One of my favorite hip-hop albums, period, of the last half-decade.

Arsenik are definitely my favorite French rappers. They're amazing MCs; even if you have no French, you can't help but feel them. (You might know them from a track they did with RZA several years back.) I love Quelques Gouttes Sufissent, a total classic.

Can’t seem to get my Arsenik files uploaded to my server, but I'm throwing up a couple of TTC MP3s (for just a couple of days). Enjoy.

- TTC, Nonscience
- TTC, De Pauvres Riches

This is not the first time he's done this, either. A few years back he did an article called "The Organization Kid" about how today's Ivy Leaguers are uptight robots who have to schedule hanging with their friends in their daytimers. Turns out for his research at Princeton, he only spoke to kids that were reccomended by professor, so of course he only spoke to the biggest tools on campus. Oh how we laughed as the rest of us went back to our binge drinking and lipstick parties like the Youth Gone Wild that we are (thanks NYTimes).

Two other acts to add:

La Rumeur (especially L'ombre sur la mesure)

Rohff (especially La Vie avant la mort)

Not sure I agree that the French are usually behind the US - TTC certainly are not, have always been in the vanguard IMHO. But then I'm English.

AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE OI OI OI

Taibbi dissects what has got to be one of the worst things Brooks has written in recent memory.

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/01/27/populism-just-like-racism/

WHOA is this the right David Brooks, why is this in ILM, etc.

All I know is that David Brooks was a pseudonym used by Genesis P-Orridge in the TG days

i... do not comprehend this thread entitled "David Brooks - GANGSTA!" that is not about mavado. what is happening here?

LOL

Thankfully that album isn't called David Brooks: A Better Tomorrow. Imagine how confusing that would get for NYTimes editorial readers!

i... do not comprehend this thread entitled "David Brooks - GANGSTA!" that is not about mavado. what is happening here?

― r|t|c, Thursday, January 28, 2010 3:50 PM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^pretty much my thought process

the first album was gangsta 4 life: the symphony of david brooks though!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavado_(singer)

lolz, vybz has been at the wiki edit i see

"the first album was gangsta 4 life: the symphony of david brooks though!"

Hah I forgot about the subtitle.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/opinion/brooks-the-psych-approach.html?hp

Finally, pop culture has been far out front of policy makers in showing how social dysfunction can ruin lives. You can turn on an episode of “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” about a train wreck working-class family. You can turn on “Alaska State Troopers” and see trailer parks filled with drugged-up basket cases. You can listen to rappers like Tyler, The Creator whose songs are angry howls from fatherless men.

would like to see a lab report from the research he's been doing

His bathroom?

He's got his newspaper copy of the New York Times there. He's written about going to Europe to see Springsteen shows but I doubt he has even listened to Tyler on his laptop

srsly can't post enough photos of Brooks lookin pedantic

http://neveryetmelted.com/wp-images/DavidBrooks.jpg

has obviously never watched an ep of honey boo boo before either

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/opinion/brooks-weed-been-there-done-that.html

Turns out studies and findings all agree with him, imagine that.

Paul Krugman is off today.

How did you find that old HB tweet?

I googled "david brooks nas concert" and that tweet was the second result

Nice

What a night. Usually when I’m up this late it’s because I’m listening to NBA Youngboy.

— David Brooks (@nytdavidbrooks) November 4, 2020

Also found this interview where he mentions the concert. He is so proud of having gone to that concert.

https://www.newsweek.com/david-brooks-new-york-times-columnist-narcissism-mockery-and-hip-hop-340318

"I believe that, over the centuries, smart people had incredibly valuable perceptions. But I don't live in the past. People stereotype me as a fogey. I am not. I go to hip-hop concerts."

"Pardon?"

"I listen to Kendrick Lamar. I was at a Nas concert not long ago."

Though this is the unassailably best quote imo:

"I had metaphorical moral headphones on. People didn't associate me with an intimate life. Now, when people have a trauma, they talk to me."

Meanwhile the interviewer is needling him the whole time.

"People have traumas after talking to me."

In 1991 when David Brooks was a 30 year old man writing columns about how the Black people who make the music he likes deserve poverty and suffering, his current wife was six years old

— Hilary Agro 🍄 @hilarya✧✧✧@masto✧✧✧.l✧✧ (@hilaryagro) November 24, 2022

xp that woman should be paid a good salary to just keep doing that wherever he goes.

― JoeStork, Thursday, November 24, 2022 2:07 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

lol otm

This dude and his Nas concert.

https://chicagomaroon.com/17637/news/uncommon-interview-david-brooks-a-b-83/

CM: So I read somewhere that you listen to rap music. Who are you listening to now?

DB: [Laughs] It’s true. I was at a Nas concert! I can barely stomach Tyler the Creator, who gets a little raw for me. I come into contact with them through my kids, so they’re my avenue into the world.