I think its pretty fair to say somebody is concern trolling if they make the complaint whilst ignoring the rappers you mention.
Just search 'Mike Brown tribute' on youtube.
― tsrobodo, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 15:36 (nine years ago) link
it feels like this very overworn trope, that pop music right now is apolitical in a way it never used to be, is one of the worst iterations of the old-ppl moan of "it was all better in my day". no one who makes that complaint is ever actually interested in current political music or, usually, current music at all
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 15:41 (nine years ago) link
(SFJ using it is baffling because surely he KNOWS it's not true)
lex OTM. I feel that some people want to believe there's no politics in music anymore, as if that would prove something about young people today, so they ignore what's out there. I had someone moaning about this to me on Twitter yesterday and their example of a representatively apolitical modern band was One Direction.
― Re-Make/Re-Model, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:08 (nine years ago) link
Of course the Bay City Rollers were famed as Scotland's answer to the MC5.
― Re-Make/Re-Model, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:09 (nine years ago) link
i think this convo needs to include modern conscious soul/R&B artists rather than rappers but anyway, people have been complaining that rap isnt political enough as long as ive been into it (they said this in the 90s that it wasnt political enough like it was in the late 80s.. im sure in the 80s they said it wasnt as political as back when stevie and marvin gaye were making their great albums, etc etc)
― StillAdvance, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:15 (nine years ago) link
i guess it's partly the old-person narrowing of their cultural sphere so that they can literally only name a handful of young artists, and those artists get held up as encapsulating an entire generation, but it's still embarrassing to see. but people who say that are less interested in political music and more about shoring up their generation's qualities. a few years ago someone was moaning at length about how no young artists were addressing the economic crisis, i linked him to the first pistol annies album, and he wasn't remotely interested in it.
also these moaning types tend to be the sort who refuse to acknowledge music as political unless it beats them over the head with it RATM style
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:17 (nine years ago) link
It's why I tend to use the phrase "explicitly political" because once you start claiming that any music is devoid of politics you're in a tangle.
― Re-Make/Re-Model, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:23 (nine years ago) link
name them. stop dodging.
― ..but is he a virtuoso? (Raccoon Tanuki), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:26 (nine years ago) link
Scroll back a few posts
― Re-Make/Re-Model, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:27 (nine years ago) link
in R&B - erykah badu, dangelo, georgia anne muldrow, cody chestnutt, cassandra wilson (if she can count), meshell
― StillAdvance, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:30 (nine years ago) link
Alicia Keys and Lauryn Hill released songs about Ferguson. Frank Ocean weighed in on Tumblr. Rihanna tweeted about it.
― Re-Make/Re-Model, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:33 (nine years ago) link
dismissing current artists as apolitical also carries the insinuation that issues like feminism and LGBT rights are somehow not proper politics, given the amount of artists, high profile and otherwise, who have been vocal about them over the past decade - far more than i remember growing up
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:35 (nine years ago) link
Absolutely.
― Re-Make/Re-Model, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:38 (nine years ago) link
thank you – I've been having this fucking argument for years.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:40 (nine years ago) link
i feel that, as far as my own awareness matters, that explicitly political concerns in music are being felt stronger than they have since the early 90s. maybe through the 2000s i would have struggled to have named many acts who were addressing wider issues of social, political and global justice.
but i agree with what lex and dorian are saying, that you only have to delve a little deeper to reveal all sorts of things and that the buck doesn't have to stop at obvious agit-prop rock stuff.
― this is just a saginaw (dog latin), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:41 (nine years ago) link
as usual it's men who have no stake in gender and sexuality wars that pine for "political" material.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:44 (nine years ago) link
not to be all grumpy old man about it, but i dont think tweeting about it counts.
― StillAdvance, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:48 (nine years ago) link
hey grumpy old men are people too.
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:48 (nine years ago) link
dismissing current artists as apolitical also carries the insinuation that issues like feminism and LGBT rights are somehow not proper politics
What hip hop acts have been campaigning for feminism or LGBT?
btw, Modern Neo Feminism isn't political at all, it's a club. An identity club. They're not fighting for any cause.
― ..but is he a virtuoso? (Raccoon Tanuki), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:52 (nine years ago) link
like, i think theres a diff between making a statement (which i would say tweeting is) and actually making a song or writing a lyric about it.
― StillAdvance, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:53 (nine years ago) link
(duh! but its still a valid observation. i mean, what is dorian lynskey going to write his volume 2 about? political tweets?)
― StillAdvance, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:54 (nine years ago) link
Alicia Keys and Lauryn Hill released songs about Ferguson. Frank Ocean weighed in on Tumblr. Rihanna tweeted about it.― Re-Make/Re-Model,
― Re-Make/Re-Model,
Lauryn Hill? 90s rapper Lauryn Hill? Non of the acts out in last decade that you mentioned seemed to do anything more than a deleted tweet or a tumblr post.
― ..but is he a virtuoso? (Raccoon Tanuki), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:54 (nine years ago) link
I've often felt that capital-P 'politics' goes in and out of fashion in pop culture like waves. Sometimes showing you have a social conscience with opinions and concerns is a part and parcel of being an artist; and to the onlooker it can feel like everything, even some instrumental music, has an inherent politics at its core.Other times, it feels as though the wider pop sphere has little time for politics as this gets in the way of the personal. Again, I'm struggling to think of much militantly political music from the mid-late 2000s save for damp offerings by Green Day etc...
― this is just a saginaw (dog latin), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:55 (nine years ago) link
idk, a tweet in the moment might have more of an impact than a few veiled references in a song, especially considering that songs take awhile to make & release, and if they don't are often thrown together and quickly forgotten.
xp
― virtuoso thigh slapper (Jordan), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:55 (nine years ago) link
also, just wanted to add MIA to the list of excellent, modern, political rappers.
― StillAdvance, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:56 (nine years ago) link
xp Before Twitter you had to give an interview or write a song or say something during a concert to be heard. Obviously if there's another outlet to tell everyone where you stand some musicians are going to prefer that. You can't insist that only the old modes count.
And that may be why there's no volume 2 for me to do.
RT, I'm going to print out the post where I name The Game, TI, Run the Jewels, J Cole and Kendrick and staple it your head.
― Re-Make/Re-Model, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:56 (nine years ago) link
a$ap ferg did a ferguson song too iirc
also can we give it more than a couple of months before demanding fully thought out political statements in their music from rappers
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 16:58 (nine years ago) link
True. How many responses to the Rodney King verdict were there by the equivalent stage? Ice Cube's The Predator didn't come out until November and the verdict was late April.
― Re-Make/Re-Model, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:02 (nine years ago) link
MIA is 39, she came out over 10 years ago.
― ..but is he a virtuoso? (Raccoon Tanuki), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:05 (nine years ago) link
what do you need? someone under 18 who has just made their first single to come out with a new 'fight the power'?
― StillAdvance, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:06 (nine years ago) link
i mean, chuck d was in his early 30s when he made shut em down. would that still count?
― StillAdvance, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:07 (nine years ago) link
never mind that dangelo is 40!
i can link you to some 19/20 year olds making political rap records. they're just not famous, so i guess that doesn't count?
― virtuoso thigh slapper (Jordan), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:08 (nine years ago) link
How many responses to the Rodney King verdict were there by the equivalent stage?
what's maybe more relevant is all the LA rap about LAPD brutality/corruption that came out *before* the Rodney King incident/trial. which was quite a lot.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:09 (nine years ago) link
(not agreeing w RT btw)
Who said anything about Ferguson?
Again, way off, check your dates. T.I came out 15 years ago. The Game? 10 years ago, and that's really scraping the barrel I think. RTJ is just a misogynist fairly disgusting male ego trip from what I heard.
― ..but is he a virtuoso? (Raccoon Tanuki), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:09 (nine years ago) link
what do you need?
― StillAdvance,
I've said it enough times, anyone out in the last decade, still no one has provided.
― ..but is he a virtuoso? (Raccoon Tanuki), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:10 (nine years ago) link
this has been mentioned already righthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXsa6y2NJ14
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:10 (nine years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQs7CWKHM9w
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:11 (nine years ago) link
xp Yeah you're right about songs before Rodney King, but there have been pre-Ferguson songs about police brutality like Hands Up by Vince Staples. Will that pass the Tanuki test?
― Re-Make/Re-Model, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:12 (nine years ago) link
Lil B addressed Ferguson during his lecture(!) at MIT
http://www.thefader.com/2014/11/22/lil-b-mit-lecture-full-transcript
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:13 (nine years ago) link
this entire thread is evidence that people who make this complaint don't give a shit about political music, they give a shit about proving their generational point. also i intend to waste no further time arguing with or doing research for idiots like raccoon tanuki
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:14 (nine years ago) link
This entire Black Messiah thread?
― ..but is he a virtuoso? (Raccoon Tanuki), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:15 (nine years ago) link
J. Cole doing "Be Free" in December on Letterman:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0LNMviSTTg
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:16 (nine years ago) link
how about kendrick lamar? is he allowed?
anyway, i think this thread needs to get back to discussing what dangelo did say, how he said it, rather than yet another discussion on the internets about rap not being political enough like it was in the good ol days.
― StillAdvance, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:18 (nine years ago) link
I don't hear anything in that Kendrick song other than its title.
please post here What happened to socially/politically concious rappers for more of this
― ..but is he a virtuoso? (Raccoon Tanuki), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:20 (nine years ago) link
i don't like "i" as a track but if you don't see anything inherently political in a song that culminates in "i love myself" as the unironic chorus of a hip hop song in 2014, i can't help you
― shmup....smug....shmub....shmug.... (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:31 (nine years ago) link
Anybody ever listen to Raheem Devaughan's 'The Love & War MasterPeace'?
― tsrobodo, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:37 (nine years ago) link
i did, but not very much, i guess i admired it but nothing stuck much? political music and great music don't correlate unfortch
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:44 (nine years ago) link