Music and Ethnicity

[Racetyme]

Hmm, this one is getting a little too heavy for me, this is getting to be too stereotypical for me, if I continue with this one someone is liable to get even angrier. And no I don't count people who have to hold their pants up, I guesstimate.

[Nixit]

Haha, it's funny that you said that.

[Racetyme]

Guesstimate? I like some other ones better myself, however any word based on onamatopeia is likely to get my vote. No, Pie, this does not give you an excuse to spell like an idiot.

[Schme]

No, I don't think so but Marshal Mathers ("eminem") is white... He should act it. Speaking ebonics is for lazy people and those without an education.

It's not that the cracker man is white that bothers me. As I've said, and as you'll see if you just check it out, Hip Hop (and Rap, being an element of Hip Hop, Rap) has been had many many many (significant) white players in it since it's very begginings, and on top of that, let's face it, where you're raised on who you grow up around is a huge factor in how you turn out.

The thing that bothers me about Eminem is

A: He sucks.
B: He has deviated, just as pretty well every other "Mainstream" popular hip hop artists have, from Hip Hop to pop techno crap.
C: He rhymes about stupidass things.
D: He grew up on a fucking farm, and not in Detroit as he claims.

Now, I'm not saying a white guy who grows up on a farm can't do Hip Hop either. I'm not that shallow. Hip Hop has gone far beyond it's original and stereotypical boundries.

What bothers me is that he claims to have grown up in the slums of Detroit to further his carreer.

Plus he sucks.

[Nixit]

Well, in your personal opinion, he sucks.


I do agree though.

[Schme]

Of course. Who elses opnion would it be?

You've not been reading the literature of the great pirate.

[Racetyme]

Exactly, everyone stop using that phrase. Also, in game people have been telling my character to stop writing his opinions in editorials. Everyone, editorials are your personal opinions. And stop saying "well that is just your opinion." It just makes you seem dumb.

[Nixit]

No, you were just stating it like it was a fact.

[formerly known as hf]

how do you act white?
Also, along the same lines
how do you act black?

When people start talking about 'trying to be black' - they're (I'm guessing - have we moved beyond the days of minstrels?) talking about trying to be part of a particular culture. Trying to tie-down and define 'Black' culture is as difficult as defining 'white' culture.

You can have a 'hip hop' culture, and a 'middle arsed suburban culture', which might be labelled 'white' or 'black'
- but all I was trying to ask is that people be a bit more careful when they go throwing around terms like 'being black' or 'being white' - it seems almost tantamount to homgonising a culture by race - when anyone with their eyes open can see that 'black' culture is a varied as 'white' or 'asian' cultures, and none are fully delimited by the race of the person who is part of that culture.

There is nothing wrong with teenage, white, girls liking 'black' hip-hop culture - it's cool, to them at least.
Racetyme, as a 15 year old, wouldn't you be a bit annoyed if you had people telling you 'oh, you're just following a fad', or 'you're just liking that kinda music/fashion because that's what everyone else likes'? I know I would, so why say that about those your own age?
- if loadsa people like hip-hop - maybe it's not because of the pressure, but because, like rock before it, and Jazz before that, it's in the realms of 'pop' rather than 'hip hop' (at which point I very much agree with schme - the vast majority of 'popular' hip-hop is nothing like what rap/hip-hop was, and sometims still as, at its fringes, which is a radical voice for those discriminated against.)

Just beacuse something previously 'alternative' is now heavily mainstream - no need to complain, or try to blame it on peer pressure - popular culture is ever-fluctuating, poeple never thought the Beatles would get anyweher, but they changed the face of pop mucis (ok - cliche example, but the point still holds)

As for MTV feeding them music schme? - I'd actually bend on that, I'm usually the one claiming that the media has control over our lives, what we do and our tastes/preferences. But, let's be honest - MTV would shut down overnight if all it played was acid jazz - it plays what it knows the viewers will like - which happens to be hip hop.

I guess the kinda attitude that 'white teenage girls should not try to be black by following hip-hop music and fashion (culture)' - which seemed to me to be what was being said - really got to me - as it just seems so havily bigoted, for so many reasons

[Nixit]

Well said Farmer, well said.

[Floyd]

Split from "What do Cantrians look like?"

MTV SUCKS MY NUTS! They don't even show music videos any more, they have just downgraded themselves to showing rich white pot heads and black rappers, in an effort to convert our youth into poor rapping pot heads. And all you white chicks, you still aren't black, and no, you never will be. So stop listening to rap, idiots!

This post made me feel a little ill... I cant believe someone could think like this!?

Although, saying that, i can identify with Racetyme, despite thinking nasty things about him right now, I remember going through a phase (I think most of us have) Where we think "The other half of society" In Racetymes case people who wear baggy clothes and like Hip Hop. I mean, obviously these people are complete idiots because they dont dress in black and love mettallica, right? wrong wrong and f**king wrong! people who listen to Hip hop are not idiots! they appreciate music in the same way as you do, they just happen to enjoy a different genre to you! thats no reason to hate them! and about this whole wanna be black/white thing, well, if Black people suddenly started worshiping you heavy metal bands (I can honestly say i have never seen a black "Mettler" in the UK) Would you laugh at them behind their back? "*snicker snicker snicker* Look at thems stupid niggers tryin' to be like us Aryan white boys *Sniker sniker sniker*". Stop being so freakin closeminded!

Edit: My bad.. i get exited

[Nick]

As for MTV feeding them music schme? - I'd actually bend on that, I'm usually the one claiming that the media has control over our lives, what we do and our tastes/preferences. But, let's be honest - MTV would shut down overnight if all it played was acid jazz - it plays what it knows the viewers will like - which happens to be hip hop.

No, they don't play hip hop. I'd watch MTV in that case.
They play rap.
I agree with the rest of your post, however.

edit: Oh and Floyd, how about not using those words on this forum? Try editing it out.

[Schme]

Farmer, MTV plays is produced and the content controlled by large corperations who are cashing in on the surging popularity of "Rap."

What bothers me is that firstly, all the content is controlled so as to not too upset anyone, but also too feed the masses the crap they came to see. That's not real. It's manufactured music. Product, not art. F-ck that.

Secondly, they are constantly classifying things as "Rap" when it is not in fact rap. The reason for this is because the consumers are reacting too the label rather than the material. Say somethings rap, it's good.

I don't mind techno pop. If that's what people like, I don't care. But don't call techno pop rap.

To rap is to rhyme to a backbeat. When they're all singing entire songs, it isn't rap.

[Nixit]

But that's not the case Schme, usually they rap the verses, but sing the chorus.

[Flak Jacket]

This entire discussion brings a certain artist to my mind.http://www.saulwilliams.com/