Who Said Hipsters Listen To Crack Rap?

i think i wanna get this shirt though. its kinda tight....

what would he think the new generation of white hip hop critics?

or me for that matter....

sorry for being such a jacker by posting youtube clips but this is too good....

lakim shabazz--black is back

white hip hop "critics" are getting pretty ballsy....

i can't believe what its come to. the state of hip hop has gotten so awful, that it is now okay for white people to say whatever they want about hip hop with total impunity. and in the village voice no less. who would have thought that their blog page would become the mouthpiece for a new generation of white hip hop fans whose attitudes on race don't differ much from that of a duke lacrosse player.

man. i hate that people are going to think that i only started this blog to talk about tom breihan. the fact of the matter is though i haven't had much to say about hip hop in the last couple of days. thats until i read his review of the roots show at carnegie hall, a show which i unfortunately didn't attend

dude didn't hate it, but the review was pretty dismissive. he dismisses slum village like they are irrelevant ("Slum Village? You'd have to ask someone who cares about Slum Village"). he talks about common like he's an irrelevancy ("I don't much like Common, but he is a commendably dedicated live performer, running around the stage and generally staying on beat, though he too insists on busting lame freestyles.") he dismissed black thought, who while boring a lot of the time, is one of the better rappers we've ever seen as "a good worker bee." and he says that kweli can't stay on beat, sounds pretentious when he's talking about nina simone, and can't ride a beat to save his life. in a response to a comment, he says that kweli sounds better when "hes having fun."


what?! you've got to be kidding me. i'm not sure what tom means by that, but to me it seems like he's saying that kweli would be a lot better if he were talking about partying, girls, crack or guns, and not talking about positive stuff.

everything he ever says about a rapper who isn't young jeezy, the clipse or 3-6 mafia (all of whom i like also) is totally dismissive. if its not crack rap, this white boy from baltimore doesn't like it.

it's funny because a week ago i was in baltimore, and my wife and i stumbled into a really bad neighborhood in east baltimore. this was one of the worse neighborhoods i had ever seen. and after we found our way out, i honestly felt guilty about the fact that i listen to shit that glorifies drugs and guns. when you are confronted with the ramifications of the shit that these guys glorify, it makes you realize that its not a game. to some people the shit that the jeezys and clipses of the world talk about isn't a joke and isn't a ghetto gangster movie to make your white-bred life more interesting.

i'm not saying that these artists don't make good music. i've said it before and i'll say it again. i like all sorts of hip hop, and i'm not going to completely write off an artist because of lyrical content. but at least i acknowledge that the shit isn't necessarily cool. but when tom writes from his $1100/month apartment in williamsburg (or whatever lame, gentrified hipster neighborhood he lives in) and fails to acknowledge that crack rap ain't exactly good for the community that it effects, it absolutely incenses me. compound this with the fact that he writes articles like his review of the roots show that totally dismisses positive hip hop, and it makes you realize what's going on...

tom's a white boy who wants to listen to music that affirms what he really thinks. he may use big words and an air of pretension to talk about it, but it doesn't change a thing. he's a white boy who praise negative depictions of african-americans and feels threatened by the positive depictions of them...there's a name for people like that. its not going to take you long to figure out what it is.....

since someone asked....

here is the track listing of bside's burnas

swang (remix) - trae feat. jim jones, h.a.w.k. & pimp c
life without fear - ice water slaughter feat. devin
fat joe's in town - fat joe
hustlin - rick ross
gotta give the people - epmd
recognize - the lox
me too - clipse feat. pharell
posse on broadway - sir mix-a-lot
do the right thing - redhead kingpin & the fbi

BSide's Burnas Week 1

as a new feature on the bside im going to put up an occasional 30 min. mix of what i'm into at ag. i'd like to say that its going to be weekly, but who knows. just so you know, i'm not a dj, so i've done the best i can putting together 30 minutes of music with some continuity. and you'll be happy to know that i resisted the urge to ruin it with loads of chuck d drops....

anyways here goes week 1. includes about 8 tracks by everyone from redhead kingpin to ice water slaughter....i know. sounds like a real winner. but give it a try. i think its all right. but if it sucks, lemme know....

bside's burnas week 1

this isn't good at all...

paris hilton feat. fat joe & jada

nuff said. well not really. i just wanna say that no reason to hate on joe and jada cuz of this. those dudes are just getting paid. after all, m.o.p. did a song with lfo, and no one cares. didn't ruin m.o.p. for me (or l.fo. for that matter). sometimes people have to do shit to get paid. can you blame em? is everything that YOU do for money something that you're proud of? so give jada and joe a break for this one....

but if you're a true hip hop fan, there is something to be mad about, and its not that jada and joe did the track-- its that paris would even WANT to do a song with jadakiss and fat joe. is hip hop that watered-down? is it that much a part of the gross commercial culture at large that worthless rich bimbos think that jadakiss is cool? i guess i knew that, but still. makes me feel weird. now i kinda wanna start blogging about something that paris hilton doesn't like.

maybe i'll start a blog about eating or reading.....

The First and Only Fan of 'The B Side'

a flattering comment from Status Aint Hood.....

Whether Breihan is a "hipster" is irrelevant. What's important (for me, at least) is that he shows all the hallmarks of an indie rock kid who is a relative latecomer to rap music, one of which is a very weak grasp on the concept of rap vocalism (Hey, I thought Jaydee’s lyrics almost always sucked, but he could rap. He had a strong voice and rhythm—he could ride a beat—that’s all he could do, basically. That’s more than I can say about a large number of the vocalists such critics champion).

The fact that he gets to review rap for the Village Voice shows how little it has for rap criticism: nothing against Breihan, but can you imagine a major publication allowing a hip hop kid to feature indie rock reviews?

I actually enjoy his musings despite all of this, primarily because they are sincere, good reads. Mostly, though, I’m fascinated by how they evoke hostile racialized exchanges between the (mostly) white-identified newjacks, and the (mostly) black-identified newjacks, both of whom have really poor taste in rap; the former group either praises terrible white or nerd rap or terrible black thug rap (when they need to distinguish themselves from the other indie journalists); the latter group praises stagnant, self-righteous “conscious”/ 4-elements crap/anti-commercial crap. The two are very similar, but will never see it. The fact that they dominate a lot of internet rap discussion and fail to acknowledge other alternatives (aside from equally stagnant obsolete old-timer rap) is precisely why pages like bsidewinzagain’s are fantastic, but doomed to obscurity.

Posted by: eauhellzgnaw at May 8, 2006 09:45 AM

That's a good look right there. I didn't know ANYONE read, let alone liked this thing. I'll have to keep it moving once my antitrust final is over. But until then its all about vertical restraints.....Be back with more jewels soon.

More Fun On Breihan's Blog

more interaction--this time involving an angry rock fan named "dahata."

enjoy...

A dance class picture of some "gangsta" rapper is supposed to show that many of these guys are frauds? Hell, anybody with a brain knew that anyway. Even the myth of the badass African-American heavyweight champion (and we all know the boxing / hip-hop interface is crucial) is taking a severe (literal) beating these days, with Eastern Europeans like Vlad and Vitali Klitschko and Sergei Liakhovich battering and bloodying these "badass" black men all over the ring, and making them look far less than badass. *Ass-whupped* is more like it. Maybe the Russians are where it's at for street cred, brothers and sisters! Anyway, this Breihan dude seems to be trying way too hard with the hip-hop stuff: as Iggy Pop once said, the idea of a young male Negro is still so incredibly exotic to these naive lefty American journo types, far more so than the music often merits. Hip-hop is still treated by such types as if it's this outre, outsider form of art, when the reality it it's become every bit boringly up its own arse as rock and roll was in the mid-1970s before punk. Yeah bro, "I'm lovin' it" indeed! Music critics who are always poking around for any shred of commercialism with rock and roll bands seem to suddenly turn a blind eye to this issue when hip-hoppers equate artistic integrity with bling. Why is that? Because they are a bunch of hypocrites? If Thom Yorke suddenly did a McDonalds ad, would he get the free pass that rappers get? And finally, Breihan, you are a wannabe hipster, because if you're weren't you'd have the balls to admit that Mobb Deep's _Amerikaz Nightmare_ album was actually very good -- right up there with their "seminal" 1990s material. Even the Thomas Dolby cop worked. But since the album and band weren't seen as "hip" anymore at that point, you casually rubbish it/them and dwell on a lot of lesser bands. Don't go away mad, Tom.

Posted by: DaHata at May 5, 2006 10:19 AM

I'm not going to disagree with the whole personality thing, but the Three 6 dudes can ride a beat, and Dilla couldn't. He's not even remotely unique there; half the rappers working right now can't ride beats. But that matters.

(This dahata guy is adorable.)

Posted by: Tom Breihan at May 5, 2006 12:30 PM

Never mind the cutesy attempts at patronization, Breihan. DaHata speaks the truth, the kind that makes PC music critics -- who worship doo-ragged young black males with guns (as long as the guns aren't pointed at them) as romantic heroes, but who also see a shotgun-toting, beer-drinking southern white man driving a pick-up truck adorned with a Confederate flag as the ultimate enemy -- squirm. You Noo Yawk slick media boys worship transgression as long as it fits a college-boy's liberal PC agenda. Someday you'll grow out of it.

Posted by: DaHata at May 5, 2006 05:21 PM

dahata--i don't get your assessment of breihan at all. i guess your take is not from a hip hop perspective at all, but from the perspective of an angry punk fan. the fact is this. real hip hop fans have never given a shit when hip hop artists have sold out to corporate interests. when pete rock and large pro were doing sprite commercials in the mid 80s, hip hop fans were happy to see their heroes making some money. the fact is your rock and roll take on "selling out" makes no sense in a hip hop context. its the average white fan/critic who gives a shit about that, not real hip hop fans. granted, there are white hip hop fans who have adopted that way of thinking to hip hop music, but they are outsiders. that attitude comes from loser music fans who can't leave their basements long enough to get laid and get when their favorite bands are making money and having fun. i know very few hip hop fans who care if their favorite artists are making money as long as they continue to make good music. so if common and mos wanna do commercials, they should by all means. i honestly hate when rock fans import that stupidity into hip hop criticism. in fact, i'd think that is one of the biggest problems with the whole backpack scene--that they have adopted that way of thinking. im sure this is an area on which breihan and i can agree. as for your commentary on white liberals being obsessed with black thuggery, i'm not really sure what the point is. but just so you know, it wasn't iggy pop who came up with the idea that the idea of the black male is exotic to white liberal types. it was norman mailer in his piece, "the white negro." get your shit straight homey....

Posted by: bsidewinzagain at May 7, 2006 02:14 PM

derrida and juelz--hipsters and hip hop 2

guess who's on the cover of URB?

um....aceyalone & rjd2?

nope.

um....gnarls barkley?

nope.

murs & ninth wonder?

nope.

um....some weird techno guy i never heard of?

NOPE--JUELZ SANTANA, DUKE DA GOD AND JIM JONES!

seriously. i'm not making this up. unreal right? when did this happen? granted i havent read an issue of URB for like 2 years. i kinda got bored of it because because there were too many pictures of 16 year old girls at raves in portland. but what happened?

i guess i was right about the hipster set digging on the crack music. now i know for sure.

urb loves dipset. i wish i had it in front of me so i could quote some of the praise they have for these guys. the writer even said that he wishes jacques derrida was alive so he could deconstruct juelz's lyrics. what?! did someone just mention jacques derrida in an article about juelz santana?

i kid you not.

don't take that the wrong way. i think dipset is worthy of some real serious thought, critique and discussion. it's just strange who is embracing them now.

i like dipset too, but im a rap dude. im way more like a yo than a hipster (actually way more like a geek than either). while i might think about deconstructing dipset, i would never say it out loud. that sounds like the name of a paul barman song. deconstructing dipset.

but like urb is not a hip hop mag that you would expect to cover dipset. they should be covering rhymesayers compilations and watching wizard of oz and listening to paul oakenfold in perfect sync. not dipset.

so whats going on?

this confirms what i said in the breihan blog. the cool music types are sick of shit like vast aire. bring on dipset. thats the real hip shit.

but the thing is, its not as simple as that. this has implications. i was talking to my man daryl a/k/a quartermaine of the now-unfortunately-defunct critically acclaimed about dipset a while ago. he was like, i like em, but i can't forget about the fact that there are 14 year old kids in the hood who LOVE them.

he's right. thats not a good thing. the last thing they need is to have trapping (whatever that is), and crack and all that shit glorified more. so when white music critics sing their praises and don't even mention that fact its like they are oblivious to whats going on. or they don't care. i think the latter. i think they are too concerned with being hip to even acknowledge that maybe it ain't all good with dipset, jeezy and the like.

so i don't give a shit if you're tom breihan or the dude from URB or some other guy who lives off the lorimer street subway stop and you want to love that music. but please--at least acknowledge that there's something weird about this stuff being sold to the people who need it the least. enjoy it--but maybe mention that you wish little kids weren't enjoying it also.

okay lets go....

time to make this blog thing pop. got a response from tom breihan on the piece that inspired this blog. unfortunately he noticed that that was the only thing on this blog. time for that to change. now that i got my bsidewinzagain.com URL and cheesy bad myspace page-looking background popping off, i'm going to be updating a lot more frequently....so stay tuned.

anyways here's the back and forth between me and the sort-of hipster The Lawn loves to hate...

since breihan called out the lawn--the justus league message board--heres what some on the lawn think of him.

bsidewinzagain.com

Posted by: bsidewinzagain at May 3, 2006 06:58 PM

Bside, I like how you only have one entry on your blog and it's all about how I'm a hipster. If you only knew how utterly not cool I am. (And since when do I perpetrate like I'm from Brooklyn? I'm a Baltimore dude, and I talk about Baltimore maybe too much here.)

Posted by: Tom Breihan at May 3, 2006 08:41 PM

I never said anything about hipsters being cool. In fact the point of that rant was that hipsters are not all that cool. I think that they adopt what they think other people perceive to be cool and make it work with their cooler-than-me lifestyle. Whether you fall into that category or not was not the point. Rather, I think some of your tastes and opinions seem to resemble those of hipsters who perpetrate that they are from Brooklyn. But you do offer an interesting perspective and whether I disagree or not you are making a lot of the nerd rap kids angry. So you must be doing something right. As far as the lack of material on my blog, like any good nerdy rap fan I I spend most of my time ranting on a hip hop message board, the Lawn.

Posted by: bsidewinzagain at May 3, 2006 10:10 PM

For the record: Tom Breihan is no hipster.

Posted by: Will Dukes at May 4, 2006 03:19 AM

Well done Bside. You cut to the heart of it like a champ. Dilla doesn't suck. Weezy doesn't suck. Common doesn't suck. Jeezy doesn't suck. "Hipsters who perpetrate like they're from Brooklyn" do. Unfortunately, as you've conceded, this doesn't include Tom. Still that's a pretty sweet anti-"hipsters who perpetrate like they're from Brooklyn" blog you've got going. Keep up the good work.

Posted by: prm9681 at May 4, 2006 09:27 AM

Dan Higgs is a monster, yeah. He's coming to town to do a couple of solo improv jews-harp shows later in the month, and it'll probably be terrible, but I'm still pretty amped.

Glad nobody's calling me a hipster. That would be so embarrassing. I wouldn't be able to leave the house. I kinda like your anti-hipster/anti-me rant, Bside, but I don't think Dilla was overrated. That was the point of the thing, admitting that I'd always dismissed him out of hand and only realized what I was missing when he died and I actually bothered to sit down and listen to a bunch of his stuff straight through. He couldn't rap, though.

The Mountain Goats are really fucking great. You might like them.

Posted by: Tom Breihan at May 4, 2006 12:26 PM

Maybe I would like the Mountain Goats. I'll peep. But how can you love 3-6 and then say that Dilla can't rhyme? If you love those dudes then you certainly appreciate that personality goes a long way. You can't love "Slob on my Knob" because of the lyrical acrobatics that those dudes display. The point is that neither dilla nor 3-6 are great rappers, but they have personality, and that means a lot. Underground rap kids always underate personality, not realizing its the key. Jay-Z is better than Nas because of personality, not lyrical prowess--in that category its a toss up (or maybe goes to Nas). Obviously you get that--so how can you dismiss Dilla's rapping because his rhymes aren't the greatest?