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user-inactivated  ·  3346 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Changing Color of Hip-Hop

That ain't it, bruh.

The difference between hip-hop and those examples you pointed out is that those artists don't get belittled, demonized, other-ized, and scapegoated for their genre of music, except for when its sung a White rapper.

If I have to hear one more person say "Macklemore raps about real things, not drugs, money and hoes" one more time, I'm gonna punch them in the mouth. When someone says "this is cultural appropriation," when it comes to hiphop, they're pointing out the fact that people are saying: "It's not your words, style, culture or all that other stuff that we don't like, we just don't like you and how you look." Which is TOTALLY A THING THAT HAPPENS HOLY SHIT. That's the message being sent, when the culture is absorbed while the people from whom it was borne are kept at arm's length by people who don't want to associate with my skin-color.

When Forbes says that hiphop is run by a White, Blonde, Australian Rapper named Iggy Azelia, it's disregarding all of the effort that the Black community put into hiphop. It's a genre entrenched in a culture that's had to deal with oppression and suppression for decades. That's where the roots of the genre come from. And it's not like this is the first time it's happened either (Read: Black people jailhouse rock is scary, Elvis jailhouse rock is fuuuun!).

Seriously. Twerking. The Harlem Shake. "The Trap House." Fucking YOLO. All of these things get "discovered" by White people and repeated ad nauseum while simultaneously ripping it from the context it came from. There's a reason Black people get sick of it.

    "White people ruin everything man. I only got to say fo'shizzle for a week."

Yours isn't the first time I've seen the "instrument traced back to its lineage" argument, haha.The issue is that the people that created the music are excluded from it and their contributions are obscured, ignored, or flat out denied. It's not that White people can't make hip-hop without the "blessing" of Black America. Just don't forget where it fucking came from!

Edit: Similarly:

- "Quirky" ukele covers of hiphop songs fuck those things SO MUCH

- The fact that I get told I'm not Black while a bunch of Frat kids next door are blasting some Kid Cudi song about weed KID CUDI SUCKS GET SOME BETTER MUSIC FRAT BOYS NEXT DOOR.

- Big Lexi. Seriously? Seriously

- The fact that my roommate will listen to Fort Minor for DAYS at a time put shoves his headphones into his ears as soon as I play a Kendrick Lamar song on my speakers so he can avoid hearing it.

If I sound butthurt...it's because I kinda am, sorry, haha. My love for hiphop has stemmed into its own rebellious political agenda. I listen to it because I like it for sure, but I also LOOOOOVE listening to it because it makes everybody in my immediate vicinity uncomfortable - which is great.