Notorious B.I.G As Role Model?

Jonesy

Jonesy

Wild Horses
Reading this got my goat. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/feb/13/notorious-big-barack-obama

Why should a rapper have to represent an ethnic group? Or a president for that matter? I find something a bit sus about people linking the problems of ethnic minorities and a culture grown out of part of that community. Surely social and political problems going back to the slave trade are to blame for the position many ethnic minority people find themsleves in.

That comment about white hip-hop fans is really stupid. OK, we all see those kids who try to emulate what they perceive to be the thug-lifestyle in their dress and mannerisms but how much of the hip-hop-buying public do they make up? I'm white and love hip-hop but enjoy it as someone outside of the culture, as do most people black or white.
 
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Sinko

Member
Many rap fans regard Notorious BIG as the greatest rhymesmith of all time. After all, he penned lyrics of such deep poignancy as "Niggaz, grab yo' dicks if you love hip-hop. Bitches, rub yo' titties if you love Big Poppa". Beautiful, huh?
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Christ, what an arsewipe.
 
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gumdrops

Well-known member
on one hand i think its unfair to think one rapper (or anyone really) should represent a community, but on the other hand, a lot of people DO think they represent their communities, albeit just one facet (which is a distinction people should make more often). its blurry out there on the frontlines of racial representation when theres less people to choose from.

but the idea that just cos black music appeals to white fans, its culturally irrelevant is fucking knackered at this point, and what most people use to justify why they dont like it (tho they still didnt like it when it had a mainly black fanbase). what i find offensive about this article is the idea that although biggie and hip hop DO promote anti intellectualism (well up to a point), all black public figures need to be like obama. i dont see anyone saying all white musicians/public figures need to be like gordon brown lol.

but hey, this is nirpal. hes never shy about kissing the arse of his target reader. yes i know its the guardian, not the mail/standard anymore, but im sure theres plenty (the majority ill wager) of guardian readers who still hate rap with a passion.
 
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crackerjack

Well-known member
There's an argument to be had about this issue somewhere (and he's right to bring up Tony Sewell, who's intelligent and thoughtful on it). But really this is pisspoor nose-tweaking from a professional polemicist, not worth the paper it's not written on.
 
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gumdrops

Well-known member
hes just a professional troll.

but i agree that hip hop, mostly, IS anti intellectual, does promote bad stereotypes, etc etc, but it also does a lot more and can work as brilliant music, that in the case of biggies first album, and countless others, is a lot more than that, despite BEING those things too. but all those things have a right to exist. and SHOULD exist on record. i would hate for someone like biggie to have censored himself or tried to present himself as morally upstanding when he isnt/wasnt (although the shitty new film tries to wash away a lot of the more unsavoury elements of his music and life). it shouldnt have to be just about the 'biggie' archetype or obama archetype.
 
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crackerjack

Well-known member
gumdrops said:
hes just a professional troll.

but i agree that hip hop, mostly, IS anti intellectual, does promote bad stereotypes, etc etc, but it also does a lot more and can work as brilliant music, that in the case of biggies first album, and countless others, is a lot more than that, despite BEING those things too. but all those things have a right to exist. and SHOULD exist on record. i would hate for someone like biggie to have censored himself or tried to present himself as morally upstanding when he isnt/wasnt (although the shitty new film tries to wash away a lot of the more unsavoury elements of his music and life). it shouldnt have to be just about the 'biggie' archetype or obama archetype.
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Totally agree (except about the film - given the inevitable restrictions of being the 'authorised version', it was pretty good)
 
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scottdisco

rip this joint please
crackerjack said:
There's an argument to be had about this issue somewhere (and he's right to bring up Tony Sewell, who's intelligent and thoughtful on it). But really this is pisspoor nose-tweaking from a professional polemicist, not worth the paper it's not written on.
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thank you Crackerjack, every word, cheers
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
All this Biggie chat is making me feel like I should dust off my copy of Ready to Die. Been a long while, it'd better be good. :D
 
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jonny mugwump

exotic pylon
Fuck me, what a pile of crap. Mind you, he namechecks Stanley Crouch- wasn't it Crouch who freaked out when Miles Davis discovered that you could plug things in? Loser.

And what's all this urbane elegant shit about Obama too- were people expecting him to turn up in a fucking nappy or something? So what happens now- if ur not urbane and elegant you get chucked in the bin?!?!?

what a loser...
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
Isn't the idea that all black musicians should all be making public service announcements to their communities, (urging them to pull up their bootstraps and fly right) a bit racist in itself?
 
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tom lea

Well-known member
the one who got me was matey in the comments section saying him and his mates were big hiphop fans in 97 and had never heard of biggie smalls. like what?
 
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jonny mugwump

exotic pylon
Isn't the idea that all black musicians should all be making public service announcements to their communities, (urging them to pull up their bootstraps and fly right) a bit racist in itself?
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YES! That is why when Q and Mojo are forced to acknowledge black musicians, Marvin Gaye will always be in there for What's Going On and why I Want You is never spoken about anywhere and is about the most sublime and strange LP that he ever made. The middle brow magazines of the world only equate black innovation when it has a level of social policy embedded.
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
tom lea said:
the one who got me was matey in the comments section saying him and his mates were big hiphop fans in 97 and had never heard of biggie smalls. like what?
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Yeah, I was just a 14 year old kid in '97 who only knew a little bit about hip hop, but I'd still heard Biggie's stuff, that's weird.
 
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gumdrops

Well-known member
YES! That is why when Q and Mojo are forced to acknowledge black musicians, Marvin Gaye will always be in there for What's Going On and why I Want You is never spoken about anywhere and is about the most sublime and strange LP that he ever made. The middle brow magazines of the world only equate black innovation when it has a level of social policy embedded.
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yep.

here my dear is ridiculously underrated too.

there was a little richard doc on r2 a few months back which did the usual thing of examining him only in the context of social upheaval/race/'socially worthy' things which pissed me off for a similar reason. not that those things arent relevant, they are (black gay rock n roller in the 1950s!) but would have been nice to hear more background on the actual career and music too.
 
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jonny mugwump

exotic pylon
The mainstream music press consists of twatty topshop haircut indie kids or drunken old bastards. Sack the lot of them without hesitation.

In their place, hire people who like to dance and can remember enough to write afterwards (not during for fucks sake). Main criteria: an absolute loathing and hatred of oasis that verges on the murderous.

Oh, and hire some of those other people too, er what they were called again, oh yeah: GIRLS. they can write too, i've seen it done.

easy see.

here my dear is ridiculously underrated too.
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completely. But it cant be one of the best 673265476 records of the week because it's analysis of the car parking situation in Stratford re: 2012 olympics is totally off the mark.
 
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crackerjack

Well-known member
swears said:
Isn't the idea that all black musicians should all be making public service announcements to their communities, (urging them to pull up their bootstraps and fly right) a bit racist in itself?
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It's interesting to observe the subtle ways racism/inverse racism works - would The Guardian publish a piece from a white person laying down the law for black role models?

That doesn't really need a question mark.
 
nomadthethird

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
gumdrops said:
hes just a professional troll.
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There seem to be quite a few of them on the British payroll. At least, ones who like to say the most flagrantly racist nonsense about hip-hop and have it parroted all over the internet afterward.

Maybe next white people can tell Latinos how it's appropriate to make art and behave--like Senator Mel Martinez, but not Daddy Yankee!

Daddy Yankee just makes music based on a fake persona of being Puerto Rican because Americans get off on listening to Puerto Ricans talk about what a shithole Puerto Rico is, and how Puerto Ricans move from one ghetto to another in the U.S.

I get so hot when poor people talk candidly about how their communities suffer. I can barely turn on the radio without getting aroused anymore. It's like a plague.
 
nomadthethird

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
The claim that was common to all the articles I've found on this same subject is that "only white people" listen to hip-hop. As anyone else who lives here can tell you, that is is probably the most absurd thing I've ever heard in my life.

Yes, hip-hop went completely mainstream around 1997, but so...? So black people are only allowed into pop culture when they are basically Bill Cosby? They aren't allowed to talk about the fact that a black man is more likely to end up in jail than any other ethnic group in the U.S., and less likely to receive a higher education than a white man from the same tax bracket, and will likely die long before that white man does, either from diet and stress-related illness (heart disease) or from a gunshot wound?

Hip-hop shouldn't depict black men who are flirting with the law and likely to go to jail because that's "fake"....that was the other claim that was common to most of the articles.

http://www.alternet.org/story/19570/go_directly_to_jail/

I suppose all of those rock and roll heros were great examples of whiteness, and great examples for white youth, too? Seems like we forgot about that.
 
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