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White Hip-hop bloggers angry at white music site's claim that they do not support white hip-hop bloggers · by Sach O
The white hip-hop blogger community is outraged over the racially insensitive comments found in a post at “music blog analysis blog” Idolator in regards to the controversy surrounding music journalist and noted “wigster” Tom Breihan. While reporting on the subject of a beef between Hip-hop bloggers and Breihan who’s been accused of racial insensitivity and generally not having a damn clue about rap, Idolator mistakenly assumed that those lobbying complaints against Breihan were doing so because he was white.
“Why the hell would anyone be complaining because he’s white? Shit I don’t care if he’s fluorescent green: anyone who says Pitbull is a better rapper than Nas is an idiot” opined a prominent caucasian blogger. “It’s a slap in the face to all of us” responded a representative from Rapdookie.com: “I’ve got over 40 000 records at my crib and now I’m being compared to this dork because of my skin color? It’s enough make a nigg-…ah a kid mad.”
While the outrage surrounding the way Idolator is covering the issue is palpable, few think that the discrimination will end any time soon. “White rap bloggers are often profiled and stereotyped, we’re often assumed to be part time indie rock journalists trying to leech off rap until white people stop caring about it and we can go back to writing about guitars. The truth is we’re just normal people who like rap and we hate that kind of douchebag as much as black rap bloggers do” responded yet another blogger. “It’s like they totally missed the point! I’m pretty sure CJ would have thrown up some blackface flicks if a black guy was busy praising Young Joc too.”
Others yet shrugged off the race related barbs as part of the game, but expressed outrage over other elements of Idolator’s coverage. “Their dolphin or porpoise reporter or some shit basically claimed that the hate directed towards Breihan is mostly because the guy gets paid to blog. KRAMER PLEASE! Then they tried to defend his cred by mentioning his love for Petey Pablo and Rancid! I mean that’s your problem right there…”
Hip-hop bloggers protesting Tom Breihan at an NYC “smoke in”.
Of particular ridicule was Idolator’s bizarre fixation with Breihan’s height as his 6’11 frame was used to note that “Breihan is no ordinary hipster”. The blogosphere was not impressed: “Fine, he’s tall. And he spits fire. And eats cars. Dude’s a regular hipsterzilla. So why can’t he write a hip-hop related article without coming off like a tool?”
Ultimately, Idolator’s insensitivity seems to reflect the same kind of issues which pissed off the hip-hop blog community in the first place: “We just want people who don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about to shut up and stop spewing their garbage on the internet. It’s not about your skin color, it’s about your lack of perspective and over-enthusiasm for shitty music which makes listeners of all races look bad.”
We at Ohword cannot claim to speak for Combat Jack (partially because he scares us) nor do we claim to represent white hip-hop bloggers (perhaps erroneously), but we will say this: we dislike Breihan and his ilk because his perspective seems uninformed by the years of music and culture which have preceded the stuff he’s reviewing. If not, he simply has terrible taste. Either way…Pitbull over Nas? I mean WTF…
lol @ dolphin or porpoise reporter when it’s obviously a seacow or manatee or dugong
— David Dec 11, 08:42 PM
This guys an idiot.
— wavecap101 Dec 11, 09:53 PM
I’m a reader of both ohword.com and statusain’thood. I don’t agree with a lot of what Tom Breihan says (and whether or not he deserves such a coveted spot is debatable) but I think he seems to an honest and not unfair music critic. First of all, Jay-Z is not a very good rapper anymore so anyone catching feelings over his posts on Jay needs to lose their stan card. Secondly, the Pitbull post seems to me to be obvious hyperbole (and a joke).
I think you guys should pick on someone else. (Bol seems to be the most full of shit blogger out there and that CJ guy and ohword [correct me if I’m wrong] cosigns him)
Respectfully,
CC
— Colin C. Dec 11, 11:18 PM
I think bloggers need to just be better writers, period, before speaking on anything, you dig?
Tom’s views are interesting, and I appreciate a different voice. I will not be swayed by the so-called “authority” on anything, because at the end of the day, it’s all rhetoric. I don’t have to agree with Tom to appreciate his perspective and his writing. There’s something to be said for a good writer with bad taste.
Besides, there’s a lot of hip-hop bloggers and writers whose opinions are limited to “this CD sucks” or “this dude’s lame”, but they never offer any qualifying reasons behind that. Incidentally, these tend to be the more popular hip-hop bloggers.
So who are we to say someone’s more qualified to write about hip-hop based on skin color? Some folks might assume I have no business writing about it because I’m gay, but guess what?
They don’t have to come to my site.
— nOva Dec 11, 11:48 PM
n0va,
I agree with you that your gayness and your skin color means that you shouldn’t even be on the internets at all. You should be hustling up a ride home from Eddie Murphy.
The nut(excuse pun) of the whole Breihan post…
“Tom Breihan has the burden of codifying cRap music for thousands and thousands (maybe millions, maybe not) of viewers of his work. When his reviews of Hip-Hop lack the scholarship and examination that his work on other genres contains he gives the appearance of treating rap music like it is simply jig nonsense. As a writer who will admit a certain disconnect to Hip-Hop prior to a certain point he displays a disdain for artists that precede his watershed point of view. Breihan should acknowledge that those artists have been given their places on the mantle of Hip-Hop for the artistry they have created, whether or not they have a current album at Best Buy is irrelevent.”
“I will submit to you that there is very little difference in the mindsets of a thirteen year old from Towson that digs on SuperChunk and a 13 yr old from Teaneck that was spellbound by Raekwon. Seeing either of those acts now can rekindle comfortable memories of youth and owning Walkman cassette players. Nostalgia can be a good thing to Breihan, but only for rock bands in his perspective’s wheelhouse.”
“We here at DP Dot Com are all for giving the current zeitgeist a smackdown, but in order to tumble the dystopia you have to regard everyone as equals. Tell your boy Breihan to give Hi-Tek the same scholarship as 120 Days and maybe we can all get along.”
“For those of you that can’t see past the ‘Race Card’ just let me keep it simple for you. Tell Tom to talk all that existentialist shiite when he reviews Raekwon’s new CD and then he will have his unrevokable ‘Hood status.”
“Combat Jack’s post was dropped on my site because we are actually readers and fans, dare I say, of Breihan’s work. To our dismay Tom doesn’t bring his ‘A’ game to the table when he discusses Hip-Hop. Could that be because he doesn’t have the background to fully understand the context and the canon which is before him. His background has NOTHING to do with race. Race is some make believe shiite like the people on MTV Cribs actually owning those houses.”
“Your background is what makes you a great music critic not your privilege or your vocabulary, although if Tom were to step up his polysyllabic game when discussing Hip-Hop it might make up for the fact that he comes to it so blissfully incomplete.”
(several comments dropped by D.P. @ Idolater)
— Blu Cheez Dec 12, 12:35 AM
Colin C. said:
> I’m a reader of both ohword.com and statusain’thood.
Likewise! As is nearly every blogger I know.
I’m assuming every blogger who has dissed Breihan is also a regular reader of his.
It’s not a contradiction. Nobody is saying dude doesn’t have a right to do his thing or he should be ignored.
You want to read it because a) he does have such a visible spot, b) he’s not really all bad… he’s definitely got talent, makes provocative points, etc. c) you just want to cringe sometimes at the so bad it’s good willfully “outsider” perspective.
That is not – despite Idolator’s automatic assumptions – really about race. Many of his critics are white guys. It’s more about one’s own attitude.
Recently Breihan wrote that he was waiting for “dudes in hoodies” to break out into a fight as happens at “shows like” Rock the Bells. I attended the same show and it was more accurately described by an Oh Word commenter as a love fest .
The above clearly shows Breihan drawing a line… you hip-hop fans over here. Me over there. That is him being an outsider not by race but by choice. And that’s clearly his prerogative. But you can see why it would rub people the wrong way.
It’s not even really a dis on him… I think it’s just a natural question on the part of us rap nerd bloggers to wonder why if there is going to be a single hip-hop blog at a legit news publication it shouldn’t be someone who identifies themself as – in the words of the great philosopher Damon Dash – “of the culture.”
> I think you guys should pick on someone else. (Bol seems to be the most full of shit blogger out there and that CJ guy and ohword [correct me if I’m wrong] cosigns him)
We’re fine with Bol but it’s not like we haven’t given him some shit in the past.
In looking up Bol references I found that old Status ain’t good post from May.
I think eauhellzgnaw’s comment is pretty spot on.
Also Combat Jack’s post was entertaining as hell and only someone totally unfamiliar (Idolator) with Breihan and the white bloggers who dis him would reduce this to some kind of crazy race revenge fantasy.
Dallas Penn does care about white people! Take it from me or the intern!
— Rafi Dec 12, 01:02 AM
music critics are supposed to be music historians. so if this cat isn’t making any sense because he’s uneducated, well, that’s one thing.
but he’s just stating his opinions. the problem is that he’s just like the rest of the pitchfork dudes: smug, self-important and dying to write something “that might make just one person think.” he offends me not because i disagree agree with his opinions, but because he writes with such a misplaced and long-winded certainty.
he is the type of journalist that wants you to know that he knows shit, not the type of journalist that actually writes about things.
— gforce Dec 12, 01:13 AM
LOL
Too soon for wholesale mockery of this whole situation I guess.
— Sach Dec 12, 01:46 AM
This shit is crazy! I totally DETEST clarifying myself, but for the greater good of peace, love and hair grease, I want to point out to all you “highly intelligent” folks out there that there’s nothing in my post that remotely infers or explicitly calls for any type of effin’ ban against any persons of any effin’ color, sex, race, creed, religion, sexual orientation (nullus), yadda, yadda, yaddda commenting on any types of music, particularly any music associated with Black culture. That shit would be plain stupid. Shame on all of you who wanna turn this shit into some effin’ blog race war. Effin’ idjits! My issue is that I (and apparently a whole host of cats) are tired of writers, who so happen to be White (like Breihan) and who come off as the “authority” at some of these “influential” sites like the Village Voice while writing weak shit with no types of repercussion from their peers. Who’s going to argue that in some circles, the Voice is not influential? That’s effin it! There’s no beef about dude getting paid, that would just be hating. Combat Jack don’t hate. There no effin beef against Jews, just a lil sideways jab/ payback at Serch. Combat Jack don’t hate the Jews. Nothing stating that Clipse and Jim Jones stans ain’t Hip Hop. Combat Jack don’t hate Clipse and Dip Set stans. Nothing against people who don’t cop beef patties in the hood. Copping bagels and hazelnut coffee on Flatbush Ave. and Bergen Street in the morning can sometimes get gully as all get out on account of those long ass lines. Hipsters? Ya’ll cool as shit and you throw some mean ass parties. Just don’t step to me questioning my hood status and it’s really good. A lot of you out here seem to be some real excitable types of folk with all this eager talk about race baiting this and race card that. Cut it out, it’s really not that effin deep! One thing I do know for sure though, is that if someone of color were in Breihan’s position (more mainstream than the usual “Hip Hop” blog) and posted some lame shit that could be interpreted as disrespectful of a culture, they’d catch mad flack. Case in point, all you cats trying to Professor Griff me just because I brought the heat to Tom.
— Combat Jack Dec 12, 02:09 AM
Word. Breihan’s defenders reduce this discussion to the fact that he is white and his critics are black and they have the fucking audacity to claim that his critics are “playing the race card?” White privilege is some serious shit.
In a matter of months, I went from defending Breihan from a certain kind of 4-elements revisionist newjack to loathing his rap criticism. I still stand by all of my comments though: he’s not qualified to review rap, but he’s quite entertaining.
Peace to Dallas Penn for holdin it down in Combat Jack’s absence.
— eauhellzgnaw Dec 12, 02:27 AM
No idea why you think this this mercenary manatee blogger (how you got porpoise from picture of from such a corpulent beast of the deep I know not) works for idolator. You might want to learn how to discern posts from comments next time. Idolator wrote nothing about Petey Pablo, Rancid, or Breihan’s height. That was all me, and once again, you will find out quite easily if you look at their posts, that my comments were in the, hey, comments section and not in the, hey actual post.
So you’re getting at Idolator for no reason here, they don’t take a side on this thing at all (I guess they do frame it in racial terms, but so did Combat Jack). And neither do I. Personally I can’t even figure out what the hell this discussion is about. The Combat Jack post was obviously about race, but that was all provocation, as was the now infamous “Pitbull is better than Nas thing.” Apparently now Breihan’s not that bad, but Idolator’s to blame for ostensibly employing manatees to fixate frivolously upon blogger height.
Really the problem here is that people listen to Rap and then go and listen to Rock and then go back and they get all confused, esp. if they are white. Really people should not be able to listen to both kinds of music. That way, no one will get offended when someone from one side tries to drop some shit about some shit that they know shit about. It seems pretty obviously from reading Tom Breihan’s shit that he didn’t know what hip-hop was until was hanging out with his punk rock friends in 1998 and Blondie came on and Debbie harry started rapping about fab 5 freddy, and he was like “whoa now I hafta get a job writing about this for the Village Voice so that I can piss off people who forgot that Nas never lived up to Illmatic”
ps check out www.hornymanatee.com
solid porn site
— Furman P. Slothra Dec 12, 02:59 AM
Conversation/meme has now officially jumped the proverbial manatee.
Must you kill everything you touch Slothra?
— Rafi Dec 12, 03:20 AM
4:20 am dude.
Time for another smoke-in!
— Rafi Dec 12, 03:20 AM
yo Slothra is about to nudge vigorously all you haters with his blubber. He owns over 10 million hip hop albums and listens to them ALL THE TIME. plus he lives underwater off the coast of florida and, although sometimes he suffers propeller injures because he’s got the pick up of an ocean liner and can’t get out the way, he still manages to stay up on the latest high artistic achievement by his boy Pitbull.
and I’m serious about hornymanatee.com. reviewed by the nytimes, got some hot man on manatee action.
— Furman P. Slothra Dec 12, 03:35 AM
^^^^
Let’s see—those who blast Breihan have been depicted as “reverse racists,” golden age dinosaurs/purists, disgruntled okayplayers, and/or jealous (aspiring) rap writers.
How many more do you all care to come up with before you start, you know, actually addressing the criticism?
Perhaps you should stop trying to be funny (you aren’t) and work on that.
— eauhellzgnaw Dec 12, 03:37 AM
easy there crenshaw
who’s defending breihan or labeling anyone? I’m sure I’m alone here with this one, but personally I think Beihan is worse on rock than he is on rap. But in general I think his writing is itself, overcooked. Everything is either “goegeous” or “cinematic” or “syrupy” or whatever. There are other ways to describe music.
— Furman P. Slothra Dec 12, 03:55 AM
This post is going places. Like chemo from all that protest-smoking.
— Sach Dec 12, 10:40 AM
has anyone else read breihan’s personal essay from college where he describes dressing up as minstrel tupac?
http://wrt-intertext.syr.edu/X/breihan.html
— reeshard Dec 12, 11:15 AM
I’m a writer for this very site and I still couldn’t give a flying fuck about anything discussed thus far in this thread.
— R.H.S. Dec 12, 11:35 AM
It’s a white thing, you wouldn’t understand.
— Rafi Dec 12, 12:19 PM
I’m surprised he hasn’t found his way over here. When I posted a criticism about one of his posts he replied that I should stop reading status. I had already complied.
*I’m a writer in the same chain of papers as he, and have been pubbed in a couple of mags, so I can assure you it aint jealousy.
— Gandalf Mantooth Dec 12, 12:35 PM
On the contrary, I wrote this damn piece and even I’m hesitant to comment now.
Blog threads like this one are always sort of stressful in practice. You’re jammed into an extremely full thread with a whole lot of dudes on myspace, and it’s always somewhere in the back of your mind that you might type something wrong or post something insulting and start a fight; I see that happen constantly in these threads.
— Sach Dec 12, 01:02 PM
Even though I think devoting so much time and effort to this guy is absurd, I think the conversation is bigger then its focus at the moment and Id like to attempt to make a point on the issue.
Breihan, as much as I detest most of his chest thumping ego maniacal bullshit was, more than anyone else, the writer who made me see that coke rap and the South in general is not without its merits, that in 10 years a whole generation of kids raised on Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy will be writing impassioned doctoral thesis on Project Pat along the same lines as RHS and Scientifik so its retarded for me to be so close minded and purist like the old guard always inevitably recieves the next movement. Basically hip hop comes in many forms.
That being said, my main beef with Breihan is how arbitrary his taste is, because hes such a good writer he masks his whims as serious critique and over a long period of time you really get a sense that dude is just picking albums at random and Pitchforking them as classics. The thing I think we all hate so much about him is if Im not mistaken a majority of us are based out of NY and love and cherish the tradition and history of east coast hip hop. Breihans from B more, something that instantly clicked when I discovered it because living around the area for a few years I discovered that there is an ingrained raging hatred for all things NY down there. Its some kind of weird penis envy that goes back to Jeffrey Maier or something far as I can tell. This is why he says shit like Pitbulls better than Nas, and the clear channel bullshit they play on the radio in B more is better than the clear channel radio bullshit they play on Hot 97, and just the general tone of glee coursing through all his Jeezy, Clipse, Trae felatio administering as the South rose to commercial and critical prominence. Whats helped is NY hip hop has been complete trash for the most part the last 3 years. Im interested to see how he responds to HHID, which is an undeniable instant classic Im sure everyone on this thread has been buring front to back on repeat all week. If he has the balls to bash it Im giving up on the dude. (P.S. aside from this nonsense, Please, all downloading leaches, and I am just as guilty as the next guy but if you want to continue to have liscense to hate on the current state of hip hop BUY NAS’ ACTUAL ALBUM IN STORES WHEN IT COMES OUT)
— BkBomber Dec 12, 01:47 PM
cliff notes?
— agent b Dec 12, 02:49 PM
> cliff notes?
Blog A’s ultra-meta joke post of Blog B’s misinterpretation of Blog C’s critique of Blog D goes awry when it is mistaken for further critique of Blog D.
— Rafi Dec 12, 03:16 PM
@BkBomber – your post sounded relevant and almost believable until you spoke of HHID being a classic – you really do excel at this sarcasm thing, don’t you?!
— khal Dec 12, 03:21 PM
Maybe, the phenomenon of white hipster indulgence in this brand of rap music is just, like, a role-playing fantasy thing. See, I don’t think it would be un-fair to give a generalized description of hipsters as thin, and weak (maybe effeminate?) but certainly they’re an un-intimidating bunch. Shopping is a sport for them. In contrast there’s the Gangster Rappers (is this term still relevant?).
Anyways, be it Jeezy, Weezy, Malice or Pusha T, their raps are inundated with hyperbolized tales of crime, violence, and violent, criminal sex. To listen to this music, then, is a way for Hipster-boys(and girls?) to participate (in a small way) in the hyper-masculine, cock-grabbing, pistol-whipping lifestyle of a Black Rapper Man. It’s just about sex.
But, also, it could be argued that these Raps are a forum for the Rappers to revel in the same fantasy. Some musicologists argue that, in America, Black Men have been feminized by the treatment they’ve received from whitey; Gangster rap, then, is a way to (over)compensate for that.— I don’t like pointing to one single factor for the birth of a sub-culture, but I don’t think this theory can be ignored.
Amen
— King Dec 12, 03:30 PM
Who the fuck cares about Jay-Z and Nas in 2006? If he likes Pitbull more than Nas, good, at least he’s not on washed-up NY rapper dick like 90% of rap blogs still out there – and i say this as someone who still likes a good number of washed up NY rappers from AZ to Raekwon. Tom’s corniness isn’t related to the content of his opinions, that he likes Petey Pablo, that he gives a shit about rock, or that he writes about rap as an outsider – but his conviction and unwillingness to acknowledge that, you know, maybe he isn’t coming from an informed place. I like to hear what non-rap fans think about rap; i just don’t need to hear them expressing it in condescending, smug superior form. “The best album by [x]” – you don’t always have to be ranking albums in some rigid heirarchy, its OK to just say “you know what, I think this new album by some dude from the south is pretty hot right now.”
Ugh.
— Antonio Dec 12, 05:11 PM
Additionally, I welcome most if not all criticism. But no matter how well-informed the opinion is, as soon as the writer invokes the word “nullus”, the only option I have is to hit the X.
— nOva Dec 12, 05:24 PM
Is everyone missing a key point here? I would guess that most people complaining about Tom are more knowledgable about hip-hop than rock and the other random music that he reviews. My point is that maybe he is just as bad with the non hip-hop posts as he is with the hip-hop ones… (I don’t know, I am just presenting another possibility)
— G Off Dec 12, 06:52 PM
Khal, in retrospect I was kind of rambling, my concised point was I dont think the Breihan issue is really race related. As for the Nas album, I could go on for hours but Ill leave it with the dude made a front to back topical hip hop album, study that shit there is a lot going on. Though previous comments Ive made on this site might make it seem obvious that Id completly Stan this album and get over entusiastic immediatly, fuck it I cant contribute any more to this thread, can someone please make a Nas post and actually begin a relevant conversation? If Breihan is aware of this site I gauruntee you hes at home right simultaneously looking down on us and masterbating.
— BkBomber Dec 12, 09:23 PM
Speaking as someone who is humbled on the regular by the depth of scholarship both here and other blogs (word to unkut) you can see the disparity between those who dig deep and offer analysis based on a wide breadth of knowledge, and those who write based on a limited understanding. I do think that the latter can have value (I’m interested in knowing how an indie kid relates to say, the Coup. That said, shit like Pitchfork’s review of the new Jeezy is some of the most condescending shit I’ve ever read on the internet) but it’s obvious that the former is the only one who should be speaking authoritatively. That said, your average music blog reader isn’t gonna be checking dude’s credentials, and it behooves an organization like the Voice to insure that if someone is writing for them, they actually know what they’re talking about.
— R-Lex Dec 13, 12:03 PM
when i review Nas’ album, check out my site.
— khal Dec 13, 07:08 PM
For a dissection of Tom Breihan and his ilk, read How Race is Made: Slavery, Segregation, and the Senses, by Mark M. Smith (University of North Carolina Press, 2006, 200 pp.). Seriously, it’s so on point.
There’s a reason Tom Breihan only likes rappers who have very non-white attributes: HE’S RACIST AS ALL HELL. Anything that he can’t classify entirely based on race scares the living shit out of him. If black people keep acting in ways he sees as “black,” he’s fine with it. When they don’t, he lets the sharp, unsubstantiated, backhanded criticism fly. He writes about hip-hop on pure racist emotion.
Don’t let any other racists tell you otherwise.
— NickeNitro Dec 13, 10:45 PM
Thread has officially surpassed the “Rick Rock track-by-track” as angriest talkback with 36 posts of death and perfected styles coming off your motha-fuckin dome piece in every fuckin borough.
— Sach Dec 14, 01:20 AM
WHAT PEOPLE DO NOT UNDERSTAND is that when Tom B. says things like “Pitbull is better than Nas” is not because he actually believes this. I highly doubt it. Everyone knows Pitbull is not better than Nas. I know it, you know it, Breihan knows it, my mom probably knows it.
What you all need to understand – he gives his articles ridiculous titles so that they GENERATE TRAFFIC TO THE VILLAGE VOICE WEB SITE. He does this so that angry rap fans like all of you suckers see a link to a blog article that says “Pitbull: Better than Nas” or “Jim Jones Better Than Jay-Z” or whatever the fuck, he KNOWS you’re going to click it. He KNOWS you’re going to get pissed off. Him and VV both probably know that you’ll send the link to all you’re friends, bloggers will post about it in their blogs, rant about it, provide more links to the VV website, get some more traffic, get some more advertisers to pay more money for space on that website, ect, ect.
I mean come on. Your lord and freakin’ savior Nas said it himself: “Hip Hop is dead.” It’s time to start looking at things from more of a business perspective.
— me Dec 14, 12:26 PM
It’s not a good long term business strategy to rely on the technique you describe.
For a blogger, always being provocative = good business.
Always stating some bullshit that doesn’t make sense = bad business.
— Rafi Dec 14, 12:39 PM
You can still be accused of stating bullshit that doesn’t make sense even when it makes sense to you. To this day I still hate “Hard Knock Life Vol. 2” and it’s the only Jay-Z record in the archive I don’t touch, yet people get all up in arms on some “HOW DARE YOU DISS JIGGA” shit when they read the review. Since when was Jay-Z untouchable? He wasn’t before he became the CEO of Def Jam and he’s not now. Was Nas untouchable when he made that awful crap called The Firm? Does 2Pac get a free pass for phoning it in on a couple of his records? People who want to make issues like this about race are more likely to be angry that their sacred icons of rap have been blemished and can’t fathom a world where everything their idols say is not 10/50 and five stars. Criticism is supposed to be exactly that – critical. I don’t know the overgrown white d00d who started all of this controversy and have never read his reviews or his blog, so it’s possible he is a covert racist or a white hipster who has no understanding of hip-hop’s roots. It’s also possible he’s dead on the money and it rubs people the wrong way. Above all I’d say it’s pretty hard to judge a man based on one article in print, or what ten other people say about that article, or what one hundred people say in reaction to those ten – and so on. I suspect if this really is as controversial as the # of replies suggests he might be laughing his way to the bank from the free publicity, then again he might be mortified at being used as a pawn in a never-ending argument over race and culture.
— DJ Flash Dec 14, 04:07 PM
“Criticism is supposed to be exactly that – critical.”
Sort of makes logical sense in way, but it doesn’t add anything more than saying 1+1=2 does.
A critic’s job is actually to critique. Reviewing doesn’t always imply criticizing.
The question here isn’t whether TB is right or knows enough—that’s all subjective. The question is whether his opinions on hip-hop are based on bigoted desire to see that sensory differences between white and black are maintained and perpetuated in society.
I think denying that TB is racist in this way is a very hard case to make. He adores all hip-hop that is very distinctively “black” and trashes any hip-hop that even begins to transcend race. That’s why you’ve got so many of his supporters distracting from and confusing the issue. It’s not his opinions that are being questioned, it’s his motivations. This has nothing to do with the state of hip-hop. It has to with the state of TB and whether a major publication can justify giving like that a national voice.
— NickeNitro Dec 14, 07:59 PM