kendrick is punching down with everything he's got......why?
― interstellar anthropologist+music philosopher, (Austin)
because people like _me_ are paying attention. like, the fact that i'm even posting in this thread says something about how big this is. seeing this ripple out over the past day or so has been really really interesting, because people who clearly know nothing at all about hip-hop are starting to be aware of it. like, these conversations start and i'm the only one there who's _heard_ of "the story of adidon". drake and kendrick lamar are household names in a way that even someone like pusha t isn't, and something like "meet the grahams", you don't need to go on genius to figure out what kendrick means when he says "drake you are a bad person and you should die". which is interesting because people who don't know...
i swear to god, last night this server i'm on is talking about it (which two days ago they wouldn't have, because they have no idea what the hell any of this stuff is about), and this white lady up in the yukon says "wait, if what kendrick is saying is true, why doesn't he just call the police? why is he saying this stuff on social media?"
and then the rest of us who are all SA victims try and explain how that works in practice until we have to peace out and use our TIPP skills, i mean, people gotta learn this shit somehow, i'm not judging this lady in the yukon for being ignorant, we're all born ignorant
i don't know hardly anything at all about rap beefs, but overall my impression that... like, when white people in the yukon who don't really know anything about any of the people involved start forming opinions, that's generally not a desired result
except the other thing that happens is that... someone like me, i've _heard_ of "the story of adidon" but i don't really pay attention because i don't really keep up with hip-hop and i _don't_ think it's my fucking business what the fuck goes on in the community
this shit drops and i think well god maybe i should figure out what's happening here
and y'all know way more about this than me, so, like. please check me if i'm talking out of my ass on any of this.
drake is incredibly popular. one of the most successful and popular rappers of all time. i mean what i know about drake is that someone asked obama what he thinks of kendrick and obama said "i prefer drake". that's kind of the impression i have of drake. but Serious Rappers don't respect him, and it's easy to look at it and say, you know, oh well it's because he's canadian, because he's half-black, because he never shot anybody
except, if i get what kendrick is saying, that that's _not_ why people don't respect him. it's not a situation where people roll their eyes at him and say "look at that fool acting like he's one of the best rappers in the world just because he's got a lot of hits". it's a situation where people who know him fucking _hate_ him, not just because he's a lying hypocrite, but because he is a terrible person who does terrible things and gets away with it, not necessarily on a harvey weinstein level but not that fucking far off either.
that's a really frustrating situation, not just because when people look at the community they think of someone like drake, but because this person is hurting people within the community and there's no mechanism of accountability. because drake is so powerful, most people within the community _don't_ have the ability to even call what he's doing to other people's attention. if drake's victimized someone, they have no recourse. nobody's going to listen to them. someone in drake's position can do what they want, can serially abuse people and take advantage of them and _hurt_ them, at least _within the community_, and...
and the only person who can say something about it and get listened to is someone like kendrick. and the only way to do that is to _not_ handle one's beefs within the community, to take it outside the community, by saying "look, look at this famous person within the community, this is a Bad Person"
is that great? is that a great way to handle a situation like that? not really. because "Bad Person" is an oversimplification, it always is, the world isn't made up of good people and bad people, and if one has a choice, it's better to heal than hurt. because one doesn't know what's going to happen, what the consequences are, of doing something like that. because one is appealing to, i mean, a dominant culture that _doesn't_ have the community's best interests at heart, that's oppressing and holding down the community, dividing the community against itself. no, that's not great, and what's the alternative? to let drake keep doing what he's doing forever and maybe piss on his leg every once in a while?
i could see how someone could feel conflicted in a situation like that.
― Kate (rushomancy), Sunday, 5 May 2024 14:26 (one month ago) link