Affirmative action in hip-hop

- Individual examples of kinds of art in short supply are more valuable
- Subconscious affirmative action
- Plain ol' bigotry

s trife, can you tell someone's color from their IP?

Well, glad to see we could be your beta-testing group.

(while I'm white, male and heterosexual I'm not solely a rock fan. Plus the FMBB has its "token" female, homosexual and black posters.)

Definitely can't be that seeing as Brad's background is Chinese. ;-) I've met him, he's a fine feller!

Fave hip-hop tracks of this year:
"Lose Yourself"
Northern State - "Dying in Stereo"
And though they don't count, anything by the Str--ts

See, I'm nothing if not consistent.

It was a total disaster. I was there with a friend who was writing a piece about them, and I still don't like to think about it. I don't know if I'll ever be able to listen to the album again without wincing. What was fun in a small venue before E. Village hipsters just DOES NOT FLY in a large club filled with people who actually give a damn about hip hop. I'm not suggesting that you don't give a damn, Brad, I'm just saying that N.S. really, really stunk that night. Boring beats, off-kilter flow, dumb dancing....everything that could go wrong, did. The audience gave them the benefit of the doubt, and N.S. blew it. Most people stayed for the first two songs, but by the middle of the set the floor was emptying out.

I'm still traumatized. I really wanted (and want) the best for Northern State -- I respect them for just getting up on stage. Still, they'll stay a novelty act forever if they don't improve their live show. I can't applaud the practice just because I like the theory.

Finally I have someone to blame for that bullcrap god-awful Bubba Sparxxxxx.

Would it be more "Affirmative Action" similar to like a cross-section of different hip-hop performers, like having at least one Princess Superstar CD for every five Wu-Tang CDs, or similarly would having 20 Outkast mp3s require at least one mp3 of Cibo Matto's "Sci Fi Wasabi" for balancing/political correctness purposes?

anyway i was thinking about this thread today and i was wondering, is absolutely everyone involved with stan non black?? i mean we know em and dido but 45 kings color has never really come up, isnt he a latino dude?? thats so anticon!! its weird how you can imagine em and mark feeling on some dido but not any real rnb but its em with xz and dre and snoop and sticky fingaz etc is normal, maybe hiphop is finally a completely naturalized white people game!!

Northern State are much whiter because their appeal is only tangentially connected to that of trad hip-hop; their wordplay isn't full of internal rhymes or anything, it's just fun in an indie kind of way, which probably means a male kind of way...

That De La track that samples Wings is even whiter. I don't like it much.

Luther Vandross is tangentially connected to hip-hop and is therefore whiter. This gets us exactly zero steps closer to a unified theory of whiteness, though.

okay also janet has boobs and flaunts them and michael never had that option.

but more to the point yes i think how female rappers deal with gender is a great deal of what makes them particularly interesting (that and boobs). like it dredges up things that need to be confronted and which male rappers often take for granted (not always though).

i mean if you liked mainly female ROCKERS would you call that "affirmative action"? or fuck, mainly female POPSTARS!?

i think i have a diva complex, which would explain why the male folx i like these days are ja rule and shit.

& currently caught up in the (haha) theory of meaning wrt/ "polynesian" hip-hop in aotearoa (& how in the scene a lot of things are sublimated - race/gender/sexuality - because "culture" is such an overwhelming/pressing concern (idioms/appropriation/etc/etc). & have lost my ability to think outside it, which means no useful contributions to this thread.

(& haha I should have emailed YOU when I won those tix to the Kog birthday bash & couldn't Drift North - I tried foisting/fobbing them to Andrew/Elisabeth but they were mewling INDYKIDS.)

Ha ha Sterling I'm *so* with you on this point.

And further, if white male rappers = wiggers...then why not white female rappers?

I can't think of many female white rappers. The only one I can think of is Princess Superstar, who is definitely not a wig.

It's cool you said Doseone, I was thinking exactly of him, as well as MC. 900 Ft. Jesus, when I asked that.

I've REALLY been getting into his stuff lately, especially Themselves' The No Music, which hasn't left my car CD-changer since I got it.

You should check out Dose One & Boom Bip's "Circle" and the Clouddead LP. His finest work, I'd say.

So, uh...I better check out this Clouddead album!