Dylan wrote:I'm fine with my PE, DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, J5, De La Soul, Roots, etc., thanks.

um, as much as i love de la (maybe my single favorite rap act), they're not in any way free of misogyny. did you know that "mace is smackin ho's if ho's is startin static"? that's what posdnous said anyways. "sick of R&B bitches over bullshit tracks" i believe was trugoy's line... they're not perfect or anything. they also are extremely guilty of the whole anti-female discrimination thing you're talking about here with a line like "you live fables, unstable, acting very radical, projecting like you're hard but in fact, you're quite vaginal", or just using the word "pussy" to mean weak or wimpy or whatever, they do that, too.

all this is from Stakes is high.

Remember R.E.M. used KRS-1 for a rap on "Radio Song"?

God, that was possibly the worst song of the 1990's.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:

Dylan wrote:I'm fine with my PE, DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, J5, De La Soul, Roots, etc., thanks.

um, as much as i love de la (maybe my single favorite rap act), they're not in any way free of misogyny. did you know that "mace is smackin ho's if ho's is startin static"? that's what posdnous said anyways. "sick of R&B bitches over bullshit tracks" i believe was trugoy's line... they're not perfect or anything. they also are extremely guilty of the whole anti-female discrimination thing you're talking about here with a line like "you live fables, unstable, acting very radical, projecting like you're hard but in fact, you're quite vaginal", or just using the word "pussy" to mean weak or wimpy or whatever, they do that, too.

all this is from Stakes is high.

'Sfunny, but as I was typing it, I thought "You know I haven't really heard them all that much and I ended up selling 3 Feet High etc. etc." so I would probably leave them off my list. If we had a C/NC poll, I'd probably go with CRAP.
Thanks for checking me, yo.

"Sooo-phisticated!"

you know what they say, dylan... check yourself before ya wreck yourself.

one thing that i think makes de la very not crap is that their overall message is very positive. they're very much about transcending bullshit bling bling type shit, and finding real meaning in life. for that alone, i would cut them the slack on their talk about screwing chicks and wimpy guys being pussies... when i was 22 i woulda condemned the shit outta them for being so non-PC. now i'm more able to see the positive and excuse the negative. cause last time i checked, everyone suffers to some extent from cultural bias that comes from where they come from, and nobody's perfect.

i still heart de la. they've got a lot of good things to say. which is more than many hiphop acts, or my experience with them anyways.

There is no justification for the constant use of "bitch" and "ho" in hiphop or anywhere else. There is also no justification for saying something is "gay" when you want to say it's weak or no good or whatever. There are no "enlightened" uses of the word "bitch"; there is no "enlightened" way to equate a person with an animal. Spin it to yourrselves as elaborately as you wish. Whatever gets you through the night. It's fucked. And your heroes who do it are fucked. And you're fucked every time you do it.

oh my god this feels exactly like 1992!

i dunno angus, what you say seems to be predicated on the fact that there are no true bitches or ho's. there's a heavy aire of cultural bias at work, no question. i like how in dog shows, they say "that's a fine looking bitch right there". it's funny because it's proper and accurate. so in a culture where men accurately refer to themselves in metaphor as "dog" (i.e. they don't live a life with any refinement to it, they're living on a basic, animalistic level, by their own admission and bragging), another accurate metaphor would be for the chicks they knock up to be called bitches. the only question is, why don't they refer to their children as puppies. or DO THEY? hrm...

seriously, i find your use of "enlightened" to be a bit off... to me, the essence of enlightenment is seeing things for what they truly are. and "ho" for example... there are certainly women who can be accurately described as "ho" because they are indeed "ho's". your insertion of a personal condemnation of that reality... i dunno.

here's a story about enlightenment that i may have told here before...

buddha or some enlightened dude whose name i forget was walking by a river... and he saw a scorpion walking along the shore. it slipped and fell into the water. he reached in and pulled it out, and in the process, it stung him. he set it down on the ground, and again it walked near the edge and slipped in. he picked it out of the water and was again stung. an onlooker asked him "what the fuck are you doing, dummy?" and he responded "it's in the scorpion's nature to sting, and it's in my nature to help those who need help".

that's fucking enlightenment right there. calling yourself a dog and your woman a bitch, assuming you both believe that to be metaphorically accurate, i'd say that's a cultural thing that i don't get into so much, and it does make me kinda sad and all (as do a lot of aspects of hip-hop culture, like the assumption that bling means everything, or even means jack shit for that matter), but at the same time, it's not my place to homogenize the world and make everybody live by my idealistic view of how things should be. my cracker-ass vanilla world would probably be kinda lame, really.

it's funny how that works, that it's so easy to be intolerant of other people's intolerance (i.e. use of the word "gay" to mean "lame") when you've determined that your position is the more enlightened one, y'know?

toomanyhelicopters wrote:i dunno angus, what you say seems to be predicated on the fact that there are no true bitches or ho's. there's a heavy aire of cultural bias at work, no question.

(some stuff about a dog show)

he then wrote:seriously, i find your use of "enlightened" to be a bit off... to me, the essence of enlightenment is seeing things for what they truly are. and "ho" for example... there are certainly women who can be accurately described as "ho" because they are indeed "ho's". your insertion of a personal condemnation of that reality... i dunno.

(some Zen story)

he then went and wrote:that's fucking enlightenment right there. calling yourself a dog and your woman a bitch, assuming you both believe that to be metaphorically accurate, i'd say that's a cultural thing that i don't get into so much, and it does make me kinda sad and all (as do a lot of aspects of hip-hop culture, like the assumption that bling means everything, or even means jack shit for that matter), but at the same time, it's not my place to homogenize the world and make everybody live by my idealistic view of how things should be. my cracker-ass vanilla world would probably be kinda lame, really.

it's funny how that works, that it's so easy to be intolerant of other people's intolerance (i.e. use of the word "gay" to mean "lame") when you've determined that your position is the more enlightened one, y'know?

There's a little thing in the back of my head saying something like "but there is such a thing as right and wrong". I know in my cracker-ass vanilla world, I wouldn't want women to be called "bitches", but in my world women have a chance to be equal, which isn't the way the real world operates. So which is right, or "right", my fantasy world or the real one? Cultural sensitivity only goes so far. Clitoral circumcision is wrong. An eye for an eye doesn't work. Doctors can actually help your child. Etcetera...

Call yourself a dog and your woman a bitch? How about stop being dogs and bitches.

I don't want to type that word anymore. Stop making me type that word, cracker.

do you like the stooges?

do you like the sex pistols?

do you like led zeppelin, ac/dc, or the rolling stones?

if you're going to engage in insensitive discourse within a creative context, you have to make it work artistically. it's not easy to do, and many people slag women and minorities and whomever else as a reflex action, out of sheer laziness. which is pathetic. but i'm not any more inclined to throw away my copy of _death certificate_ than i am _raw power_. or even _metallic ko_.

i completely understand if people want to avoid ugly thoughts and feelings. they're ugly, y'know. but it's not always morally bankrupt of the beholder to find merit in entertainment that addresses those thoughts and feelings, even if the reality behind them is something with which most of us have no truck.

I think I hate hiphop more and more everyday[....](although I do enjoy about 6 or 7 of the NWA straight outta compton record). However, what drew me into it as a kid was clever wordplay

it WORKS. in spite of itself, because of itself...whatever. you don't need to wring your hands over the subject matter of art. i grew up in a 'liberal' college town populated by intelligent people, artists among them, who did this as a matter of course. it's as misguided as making misogyny or gay-bashing or racial hatred one's default stock in trade.

at every turn, music or literature or film that has made me uncomfortable has forced me to face something within myself. some vestige of the hatred or creepiness that i felt coming from it. i don't think the creators of these things necessarily had the inducement of self-reflection in mind, and not nearly all of their material was GOOD, but that has historically been one good thing that has come out of hateful art, for me.