Still haven't heard Still Brazy, nor do I plan on hearing Still Brazy any time soon. Ball me brazy, but I'm just not interested in this west boast knob's (bnob's?) foray into even more overtly gang affiliated bullbrap.

Am I talking enough nonsense yet to not get billed in Bompton? Bertain parts of Bompton rather.

Do the Crips do this stupid shit too? What do the two gangs ball each other? Do the Bloods say "Brips"? Do the Crips say "Cloods"? I'm just baffled. I never knew being in a gang was quite as quite as dumb as all this.

i don't think its all that dumb, more like your white guy is showing ;)

No. It's really, really, really fucking dumb. I feel like it's actually objectively dumb. Factually dumb. Not even a matter of opinion. If someone thinks it's not dumb, that person is probably a blood or crip, making them dumb as fuck by default.

As a spiritual person and an educator from Los Angeles, how can you possibly have nothing other than seething hatred for gang culture? It's only responsible for the purposeless deaths of millions of children, the destruction of countless families. It's attacked your home like a cancer. It's spread across the nation like a virus over our life times. So yeah, I'm not a fan of it being used in major media marketing. YG can suck my ass for promoting it.

Not tough. Not cool. Dumb. Stupid. As fuck.

to be sure, im commenting specifically on how you said Blood Speak is "dumb" when its clearly not indeed its kind of clever when you think about it. i don't endorse gangbanding but it doesn't mean i think all the culture is worthless, indeed if as a teacher if you don't start from a place of mutual cultural respect for people you will never teach them anything let alone how to possibly make better life choices. further i have learned its silly to dismiss things as "dumb" if you possibly just don't understand them

Ah. Yeah. No. But whatever. There's some "cultures" that I simply have no patience for. KKK culture. Nazi culture. Blood/Crip culture. I get where you're coming from, and perhaps it's a really good thing I didn't become a teacher full time. I'm sure it can be useful — necessary even— to come at these things from a place of understanding, but I don't think there's room for coddling. David Duke is running for a Senate seat, for Christ's sake.

Gang culture promotes violence and as much as I love hip-hop, I'm simply not the guy who's gonna look the other way when someone uses their position of influence in pop culture to help push an agenda of intolerance and hatred. How many people now know about this gang lingo just because YG named his album this way? How many kids? If gang life in Compton is still as bad as it was when I was last in Cali, isn't it conceivable — even likely — that someone's car will get shot up just for bumping a flag-waving Blood's record?

I think gang culture was a direct reaction to the violence that low-SES urban black families have dealt with from cops, politicians and citizens for generations, but that doesn't make the reactive violence justified. And the penchant for recruiting children of single-digit ages disgusts me. I'm just not the guy.

Maybe this is why I'd rather listen to this:

"I know most people wouldn't usually rap this/ but I got the facts to back this/ just last year Chicago had over 600 caskets/ man killin' some whack shit/ Oh I forgot, 'cept for when niggas is rappin"

Than any of that gangsta shit.

*drops mic*

Still Brazy is a dull record. I may have been a bigger thing if it had dropped 15 years ago.

I believe you dog. But the thing is, "people" seem to really like it. I recall an article on Flipboard via HotNewHipHop or some such titled "YG's (insert lame song title, probably with a b instead of a hard c) is pure genius... But you already knew that."

:eek:

I mean, yeah, maybe I should listen to the whole album before I judge. But I listened to snippets — I wasn't being entirely truthful when I said I hadn't heard it and had no plans to — and nothing made me want to listen to more. A quick skim of the Blank Faces LP made me decide to buy the album. I didn't hear anything worth troubling myself over.

Any record that would have sounded better 15 years ago probably shouldn't have been made. And based on what I heard, we can crank that back to 20 years easy. In 2001 this shit would have sounded absurdly out of date.

good leave it there

Now I feel bad for some reason :(

Upcoming releases

August 5: Travis Scott - Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight
August 12: PARTYNEXTDOOR - P3
August 12: Rae Sremmurd - SremmLife 2
August 19: Tory Lanez - I Told You

haha! im just messing around with you

sev, I don't disagree w/ anything you said. Though I am curious if overt imagery like The Red Album or The Blue Carpet Treatment turned you off as well?

always read this thread backwards like a retarded deaf extra chromosome hillbilly. it's like reading a magazine back to front.

then find out that the artists/rappers you guys are talking about are more down than me.

Still Brazy? is this nigga selling old saltine crackers?

I found out what Danny Brown was doing years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUcw7XISI

The Game's Red Album? Yeah. Also when he reps "Bompton" in "Roped off" and really whenever he makes an overt Blood reference, even though I do like his music for the most part.

With Game, it's a little bit different. YG's move seems like a calculated marketing ploy for his stupid fucking gang. He wasn't "Brazy" in 2014... not in this ultra public, in your face kind of way. Of course, you're not likely to miss it if you listen to My Krazy Life, but now it's like he's going out of his way to make sure that everyon, even the people who don't give a shit about him, aware of his affiliations.

It feels sneaky and dangerous. Like he made a crowd-pleasing album that put him on the map, and then, with his newfound influence, he decided to put his entire identity and brand into what amounts to a global Blood campaign. If he wanted to rep Blood culture, he could have done so this overtly from the start.

I think it's really irresponsible to use your influence for the sole purpose of propagating extreme violence. Had he come out of the gate like this, it would have felt less shady and negligent.

Of course, I'm definitely being a bit of a hypocrite here. After all, the lyirc "Talk slick an' get your neck slit quick, 'cause real street niggas ain't havin' that shit" has been in my life for 20 years now. But that's my personal nostalgia. Nothing good ever came of that shit, and nothing good ever will.

When you go from a life of violence and crime and poverty to a life of cultural influence, you do gain some responsibility for the messages you choose to promote. You have to make a decision, then, about how you're going to use that influence, and how you're going to acknowledge and accept your past while moving toward a future where people will hang on your words and actions, as stupid as that might be.

You can be a JAY-Z, and rap about how drugs and violence acted as a means to an end, something you used — something you owned — to help get to where you are today.
Or you can be a Ghostface Killah or a Kool Keith, and rap about violence in an almost cartoonish way, turning your experiences into fodder for fantasy and storytelling.
Or you can become a Kanye, and say all kinds of awful things, but remain selective about the topics you'll hit on, and balance out whatever negativity you bring to the table with equal amounts of positivity.
Or you can decide to use your experience to educate and enlighten, without ever glorifying. You can become a "conscious" voice, like Kendrick or Chance.

Or you can do something akin to what BIG and Pac did, and wear your violence on your sleeve, and continue to be a bitch ass child throwing tantrums. You can even do it in a genuinely brilliant way, as BIG did, or you can temper your testosterone with poetry and thoughtfulness, as Pac did. But ... y'know... Look what happened to BIG and Pac. You can't choose to become a symbol of violence in rap without being fully willing to meet the same fate they did.

If YG wants to commit suicide-by-drive-by, that's his prerogative. I won't cry about it. But the guy is essentially forcing his fans to fly a flag they might not even no exists. To me, he's a dirt bag. How hard would it be to, like, NOT insert messages in your music that makes your fans (can't help but think of teens here) a little bit more likely to find themselves in a "wrong color, wrong part of Cali" kind of situation? How hard is it to NOT play with fire?

Also, YG is no BIG, and he's no Pac. He managed to make a better than expected DJ Mustard album, but he sounds like HUNDREDS of other rappers out there. He should be thanking the good lord that he even has a shot at making a lasting impact. Instead, he's just saying, "Yeah, alright, now I can talk louder about Blood stuff! Blood stuff is the only stuff, after all. Yes. This is the right decision. I'm totally an artist."

Sorry to go off again, but fuck YG. I have zero respect for that guy. Anti-Kendrick is right. Sucks for him that "anti-Kendrick" is essentially the same as being anti-talent, anti-quality, anti-conscious, anti-thought, anti-original, anti-definitive and anti-all things that are good about hip hop.

Btw did any of you end up listening to the new Avalanches? We certainly talked about it a lot (I think?), so it's weird that nobody's said a word of follow-up. Kinda like when Deltron II came out in 2014.

I like moment of it, and Camp Lo does an insanely badass verse on "Because I'm Me," which is my favorite track on the album. Still hate "Frankie Sinatra." Heard it once, never care to hear it again. Doom and Danny notwithstanding, that's gotta be one of the least appealing songs I've heard all year. Absolutely disgusting. Makes me think of brats and sauerkraut.

Cmon, YG is a pretty good rapper. Of course he's no Pac, but he's definitely improved over the years and earned my respect.

http://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion...ian-interview/

Cool new interview with Kanye and Kim.

severian, rap music has a very established history of gang culture. your criticism is like soooooo 25 years ago. gang rap is like any musical subgenre, it reflects a particular culture and experience. hardcore crust punk isn't for everyone either, but if you a crusty drunk gutter punk they are singing your songs. well gangs like music too, and there is an extensive history pf gang oriented and affiliated rap. personally i think you're out of line to be so hyper critical of such. that is them. if it ain't you don't listen to it but like Pac said "check this you don't have to like the music but please respect it."

do you hate NWA too? the Seven Day Theory? Ready 2 Die? sometimes its actually important for art to reflect reality, and its important for yes even violent gangs to have music and culture they can relate to and find means of personal expression.
i might be biased having grown up in gang culture and around gangs and i actually don't bump any YG BUT i can understand and yes respect it

Gang rap is sooooo 25 years ago too.


It's not the music I don't respect (in this discussion) ... Obviously, as I've said again and again, it's the shameless promotion of gang culture. I already touched on how this shit can be a part of music without being an advertisement for gang behavior.

[/quote]
do you hate NWA too? the Seven Day Theory? Ready 2 Die? sometimes its actually important for art to reflect reality, and its important for yes even violent gangs to have music and culture they can relate to and find means of personal expression.
[/quote]

Again, already touched on how these folks can make music that reflects their reality without saying "hey everyone, I'm a Blood, Bloods are cool, idolize Bloods!" Neither Pac nor Big ever did this. They made violence part of their music, yeah, but they didn't encourage and promote gang behavior which is exactly what YG is doing.

[/quote]

Good for you. You're SO open minded that you "respect" gang culture. I am not that open minded, and I think it's insane to claim that anyone, anywhere should respect it.

Meanwhile, you can't hear the musical innovations of Kanye West. You can't respect him. So yeah, you're probably a little biased because of your regional pride, and that bias is making you ignore and even loathe legitimately respectable music, and respect and defend legitimately loathsome marketing campaigns that encourage pure negativity.

You should do something about that bias. It's making you say stupid shit.

* also, the fact that "rap music has a history" with gang culture is just a statement. It's like saying "Anerica has an established history of white power movements." It's not a defense. Just because something is, doesn't mean it should be. You're smart enough to grasp the logic of this.

In other words "that's how it's always been" is a bullshit excuse.

Not even talking about YG's music here. I'm talking about the overt promotion of extreme violence to teenagers.

Talk all you want, but that shit isn't ok, or respectable, in any way.

wtf are you talking about Pac was gangbanging the fuck on his records?? what, are you naive enough to believe kids will join gangs or commit violence because of some mediocre YG record? hahaha that his hilarious

i think you are out of your league and you should have left the mic where you dropped it.

why do you assume that is what it is? what separates YG Brazy Life from Game's recent Streets of Compton release? its not promoting gang culture its reflecting gang culture. there is a difference. indeed, perhaps because you don't seem to know a single thing about gang culture you didn't realize that "repping your hood" is a HUGE part of the machismo and bravado of gang culture. gang rap simply does what gangstas do all the time, repping their gang and telling gang stories. this is what gangtas do in real life, it then is reflected in the music.


well i disagree with you, music is free to reflect subcultures even if you don't like it. you are free to your opinion and criticism but anyone is free to criticize it

Yeah, but I already went over this. My take is that Pac balanced his violence with a poeticism and thoughtfulness that resulted in the creation of a greater artistic statement. YG, not so much (at all).

And I already said Pac and BIG did this shit before (along with countless others, of course, but we're talking about Pac, so Pac it is) ... And even with the help of insanely intelligent and socially motivated songwriting, he wound up fucking DEAD. So did BIG. Both of them had layers in their music that — intentionally or otherwise — elevated what they were doing to a higher plane, but they're fucking dead, dude!

As I said before, it's up to the rapper/artist of any kind what the message is going to be. If YG, or anyone, wants to follow in the footsteps of the golden era gangstas, he's allowed to make that decision. But he should be prepared and willing to meet the same end.


Uh, yes. Obviously, I am that "naive." Although I don't think it's naïveté, since this kind of thing happens all the fucking time. Art imitates life imitates art. You work at a school. I've worked at a school. You were a dumbass kid once, I was a dumbass kid once. You know how stupid and impressionable kids are. How is it unthinkable that stupid impressionable kids will be influenced by pop music? It happens constantly. It's almost a guarantee.

Even if nobody does "join gangs" or "commit violence" as a direct result of this shitty inconsequential YG album, YG is still choosing to use his influence this way, which makes it more likely that someone will. Again, why do that? Again, how hard is it to NOT play with fire? To NOT take the chance?


I'm not out of my league because I don't come from fucking Compton. I'm not out of my league because I don't have an up-close, intimate knowledge of gang rituals and behaviors. I lived through the '90s. I am entitled to have an opinion about this. I'm not spouting bulkshit rhetoric here. I'm arguing in favor of discretion on the part of musicians when it comes to highly volatile issues that potentially have very real ramifications and consequences for everyday people.

You're not listening to me.
I've already stated that I'm being a bit of a hypocrite here, since I do happen to be a fan of 2Pac and BIG (and NWA ad Eazy, Wu-Tang, and blah blah). So, yeah, my entire stance on this one is full of holes because of who I am and what I've listened to, and what I liked in my youth.

But here's the thing: I love that stuff today because I loved it when I was 13. I grew up with it, but far away from the real-life dangers and socio-cultural fallout of the culture that produced this stuff. In this, I was lucky!

If thirty-something me heard Ready to Die for the first time in 2016, I'd think it was really goddamn inappropriate, but I heard it when I was a young impressionable kid, living a pretty easy life with my academic parents in our suburban Pacific Northwest home.

As an adult, when I see this kind of ultra-overt gang culture promotion, it makes me concerned. I have a different perspective than I did when I was young. I worry about kids. I worry about gang violence. Tell me, is this really so unimaginable to you? YG's not simply "hood repping," he's Blood repping. The Game's Streets of Comton accompanied a documentary about the neighborhoods he came from, where the fallout caused by gang violence was shown as a destructive force for everyone in those streets. There was, for lack of a better word, a "moral" to the story. There was a deliberate attempt to educate white middle class bitches like me about the realty of living in a place where the color of your shirt can get you killed.

There's nothing like that going on wth YG's Still Brazy. Even if there is some depth to the lyrics at times, that cover is essentially a piece of gang propaganda. You can argue with me about it all day, but that's literally what it is. It's using YG's name and face, and combining it with absurdly blatant Blood imagery for marketing purposes.

It's saying "I'm a Blood, buy this album that I have essentially turned into a piece of Blood paraphernalia!" and as a result, you can't buy the album without supporting gang bullshit. That's tacky and irresponsible in my opinion, which I'm allowed to have. I am allowed to not be tolerant of anything that encourages violence, and I don't "need" to respect it because it's a culture. That's taking PC to a warped new level. It's taking the "art has the right to art!" argument to a disgusting and self defeating extreme.

Note: I am not saying YG shouldn't be *allowed* to do this. I'm not saying it should be illegal. I'm not saying it's inherently wrong or immoral.

I'm just saying I think it's fucking disgusting. I'm saying I do not like it. I'm saying that I wish YG had not decided to do this. I'm saying I think it's a wholly negative thing. That's all.

Right. I'm free to feel how I feel about this. You're free to challenge me and tell me I should respect gang culture. I'm free to say that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You're free to misinterpret my message and tell me I'm basically not qualified to not respect gang culture because I haven't experienced gang culture. I'm free to tell you that you've one-upped yourself on the whole "stupidest thing I've ever heard" front. I'm free, you're free. We're all free.

But just because we have the freedom to do something doesn't mean that thing should be done. For instance, some part of you knows that what I'm railing against is SES-related youth and minority violence, black on black crime and murder, and the longstanding gangland tradition of recruiting children into a world of drugs and violence and death.
I'm sure you realize this on some level, even though you love to argue with me.
You have the "right" to — for some reason — fight with me about what I'm saying (again: gangs bad, violence bad, encouraging violence bad), but WHY? Is this a right that you *should* exercise? Playing devil's advocate for Bloods and Crips? Sure, you can do it. You can take all kinds of umbrage at my disapproval of minority and child violence and you can cook up some rationale for why I'm, like, wrong to have a problem with this.

But Jesus Christ. Really? Is that really something you feel you need to do? Because it seems like you're making a case in favor of the Bloods and Crips (because Culture!!). Of course you can do it, but I have a hard time belie being that you even really want to. I think you just want to have an Internet beef and remind everyone for the thousandth time that you're from LA, and therefore must school anyone who mentions LA or anything related to LA.

Dood.

sure but that doesn't erase all the literal gang banging tracks Pac did talking about shooting, robbing, and killing people and repping M.O.B Pirus. perhaps because those tracks weren't on the radio you forgot how frequently they played a part of Pac's music.

i have no qualms with this statement, such is gang life. hence the tracks Ballad of a Dead Soldier, How Long Will They Mourn Me, Why The Good Die Young..

but again i think you mistake reflecting the reality of violence for somehow trying to romanticize or glamorize violence. very different scenarios. maybe because you might not have experienced gang violence might explain why you can't understand why people would want to listen to music that reflects this violence. well, it helps people cope with and make sense of it in some ways.

see again this is where your naivete is showing. i don't mean that in a pejorative sense btw so please try not to take offense. kids don't join gangs because they hear music or watch movies, kids join gangs because they live in neighborhoods with gangs and they join them because they are caught up, whether to defend themselves from other gangs, to find opportunity to make $ hustling, or even just to develop a sense of family and support system having come from broken family situations. point blank the number one reason most people join a gang is because another gang committed violence against them or a loved one. its a kind of security mechanism, a kind of community, and a kind of solidarity. hence why i feel it shouldn't be disrespected. sure i disagree with the violence but i understand the situation.



trust me You're out of your league. that is probably a good thing btw, means you don't have the psychological scars and baggage a lot of neighborhood kids have. memories of people getting shot or killed, memories of neighborhoods falling apart, memories of drug abuse.. kids that join gangs do so for some very serious reasons, the other people in the gang can relate to experiences based on somethings you have said that you clearly can't relate to.


again this is where your different experience causes you to completely misunderstand the situation. this kind of music is NOT promoting gang culture it is simply reflecting it and i can't explain it any further either you "get it" or not but it is what it is.

what i find hilarious is maybe you didn't "get" all the other blatant gang culture references in other rap the same way you didn't know when e-40 said "merking a nigga" he meant explicitly to kill someone. the music of A LOT of gangta rappers is filled with gang references, gang symbols, gang imagery. probably much worse than YG btw (i don't know i haven't listened to Brazy Life yet)..

seems to me that if you understood the references you had more of a problem with a lot of rap that you probably listen to because it reflects a lot of what you have been so critical of here.


you missed the point in your pontificating. i ain't mad at you or judging you, just trying to share a perspective that you obviously don't understand. i ain't even arguing with you more so sharing some thoughts to enhance your own perspective.

Well, I'm not even having a real fit about it. I just think it's distasteful for a rapper, in 2016, to choose to market himself this way. What's funny is that most of my bitching is just a direct response to your pushing.

Yeah, there's a lot I don't know about gangs, but I do know gang culture is inexorably linked to violence. I don't have a problem with every rapper who's ever gang-banged, though, obviously. And a lot of rappers I love have gang references peppered throughout their lyrics that I don't even pick up on. I do think gangs are an objectively negative, destructive phenomenon, but I have no problem with people telling their stories.

I have a specific problem with this YG album. Partly because it feels less like he's processing his experiences through art, and more like he (again, YG specifically) is glorifying the lifestyle.
Seems painfully immature at best, and potentially harmful at worst. Most of it has to do with timing. Like, we've been there, done that in hip-hop. Does this asshole really need to "bring gangsta back" in this specific way? It's marketing. It's a young, dumb kid who still thinks like an adolescent. It gets to me, seeing that plastered on over record store walls and iTunes. What a child.

his first album was called "Im from Bomptom" and he got shot while recording it, why are you acting like this is some new personna he invented for himself? im thinking maybe you never realized YG was ALWAYS gang affiliated

I never heard of an album with that title?

im sorry that was the name of the mix tape that dropped before My Krazy Life

It's the name of a song from the mixtape before My Krazy Life which ended up being a bonus track on the album.. MKL also had a song titled "Bicken Back Being Bool"..

Very true.

First off... What?

Second, no. I knew. I don't think he just invented some new persona. Not at all. But (again, as I've said before) it feels a little sneaky to fly the flag so overtly just after he gained a position of influence. Just repeating myself now, so I'm really and truly getting over this.

Louder, you know I was bumping MKL like mad in 2014.

Yeah, YG is gangy. But he managed to be gangy on MKL without turning the album into an advertisement for gang culture. I don't get why he felt the need to change the name of "Still Krazy" at the last minute to make the ganginess more overt.

Again, it's not like I have something against gang references in music. Or against YG even. I have something against tasteless bullshit that goes farther than it needs to.
But whatever.

I get it. The subject matter of the album isn't super interesting for me either..

Frank has a deal with Apple Music now so I assume the album is about to drop really really soon. About time.

Sean and Kendrick have a crazy song on DJ Khaled's new album.. Sean's verse was extremely good and he would've renegaded any other rapper but Kendrick had the upper hand because of his virtuosic flow and crazy rhyme schemes.

Nas and Cole have individual songs each and they were very nice too.. Nas' song is titled "Nas Album Done" so it's pretty much an announcement (WHEW NASTY SEASON IS COMING! I'M READY!!).

The rest of the album is pretty subpar though..

but again all those are your opinions, clearly the guy feels like it represents himself as an artist. you keep insinuating its something akin to a publicity stunt, i disagree. i think the guy just put out a gangsta rap record and honestly i can't understand why you're choosing this particular record for the brunt of your anti gangsta rap criticism.

i respect your feelings and opinions, i just don't understand the trigger point, we've talked about other gangsta rap records before no big deal.. why now?

I was right..

"Frank Ocean’s Long-Awaited ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ Is Due on Friday"!!

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/ar...ease-date.html