[Severian]

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.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Severian

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

[Severian]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

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.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Severian

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

[Severian]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

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.

[Severian]

*drops mic*

[Rob Instigator]

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

[Severian]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

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."



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.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Severian

*drops mic*

good leave it there

[Severian]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

good leave it there

Now I feel bad for some reason

[louder]

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

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Severian

Now I feel bad for some reason

haha! im just messing around with you

[noisereductions]

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?

[pepper_green]

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?

[pepper_green]

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

[Severian]

Originally Posted by noisereductions

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?

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.

[Severian]

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.

[louder]

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.

[louder]

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

Cool new interview with Kanye and Kim.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

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