I’ve been sitting on this topic for a few days now, but last night I read Jezebel’s re-purposing of Slate’s Nicki Minaj piece and many things struck me, tying back to this post over at The FADER. Mainly, The Way We Argue On The Internet, Especially When The Topic Is Rap Music.
We are all suddenly idiots when we visit websites. Regardless of one’s age or level of education, anyone is prone to calling someone a fag or a retard during an online disagreement. That doesn’t mean it will always happen, but when it does it’s unfortunate and annoying and drives well-meaning writers and bloggers batty. (There are, however, a number of bloggers that don’t mind this sort of thing if pageviews rely on the endurance of catfights.) Multiply that times music and pop culture, which attracts any variety of fans, “experts” and youth and it doesn’t matter how rich and entertaining your turn of phrase is if you’ve decided Gucci is wack, or dope, for that matter. People largely aren’t reading your opinions to be entertained by them; they want your opinions to be in tandem with their own.
This shit has to stop. “The Post still fetishizes rappers as the bad boys of the entertainment industry. The vast majority of its hip-hop coverage — I’d say just from the informal survey that I took to find the above examples of faulty labeling, 80 percent of it involves the rappers involved in some sort of crime. As silly as it is, the word “rapper,” still has sensationalistic value at the Post that “R&B star” or “dancehall artist” or “mogul,” just doesn’t. Also, these people who have no idea what they’re talking about regarding pop culture, may hear about a (usually male) black recording artist and just assume that he is a rapper. I’m not saying that these people are racist (although, if they work for the Post, I’m not saying they’re not racist, either), but I am saying they’re lazy, ignorant and prone to stereotyping. That’s all!” — “If he’s black, he must rap”