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Drake profile in NY Times

kitchenknightkitchenknight 4,922 Posts
edited June 2010 in Strut Central
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/arts/music/13drake.html

SS Catnip.

Posts to come in this thread:

Facepalm
Cringe inducing
So many bad looks
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  Comments

  • SoulhawkSoulhawk 3,197 Posts
    get that paper dawg!
  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    I found this piece too enraging to even offer any articulate thoughts.

    I have basically been struck dumb by this dude's corniness.

    He is the rap Lady Gaga--a thoroughly uninteresting person whose subject matter is limited to closed loop meditations on fame.
  • Jonny_PaycheckJonny_Paycheck 17,825 Posts
    If the NYT had any real sac they would've torn into this dude's bullshit the way they did MIA.

    a rich kid with family ties in the music industry, who starred in a major TV show as a teen, is manicured by a who's-who of rap industry kingmakers and records angst-ridden paens to his hard work and the tiresome/exhilarating life of fame and wealth. For this, he is crowned the savior of hip-hop. GIve me a break.
  • SoulhawkSoulhawk 3,197 Posts
    Jonny_Paycheck said:
    torn into this dude's bullshit the way they did MIA.

    I don't think that article was discussed here

    now THAT was SS catnip!
  • fishmongerfunkfishmongerfunk 4,154 Posts
    "music journalism"

    like JP said, the article lays out all the pieces but fails to make any connections. so uncritical.
  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    Jonny_Paycheck said:
    If the NYT had any real sac they would've torn into this dude's bullshit the way they did MIA.

    a rich kid with family ties in the music industry, who starred in a major TV show as a teen, is manicured by a who's-who of rap industry kingmakers and records angst-ridden paens to his hard work and the tiresome/exhilarating life of fame and wealth. For this, he is crowned the savior of hip-hop. GIve me a break.

    Caramanica never digs in; Hirschberg's notorious for it.

    Perhaps the most glaring example of FAIL:

    Sometimes he was hiding even when the cameras were off, sleeping on the show???s set. ???When I woke up in the morning, I was still the guy that could act and laugh,??? he said. ???It???s just that home was overwhelming.???

    No effort whatsoever to press him on his claims that "home was overwhelming" or why his allegedly "character-building" teenage struggles were any rougher than those of the average middle-class suburbanite.
  • BeatnicholasBeatnicholas 1,005 Posts
    ???I was a pawn,??? Drake said. The song he wrote for her never got released. ???You know what she was doing to me? She was doing exactly what I???ve done to so many women throughout my life, which is show them quality time, then disappear,??? he said. ???I was like, wow, this feels terrible.???

  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    Also, I note that while the album leaked more than a week ago, I have yet to encounter a single person online or on the real world riding for it.

    Perhaps I am disconnected, though.

    Drake: already over? What say my Soul Strut stans?
  • BeatnicholasBeatnicholas 1,005 Posts
    drake is who again??? us euroman. we say tepid.
  • fishmongerfunkfishmongerfunk 4,154 Posts
    did anyone here at any time ever ride for this dudes music?

    isn;t this a scenario where a cabal of agents and "journalists" has simply foisted him on us? i mean he clearly has zero musical talent and he doesn;t even have a visual hook or whatever like that feathery justin bieber's hair or lady gag's costumes..
  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    Caramanica is usually way better than this. My view is that Drake is the kind of rapper that broadsheet music critics need/want to be important, so consequently, that's how he's being set up.

    As for that MIA article, didn't the NYT show their asses and end up having to withdraw a lot of it, including some of the more contentious allegations/observations?
  • SoulhawkSoulhawk 3,197 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:
    As for that MIA article, didn't the NYT show their asses and end up having to withdraw a lot of it, including some of the more contentious allegations/observations?

    I think there was some controversy over who actually ordered the 'truffled fries' while eating at the Beverly Hills Wilshire or some shit

    lies! the media is full of lies!
  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:
    Caramanica is usually way better than this. My view is that Drake is the kind of rapper that broadsheet music critics need/want to be important, so consequently, that's how he's being set up.

    As for that MIA article, didn't the NYT show their asses and end up having to withdraw a lot of it, including some of the more contentious allegations/observations?

    I am aware of two issues/corrections, neither of which really impacts the main thrust of the article:

    There was a block quote, and the Times ran a correction in which Hirschberg admitted to reversing its two halves. She didn't backtrack on her claim that MIA actually said all of those things.

    MIA poasted audio suggesting that Hirschberg had, in fact, been responsible for the selection of the controversial truffle-oil fries.
  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    From the comments;

    Emoti-hop

    Fucking hell.
  • Jonny_PaycheckJonny_Paycheck 17,825 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:


    As for that MIA article, didn't the NYT show their asses and end up having to withdraw a lot of it, including some of the more contentious allegations/observations?


    The cover article in The Times Magazine on Sunday profiled the singer and political activist M.I.A. While discussing her efforts to draw attention to the civil war in her home country, Sri Lanka, she was quoted as saying: ???I wasn???t trying to be like Bono. He???s not from Africa ??? I???m from there. I???m tired of pop stars who say, ???Give peace a chance.??? I???d rather say, ???Give war a chance.??? The whole point of going to the Grammys was to say, ???Hey, 50,000 people are gonna die next month, and here???s your opportunity to help.??? And no one did.???

    While M.I.A. did make those remarks, she did not make the entire statement at the same point in the interview, or in the order in which it was presented. The part that begins, ???The whole point of going to the Grammys,??? up to the end of the quotation, actually came first. The part that begins, ???I wasn???t trying to be like Bono,??? and ends, ???Give war a chance,??? came later in the same interview. The article should have made clear that the two quotations came from different parts of the interview.
  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    fishmongerfunk said:
    did anyone here at any time ever ride for this dudes music?

    Yes--there was a small but vocal group that was riding hard. Of those, only Drewn now has sufficient character to admit it, though.

    isn;t this a scenario where a cabal of agents and "journalists" has simply foisted him on us? i mean he clearly has zero musical talent and he doesn;t even have a visual hook or whatever like that feathery justin bieber's hair or lady gag's costumes.

    Pretty much--but his popularity is very real.
  • mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
    fishmongerfunk said:
    did anyone here at any time ever ride for this dudes music?

    isn;t this a scenario where a cabal of agents and "journalists" has simply foisted him on us?

    Why you gotta air out Nahright like that son?
  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    faux_rillz said:
    DocMcCoy said:
    Caramanica is usually way better than this. My view is that Drake is the kind of rapper that broadsheet music critics need/want to be important, so consequently, that's how he's being set up.

    As for that MIA article, didn't the NYT show their asses and end up having to withdraw a lot of it, including some of the more contentious allegations/observations?

    I am aware of two issues/corrections, neither of which really impacts the main thrust of the article:

    There was a block quote, and the Times ran a correction in which Hirschberg admitted to reversing its two halves. She didn't backtrack on her claim that MIA actually said all of those things.

    MIA poasted audio suggesting that Hirschberg had, in fact, been responsible for the selection of the controversial truffle-oil fries.

    Ah, OK. To be honest, I thought the whole thing generated more of a furore than it warranted.
  • mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
    faux_rillz said:
    Jonny_Paycheck said:
    If the NYT had any real sac they would've torn into this dude's bullshit the way they did MIA.

    a rich kid with family ties in the music industry, who starred in a major TV show as a teen, is manicured by a who's-who of rap industry kingmakers and records angst-ridden paens to his hard work and the tiresome/exhilarating life of fame and wealth. For this, he is crowned the savior of hip-hop. GIve me a break.

    Caramanica never digs in; Hirschberg's notorious for it.

    Lynn's article was a big point of discussion the other week when I had some friends over, most of them from an older generation (i.e. 40+) of music writers, and they spent a good deal of time trying to decipher Hirschberg's tendency to go after ambitious women with a mud-smeared comb. Personally, I never thought I'd have much sympathy for MIA but somehow, Hirschberg managed to create it.

    BTW, Faux - you ever read Jon's clothing store reviews in the NYT? I find them to be more entertaining and much more "off the cuff" (no pun intended) than his music writing, which I see as being constrained to fit into the newspaper's voice (K and SFJ wrote in a similar style during their tenures at the Times; I don't think it's unique to either of the "Jons" or Nate or any of those guys).
  • SoulhawkSoulhawk 3,197 Posts
    I wonder if Diplo will ever work with MIA again

    the article had some eyebrow raising quotes from him
  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:
    faux_rillz said:
    DocMcCoy said:
    Caramanica is usually way better than this. My view is that Drake is the kind of rapper that broadsheet music critics need/want to be important, so consequently, that's how he's being set up.

    As for that MIA article, didn't the NYT show their asses and end up having to withdraw a lot of it, including some of the more contentious allegations/observations?

    I am aware of two issues/corrections, neither of which really impacts the main thrust of the article:

    There was a block quote, and the Times ran a correction in which Hirschberg admitted to reversing its two halves. She didn't backtrack on her claim that MIA actually said all of those things.

    MIA poasted audio suggesting that Hirschberg had, in fact, been responsible for the selection of the controversial truffle-oil fries.

    Ah, OK. To be honest, I thought the whole thing generated more of a furore than it warranted.

    I agree--the facts that she is a talentless hack and a self-important, yet generally uninformed, fraud were not exactly revelations. Nice to see them more widely disseminated though.
  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    mannybolone said:
    faux_rillz said:
    Jonny_Paycheck said:
    If the NYT had any real sac they would've torn into this dude's bullshit the way they did MIA.

    a rich kid with family ties in the music industry, who starred in a major TV show as a teen, is manicured by a who's-who of rap industry kingmakers and records angst-ridden paens to his hard work and the tiresome/exhilarating life of fame and wealth. For this, he is crowned the savior of hip-hop. GIve me a break.

    Caramanica never digs in; Hirschberg's notorious for it.

    Lynn's article was a big point of discussion the other week when I had some friends over, most of them from an older generation (i.e. 40+) of music writers, and they spent a good deal of time trying to decipher Hirschberg's tendency to go after ambitious women with a mud-smeared comb. Personally, I never thought I'd have much sympathy for MIA but somehow, Hirschberg managed to create it.

    BTW, Faux - you ever read Jon's clothing store reviews in the NYT? I find them to be more entertaining and much more "off the cuff" (no pun intended) than his music writing, which I see as being constrained to fit into the newspaper's voice (K and SFJ wrote in a similar style during their tenures at the Times; I don't think it's unique to either of the "Jons" or Nate or any of those guys).

    Yes--I find them generally to be even more uncritical. I was actually going to poast one in this thread for grins.
  • ketanketan Warmly booming riffs 3,164 Posts
    Couldn't be bothered to read past the first page of the article. Seemed pretty much in line with what I'd expect from a New York Times article on Drake.

    The few tracks I've heard from Drake are pretty corny and he has one of those Kanye West flows (and I can barely handle that shit coming from Kanye West).

    BUT I'm a huge Aaliyah fan and Jeezy's got a decent verse on this one:



    (Not a good look? How do I insert graems?)
  • ketanketan Warmly booming riffs 3,164 Posts
    God, that photo of Drake in the above Youtube is so over the top!
  • fishmongerfunkfishmongerfunk 4,154 Posts
    ketan said:
    God, that photo of Drake in the above Youtube is so over the top!

    you're tripping. drake is the marvin gaye of our times. this is his "what's going on"
  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    1. Caramanica is the worst fanboy scribe in the business. In this case, he's just doing what the assignment called for...but certainly no more. At that point during the late-90's when emerging hip-hop journalists stopped being creatively iconoclast-oriented in favor of merely cosigning anything that helped them write in bigger and bigger venues...that's where the suck really took hold and this dude has been the worst culprit by far.

    2. Aw, Drake may never be able to properly fall in love. Poor him.

    3. Drake does have plenty of fans though, that's for sure.
  • ketanketan Warmly booming riffs 3,164 Posts
    fishmongerfunk said:
    ketan said:
    God, that photo of Drake in the above Youtube is so over the top!

    you're tripping. drake is the marvin gaye of our times. this is his "what's going on"

    ah, so that was just my soul being pierced by his gaze...lovely.
  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    ketan said:
    Couldn't be bothered to read past the first page of the article. Seemed pretty much in line with what I'd expect from a New York Times article on Drake.

    The Times has featured excellent rap criticism/reporting in the past--certainly far superior to anything that runs in the explicitly hip-hop oriented print world.
  • phongonephongone 1,652 Posts
    Should we not give young Drake credit for being the premiere Jewish rapper of this generation?
  • mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
    HarveyCanal said:
    1. Caramanica is the worst fanboy scribe in the business. In this case, he's just doing what the assignment called for...but certainly no more. At that point during the late-90's when emerging hip-hop journalists stopped being creatively iconoclast-oriented in favor of merely cosigning anything that helped them write in bigger and bigger venues...that's where the suck really took hold and this dude has been the worst culprit by far.

    Yo - we both have conflict o' interests in discussing Jon here so I'll leave the first part of your comments aside. I would say that your "death of iconoclast-oriented rap journalism" is late by at least half a decade. The change in the late '90s wasn't that people became more cosign-friendly (this had almost always been the case at all the major rap mags), it was that the publications themselves upgraded in stature, circulation and self-importance.
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