This ain't no D4L candy bullshit that we're talking about here. This is some lay-your-heart-on-the-line, what-kind-of-man-are-you, drawing-lines-in-the-sand shit here...so fuck yeah, I'm going to be overprotective about this shit and I could give a fuck what anyone thinks about it.
dog, if this is how you truly feel, you will forever be let down by the music listening/purchasing population as a whole.
and if that's your choice, so be it, but recognize you are in the minority, and thus you should be more tempered for expecting demanding people to see it your way.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Furthermore I was fuckin' moved by what I saw at Screwfest. I am fuckin' moved by the reverence that I see for Trae up here in Austin. Plus I'm in the middle of dealing with some real shit here based on where I live in Austin and the people that I interact with...not through cd's, but through face-to-face collective struggle.
This ain't no D4L candy bullshit that we're talking about here. This is some lay-your-heart-on-the-line, what-kind-of-man-are-you, drawing-lines-in-the-sand shit here...so fuck yeah, I'm going to be overprotective about this shit and I could give a fuck what anyone thinks about it.
If that truly is the case, Robert, then man the fuck up and be happy for dude. Do your job and help put food on the man's table instead of talking shit on the internet and calling names for people that may or may not be more recent fans than you. Laying your heart on the line does not mean acting like a possessive ex girlfriend insecure about a love that has passed long ago. You have no more entitlement over this music than anyone else.
You're fighting the good fight dude, but your energy is misdirected.
now can we stay on topic and talk about how great a.b.n. is?
I respect this response. I suppose this is also a good time to tell you that I finally put my grievances aside and listened to your Houston for Dummies mix and I have to say that I'm thoroughly impressed. You and Ayres did a great job on it.
But please don't think that I'm only concerned with how recent a fan of Trae people are. It's more about, if the shit hits the fan tomorrow, what side will people stand on? Are they gonna do what they should know in their hearts as right? Or are they gonna sit back and play favorites towards a side that protects their safety and petty materialistic interests?
Probably I am out of order to a certain extent, but I don't see this Trae cd as simply music to be judged by strictly musical standards. I see it more as a divining rod that points out the weak from the strong.
I'm truly glad that people on here are digging it. But the way that I've seen other serious-as-a-heart-attack artists embraced only to be dismissed, time and time again, like some dumb video game of a cycle, without anyone really ever getting to the heart of the matter behind this shit...I've just had enough of that bullshit. And in light of recent events including what has happened to NOLA, what happened to HAWK, what is happening at Reagan High School, etc. I've just reached my breaking point in many, many ways.
I'm truly glad that people on here are digging it. But the way that I've seen other serious-as-a-heart-attack artists embraced only to be dismissed, time and time again, like some dumb video game of a cycle, without anyone really ever getting to the heart of the matter behind this shit...
Not to sidebust, but: Dude, you are in absolutely no position to horn about the wider audience's failure to "get to the heart of the matter" when you have expended a vast amount of energy asserting that "the heart of the matter" is essentially unreachable to all but a select few. You have repeatedly and consistently treated the artists that you love as if they are fragile porcelain mice, who need to be protected from the ignorant unwashed masses who could never ever ever possibly love and understand them as you do. Even as you swear up and down that these are real, vital artists, you constantly undercut them in the most drippingly paternalistic manner by effectively insisting that their music only "works" within ridiculously narrow parameters ("If you could see what this shit does to a Texas crowd..." "If you were from around here, you'd understand.." "You wouldn't say that if you had been at the show...", etc.). Being "embraced only to be dismissed" is how popular culture works--that is the deal that pop culture is always ready to make. I'm sure that you know that, and I'm sure as shit that your favorites know it, too, so quit acting like you're the one shepherding them through the briar patch. However true you consider your aim to be*, please realize that the disservice that you do them with your patronizing, coddling, and excuse-making is at least as bad as the consumption, dismissal, and presumption of disposability that you're forever railing against.
*I should note, though, that I agree with faux that your interests very often seem less philanthropic than proprietary.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
I'm truly glad that people on here are digging it. But the way that I've seen other serious-as-a-heart-attack artists embraced only to be dismissed, time and time again, like some dumb video game of a cycle, without anyone really ever getting to the heart of the matter behind this shit...
Not to sidebust, but: Dude, you are in absolutely no position to horn about the wider audience's failure to "get to the heart of the matter" when you have expended a vast amount of energy asserting that "the heart of the matter" is essentially unreachable to all but a select few. You have repeatedly and consistently treated the artists that you love as if they are fragile porcelain mice, who need to be protected from the ignorant unwashed masses who could never ever ever possibly love and understand them as you do. Even as you swear up and down that these are real, vital artists, you constantly undercut them in the most drippingly paternalistic manner by effectively insisting that their music only "works" within ridiculously narrow parameters ("If you could see what this shit does to a Texas crowd..." "If you were from around here, you'd understand.." "You wouldn't say that if you had been at the show...", etc.). Being "embraced only to be dismissed" is how popular culture works--that is the deal that pop culture is always ready to make. I'm sure that you know that, and I'm sure as shit that your favorites know it, too, so quit acting like you're the one shepherding them through the briar patch. However true you consider your aim to be*, please realize that the disservice that you do them with your patronizing, coddling, and excuse-making is at least as bad as the consumption, dismissal, and presumption of disposability that you're forever railing against.
*I should note, though, that I agree with faux that your interests very often seem less philanthropic than proprietary.
So I'm supposed to accept as a given that pop culture is shallow to the point that anything that enters into its realm might as well have no thematic merit whatsoever?
I'm supposed to accept that universal issues of violence and racism have no right to even be addressed once an artist reaches beyond his own locale?
I'm supposed to accept that listeners champion the truth presented by an artist while they're hot, only to expect those same listeners to turn their backs on what they once considered the truth, seemingly based on concerns for fashion?
This time around Trae is supposedly being marketed nationwide. How does that change the urgency of his messages one iota?
Am I supposed to play like Little Brother and assume that everyone aside from me and 10 of my friends is too dumb to understand anything beyond sex and unbridled consumerism?
Really, I know for a fact that there are plenty of people outside of Texas who can listen to a Trae or Z-Ro or a Scarface cd and feel those messages even more than I do. But I know those same people to stand by such artists through thick and thin.
Y'all can choose to see it as me trying to exert ownership over these artists all you want. That is your petty perogative.
What I'd rather you see is that if HAWK is going to do a verse on Swang about Fat Pat being murdered and before the song even has a chance to come out on an album that he too is murdered, that the matter at hand is faaaaar more crucial than merely does the music at hand stack up to the music on TI's album.
It becomes if you are now aware of this shit by listening to said music, what the fuck are you doing to take part in its solution? And dammit if treating these artists like cheap Holloween candy that you could take or leave at any given moment is doing jack shit.
Because maybe whether you know it or not, the same shit is happening in your corner of the world as well. And if you've seriously spent in upwards of 10 years hearing these same stories over and over again, and all you can make of it for yourself is to remain a passive cd listener who allows themselves to be swayed by the flippant whims of pop fuckin' culture, then you might as well fuck off right now because you are simply part of the problem just like any other clueless tunnel-visioned blockhead that doesn't even bother to buy any of these cd's.
People are dying. People are growing up with no hope for anything but jail in their future. And all that is to you is entertainment.
Seriously, if that description fits you, and I'll leave it up to each of you to decide for yourselves, then that's a problem that frankly, I plus a whole lot of other people who wouldn't bother to give you the time of day, let alone lay this shit out for you in such explicit trems, can no longer stand.
"It'll break your heart to see your favorite rappers lame as hell,"
T.I.
Sometimes dudes fall off Archaic. I admire yr devotion but it sounds like you're arguing for lofty ideals of devotion over quality. If Trae dropped an album was weak as Cham's was I wouldn't be all over it. I think you have an obligation to yourself as a listener to follow the music that resonates with you. There are plenty of dudes living and dying and trying to survive rapping and who say real shit from experience who are total garbage.
Well, to the extent that you're supposed to do anything with this, I'd say that you're supposed to accept that your favorite rappers understand just as well as you do everything you've outlined, and that they are grown-ass folks who, with this full understanding, have nonetheless chosen to enter the dirty war. They didn't fuck around and accidentally release a cd, and as close to real life as their shit may be, their records are not covert field recordings of them crying in their room--They wrote shit down, rented a studio, hired a dude to push the buttons, and released a commercial product. They are not victims and they do not need your protection. They are willful individuals, and the fact that you so often speak of them purely in terms of sociology, symbolism, and representation is reductive as fuck, and advances your point far more than it advances their art.
Y'all can choose to see it as me trying to exert ownership over these artists all you want. That is your petty perogative.
What I'd rather you see is that if HAWK is going to do a verse on Swang about Fat Pat being murdered and before the song even has a chance to come out on an album that he too is murdered, that the matter at hand is faaaaar more crucial than merely does the music at hand stack up to the music on TI's album.
It becomes if you are now aware of this shit by listening to said music, what the fuck are you doing to take part in its solution? And dammit if treating these artists like cheap Holloween candy that you could take or leave at any given moment is doing jack shit.
Dog,
I respect your "devotion" to both the artists and the issues that are present in said artists' music(s), but you're basically saying these artists that you devote yourself to are above any sort of aesthetic criticism whatsoever... which is weird because you're so thoroughly devoted to these artists' aesthetic that you're still mildly obsessesed with pointing out every single possible presence of aesthetic inauthenticity (i.e. everyone biting the blowed).
Point is, you can't have it both ways. Either the aesthetics are up for criticism (which they really ALWAYS are--like it or not. It's the very definition of "art") or the aesthetics aren't up for criticism at all and you should support these guy AT ALL COSTS (because in your own little private mind garden, the only other alternative to this somewhat fascistic blind devotion is "treating these artists like cheap Halloween candy.").
This is art we're talking about. The moment we lose the will, ability , or desire to be critical about aestehtics is when the art ultimately becomes meaningelss and its most apolitical.
Well, to the extent that you're supposed to do anything with this, I'd say that you're supposed to accept that your favorite rappers understand just as well as you do everything you've outlined, and that they are grown-ass folks who, with this full understanding, have nonetheless chosen to enter the dirty war. They didn't fuck around and accidentally release a cd, and as close to real life as their shit may be, their records are not covert field recordings of them crying in their room--They wrote shit down, rented a studio, hired a dude to push the buttons, and released a commercial product. They are not victims and they do not need your protection. They are willful individuals, and the fact that you so often speak of them purely in terms of sociology, symbolism, and representation is reductive as fuck, and advances your point far more than it advances their art.
WRONG!!!!
The fact is this Trae release is a unapologetic and systematic attempt to destroy the CIA, bring down the Masons, rid the world of aliens, elevate all levels of social & economic inequalities, fortify levys, and bring peace to the middle east.
For you to assume that this CD is just the work of a talented artist, making good music with some social commentary is a blatant attack and thus you can only be looked at traitor/carpet baggeur/band-wagon alien baby.
Well, to the extent that you're supposed to do anything with this, I'd say that you're supposed to accept that your favorite rappers understand just as well as you do everything you've outlined, and that they are grown-ass folks who, with this full understanding, have nonetheless chosen to enter the dirty war. They didn't fuck around and accidentally release a cd, and as close to real life as their shit may be, their records are not covert field recordings of them crying in their room--They wrote shit down, rented a studio, hired a dude to push the buttons, and released a commercial product. They are not victims and they do not need your protection. They are willful individuals, and the fact that you so often speak of them purely in terms of sociology, symbolism, and representation is reductive as fuck, and advances your point far more than it advances their art.
WRONG!!!!
The fact is this Trae release is a unapologetic and systematic attempt to destroy the CIA, bring down the Masons, rid the world of aliens, elevate all levels of social & economic inequalities, fortify levys, and bring peace to the middle east.
For you to assume that this CD is just the work of a talented artist, making good music with some social commentary is a blatant attack and thus you can only be looked at traitor/carpet baggeur/band-wagon alien baby.
May I add that james talks like someone on the wrong side of the coming revolution?
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Blind devotion is not what I'm endorsing here. I'm as critical as anyone even when it comes to my favorite artists. And I'm not out to reduce complex personalities into a pre-fabricated concept of revolution.
I don't see how suggesting that listeners dig a little deeper than surface entertainment value when it comes to serious artists could possibly sabotage their efforts.
But go ahead and let the clowning commence. That's what y'all do best, so it's not like y'all are surprising me with any of this.
I don't see how suggesting that listeners dig a little deeper than surface entertainment value when it comes to serious artists could possibly sabotage their efforts.
have you even listened to the album yet or have you been busy posting in this thread?
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
I don't see how suggesting that listeners dig a little deeper than surface entertainment value when it comes to serious artists could possibly sabotage their efforts.
I don't see how suggesting that listeners dig a little deeper than surface entertainment value when it comes to serious artists could possibly sabotage their efforts.
But go ahead and let the clowning commence. That's what y'all do best, so it's not like y'all are surprising me with any of this.
and therein lies the issue. you don't suggest anything. go back and read your posts. You come off real condescending, pretentious and aggressive. I can see a scenario where readers eager to hear how the new Trae album is, read your aggresssive banter and just decide not to dig through all the name calling to read about the actual music. IMHO, you're actually doing your mission a disservice by turning away potential listeners by dissing, etc.
That's all I have to say on the subject. Glad you liked H4D.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
have you even listened to the album yet or have you been busy posting in this thread?
Yes, I listened to it in its entirety the day before yesterday at the in-store.
And I just got my own copy of it in the mail today, so I'll be listening to it quite a bit from here on.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
and therein lies the issue. you don't suggest anything. go back and read your posts. You come off real condescending, pretentious and aggressive. I can see a scenario where readers eager to hear how the new Trae album is, read your aggresssive banter and just decide not to dig through all the name calling to read about the actual music. IMHO, you're actually doing your mission a disservice by turning away potential listeners by dissing, etc.
yo man i kind of think you're frothing at the mouth over nothing here. the way i see it - and this is coming from a born-and-bred texan - is that folks outside of the region really had no reason to stay all that interested in the scene after we got our little time in the sun. i posted something a bit similar (albeit much less specific or scathing) about 3 years ago on this site before texas rap got popular - just pointing out that in texas a lot of these people were already heroes and that the people there were singularly devoted to their own artists and had been for years, so i didn't want to see the bullshit new york hipsters and critics pick up on the music only to discard it as soon as they either got bored with it or once it stopped being unique enough to make them look cool by talking about it.
well, that ended up happening to a certain extent, but i'm not mad about it. i'm disappointed in how texas handled its fame outside of a few artists (trae & z-ro, slim thug, scarface). let's face it - trae's record is the best thing to come out of texas in a long time, and even at that it's a really good record, not a classic. the dudes who got texas where it is (or was) lined up one after another to drop the ball. i know it sounds blasphemous but even bun b and pimp c's individual albums sucked. in fact, the only thing that i was thinking about when i listened to pimpalation is "what the fuck happened?"
i guess what i'm saying is that the onus is kind of on texas artists to redeem themselves at this point. the talent has always been there, i just get the impression that our folks need to stop being so concerned with releasing commercially appealing material and do what got people paying attention to them in the first place. in the meantime, i don't blame people for not acting like they were all about one shitty record after another so they could have the internet credibility to speak well of the few good texas records that drop every now and then.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Don???t come around my way ??? cause I don???t really need, another fair-weather friend with a trick up his sleeve???don???t come to none of my shows or buy none of my tapes because with or without your support, I???mma still be straight
Sometimes I???m right, sometimes I???m wrong, and I don???t give a fuck because I???m in my zone, all that hate you got it only make a nigga strong, so I like how it feel when I???m left all alone
There ain???t too many that relate to what I???m feeling inside, I been a loner on my own so I continue to ride, whether my life has been sour, I still been playing my part, no matter what these niggas say, don???t try to take it to heart, I found myself in this situation too many a times, and start to searching for myself but anger is all that I find, I???m motivated by the doubt that they did came for a nigga, and all this way below the belt shit that they aim at a nigga, but still I learn to continue, walk to the next episode, no matter the weight upon my shoulders, I???ll be damned if I fold
hopefully the single with joc gets some push but even that wont really help sales that much. as much as i would love for trae to sell well, the album really doesn't have wide national appeal.
Comments
dog, if this is how you truly feel, you will forever be let down by the music listening/purchasing population as a whole.
and if that's your choice, so be it, but recognize you are in the minority, and thus you should be more tempered for
expectingdemanding people to see it your way.I respect this response. I suppose this is also a good time to tell you that I finally put my grievances aside and listened to your Houston for Dummies mix and I have to say that I'm thoroughly impressed. You and Ayres did a great job on it.
But please don't think that I'm only concerned with how recent a fan of Trae people are. It's more about, if the shit hits the fan tomorrow, what side will people stand on? Are they gonna do what they should know in their hearts as right? Or are they gonna sit back and play favorites towards a side that protects their safety and petty materialistic interests?
Probably I am out of order to a certain extent, but I don't see this Trae cd as simply music to be judged by strictly musical standards. I see it more as a divining rod that points out the weak from the strong.
I'm truly glad that people on here are digging it. But the way that I've seen other serious-as-a-heart-attack artists embraced only to be dismissed, time and time again, like some dumb video game of a cycle, without anyone really ever getting to the heart of the matter behind this shit...I've just had enough of that bullshit. And in light of recent events including what has happened to NOLA, what happened to HAWK, what is happening at Reagan High School, etc. I've just reached my breaking point in many, many ways.
Not to sidebust, but: Dude, you are in absolutely no position to horn about the wider audience's failure to "get to the heart of the matter" when you have expended a vast amount of energy asserting that "the heart of the matter" is essentially unreachable to all but a select few. You have repeatedly and consistently treated the artists that you love as if they are fragile porcelain mice, who need to be protected from the ignorant unwashed masses who could never ever ever possibly love and understand them as you do. Even as you swear up and down that these are real, vital artists, you constantly undercut them in the most drippingly paternalistic manner by effectively insisting that their music only "works" within ridiculously narrow parameters ("If you could see what this shit does to a Texas crowd..." "If you were from around here, you'd understand.." "You wouldn't say that if you had been at the show...", etc.). Being "embraced only to be dismissed" is how popular culture works--that is the deal that pop culture is always ready to make. I'm sure that you know that, and I'm sure as shit that your favorites know it, too, so quit acting like you're the one shepherding them through the briar patch. However true you consider your aim to be*, please realize that the disservice that you do them with your patronizing, coddling, and excuse-making is at least as bad as the consumption, dismissal, and presumption of disposability that you're forever railing against.
*I should note, though, that I agree with faux that your interests very often seem less philanthropic than proprietary.
So I'm supposed to accept as a given that pop culture is shallow to the point that anything that enters into its realm might as well have no thematic merit whatsoever?
I'm supposed to accept that universal issues of violence and racism have no right to even be addressed once an artist reaches beyond his own locale?
I'm supposed to accept that listeners champion the truth presented by an artist while they're hot, only to expect those same listeners to turn their backs on what they once considered the truth, seemingly based on concerns for fashion?
This time around Trae is supposedly being marketed nationwide. How does that change the urgency of his messages one iota?
Am I supposed to play like Little Brother and assume that everyone aside from me and 10 of my friends is too dumb to understand anything beyond sex and unbridled consumerism?
Really, I know for a fact that there are plenty of people outside of Texas who can listen to a Trae or Z-Ro or a Scarface cd and feel those messages even more than I do. But I know those same people to stand by such artists through thick and thin.
Y'all can choose to see it as me trying to exert ownership over these artists all you want. That is your petty perogative.
What I'd rather you see is that if HAWK is going to do a verse on Swang about Fat Pat being murdered and before the song even has a chance to come out on an album that he too is murdered, that the matter at hand is faaaaar more crucial than merely does the music at hand stack up to the music on TI's album.
It becomes if you are now aware of this shit by listening to said music, what the fuck are you doing to take part in its solution? And dammit if treating these artists like cheap Holloween candy that you could take or leave at any given moment is doing jack shit.
Because maybe whether you know it or not, the same shit is happening in your corner of the world as well. And if you've seriously spent in upwards of 10 years hearing these same stories over and over again, and all you can make of it for yourself is to remain a passive cd listener who allows themselves to be swayed by the flippant whims of pop fuckin' culture, then you might as well fuck off right now because you are simply part of the problem just like any other clueless tunnel-visioned blockhead that doesn't even bother to buy any of these cd's.
People are dying. People are growing up with no hope for anything but jail in their future. And all that is to you is entertainment.
Seriously, if that description fits you, and I'll leave it up to each of you to decide for yourselves, then that's a problem that frankly, I plus a whole lot of other people who wouldn't bother to give you the time of day, let alone lay this shit out for you in such explicit trems, can no longer stand.
T.I.
Sometimes dudes fall off Archaic. I admire yr devotion but it sounds like you're arguing for lofty ideals of devotion over quality. If Trae dropped an album was weak as Cham's was I wouldn't be all over it. I think you have an obligation to yourself as a listener to follow the music that resonates with you. There are plenty of dudes living and dying and trying to survive rapping and who say real shit from experience who are total garbage.
Dog,
I respect your "devotion" to both the artists and the issues that are present in said artists' music(s), but you're basically saying these artists that you devote yourself to are above any sort of aesthetic criticism whatsoever... which is weird because you're so thoroughly devoted to these artists' aesthetic that you're still mildly obsessesed with pointing out every single possible presence of aesthetic inauthenticity (i.e. everyone biting the blowed).
Point is, you can't have it both ways. Either the aesthetics are up for criticism (which they really ALWAYS are--like it or not. It's the very definition of "art") or the aesthetics aren't up for criticism at all and you should support these guy AT ALL COSTS (because in your own little private mind garden, the only other alternative to this somewhat fascistic blind devotion is "treating these artists like cheap Halloween candy.").
This is art we're talking about. The moment we lose the will, ability , or desire to be critical about aestehtics is when the art ultimately becomes meaningelss and its most apolitical.
-e
WRONG!!!!
The fact is this Trae release is a unapologetic and systematic attempt to destroy the CIA, bring down the Masons, rid the world of aliens, elevate all levels of social & economic inequalities, fortify levys, and bring peace to the middle east.
For you to assume that this CD is just the work of a talented artist, making good music with some social commentary is a blatant attack and thus you can only be looked at traitor/carpet baggeur/band-wagon alien baby.
May I add that james talks like someone on the wrong side of the coming revolution?
Pop Pop Trunk Wave, I JUST GOT PAID!!
And with crazy OT, at that.
didn't read
I don't see how suggesting that listeners dig a little deeper than surface entertainment value when it comes to serious artists could possibly sabotage their efforts.
But go ahead and let the clowning commence. That's what y'all do best, so it's not like y'all are surprising me with any of this.
Is this all you really think you're doing?
-e
Go ahead and tell me what I'm doing then.
I'm a grown man, I can take it.
and therein lies the issue. you don't suggest anything. go back and read your posts. You come off real condescending, pretentious and aggressive. I can see a scenario where readers eager to hear how the new Trae album is, read your aggresssive banter and just decide not to dig through all the name calling to read about the actual music. IMHO, you're actually doing your mission a disservice by turning away potential listeners by dissing, etc.
That's all I have to say on the subject. Glad you liked H4D.
Yes, I listened to it in its entirety the day before yesterday at the in-store.
And I just got my own copy of it in the mail today, so I'll be listening to it quite a bit from here on.
that's the one!
Even if that's the case, it's balanced by this:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/review?oid=oid%3A390532
As well as a forthcoming review in that same newspaper.
well, that ended up happening to a certain extent, but i'm not mad about it. i'm disappointed in how texas handled its fame outside of a few artists (trae & z-ro, slim thug, scarface). let's face it - trae's record is the best thing to come out of texas in a long time, and even at that it's a really good record, not a classic. the dudes who got texas where it is (or was) lined up one after another to drop the ball. i know it sounds blasphemous but even bun b and pimp c's individual albums sucked. in fact, the only thing that i was thinking about when i listened to pimpalation is "what the fuck happened?"
i guess what i'm saying is that the onus is kind of on texas artists to redeem themselves at this point. the talent has always been there, i just get the impression that our folks need to stop being so concerned with releasing commercially appealing material and do what got people paying attention to them in the first place. in the meantime, i don't blame people for not acting like they were all about one shitty record after another so they could have the internet credibility to speak well of the few good texas records that drop every now and then.
#87