Carpetbaggeurings
KidK
119 Posts
Dozens of trendy bloggers hail The Clipse, get shot down as silly racist carpetbagging hipsters.Dozens of trendy bloggers hail Devin the Dude...not a word of complaint.Now I'm as much of a Devin fan as the next man, but I find this pretty amusing.::waits to see what happens when the UGK bandwagon rolls along come april:: 
Comments
apparently if people support good music for the wrong reasons it's bad.
Also bloggers have been all over Devin for a long time. He has a hipster appeal, which is fine. He's also awesome. And so far most of the people talking about his music sound like they actually heard the music before they started talking about it.
that said, theres nobody I'd rather work with than devin
You live in an interesting world of fantasy.
Carpetbaggeurry is an outsider applying an outsider perspective to a regional scene as if that scene is actually defined by that outsider perspective. It's also about an outsider ineffectively doing a job best fit for locals.
faux - you're still on ignore. I'm sure it was really funny though. probably very biting, and sarcastic! and smart! and funny!
Isn't this what a lot of music critics have always done anyway? Find the angle first, then write the story to fit the angle? This is how you end up with meaningless terms like "folktronica", "hardstep" and "nu-rave".
I'm sure it must be immensely frustrating for artists who, when dealing with the media, spend half their time addressing misconceptions about themselves, their work, or whatever "scene" they may have sprung from, but given the choice between flaky coverage like that or no coverage at all, most of 'em would probably plump for the former. I suppose that if people were a little more able to make up their mind about whether or not they like music simply from listening to it instead of reading about it, the opportunities for carpetbaggeury would be significantly curtailed. On the other hand, many people prefer their opinion to be an informed one, which is where music critics come in. Unfortunately, the blogalypse has given every other gobshite with a Wordpress account both the idea that they can be the next Lester Bangs and the means with which to prove it (or not), so the volume of bad music writing has grown exponentially. Obviously, this last point does not apply to anyone in the JournoStrut contingent, whether they have a Wordpress account or not.
I do agree with a lot of what he says in the sense that INFORMED writing is extremely important and certain perspectives need to become a part of the discourse, especially in the internet age there is no excuse for lazy fact-checking, and when many people never examine the received wisdom that as "outsiders" they might harbor about a certain locale and its music.
But he's just as guilty of this silliness in some ways and is unwilling to examine his own received wisdom. I'm not gonna argue with what the dude says about houston rap - obviously there's no question he knows more than i do and probably more than i ever will. But this location-centric heirarchy he's created seems to sacrifice some perspective for this almost fascistic geographic orthodoxy.
Well yeah, but consider the alternative. It's possible that a lot of these regional bubbles would still be ignored completely on a national level had it not been for the rise of internet (pseudo)journalists. It wasn't like the source, was doing features on screw tapes or mob music in the 90s, let alone the new york times.
Exactly, that's the Catch 22 aspect of the whole thing. Still, better that good music is written about and (hopefully) brought to the attention of a wider audience than not at all. If it loses part of its "secret society/private members club" appeal as a result, then so what?
unless it's a certain blogger reviewing "Rakwon."
Looks like Cronulla beach, Sydney, Australia to me.
thats all.
You do get my opinion. It just happens to come from within the parameters of a local perspective. Are there many different opinions that can spring from a single local perspective? Of course there are. It's only cases where a perspective presented is so far out of touch with what happens within that local perspective...i.e. basically making assumptions that are categorically wrong...that it becomes time to cry foul.
You seem to be championing this idea that different folks sharing the same experience have the ability to draw distinctly different conclusions. And yes, that is a point that needs to be parroted again and again to certain people. But I'm working way past that and seeing the worth in people who share the same conculsions drawing similar conclusions.
For instance, the national perspective is that Texas rappers aren't "lyrical". And I can point out a few REAL TEXAS HEADZ who would actually agree with that. But what's the point of always making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to those particular folks and their extreme minority opinions? Just to prove that every individual is an independent thinker?
My point is that there are bigger things to accomplish and they can be achieved by instead focusing on the commonalities between the opinions of REAL TEXAS HEADZ. Whether it's a NYC hipster or a Texas lean sipper that says that say Trae is not "lyrical"...the overwhelming consensus here in Texas says otherwise.
And this practice of finding common local ground becomes especially useful when faced with ill-informed, self-serving, all-too-negative, often-racist jabs being thrown at us from the perimeter.
In other words, we know exactly what we are up against down here in Texas when it comes to having our music accepted and respected beyond state lines and we position ourselves and our arguments accordingly.
There are certain rites of initiation that any local insider has to go through and we are indeed skeptical of anyone saying shit about us who hasn't themselves taken the time to even recognize the worth of those signifiers.
There would be no problem if some non-Texan came down here and got an accurate portrayal of Texas rap printed in a national publication. But that has definitely been the exception rather than the rule. And as we saw with that K-Rino/Houston Press post, this sort of dynamic happens within a local scene as well.
IMO doing shit correctly has less to do with fact-checking and name-dropping and more to do with how a writer/reporter orients the storyline towards the subject at hand. Fools want to treat us like a novelty, then they too can expect to be treated accordingly.
I'd appreciate it if you could provide some precise examples of me being guilty of the same shit that I clown on the regular. I don't know how I could possibly make my biases any more clear. And what you might call fascist, I might call simply stating my opinions clearly and sticking with them through thick and thin.
OK, I'll shut up now and see if this produces any worthwhile discourse.
Looks like Cronulla beach, Sydney, Australia to me.
thats all.
Directed at me? My comment was in reference to the original post btw. I dont get how people can be anything but happy when good artists are shown love.
I would probably agree with lots of your criticisms of articles that do empty-headed or wrongheaded condescending articles. Thats not my point.
It makes it difficult to discuss things w/ you because its like arguing w/ a brick wall; opinions don't have to be static, and just because someone has some core values in music doesn't mean that they have to stick to their guns on every single point; there are different ways of looking at music, like all art, and no decisive CORRECT way. Just because I say I like Devin's second album more than his first does not = i prefer east coast production/don't like houston/have an nyc-centric mindset. And when you try to argue that its frustrating because you don't seem like you're willing to deal with the 'take' part of give-and-take. The production on Devin's first album doesn't even sound uniquely Houston! there's tons of rap music across the country that sounds like some of those beats. This is what I mean by you not having perspective.
If person can talk about Trae's album with some degree of personal insight, i don't care if they are from iowa, houston, new jersey or japan. Its such a losing battle to bother fighting - especially with the internet, where people can hear shit across the world the day a song is leaked.
something about the whole 'real heads' argument in any genre is so off-putting, like an argument that one person's opinion is supposed to be so much more valuable for some arbitrary reason. It screams insecurity.
i don't know, i'm bored at work or i wouldn't bother arguing about this and just stick to standard harveycanal zings
1. I don't know why you think that the only thing I've ever said about Texas rap music that I like is that it's good because it's real. You might (or might not...your choice) like to visit this link...
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Archive/author?oid=oid%3A171952
2. There's nothing arbitrary about someone living within a culture having an opinion on that culture that is indeed more valuable about someone living outside of that culture.
3. You sound asshurt at the idea that someone would ever place your internet-era, jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none, corporo-imperialist, but-I'm-white-so-of-course-I-can-speak-as-an-authority-on-all-topics opinion on a lower peg than the opinions of active members of the culture at hand. Yeah, you can say it's just music spoken in a universal language...but then you overtly, rather than just covertly deny that Texas rappers are speaking a Texas-specific language rather than your outsider's projection of a so-called universal language.
4. How do the beats on Devin's first album not sound distinctively Houston? Especially compared to what was to come on Just Tryin' to Collaborate with Non-Texans... You don't have to answer that, but instead you may want to reconsider what you think Houston sounds like.
Two of the sixteen beats on this record were produced by non-texans (Raphael Saadiq & Dr. Dre). One song features two rapping cameos from non-texans (Xzibit & Nas).
Point tooken.
there absolutely is. Someone living within a culture that, for example, perpetrates female circumsision might have a less 'valuable' opinion about that ritual than someone who lives outside that culture.
I'm not saying that there aren't insights that, living in Texas and hanging out w/ Texas rappers, an 'insider' might have that others don't. I'm saying placing a primacy on that experience over all others is foolhardy. I don't have to read your articles to know that I'd rather read Kelefa Sanneh's pieces in the Times over your obsession with Z-Ro's authentic blues-rap stylings. The world does not revolve around texas for most people in the world, and they don't have to obsess over the culture of texas in order to appreciate aspects of said culture. Once again, since you seem to see this whole argument in either-you're-with-us-or-against-us terms, I am not advocating lazy journalism; simply suggesting that the primacy you give to 'being a part of the culture' is about as detached from the reality of listening to music as you or KRS-1 can get. (I mean think about this - speaking of ppl questioning your 'realness' - even KRS-1, an inarguably significant hip-hop innovator, doesn't get to sidestep the fact that no matter how much he advocates his harveycanal-eque exclusionary view of 'hip-hop culture' people everywhere think the dude is nuts nowadays.)
Dude, the only one being anything like presumptive in this argument is you. When people disagree with you, you criticize everything about them but the content of their argument - oh i disagree about Devin so it must be because i have a nyc-centric state of mind, or I'm from the north, or i'm not a part of 'the culture' or whatever. You are the one presuming that an argument isn't legimate because it doesn't agree with your worldview. Could it be, somehow, that a SPECIFIC NYC-centric houston record COULD be better than a SPECIFIC Houston-centric houston record, or that even the fact that a houston record is trying to sound NYC might make it a more interesting record as a result? (Just like I think that Masta Ace's "Born to Roll" trying to sound like a non-NYC record makes it a more interesting record as a result)?
I'm willing to engage with someone's ideas but when you turn it into personal attacks yr not doing discussion any service. Your whole worldview is suffocatingly limited and makes for such a dreary musical experience.
I think Houston sounds like lots of things. Unlike you apparently, I am aware that Houston's musical scene does not exist in a vacuum and has been influenced by many different styles of music over the years. The implication that Devin's first solo album being so distinctly Houston is the reason non-Houston people underrate it is something you've made up in your own damn mindgarden.
Have you even asked me yet why I like the second Devin album more than the first? No, you just jumped to a conclusion because it makes you feel better about yourself.
incidently, i love the first devin album...but it has nothing to do with the beats 'sounding houston.' Its because they sound good.
Yes, but let's not let these facts get in the way of the comedic beauty of referring to it as Just Tryin' to Collaborate with Non-Texans.
InhalePander to Non-Texans yet?Does it live up to my wildest carpetbaggeuristic dreams?