Repost – Original publish date: 08/10/2018
As an old-school Hip-Hop head, I agree with Post Malone. “Right now, there’s not a lot of people talking about shit.” Hip-Hop has morphed into some type of fuckery that I can no longer relate to. It’s lost its soul.
Now don’t get me wrong, we are still blessed with the rhymes of Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, J. Cole, Joey Bada$$, and of course, my dad, Hov, among many young artists out here reppin’ the next generation of Hip Hop.
However, we all know what I’m talking about. The trash rap that my younger cousins are growing up on. The soundtrack of a generation that will never know the painstaking process of trying to feed tape back into cassettes, the heartbreak of watching the ring of death appear around your favorite CD that you bumped all summer, or the anger of having your favorite song skip in the car when your mom hit a pothole.
Much like those I’ve listed, fighting to succumb to the ringtone catchy tunes of trash rap is yet another growing pain of every millennial, including Post Malone. I don’t know about you, but every now and then, this millennial likes to throw on something I can twerk to…..But if it’s all just fun, why the white boy can’t have none?
Mr. Harriot, I want to ask you, what exactly is your problem with Post Malone? His color? His lyrics? Or him being a carefree 20 something rocking too much “goddamn jewelry?”
Have the John Mayers been using their blues guitars to appropriate a genre that grew from the blood, sweat, and tears of former slaves on sharecropped plots soiled with the remains of MY ancestors? Or is it just participation for the Paul Walls who Houston raised to sit sideways, admire candy paint and let’s not forget, rock ‘gold on their teeth and on their neck.’
If my 22 year old self wore my hair in cornrows, got those Beyonce fronts that I so desperately want, and went around synthesized, Auto-Tuned, African American half-singing about all my worldly possessions, would I be appropriating too? Cuz I grew up in the suburbs of New York City, and let me tell you, Long Island ain’t got much more soul than Syracuse.
Let’s switch lenses.
Rock and Roll, though rooted in Black culture has been almost completely white washed. It is a genre that most Black people do not claim and almost every ’90s baby knows to be “White people’s music.” The royalties of rock and roll were snatched from Chuck Berry by long ratty haired white boys screaming about sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
Those same sex, drugs, and rock and roll enraged parents, influenced promiscuous teenage activity, increased police presence at concerts, incited riots, created criminal records for many of its artists, and also evaporated race lines throughout the world. But once this music had lost its soul, Black people wanted no parts of it. We left it in ruins for whoever decided to pick it up and make a name for themselves with.
We’re watching the same fate play out for Hip Hop turned trash rap. We let anything get radio play, buy it on itunes, and make these people famous, Black or white. However, when a White man realizes that most Hip Hop has lost it’s value, we are outraged.
Back in 2015, Charlamagne tha God decided to play a game of Black Card Revoked with Post Malone on The Breakfast Club. How many 20 year old Black rappers have been asked the question, “What are you doing for the Black Lives Matter Movement,” and more importantly, what was their response?
During an era when America’s Black youth were either being shipped off on suicide missions to Vietnam or home having their flesh ripped apart by german shepherds and water hoses simply for speaking up against racial injustices, Jimi Hendrix was in London womanizing it up with white girls, doing drugs, and not giving a fuck about the social/racial climate back home. When asked his views on all of this, his response was very similar to Malone’s. He was just making music that made him and others feel good. Does Post Malone have to have all the answers because he’s white?
You seem to also have a problem with his constant use of the words “bitch” and “hoe,” as a part of him appropriating “our music.” Are these Black words? Are you saying that only Black women can be bitches and hoes? What exactly does that say about a culture that wholeheartedly assumes ownership over this derogatory language? Who exactly crafted this image of Hip Hop? Is your problem that he’s mimicking the fuckery that Black people have created? Are we going to continue to ignore the actual fuckery, or are we going to start holding the Young Thugs, Rae Sremmurds, and Migoses accountable for starting dialogues of race and gender issues in our society?
Giving rappers political responsibility says that Hip Hop is less of a genre of music and more of a culture. Granted, yes, it is at the root of Black culture. But was it an issue that the Beastie Boys wanted to rock shell toes and gold ropes like Run DMC? Last time I checked, they started off making rock music just like Post Malone. They didn’t “make it” until Russell Simmons decided to sign and market them as a Hip Hop act. No, we let them participate even when they ditched Def Jam after their huge debut. How did they, throughout a full career, manage to avoid stumbling over the appropriation line that Post Malone leaped over with his first studio album? By the way, where exactly is this line?
We’ve seen a lot of controversy with ghostwriters in the rap game, over the years. Drake found himself at the center of this controversy not too long ago, having his talent discredited for it. Despite being half Black, Drake was viewed by others as a “white” kid growing up in suburbia who couldn’t possibly relate to “hood struggles” of other rappers, proving to be a major hurdle in his journey to getting a Hip Hop record deal. Yet and still, we flow along with his raps about the activities of his entourage, Black like him, who are in fact “about that life.”
Your only provided evidence of Post Malone pretending to be something he’s not comes from 21 Savage’s “Rockstar,” featuring the artist. A line that you particularly took interest in was, “smokin like a Rasta.” Although you decided to highlight the simile, you failed to include the subjects which are “all my brothers.” Malone, here, is not partaking in this “Rasta-like” activity. Even so, let’s call the line what it is: a simile. Rastafarians are known to smoke a lot of weed. It’s a huge part of their culture. Due to his race, I’m assuming Post Malone can only compare heavy weed smoking to the activity of say…Hippies? Would it have been okay if 21 Savage himself claimed to smoke like a Rasta, because I’m pretty sure he does not identify as Rastafarian. Because he’s Black like one, does he get a pass to compare his actions to those of individuals from a different culture?
What exactly seems out of character for this twenty-something and his new fortune and fame? Is it the sex that he has, the drugs that he does, or the expensive cars, clothes, and jewelry that he buys? Is it the nonexistent claims that he makes about performing “hood-like” activities that has you particularly enraged? I’m sure he is not lying when he says, “Fuckin’ with me, call up on a Uzi And show up, man them the shottas When my homies pull up on your block They make that thing go frrra-ta-ta-ta,” if his homies are anything like 21 Savage. But I guess you can only participate in Hip Hop if you are, in fact, “about that life.”
Mr. Harriot, Genre IS stupid. It is a limiting box that we’ve tried to fold all of our “favorite” artists into. We live in a society that flamed Kanye West for 808s and Heartbreak, a beautifully produced and wildly diverse work of art. Kanye West’s Black fans abandoned him because he refused to fold anymore. They continue to ridicule him and call him crazy for labeling himself activist, fashion designer, and mogul. André 3000 is one of the most talented musicians to ever grace the face of the earth and the only title he has ever been awarded: rapper.
Then we get Stoney. It’s full of “rock stuff”, folk yodels, acoustic riffs, and authentic southern trills. Stoney is a plethora of genres that’s being trapped in the Hip Hop box because of the artist’s cornrows, gold fronts, and occasional use of “Black words” like bitch, hoe, and homie.
Post Malone is going to keep “talking shit to the ones that’ll listen.” He and his many white fans, along with the Black, are going to keep having fun and enjoying music that makes them feel good. He’s not a terrible person for that, he’s not an appropriator for that, and he damn sure aint satan.
Keep on rockin’ Austin, and Ima keep rollin’ with ya.
P.S. Don’t ever use the N word again. That shit will get you smacked.
