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The Black Culture Thread
- Thread starter U5230
- Start date
lightless_shado
Banned
Lionheart1337 said:
Do you know who did the album art? it looks so familiar
Damn didn't know that. The more I read up about Islam the more I can begin to understand why so many black people in America practice it. Under Islam people of different races are accepted. Shame that there are people out there who are twisting its teachings to cause trouble. That very thing is what causes a lot of conflicts in Nigeria. People from my area are mostly Muslim and they don't take too kindly to anyone who isn't, I think they're starting to soften up a bit more as the economy improves. Its usually in times of economic turmoil that you end up seeing shit like this.Veidt said:
ryutaro's mama
Member
DominoKid said:
Almost.
His captions left out Sho' Nuff saying:
"..what the f--,lemme go motherfucker, lemme go..."
lightless_shado said:
The pioneers of the other two religions were exclusively Jewish. With Islam, the pioneers were Arabs,Africans, Persians, Romans. Most of whom were slaves themselves. Heck, Islam was in Africa before it even got to Medina.
lightless_shado
Banned
Lebron said:
Blackace
if you see me in a fight with a bear, don't help me fool, help the bear!
Lebron said:
I think I can explain it better... Drake is someone who thinks he is deeper than he is and refuses to use a proper chorus.. While Trey Songs is getting into that Nelly I am a gangsta singer area which gets awkward very fast...
lightless_shado
Banned
lightless_shado
Banned
Himuro said:
-shows self rolling actual weed and smoking it
-Takes of shirt to reveal decidedly uncut body
-acting as his own hype man
-droppin n bombs more than rhymes
WATCH OUT SOULJA BOY
captmcblack
Member
Drake is part of that new era of "family-friendly" crossover Negroes - black enough to use the culture as the basis of whatever it is they're doing (hip-hop, dancing, acting, etc) but light/white enough to appeal to everyone else. Hooray for quasi-racial ambiguity!
You know those guys - Drake, J. Cole, Corbin Bleu (the kid from High School Musical with the afro), and so on. Wherever you need a minority in a program to make sure it is diverse, you get one of those guys now, or a Hispanic dude.
What would be really progressive would be if you started seeing some Alfonso Soriano-dark cats on the screen or in movies where those types of characters would occur. The universe might collapse on itself if you had a well-rounded, mild-mannered street-smart and book smart guy with really dark skin on the screen. Your pure white daughter might (gasp!) find herself crushing on such a guy
Also, Drake is a legit rapper, fools. The kid is part of a post-808s and Heartbreak rap generation. You're allowed to sing on hip-hop albums now, and be introspective and shit. There's room for that, and MOP-style gun toting shit too.
You know those guys - Drake, J. Cole, Corbin Bleu (the kid from High School Musical with the afro), and so on. Wherever you need a minority in a program to make sure it is diverse, you get one of those guys now, or a Hispanic dude.
What would be really progressive would be if you started seeing some Alfonso Soriano-dark cats on the screen or in movies where those types of characters would occur. The universe might collapse on itself if you had a well-rounded, mild-mannered street-smart and book smart guy with really dark skin on the screen. Your pure white daughter might (gasp!) find herself crushing on such a guy
Also, Drake is a legit rapper, fools. The kid is part of a post-808s and Heartbreak rap generation. You're allowed to sing on hip-hop albums now, and be introspective and shit. There's room for that, and MOP-style gun toting shit too.
Blackace
if you see me in a fight with a bear, don't help me fool, help the bear!
captmcblack said:Drake is part of that new era of "family-friendly" crossover Negroes - black enough to use the culture as the basis of whatever it is they're doing (hip-hop, dancing, acting, etc) but light/white enough to appeal to everyone else. Hooray for quasi-racial ambiguity!
You know those guys - Drake, J. Cole, Corbin Bleu (the kid from High School Musical with the afro), and so on. Wherever you need a minority in a program to make sure it is diverse, you get one of those guys now, or a Hispanic dude.
What would be really progressive would be if you started seeing some Alfonso Soriano-dark cats on the screen or in movies where those types of characters would occur. The universe might collapse on itself if you had a well-rounded, mild-mannered street-smart and book smart guy with really dark skin on the screen. Your pure white daughter might (gasp!) find herself crushing on such a guy
Also, Drake is a legit rapper, fools. The kid is part of a post-808s and Heartbreak rap generation. You're allowed to sing on hip-hop albums now, and be introspective and shit. There's room for that, and MOP-style gun toting shit too.
First of all Drake rolls with the least family friendly group ever... And his subject matter is sex hoes fame. Just because he is mixed, he is family friendly? Silly...
Also Drake is an ok rapper but is far from deep, nor introspective...
"I am rich as fuck and got new friends!"
Deep and in touch with the common man
dskillzhtown
keep your strippers out of my American football
Lebron said:
Slim Thug is killing it right now. I would expect his song with BOB to be a commercial success and get his name out there even more. Bun B is probably the most respected in Houston though. Impressed with the way dude carries himself, always willing to help others, and now about to teach a course at Rice University. A true OG.
Mike Jones' head got too big, started talking wreckless and no one in town is really checking for him.
Blackace said:
Drake has that "non-threatening" appearance to the mainstream and was pushed as such. Drake had so much money behind him it was incredible. His lyrical content is less about murder and more about fucking hoes and being rich. I guess compared to his labelmates, that is family-friendly. But let's be real, Drake is meant to sell to women, that is where his true appeal is. A hip-hop heartthrob. When is the last time we had one of those?
Nelly?
captmcblack
Member
Blackace said:
He looks infinitely more family friendly than say...Wale. And they have the same sort of fashion-y, hypebeast look right? So why would you be more likely to find Drake posters in your sister's Tiger Beat than Wale? Besides that, there are no family-friendly gangsta rappers. I'd be willing to bet that your mother would sooner let your hypothetical kid sister buy Drake and BOB records than Mobb Deep and Clipse records. The Clipse look like those guys you are supposed to not make eye contact with on the subway (obviously, this isn't true for most sane people but still - bear with me). Drake, however is a kid who is wearing a cardigan and looks like a kid on a Nickelodeon program.
And yes, of course Drake's subject matter is what it is...but what else is he going to rap about? The struggle in the ghetto? He's not from there. How hard it was growing up? It wasn't hard for him. His unhappy family? It's not like that for him. Shooting people up? He can't talk about that either, he never even was around that.
He was a child actor who grew up in a pretty decent section of Toronto with a relatively stable home life. Thus, he raps and sings about relationships and partying and the good life and the spoils/pitfalls of success and the music industry. And he's definitely a little more introspective than Waka Flocka and Jeezy and so on...that's not really arguable.
Himuro said:
Let's first omit Lupe Fiasco, Wale and Blu because while their music is thematically similar, they had big buzz well before 808s. Let's also omit rappers/groups that have a gimmick (like The Cool Kids, who are more about a retro/stylistic revival than their subject matter). Let's also say that the "808s generation" of rappers are those younger rapper whose subject matter is more about personal issues of youth (growing up, women/relationships, college, personal struggles), and not necessarily cultural ones (the hood, poverty, gangs, crime, et al) Thus, let's start with this handful:
- Drake
- BOB
- J. Cole
- Charles Hamilton
- Mickey Factz
- XV
- Asher Roth
- Kid Cudi
- Big Sean
And go from there. There are many other people that probably can fall into that bucket, too.
Blackace
if you see me in a fight with a bear, don't help me fool, help the bear!
dskillzhtown said:
Trey Songs
Well the whole Young Money thing is about being rich and drunk... But outside of Nikki everyone else looks like shit. Lil Wayne looks like something Jim Henson made...
But Drake is not a deep rapper, nor really all that good of a rapper... He isn't bad and he kills everyone in Young Money... But that's about it
captmcblack
Member
Himuro said:
That's precisely my point - it isn't that they don't have an internal struggle because they're not from the ghetto or whatever. But if they're not from the ghetto, they can't really have much to say about the ghetto aside from "it is bad" or "i heard it was bad" or "it sucks for the people in the ghetto that i heard about". So thematically, a rapper who is coming from a different place than the hood probably sounds a little different...and historically speaking, such rappers tend to be more 'acceptable' to people outside of the traditional hip-hop culture than the average gangsta rapper.
These days, there is as much of the non-gangsta rapper in the hip-hop mainstream as there is the traditional gangsta rapper. And in addition to that, the rappers that are out today have a distinctly different look from rappers from even...5 years ago (and some of today's rappers were hot 5 years ago!)
But who are the kids talking about in the schoolyard? When we were kids, it was Tupac and Biggie - and your parents may have been afraid of that. Today, it's Drake and Soulja Boy...and your parents are probably laughing at that.
Does donald glover count? Hes not of the fair skinned variety and is quite a versatile actor(its a shame he doesn't take his childish gambino rap persona seriously. Hes quite the linguist)captmcblack said:What would be really progressive would be if you started seeing some Alfonso Soriano-dark cats on the screen or in movies where those types of characters would occur. The universe might collapse on itself if you had a well-rounded, mild-mannered street-smart and book smart guy with really dark skin on the screen. Your pure white daughter might (gasp!) find herself crushing on such a guy
dskillzhtown
keep your strippers out of my American football
Himuro said:
Wait...you never listened to a Drake song before?
captmcblack
Member
Parallax said:
Donald Glover counts, but he's got to be in more stuff more often.
We were discussing the kinds of films that such black people have to be in for it to really be some "pushing things forward" shit earlier in this thread.
Could there be a Bored To Death or Eastbound and Down with black people in the main roles? Could such programs exist without head-snapping "oh no you di'int" style, Ice Cube/Tyler Perry/Martin Lawrence/Anthony Anderson black acting? THAT is when shit will get real.
spindashing
Banned
Himuro said:
Drake was in Degrassi. See wheelchair picture above.
soul creator
Member
he seems to get a lot of hate, but Thank Me Later is actually one of my favorite albums this year. I think what appeals to me most about it is that it does seem to be a "real album", as far as having a consistent sound/mood, sequenced properly, etc.
Sort of a whole greater than the sum of its parts type of thing.
Sort of a whole greater than the sum of its parts type of thing.
BlackNMild2k1
Member
:lol :lol it's true though.Blackace said:
Himuro, Drake's album is pretty decent, but I actually like more songs from his previous mix tape before his 1st album dropped.
PhoenixDark
Banned
:lolHimuro said:
Get ready for money, hoes, new friends, etc
edit: TML is not a bad album but it's overrated
dskillzhtown
keep your strippers out of my American football
I guess I am the only one in this thread that likes the machismo of the harcore rap.
I don't look at it as realistic, even though I do know a few rappers did live the life they rap about. I just look at it as audio New Jack City, or Scarface or Menace to Society. I hate it that some youngsters listen to it as a blueprint to life, but for me I listen to some of the hardest cuts from Jeezy, Pimp C, or something to get me pumped for a meeting or presentation.
But it isn't like that is the only thing I have on my iPhone.
I don't look at it as realistic, even though I do know a few rappers did live the life they rap about. I just look at it as audio New Jack City, or Scarface or Menace to Society. I hate it that some youngsters listen to it as a blueprint to life, but for me I listen to some of the hardest cuts from Jeezy, Pimp C, or something to get me pumped for a meeting or presentation.
But it isn't like that is the only thing I have on my iPhone.
waves hands furiouslyDY_nasty said:
lol rappers got some of the funniest gestures, but I guess it can't really be helped. You can't just stand their like a dead fish I guess.
dskillzhtown said:
man even if you don't listen to radio(I don't), this shit is impossible.
captmcblack
Member
TML isn't overrated - it was considered somewhat disappointing, especially given the cohesive feeling/precociousness of his mixtape "So Far Gone". People were expecting Thank Me Later to have hits that destroyed the ones on his mixtapes...and while the songs and features on the album are definitely being pushed like they are planet-crushing hits, they don't have the cachet that free songs like "Best I Ever Had" did.
As for hardcore versus erm...not hardcore, I'm born and raised in NYC. Hardcore rap is pretty much what I cut my teeth on, so I will always prefer it. But as rap evolves, and as I've evolved, I've found that there's as much room for Thief's Theme, Ante Up and Lifestyles Ov Da Poor 'N Dangerous as there is for Day 'N Nite.
As for hardcore versus erm...not hardcore, I'm born and raised in NYC. Hardcore rap is pretty much what I cut my teeth on, so I will always prefer it. But as rap evolves, and as I've evolved, I've found that there's as much room for Thief's Theme, Ante Up and Lifestyles Ov Da Poor 'N Dangerous as there is for Day 'N Nite.
PhoenixDark
Banned
captmcblack said:
That may be true in terms of the expectations of its chart performance(s), but as an album it was generally well received and quite hyped even after it came out. Overall it's not a bad album, the problem to me is that lyrically there isn't much there outside of him bragging about how much money he has and wondering why the people around him have changed. Yet at the same time there's an interesting level of introspection, honesty, and vulnerability there.
But I will forever give Drake props for bringing lyricism back to mainstream hip hop. He may have a limited amount of subjects, but the man can rap. It's definitely good seeing the more southern bullshit stuff slowly dying as people care about actual rapping more.
So in part the reason it's overrated is due to how bad so much mainstream rap is, people hail Drake as a savior because he can actually rap. Same thing happened with Lil Wayne last year
AbortedWalrusFetus
Member
So guys, while I was on my honeymoon in Jamaica I was up late one night channel surfing and slurping down the all-inclusive alcohol included with my stay and I came across a movie/documentary called "Diary of a Tired Black Man" and I thought it was altogether incredibly interesting and enlightening.
Have any of you seen it? Are relationships really like that in the black community? Some of the stuff I saw seemed common to all races and relationships, but some of it that was brought up about men and women growing up in single parent households and stuff was really thought provoking, albeit depressing. And damn, if any of you have it as bad as the guy in the skits does I just feel terrible : (
Edit:
Apparently this clip started it all
Have any of you seen it? Are relationships really like that in the black community? Some of the stuff I saw seemed common to all races and relationships, but some of it that was brought up about men and women growing up in single parent households and stuff was really thought provoking, albeit depressing. And damn, if any of you have it as bad as the guy in the skits does I just feel terrible : (
Edit:
Apparently this clip started it all
Nameless
Member
AbortedWalrusFetus said:
Yeah, it's a cool little film. Most of the themes it explored have been tossed around in this thread, but it's definitely worth a watch. Netflix has it available for streaming http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Diary-of-a-Tired-Black-Man/70112031.
sooperkool
Member
The fact that people think that Drake is a lyricist tells you just how far things have fallen.
PhoenixDark
Banned
While I have always liked that clip, and have seen that behavior from black women many times I can't help but wonder whether we are demeaning black women and spreading stereotypes. Black women graduate from college at a far better pace than black men, they are more successful, etc. But while a successful black man has many relationship options, for black women their relationship main option is pretty much only black men - a group that overall is not that successful. So when some successful black women see successful black men dating white or Asian women they feel as if an already shrinking pool of possible relationship mates is shrinking even more.
I've heard many black women essentially argue "good" black men have an obligation to marry black women. You should be able to date/marry/etc anyone you want, period. Personally I find that a lot of the black women I know don't have much compatibility with me. I'm not a religious person, I'm into a broader range of music and film, I like to read, pay attention to politics etc. I'm not going to gravitate towards someone who obsesses over Lil Wayne or Tyler Perry. And I'm talking about college women here, not some chick who works at McDonalds.
I've heard many black women essentially argue "good" black men have an obligation to marry black women. You should be able to date/marry/etc anyone you want, period. Personally I find that a lot of the black women I know don't have much compatibility with me. I'm not a religious person, I'm into a broader range of music and film, I like to read, pay attention to politics etc. I'm not going to gravitate towards someone who obsesses over Lil Wayne or Tyler Perry. And I'm talking about college women here, not some chick who works at McDonalds.
AbortedWalrusFetus
Member
PhoenixDark said:
In the full movie they are more careful to say that it's not all black women that are like that, but it's still common. It does a pretty good job of showing the frustration on behalf of women as well, although it focuses primarily on the "tiredness" of men.
captmcblack
Member
PhoenixDark said:
Do they?
Successful black men are still black - so we're still closer to Blanka and Dan in the dating pool than Guile and Honda unless we look like fucking Denzel (and have bank like him, too).
Also. the success of black men is relative - a black man who is well-paid and well-respected in his field is more likely to be considered a cornball or a square than a black professional athlete or entertainer or something who would definitely be hailed as a big success. We still don't have a famous black tech guy or scientist, and our beloved black artists are few and far between (why don't we have more important writers/poets/artists?) these days.
Would Langston Hughes get any burn today in a world where James Frey and the Twilight lady is big shit? Why is the only black artist I know today Basquiat when I'm 27 years old? Surely some black person has made some substantial artwork on that level since then, right?
also, as for music - the best thing that ever happened was the invention of the blog. I don't listen to much radio at all these days, but things like Pitchfork, Brooklynvegan, Tinymixtapes, Nahright, SOHH, Rapradar and Worldstarhiphop keep me abreast of anything that happens in music.
...that, and GAF.
Dreams-Visions
Member
church.sooperkool said: