there's our catastrophe

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Posts tagged hip hop

Mar 23

femalerappers:

partydream:

Njena Reddd Foxxx - Hold My Purse (ft.GooDLucK)

*dips*

“he must be drunk, now he grabbing on my waist
but trying to grab my ass was your last mistake
hold my earrings, hold my purse
it’s not your feelings that’s gonna get hurt”

njena reddd foxxx is the best, seriously


Dec 19

so-treu:

karnythia:

So I got into it with the author of this article about appropriation of black cool & the clothes a lot of inner city girls wore as armor in the late 80’s & early 90’s on Twitter. It went about how you’d expect (I just realized looking at comments on the article that she really has no intention of engaging with any critique honestly, no matter how many times it comes up), and I came away frustrated that I’d wasted my time speaking to her at all. But it sparked other discussions and some thoughts about how often the styles of WOC are referenced in media by MOC before they are adopted by white women. Pondering what it means for MOC to profit from talking about the bodies of WOC, and how easy it is for white women to then erase WOC from the equation by joining in dismissing us as slutty, or ghetto, or tacky, all while they adopt select bits of our internal beauty aesthetic. If we’re not present in media except as a reference point, then how can we be seen as people? For that matter what does that mean for the ease with which our efforts to defend our labor are dismissed?

i reblogged this last night w/out comment but now that my brain is working, the bolded. the bolded. the bolded.

one perfect example being how strippers/dancers/sex workers are positioned in both rap music itself and by rap music commentators. strippers basically make super mega rap hits, super mega rap hits. however ill a rappers flow is, if strippers - you know, black women (in this case) - ain’t feeling it, neither will radio. there are SO many rappers that owe their stardom to strippers dancing - i.e. WORKING, i.e. PERFORMING LABOR - to their music, esp since the rise of southern rap. but who talks about that (besides npr, of all people)? hip hop heads ignore strippers b/c 1) a critical approach to hip hop that only recognizes male labor and 2) if we start talking about these women like they’re valuable and important to the music and shit then we can’t act like they’re nothing more than fungible flesh that solely exist to complete rapper dudes sense of self/masculinity. and feminist/f*eminist critiques read strippers + hip hop as poor misguided or exploited women (i’m looking hard at you, tina fey). either way, black women and their work (both physical & cultural) get erased by black men/MOC and white women (and pretty much anyone else who consumes said media), as does the VALUE of their work and of themselves.

which is how that blog post can fly, b/c it puts white folks sooooooooo at ease to consume our culture without having to actually deal with us as people int heir space, whether physical or virtual. ESPECIALLY working class black folks.


Nov 18

I like Chuck D and hate Žižek and if you don’t instantly understand that position then I don’t believe you, and if you do, stop saying shit like “let’s not dismiss something because of one problematic element” without engaging with its context and its role in the culture industries


Oct 23

lady leshurr — cool story, bro

theme song


angel haze — wicked moon ft. nicole wray

ahhhhhhhh I know I’m a couple months late on this but I can’t get over how good Reservation is, it’s violent and sad and powerful

I’ve been pro-Angel Haze for a while now but this is really taking it to the next level, every track is amazing

anyway this is a song about childhood abuse, feeling suicidal, the moon, and demonic possession


Sep 18

afterpartythesolohour:

Mykki Blanco — Wavvy

I really like weird electronic sounds and high vocals and I am willing to put up with a lot for those, but man, I cannot deal with the new Grimes video for Genesis on any level.  it’s literally just a bunch of extremely thin, mostly white women writhing around in hip outfits, sometimes with cartoonish weapons.  I think they’re trying to allude to something about women’s self defense but it’s vacuous and makes me feel awful.  anyway, I bring this up because this mykki blanco clip is another recent entry in the genre of “video clips featuring hip kids in hip outfits writhing about”, but this one actually features a diversity of gender expression, race, and body type in the hedonists.  I am sorry to recommend something by spending most of my recommendation trashing something else that already gets way more exposure, that is kind of a dick move, but that is what I was thinking about.  anyway, check it out. 


Aug 23

How websites like Racialicious reproduce the same hierarchical relationship they write against

becoming-wave:

rumagin:

There is an article about Nicki Minaj’s ‘Pound the Alarm’ video doing the rounds on tumblr. I didnt think it was accurate when i first read it. Then i saw it blasted by racialicious and i felt i had to comment because it was a form of representation by dominant US racial discourse about the Caribbean that pushed our own readings of ourselves out the window.

This is the second of two comments i made below the line on racialicious post:

Hi Adrienne, thanks for your response.

I fired my initial reaction off in a state of disappointment that an article I thought so wrong on tumblr had been promoted to added visibility on racialicous so I think I should quickly clarify that I am a fan of Minaj and proud of her in many ways for pushing the boundaries – as a women, as a trini, as a person from the Caribbean, as a dougla, as a POC, as a black women in the US racial binary, as an immigrant, as a minority and much more.

That she is appropriated by the capitalist entertainment machine and has her own unique voice still while obviously fighting against its patriarchal, misogyny is impressive and by no means was I belittling that. And I totally agree that it’s possible “for Minaj to have struggles with self-acceptance and also have a political opinion. The fact that Minaj operates on a wide spectrum should be heralded: she may not be a great role model or entirely unproblematic but I think she offers an honest and complex view of Black womanhood which is often denied to us.” That is a great point.

My issue was with the article itself and the oversimplication and misrepresentation of Trinidad, the political situation here, the history of Carnival and what the author claims the video is about. If statements by Minaj or the director were offered in support of the author’s readings – rather than a reading more in the style of literature studies essay then maybe I would be less critical. However, pushing political meanings into cultural objects where perhaps they don’t exist is problematic because it obscures the real politics and power relations at play for a more sanitised and hegemonic one. In this instance US racial politics read over Caribbean socio-cultural and economic realities.

So what I’m saying is my disappointment is directed at the author and not Minaj – it is also directed at racialicious for giving this argument more legitimacy. I should also add that the video has been discussed greatly in public and in academic circles in Trinidad (full disclosure I teach anthropology and political sociology at the University of the West Indies). To say a lot of people in Trinidad were disappointed with what they saw as a generic Hip Pop video wouldn’t be far from the mark too. However that is a different argument. It also doesn’t negate that some people love the video and for many different reasons. Our history is complicated – thus varied responses are normal. In that sense the author’s view might have a place here – however due to the many inaccuracies in the piece I am reluctant to let it slide.

Some examples of errors, problems and inaccuracies to add to those in my previous post:

The author overstates her interpretation and description of the curfew. I would also like to see the evidence for “several US and UK officials have informally implied threats of intervention.” That is pure hearsay.

Also, why report “a (unsuccessful) vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar”? It was knocked out of the park along party lines yes but it never had a chance since the ruling party has a substantial majority. In fact polls show that more people were in support of the Curfew than against it. This doesn’t negate that the curfew can be described as class warfare against poor black men – but our class and racial politics are extremely complicated. Many of the members of the Government – included our current National Security are black men so the curfew while racist was first and foremost classist.

The military and law enforcement aid from the US the author mentions is connected to the war on drugs which we all know is the most racist war there is. One forced on the rest of the world by the US Government and its capitalist cronies who launder hundreds of billions of US dollars through the first world’s banks and also support the corrupt class structure in Caribbean islands. A form of neo-colonialism if ever one needs an example. My point here is the author mentions such things and then just leaves them hanging without connecting them to Video. It a straw man and language used to politicise an argument where there isn’t much evidence of politics at all – i.e. the video has as an afterthought the Trinidad bandana as a gangsta symbol. Have you watch the making of the video? Minaj even mentions the bandana as an afterthought not as some political statement.

My biggest ire as someone who studies and has published on the history of Carnival is the author labelling the music video “a tribute to T&T Carnival”. This is just plain wrong. The history of T&T carnival is complicated and I touched on the basics above in my previous post. Put simply, a tribute to Trinidad Carnival and its black working class roots which were appropriated first on the road to Independence and now by the Capitalist machine needs to express the exclusion of the poor black working class from Carnival today. The author falls into the typical over hyped, multicultural b/s that does not mention how poor black people in an echo of the colonial situation are the servants to the middle and upper classes that now enjoy and pay between $4000- $7000 TT dollars for a costume (the average monthly wage here is $4000TT). If the video is a tribute to T&T Carnival then it is a tribute to the carnival that is stratified by cost and race. Not to mention the video has no shout outs to calypso or soca the real music of our Carnival. Nor does it have more than a few seconds of Ole Time Mas which again is part of the essence of our carnival. When the author says that Minaj “appears in a traditional carnival costume” I wanted to scream. She appears in ‘bikini and beads mas’ which is def not the same as a “traditional carnival costume”. Please do not represent us. That is what the author does with her analysis of carnival in the video. And even though she is claiming to give a political reading, the author speeds over the colourism at play in video which is extremely revealing of the local situation. I think the author needs to call the video direction out on the lack of black female bodies in the video for the high browns and light skin black women it uses. Yet the author speeds over this in less than sentence.

And I’d like to add that in contra to what the author says St James is not outside Port of Spain, it is part of Port of Spain. And today Woodbrook and Ariapita Avenue is the number one party district in Port of Spain. In fact the class, race and political differences between the two areas and their histories are an essay in itself.

Lastly, to call the ending of the video a “post-Mas apocalypse aftermath” when it is a generic pyrotechnic finale is another great example of the author overhyping her reading and misrepresenting an image as political. Does she even recognise where that is? It is the Savannah, the home of Carnival and definitely not apocalyptic to us. Maybe to foreigners. But it is the soul of Carnival for many – where the stage is on a Carnival Monday and Tuesday, and where for a few hours everyone gets to play king and queen.

So all in all the foundations and pillars that the author builds her argument on about the video are either overstated, open to disagreement or plan wrong.

Maybe the author has a point in her intro about most reviews hardly do Minaj justice as a political figure with agency, or recognize the political subtext of her video. But let’s not overhype it and get carried away with Pound the Alarm – that does more damage than good. In this instance it rewrites our local history, race politics and class situation. For me, that is the same thing white hegemony does to black history in the States. Here it is US based intellectuals – through the visibility the website racialicious provides the author – doing that to people in the Caribbean. It is the same hierarchical situation you always write against but you are doing it to us rather than having it done to yourselves.

If you got this far thanks for reading.

I reblogged the article this refers to, and from a position of knowing literally fuck all about Trini politics, I thought it was awesome. This critique is excellent and compelling and raises issues that most of us reading from outside the Caribbean couldn’t have picked out ourselves. Anyone who read the post it refers to should read this too.

(via tanacetum-vulgare)


Aug 21

reallyreallyreallytrying:

a vast stone golem HOW  MANY  DUDES  YOU  KNOW  ROLL  LIKE  THIS  the last of his kind  NOT  MANY  IF  ANY

(via clambistro)


Aug 16

femalerappers:

Khia VS Carly Rae Jepsen - All You Ladies Call Me Maybe Like This


Aug 4

so-treu:

doveilmiosoldi:

pound the alarm - nicki minaj

tbh I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen very many people talking about Nicki Minaj’s video for Pound the Alarm, especially in relation to Trinidadian politics. I feel like she gets overlooked a lot because she’s so hypersexualized and everyone seems to magically forget she was formally trained as a musician (too much of the narrative on her fame is about her body and relationships with male rappers, as if she’s not an intelligent artist who is very intentional about her image and her work), but a lot of her music has some pretty strong politics in it, albeit not obvious to anyone who isn’t base-level literate in her culture(s). 

Trinidad & Tobago was under martial law for a sizeable portion of 2011, and the fete scene was forced underground to 6-to-6 house parties. Trinis were understandably upset about the curfew and state of emergency, considering it was credited to an escalating murder rate that has more to do with police brutality and persistant socioeconomic factors that the government has yet to substantially address than anything else. While the curfew was lifted in late 2011, the state of emergency continued and in the last 8 months, several US and UK officials have implied threats of intervention, and there was an (unsuccessful) vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar this March. The nation is still under the British Commonwealth, receives military and law enforcement aid from the US, and is currently economically dependent on its gigantic oil industry (though illicit drug trafficking is also a major enterprise on the island, being a transit hub between Venezuela and the rest of the Caribbean & the US/Canada). 

Nicki Minaj is a US-raised Trini, and (though months after T&T’s Carnival) released a music video tribute to T&T Carnival at the height of this (Caribbean) carnival season. The very first shots of the video are famous places all over the island—Port of Spain, Chaguaramas beach, Caroni swamp, & the gate over the entrance to St. James (the party district outside Port of Spain, known for nightlife and as home point for mas camps—also Nicki’s hometown, and one of the most racially diverse places on the island), all to the tune of the chorus on steel pan (what is essentially the national instrument, having first been the instrument of low-income Trinis and now a mas tradition). Later we see her in Carnival costume that harkens to fellow Caribbean-American artist Rihanna’s 2011 costume, featured in her tribute to Bajan Crop Over last year (Cheers; did you see both videos even have shots of them each on wagons waving to the crowd with Digicel stuff in their hands??! got me feeling lame out here with my Lime phone). Towards the end, we even see her with a T&T bandana tied to mask her face, walking thru some kind of post-mas apocalypse-type aftermath. 

Nicki isn’t the first Trini to release nationalist or politically charged party music in the last year, but think about what it really means to produce that video within the context of the political climate in and outside Trinidad: the curfew was set in place because the Trinidadian government believed it would be easier to prevent and monitor gang violence (the perceived cause of the high murder rate) if people didn’t congregate at night—to party was a form of resistance against the criminalization of low-income and youth Trinis (and the imperialism which fueled and necessitated it). Making a music video homage to Trini party culture (with the title Pound the Alarm!), with the Bissessar government’s prediction as the final shot (a party-produced wasteland), and connecting that to implications of aesthetics of militant nationalism (ie bandana), is a big deal. (and connecting it to Bajan nationalism & party culture, re: Rihanna, is important—more and more Barbados is becoming a node of US power and means to monitor T&T, and that West Indian solidarity shouldn’t get swept under the rug.)

That said, the video is nowhere near perfect. Others have pointed out how shockingly whitewashed Nicki is, and the video as a whole certainly has a strong absence of dark-skinned Trinis. I’m also not a fan of the “Plains Indian-style” headdresses & outfits worn—I suspect this has more to do with the growing popularity of hipster headdresses & catering to a US market than anything else; traditional carnival outfits do include feathered headdresses, but they are not North American Plains-inspired (the hipster headdresses are a US-imperialism related import, I think, since the normal carnival outfits have a long history tied to sugar cultivation seasons, and mixing of African & indigenous cultures/identities). 

anyways, there’s a lot more to say about the video (the race & nationality politics, considering Nicki is US-raised and mixed, and that in relation to the racial politics in T&T and Guyana right now is pretty interesting…also the fact that Nicki has Gunshot and Fire Burns on her new album says a lot, especially in relation to Beez in the Trap—that’s a whole new post on transnationalism, identity, etc), but the point is: this video is really fucking important, and even if you don’t like Nicki, she deserves some credit for everything she’s doing with it. again, I really think people gloss over her work when talking about ‘politically engaged rap’ because of her image, and don’t realize all the meaning they’re missing by overlooking her; just because you’re not literate in the discourse she situates herself in, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

“just because you’re not literate in the discourse she situates herself in, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

“just because you’re not literate in the discourse she situates herself in, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

“just because you’re not literate in the discourse she situates herself in, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

let it sink in.

also this is why i fucks with doveilmiosoldi.


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