Fuck Harvey Levin and anybody that loves his celebrity news website. First you prematurely pronounce the impending death of Lil Wayne (Weezy Forgives. We Don't.) and then you try to link the horrific actions of one of the Boston Marathon culprits to our culture? "DEAD BOMBING SUSPECT: HEAVY INTO HIP HOP" You don't say? It's 2013 and most kids are into rap music. We've been penetrated pop culture, you cock suckers. "What's interesting... hip-hop lyrics are notoriously violent and often degrading to women." So our music is at fault in this tragedy? Let's be clear the only bombs my culture cosigns is DJ Funkmaster Flex's sound effects. Thirty Mile Zone is prone to post anything to get traffic. Fuck dude and his coffee cup. Get you a Rap Radar cup and drink with us in the winner's circle.
Oh Miguel. Leg droppin your fans? You ain't Hulk Hogan and that wasn't part of the program. That's no way to treat the adoring ladies, brother.
A few days ago, yours truly sat alongside journalists Jon Caramanica and Ben Ratliff for this week’s edition of The New York Times Popcast. Our conversation revolved around SPIN‘s review of Chief Keef’s debut, Finally Rich. The site rated the album 8 out of 10. To boot, Nas’ Life Is Good received a 7 out of 10.
Prior to the sit-down, I labeled the author Jordan Sargent a cultural tourist. My comments caught the attention of my colleagues (Dave Bry, Benjamin Meadows-Ingram) and opened up some dialogue regarding race.
According to Jordan, Keef, “made one of the best rap albums of the year, and one of the best major label debuts in recent memory.” He spends a majority of his review justifying Keef’s presence instead of his music. When he does get around to the music (or lack thereof), he makes apologetic statements for Keef’s technical abilities as a rapper. (“His lyrics are direct and purposefully bereft of showmanship. This gets read as “dumbed-down” [or as just straight dumb], but that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire function of Keef’s words.”) At various points, he even compares some songs to those of the mixtape Weezy reign.
Tags: b.dot, new york times
I stopped caring about B.Dots opinion when he said Earl Sweatshirt was garbage.
I feel B.Dot on this. There’s nothing wrong with liking Chief Keef. He can be a guilty pleasure and a lot of people, kids mostly, love his music.
I think maybe what B.Dot found problematic, and I agree, is that attributing artistic value and talent in his music diminishes the rest of the culture. By gviing Keef in 2012 an 8 out of 10 and calling it the best major label debut of the year it puts him on the same level as a Kendrick.
And the cultural tourists give themselves props for intellectualizing and creating context that simply doesn’t exist to defend what is, by all objective counts, at best a guilty pleasure album.
I’ve read a couple “tourists” explain the magic of Chief Keef as being “too special to put into words”. Which is a complete cop out in my opinion. Chances are these people are full of shit. So barely making an effort to rhyme on beat and enunciating is talent now? GTFOH.
Salute to B.Dot hes right. Chief Keef is not the first rapper to grow up in a murder rampaged hood so why in the hell does that give him a pass to be less lyrical? Lupe’s from Chicago and hes a great lyricist
hip hop is what you make it. saying that keef is bad because he isn’t lyrical is saying a good rap song has requirements. A good song is a good song. Hip hop isn’t about requirements, or meeting specifications, its about the feeling you get when you hear a song. The simple fact is that chief keef’s music evokes emotion in people, to a point where they will download his songs and buy his albums. Whether it be chills down your spine when you hear a clever line from nas, or adrenaline in your veins when you hear chief keef’s under the influence raps about his environment, its all relative. its all hip hop.
big up b.dot, i agree
Jon Caramanica and Ben Ratliff are clowns sound like they are from npr.
how can freddie gibbs be boring and chief keef be celebrated?
how about a little love for the cool kids
this is tricky. i may comment more, later, but i will say this to start…
Chief Keef getting an 8 out of 10 review at SPIN, while Nas got 7 out of 10, in truth, only challenges the, would could be considered, narrow criteria on gauging 1. what makes a hip hop album dope, and 2. the overall quality of an album.
i have to correct you all and encourage you to think. ultimately, it is good for Hip Hop music to continue to broaden it’s parameters of “dope” beyond what most closely resembles east coast influenced style.
this isn’t me saying i believe Keef’s album is better than Nas’s. and, i don’t believe an 8 out of 10 rating, if Kendrick gets 8 out of 10, that he’s on the same level as Kendrick… what it means is, Hip Hop music is not one thing, and it should make us consider the fact that what makes one album dope, and one artist from one region dope, may not be the same thing that makes another dope.
i do think they’re cultural tourists, though. but they’d be that no matter what rating they gave Keef’s album. is the content destructive? yes. is he lyrically gifted? no. but… the fact that his music, and particularly a segment of the youth in the chi would agree, accurately depicts their outlook (even if it’s a bad outlook) on life, their circumstance, and soundtracks it closely, is something that all of us should take a second look at.
wack is fake. posing. that “wanksta” shit as 50 cent called it. Finally Rich, to me, is none of that. and i ain’t intellectualizing.
“As a whole, Keef’s music represents the lowest common denominator in rap. It suggests that being lyrical is an antiquated idea and marginalizes rappers creative scope. Yes, Chicago is a bad place. Yes, Keef is a product of his environment. But is that an excuse to be inarticulate or unskilled”
Enough said.
*what could be considered
Really, it’s thanks to culture vulture journalism that rap is clogged with really shit artists that make a cool video, flop, fall off. We saw it with Kreayshawn, Lil B, we’re seeing it now with Chief Keef.
“he doesn’t even speak english”
LMFAO!
[...] Would white music critics be praising Chief Keef’s music so much if they were economically stuck living in the same neighborhood as Keef and his [...]
Wow dude said “Gibbs is boring”, Anyone else here that?
freddie gibbs makes good music, but, yes, that nigga is very boring.
Alot of the so called tastemakers of this industry don’t give a fuck about Hip-Hop so they say what they think the demographic wants to hear to appear in the know or are paid to say whatever the label tells em to so as soon as they feel Rap’s dead they’ll move on to K-Pop or whatever the fuck. The lovers of this culture MUST start learning this businnes & implimenting what we learn to gain control of this shit. Long story short we don’t need the next Gucci, Jay Elect, Drake or Public Enemy as much as we need the next Kevin Liles, Russell Simmons, Steve Stoute, Harvey Peirre, Chris Lighty etc. Alotta rappers can’t manage their money but as a whole rappers make more money off of their brands than ANY other genre’s artists PERIOD making this cultural phenomenom called Hip-hop/Hip-Hop/Rap nothing more than a market to the media (including bloggers) & the corporations that want to control every facet of it and suck it dry (no Ocean).
$0.02.
^
What?! U must be on crack. Gibbs is one the best cats out. Keef makes trash!
Whoever said Gibbs was boring better go back to listenin to Drake und Frank Ocean
Quote of the day by B.dot cosigned by Tbones; it seems that these hipster bloggers actually find it appealing for some strange reason that retarded rappers like Cheef Kief suck donkey balls.
BDot def represented well up in there, it was a good listen apart from the music breaks. Nuff said.
@Nathaniel, I feel you, and if we want to pull back and discuss art then one could make the argument that rating art or critiquing it at all is problematic because art is art and a critic’s opinion is less relevant than how the average person responds to it…
but there are some things that you can say are objectively better than others. You can say “The Godfather” is better than “The Adentures of Pluto Nash,” right? And while you could argue that Pluto Nash is different and serves a different purpose it’s hard to argue that it’s better objectively speaking. The problem with Spin and other cultural tourists is that they’re treating Finally Rich like “The Godfather” and not “Pluto Nash”
And that’s not because I’m viewing it from an East Coast 90s hip hop fan perspective, it’s because through objectve standards (lyrical content, staying on beat, intelligible lyrics, the formulation of sentences etc.) it’s just subpar. And it diminishes other credible rap to even suggest that it’s in the same league.
b.dot look just like some1 i know
i dont care what it is, dudes like that shouldnt be allowed to speak hip hop against bdot, based on the way they sound alone…
lolllllll
@GreenBeitz We alllll look the same lol
I sometimes VEHEMENTLY disagree with B. Dot, but there are other times when his opinion really resonates with me.
He’s absolutely right about Chief Keef & the ridiculous Spin review. Keef was rewarded for flaunting his unapologetic ignorance, his comical ineptitude & his bizarre levels of unintelligence.
I couldn’t disagree more with @ Nathaniel who said that there isn’t an objective standard for ‘good rap music’. There are certain features that any good rap song HAS TO have.
A head-nodding beat with a great sense of progression and musical arrangement OR a cleverly chopped sample, a rapper with a commanding flow (which includes voice and mic presence), an addictive, well written hook which makes use rhyme, humour or powerful melody to draw the listener in, coherent verses with an internally consistent theme (which may or may not make GREAT use of punchlines, metaphor, storytelling). This is what hip hop has always and always will be about.
We shouldn’t have to condone trash just for sake of it. There is music which is objectively bad based on the parameters I outlined & it’s ok to say so.
Props to B. Dot though. He really cares about the culture, which is dope.
Fuck Jon Caramanica!!!!!
According to Jordan, Keef, “made one of the best rap albums of the year, and one of the best major label debuts in recent memory.”
^
this made me lol. people can bump chief keef all they want… nothing wrong with that but the nigga is GARBAGE. He cant rap. Saying a bunch of nonsense on a dope beat in melodic and catchy way doesnt make a song good. smh bdot said it better when he said niggas are trying to over-conceptualize his lyrics and attempt to find something thats not there. he is a bad rapper and finally rich is a terrible album. simple.
Numbers don’t lie. If Finally Rich was a great album his album sales would reflect that.
Respectively said B.Dot.
I agree.
@hahnbolo yes and no.
i think we (self included) tend to judge the quality of a product based on it’s the numbers.
Something COULD be good, but the #’s just don’t reflect that. It’s a case by case thing. In this instance, I just think the product is poor
who would have thought i would agree with B. Dot
how about we start talking about good and bad music …reviewers shouldnt swallow their words because someone is trending ! And it was about time someone called these outsiders out for trying to bullshit their viewers
There´s room for everybody in hip hop but some feelings will be hurt if u dont put in work
SPIN gave Chief Keef an 8 out of 10 and Nas 7 out of 10. Well we know who’s lost ANY chance of a subscription or a read with me and my folks. And that’s a lotta folks. Silly ass folks who will try to sell any shit for a buck.
Bdot aint got no love for Game or Ab soul so fuk him
Hip hop music has been STRATEGICALLY dumbed and watered down by the powers that be so that ANYBODY can do it. If the music STAYED something that required a certain level of skill and soul, the head honchos would NEED talented artists WITH skill and soul. They would be dictated to by the artists as to what is hot and what is good.
Once you remove the need for a soulful, lyrically talented artist and replace them with glorified singers and elementary rhymers you can plug anybody anywhere and dictate TO hip hop what is hot and what is good. Don’t yall remember that blacks once ran rock n’ roll?? Once it was watered down enough and stripped of it’s soulful and talent elements it became something so broad and unrecognizable that ANYBODY could do it. Soon it was overrun by strategically placed artists with an agenda. straight from the execs to radio and tv.
I will ALWAYS retain my right as a hip hop fan, to say what really is hot and good and what isn’t. I don’t care if the whole world disagrees. If somebody cannot put words together in a way that the next man is not able to, they are not an artist to me. They may be real, they may be charismatic but they are not a hip hop artist.
Bdot is NY vs the world. It’s simple…. Nas had a decent hip hop album..
Chief had a decent rap album… Hiphop and Rap is like football vs basketball.. Two different forms of music..
Also just because something is lyrical dosent make it great… Busta is lyrical, but his content has always been trash… He dressed like a clown, talked about flip mode, talked about smoking, ice, smacking niggaz, and how dominant he was.. No different from keef…
Why dosent he write about the south saving NY niggas for the past 5-6 years, and when are they going to stop asking for features and make it on heir own..?
@BDot I agree. Most of my favorite albums of all time never sold when they are initially released. When I say “Great” I mean palatable to Keef’s target audience. His target audience decided to pass because of how shitty the product is. That and because the people the still BUY music are our age and older. All this time we’ve been told to shut up because we’re too old and somehow that renders our opinions irrelevant. But the irony is our opinions are probably the ONLY ones that matter at this point seeing as WE buy the music and it’s our purchasing power that ultimately decides how successful an artist is and how much he’s valued by his employer. If Interscope decides to keep Chief Keef chances are his Softmore album will no longer be a priority in Interscope. Nor will it receive the budget or promo ‘Finally Rich’ got. Chief Keef really shit the bed on this album. This first album was suppose to be a statement. Instead it turned into a wet fart.
so wait, your comparing Chief Keefa to bust rhymes? really?
Busta rhymes content has always been trash? How can you say that with a career that has stretched over 20 years
YOU HAVE TO HAVE A POTATO AS A BRAIN IF YOU THINK CHEIF KEEF MAKES GOOD MUSIC, DUDE IS STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOONDOCKS
@B.DOT WHY ARE YOU STILL AVOIDING THE JESUS P album QUESTIONS??? BUT REPLYING TO OTHER QUESTIONS? TELL US WHY ITS NOT TOP 3 CAUSE IT REALLY IS PRODUCTION IS EXCELLENT LYRICS SUPERIOR THE RAPPER ON IT IS ONE OF THE ELITE IN THE HIPHOP GAME SO WHY ISN’T IT ON THE LIST?
I totally agree with B.Dot on this one. I think that white guilt is definitely at play. Keef is a product of his environment but that doesn’t justify giving shitty music a pass just because he really comes from that unrelatable lifestyle. Judge the music, not his story.
Keef fucked that kobe beat up smh
@beezy agree
I don’t get how he down plays Keef so bad for not being lyrical but say people just like it because it bangs. But Rick Ross isn’t all the great of a lyricist but he stuff is better? but doesn’t his just “Bang” as well? Is “BMF”, “Hold Me Back”, “Sophisticated” lyrical gems or do they just bang? He is being very hypocritical if he doesn’t like Keef thats fine but don’t go so hard grasshopper…
@ Wil O’s comment has me in shock.
He ACTUALLY said ‘Hiphop and Rap is like football vs basketball.. Two different forms of music’
I mean, this comment is so profoundly misinformed about music and culture. Please, stop creating imaginary genres to justify your affinity for garbage music.
Rap is a subset of Hip Hop so the two are distinctly aligned. While rap music refers to the genre we all know and love, Hip Hop is a cultural movement which emerged in the 1970s. It was an innovative form of self-expression originally for and by the African American community and it included breakdancing, the use of graffiti, deejaying, beat boxing, a distinctive sense of fashion and of course, rap music.
So when you say rap is one genre of music & Hip Hop is another, you’re literally speaking gibberish.
Dear Bdot,
Go kill yourself for giving these people the time of day. Ole uncle tom ass hoe.
Sincerely,
The general consensus
SO B. DOT CLAIM CHIEF KEEF A GREAT ARTIST / RAPPER, FREDDIE GIBBS IS BORING, AND EARL IS TRASH!
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !
GOOD JOB, BRIAN, GOOD JOB! WHAT DID YOU SMOKE?
“I don’t get how he down plays Keef so bad for not being lyrical but say people just like it because it bangs. But Rick Ross isn’t all the great of a lyricist but he stuff is better?”
Rick may not be your top 5 lyricist, but he’s a lyricist. And no one is asking Keef to be lyrical. He’s just saying put at least SOME effort into your music. ‘Finally Rich’ is the sound of a kid fucked up on molly, not giving a fuck, and just wanting to get out the studio ASAP so he can go do hoodrat stuff with his friends.
Keef puts little to no effort in his music and it shows on this album.
This is how to destroy the culture ! Put the weak ones on Top and its over
These fraudulent journalists know black men have the most power since MLK and Malcolm so they only way to remove that culture of strong intellectual black men speaking to evolve the next crop is to place the dumb demonic black man,celebrate him then BOOM! all is lost and we’re back to the slave ships fields and whips again ! Other cultures in the East would never ever give a retarded kid radio play ,go ask Indians, Chinese, even in Africa, their story tellers are very adept and intelligent , because they’re aware of the power of the spoken word!!!!!!! But this is all a setup and the blind leading the blind , we’re doomed and we need our Moses to get us outta this situation, might be too late tho!
@Dashing
i understand your point, but Godfather and Pluto Nash aren’t good examples. i only say that because Keef isn’t satirical, comedic, nor a parody. he isn’t a joke nor meant in jest. he isn’t a mockery. it isn’t bubble gum rap, either. or poppy. it’s straight from the street. it’s authentic, but it’s from a 16 year old in the south chi. in 2012. THIS is what, what those of us who are aware of the peril in that area of the city understand to be authentic expression. that’s why it’s hard for me to dismiss it as wack, garbage, trash, and just shoo it away like it’s unworthy. i can’t do it because it’s too telling. that, to me, ain’t us, and it ain’t hip hop. we have to admit that it’s never been, and never will be “just about the music”. we aren’t surface dwellers.