Is it possible to make rap-rock NOT shitty?

[DarkAxel]

I believe Invisible Man is who casecandy would really want to be

I respect the eloquence. Can't really comment because I haven't studied RATM and their attitude/ideology - I just dig the grooves

[rustywire]

I just saw a twitter post screenshot that was on point as fuck

"Every Death Grips song:
I CUM IN THE FUCK *20 cymbals played at once*"



I still think I hate and love them at the same time

Sounds like someone with tourette's dropping Neil Peart's drumkit down multiple flights of steps

[D.o.S.]

Can't really comment because I haven't studied RATM and their attitude/ideology - I just dig the grooves

Turns out anticapitalists still have to pay for food somehow, and the struggle therein.

[psychic vampire.]

Can't really comment because I haven't studied RATM and their attitude/ideology - I just dig the grooves

Turns out anticapitalists still have to pay for food somehow, and the struggle therein.

And thus we come to the impasse of the last 100 years of the American Fringe Left.

D.o.S.: I'm sure you got this, but because sometimes it helps to demystify things on the internet, i believe CC is referring to the fact that dreadlocks are specifically a religious thing to certain people, and said people might find a Chicano man with dreads as frustrating as a White man with dreads.

Casecandy: What i was trying to get at earlier, and what invisible man might be able to say better than me (bc i bad at words) is that the construction of race, and the events of colonialism that went hand in hand with said construction, are challenging to nail down eloquently and happened in myriad different ways for each person, so Zach De La Rocha probably has a connection to his dreadlocks that nobody here could speak to, and it would be near impossible for someone with an outside perspective to nail down those reasons.

RatM was not my entry to radicalism, Crass was, so i can't really speak with too much accuracy about them.

But all of this is tangential to the question of how to make rap and rock not shitty when combined.

[rustywire]

The thing about dreads is they aren't the exclusive property of any single culture or skin tone. Ancient people weren't exceptionally clean by any means but that's neither here nor there. FME most people crying about that particular form of 'cultural appropriation' w/r/t hairstyles are basic-bitch types with hate for anything pale-skinned people say/do/enjoy. Which I find particularly amusing as they spew such bigotry while shamelessly clad in denim jeans, t-shirts, flannel button-ups, baseball caps & Chuck Taylors

[D.o.S.]

yo I'm wearing sandals tyvm. My chucks are in the closet.

I think the history of dreadlocks has some very specific historic constructs, though, so your first sentence is probably a little over-simplified afaik

[DarkAxel]

no offence - but I just think they look absolutely shitty on most white dudes

although maybe I just don't really like dreadlocks but feel that people of color are much more entitled to them because for certain cultures and communities they have spiritual meaning/importance or are speaking of their historical roots and previous modes of life combined with the biological predisposition of the prevalent hair type so I respect that

but really - it's dreadlocks, I couldn't give a shit. Why should I. I will just happily cringe at every white person who has them. Especially if they're ginger, that shit looks ridiculous

(sorry, I'm in a really bitchy mood today )

[psychic vampire.]

No, it's also true that white people, by and large, look like shit with dreads.

I'm not really into doing the dreads argument on here, but suffice to say, they are something the overwhelming majority of white people should not have, for many reasons.

[rustywire]

Yeah I def agree it aint a good look on white people cept a few babes have been utterly adorable with'm. That one singer/songwriter from High Fidelity springs to mind as a go-to example...other than a girl I used to know from school.
@ DoS it was apparently a popular viking hairstyle hundreds of years before reaching Jamaica...although I do not know of its cultural significance beyond that. Everyone knows and associates it with Rastafarians.

My old, local record store guru (as I affectionately refer to him) once caught me off guard & caused a laughing fit with a bit of non-pc wisdom.
"Never trust a white man with dreadlocks or a black man in a bowtie" and as dismissive as it is...I have yet to personally find exceptions to them rules in the 12 years since hearing that

[Invisible Man]

I believe Invisible Man is who casecandy would really want to be

I respect the eloquence. Can't really comment because I haven't studied RATM and their attitude/ideology - I just dig the grooves

Casecandy is the ILF MVP, though. He has killed zero threads.

Nothing against not 'studying' bands or their ideologies, but I think that's also the logic (to refer back to the booklet for Evil Empire) for the album art.

This basically became their constituency. Adolescent white guys who showed to punch one another in the face. Rage shows wound up looking a lot more like fascist rallies than they were comfortable with because of the kind of music they were associated with (bands they toured with, metal, stupid bullshit). Not to say one has to buy into the politics of anything they listen to, but...the band is literally called 'Rage Against the Machine.' Not a lot of subtlety regarding their mission.

I think this is totally on point for the discussion, too. Rock used to be the forward guard for sonic subversion, then rap took over. So fusing the most grinding annoy-your-parents bits of both was kinda inevitable. All the nu-metal stuff that happened ten and fifteen years ago was really just manufactured to look and sound edgy...all sizzle no steak. At least RATM had some steak. Whatever you think about dreads.

[D.o.S.]

ITT: Invisible Man denigrates the hormonal rage of suburban wasteoids as culturally invalid.

@ DoS it was apparently a popular viking hairstyle hundreds of years before reaching Jamaica...although I do not know of its cultural significance beyond that. Everyone knows and associates it with Rastafarians.

Not that I'm suggesting your making this sort of equivocation but this is the same logic as my dipshit friends who have swastika tattoos "Because, well, actually, were you aware, *pushes up glasses, dyes hair, idly wonders what's racist about urban radio* that in Hinduism... "

[rustywire]

Is it though? I get the point you're trying to make but am really struggling to make the connection with that leap in logic. Perhaps the Hitler-stache analogy would be a better one. IDK iconography is weird in how it's interpreted but AFAIK dreadlocks have never been immediately symbolic of any movement whose goal was world domination & ethic *purification*. Perhaps vikings are guilty of the former but by all accounts they were kinda...indiscriminately rapey and it had nothing to do with how they wore their hair. AFAIK anyway. Cant pretend like I know for sure.

FWIW your friends are hella dipshits for that choice in ink & attempt at muddying the water with dubious justification
Are they really such massively douchey hipsters?

IMO Carlin had it right on the money "I leave the symbols to the symbol-minded"
RIP


Also when I hear *urban radio* used colloquially...it carries connotations not specific to any 1 race...at least in my mind. Street scene music (not disco or clubby in any way) of multicultural ethnic origin with urbanized themes (the polar opposite of country music tropes). But I grew up in the NYC market so there's that. I don't have much of a filter or patience reserve when it comes to PC handwringing. *race music* on the other hand...strictly associated with black musicians and presented in sort of a condescendingly exotic context. That aint the preferred nomenclature, Dude.

[D.o.S.]

Uh some of them are, unfortunately, but most of them are just preposterously clueless academics. My point is that (comparatively) no one thinks "vikings" first when they think "ethnicities with dreadlocks" the same way no one thinks "hinduism" first when you see a swastika -- this seems like not so much a leap in logic as a point of fact. Historical/cultural context isn't beholden to your whims, for better or worse.

[Invisible Man]

ITT: Invisible Man denigrates the hormonal rage of suburban wasteoids as culturally invalid.

Nah. Trying to be polite about saying that listening to overtly political tunes because you like how heavy they are puts you in a bracket you prolly don't want to be in (i.e., we are those people). But...come at me, bro, or whatever.

Wasteoids made me laugh.

[Blackened Soul]

Uh some of them are, unfortunately, but most of them are just preposterously clueless academics. My point is that (comparatively) no one thinks "vikings" first when they think "ethnicities with dreadlocks" the same way no one thinks "hinduism" first when you see a swastika -- this seems like not so much a leap in logic as a point of fact. Historical/cultural context isn't beholden to your whims, for better or worse.