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Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

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Dog 3000
Dog 3000
4611 posts

Re: Macho music
Sep 16, 2003, 19:12
Lord et al:

I'm not so much trying to say it's OK to "bash gays" in lyrics, so much as I think your focusing all your criticism on this one issue is missing some of the larger context. Yes, it's a bad idea for minorities to slam other minorities. Yet it happens. "Gangsta rap" is not about "the way it should be" so much as "the fucked-up way it is right now." That's part of their whole aesthetic.

And if you listen to Beatles unreleased bootlegs they had a tune called "No Pakistanis" and another called "Negro In Reserve" -- but it'd be pretty inapropriate to rant about racism anytime someone mentions the Beatles, right? It's not like one or two jokey lyrics negates everything else they ever did.

I think you're doing something similar with Ice Cube -- he's a tremendous songwriting/storytelling talent and you try to make it sound like all he ever did was put down gay people. In fact, I'd like to see some of these awful lyrics quoted -- I own most of his albums and I don't remember him mentioning the subject very often.

What immediately comes to my mind are:

"No Vaseline" -- a dis at NWA and his former manager where he says they deserve to be anally raped without lube (and also set on fire and burned to death, and so on.) It's a lot of metaphorical hyperbole.

"The Product" -- a prisoner laments that he is "tired of seeing young brothers get their assholes torn out." Prison rape.

And while we're still on the subject -- I seem to recall Public Enemy had some songs that were 100% about gays -- "Meet The G That Killed Me" (about how gays spread AIDS) for instance. Again -- is it fair to PE to harp on "gay bashing" anytime their name is brought up? Aren't they about a lot more than that?
In reply to:
Re: Macho music (Lord Lucan)		 Replies:
Re: Macho music (Lawrence)
putting the record, ahem, straight (pt1) (Lord Lucan)
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