🥭🥭🥭

Rural kids in eastern Poland in late 00s listened to more american gangsta rap than picrew icon tumblr users. I can tell you that

the virgin loss.jpg versus the chad xkcd Seven Years

Don’t forget the latest version, Ten Years

as always l The Oatmeal l ⬇txt-edited

Please support my family. They are very far from reaching their goal.

Ghada here has informed me that she will be attempting to travel to a safer area, away from Rafah. She won't have stable Internet and cannot regularly make posts to remind people of her fundraiser. Please do consider donating. The situation in Rafah is unbelievable.

if you are struggling with choosing which fundraisers to support, please consider donating to the following places providing medical aid, food, and other supplies to palestine at this time:

if you are looking for individual fundraisers to donate to but are struggling to choose, gazafunds gives a spotlight to fundraisers that are not close to their goal.

instead of watching and supporting eurovision tonight, please instead boost this post & donate if you can. keep your eyes on rafah.

Listen Up Columbia! — Portraits from a campus in crisis Photographed by Gabriella Gregor Splaver

My Experience Buying eSIMs for Gaza by Maia Kobabe

instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my books

Full transcript below the cut:

like black people are present in every single fucking genre and scene and popularized and straight up created several but people are so fucking hell bent on finding every possible excuse to not engage with their music because its easier than trying to confront their own racism. like okay well if its truly just a disinterest in most rap music then surely you listen to black artists in other genres right? who am i fucking kidding. of course you dont.

anyways. you will listen.

this was initially just gonna be me force feeding all of you like black alt music but actually here. music from black artists with vibes all across the spectrum because what a fucking shocker black talent exists everywhere and if youre gonna be pulling the bullshit excuse of truly just not liking rap you need to learn to shut your fucking mouth and go back to tswift or broaden your fucking horizons.

a couple more

actually yeah everyone PLEASE feel free to drop some of your favourite black artists (whether thats solo artists, groups, duos, etc.) in the reblogs or replies, share 🤲

(special interest is a punk band with multiple members but their singer is black)

*Cracks knuckles in goth*

a playlist i've been adding to for a few years of black music -- specifically one shifting focus away from men, who are only present as features

White Tumblr users being intimidated by Rap music is like the only thing on the planet that makes sense considering that the average Tumblr user is, like, white fujoshi of suburban middle class descent.

Rap is a very raw and earnest display of black struggle, culture, sexuality, politics, anger, competition (friendly and otherwise) etc. It's arguably just as much of a cultural lifestyle as it is art, and the subculture can be pretty unforgiving if you're not made for the cut. IE there is a reason the likes of Nas, Nicki Minaj, Lauryn Hill, and Jay-Z are well cemented in black culture rather than dudes like fucking Ja Rule and Flo Rida, despite the latter two having more radio friendliness. There's a reason that the most prolific white guys that were allowed to pass through the gates are consistently in community with black people and are just as defensive of protecting the sanctity of the culture as their black counterparts (IE El-p, Aesop Rock, Action Bronson, The Alchemist, Paul Wall, Vinnie Paz, and yes, even Eminem). None of us want the shit that happened to Rock n Roll to happen to Rap. It's not all complex and challenging, but there is a certain level of authenticity one needs to maintain in order to really pop off. You have to really pay attention and connect some dots to find cool stuff that resonate with you.

Meanwhile the average Tumblr user is like. White nerds writing RPF of Pop Punk dudes, calling very basic, neoliberal. lameass 60s flower power children ideas "Punk" when they're not, making very unfunny and disingenuous sex jokes round the clock, thinks MCR and other incredibly basic goofy theatre kid shit is the most authentic and gut wrenching portrayal of the gay/trans experience because of subtext when there are actual gay and trans artists making much cooler and more dynamic music in the year of our lord 2024 so there's no need to scrounge for scraps anymore, historical revisionists that thinks "emo" is a sacred LGBT support subculture that can be invaded rather than a commercial trend for whiney white dudes with straight hair that was riddled with arguably as many misogynists homophobes and pedophiles as the Rap industry (if not more), thinks any male display of vulnerability or emotional openness = being gay and gender conforming, despite not doing much else outside the realm of traditional masculinity, because anything outside the very rigid mold of patriarchal white supremacist gender roles automatically makes someone queer, and talks about killing and violence and cannibalism and other edgy dork shit while being too afraid to call their doctor to refill their meds.

Like yeah these are not people you want to give the aux to, invite to the cookout, or include in the blunt rotation. These are not people who have ever thought about cooking up sociological analysis and scholarly essays on Nas' Illmatic or Tupac's All Eyez on Me. They only have brainspace for Black Parade.

As a black person I’m so glad we’re having this conversation. People always are like “black people get so mad when you don’t like rap”. It’s not that, its that people act like they’re too good for rap, they act like hip-hop and other African American led music genres are less than or even better when done by non white people. I saw a post on here ab how Japanese jazz is better than American jazz, or the whole classic “i dont like rap, but eminem-“. I will admit that majority of mainstream rap has lost its kinda “roots”, but dissing all rap and hip-hop is very disingenuous. Every music genre, even if you can’t see it, has roots in passion and struggle, its not just punk and emo. We laid down the foundations these music genres were built on just to be ostracized from their communities and have them demonize our music.

To prove what im saying, African American folk music to emo pipeline: Folk music & blues -> jazz -> rhythm and blues -> rock and roll -> rock -> punk rock -> punk -> hardcore punk -> emotional hardcore

Okay here's my obligatory post about Tumblr users and their ignorance of rap, as a (white) fan of rap:

Saying "Not all rap music is about violence, here are alternatives" is not helpful, because the violent music ALSO has meaning.

When Biggie Smalls postures about his gang connections and packing heat, he isn't doing it because wow violence is so edgy, it's a powerful statement. Youth in urban areas where gang activity is heavy are often treated as lesser than by default, especially compared to black people the same age from a wealthy background. There's a reason that the "wholesome and respectable" black-lead entertainment of that era was stuff like the Cosby Show, with doctor-lawyer parents, or Family Matters, with a cop dad. There's a reason why the big joke of Fresh Prince is someone with a more unstable upbringing moving in with one of these model black sitcom families.

Standing up and saying yeah, I came from the mean streets, I was molded by this violence and yes, I did what I had to do to survive in a world that refuses to acknowledge my existence as meaningful or worthy of protection. I protected myself, I made my own way, and fuck anybody who tries to stand in the way of that.

Refusing to demonize that environment and wearing it like armor in a way that protects from the authority that wants you to see them as sub humans incapable of only violence and hatred, and saying HEY. I'm here, I lived this, and there is love and there is pain and there is ART in this.

That is powerful. That is the essence of gangster rap.

It isn't about hurting people for fun, it's about holding a mirror up to a society that does the hurting and then calls you a monster for what it's made you. Its about validating the experiences of the disenfranchised and biting back at authority. It's about turning a pain that the world say you deserve being one of those people from those places into POETRY. Into ART.

And thats why it matters.

And thats why you need to shut the yell up and stop dismissing it as violence without substance when you all sat on your ass listening to songs about Hatsune Miku eating people in middle school.

self-proclaimed punk fans on this website suddenly really scared of violence in music only when it comes to rap

a lot of people are dismissing the "violent" rap music rushing and scrambling to say well not ALL rap is violent here's some rappers who don't rap about violence but like. idk. I think the "violent" rap is important to listen to as well. do you know why gangs exist? do you know why Compton is the way that it is? can you listen to the experiences of black men when you can't personally relate on any level? or will you dismiss an entire genre of music because certain sub genres make you feel a bit uncomfortable as a non-black person?