POP FEMINIST PERBLOG

opendrawer:

This trick-ass post

darlingtonia-californica:

bb-goose:

I don’t want to reblog it because it’s in the “chat” format which would make my commentary look all weird, but before I begin:

Led Zeppelin:

Shake for me girl, I wanna be your backdoor man.

Nicki Minaj:

And every time I write, I’m precise in my skill.
It’s more out of life then just ice in your grill
You wanna fuck me, blame me?
Fuck you, pay me!
This is what you made me.
Say you want to drape me, turn around and rape me,
Naw, you ain’t mistake me *gunshot*

So anyway, back to the subject of ~thoughtful~ white dudes with long hair who just want to sing about Valhalla and Kashmir and building a stairway to heaven and be influenced by their exotic exploration of Morocco and their exotic misogyny of sexually degrading young fans. Disclaimer: if I haven’t made that much obvious, I really hate Led Zeppelin. Not just because the shark incident stood out grotesquely in my bb feminist consciousness when I first learned of it at 15, but I find their music tedious and boring and pretentious and way too long and Robert Plant’s voice is grating as fuck and it’s just the perfect soundtrack to some stoned dudebro’s clumsy attempt to make sexual overtures at you. To quote Sleater-Kinney, “I’ve been climbing up so long on this stairway to heaven and now I no longer believe that I wanna get in.”

That aside, what exactly is the original post trying to say? Besides, you know, that Black women just can’t write with the whimsy and soulfulness of white men. What does it want Nicki Minaj to do? Incorporate Welsh mythology into her lyrics? Stop being vulgar? Stop being a woman and not white while she’s at it? We may never truly know. And, you know, “Stupid Hoe” is not exactly the height of lyrical genius nor is it meant to be. It’s a silly song similar to some of Nicki’s earlier, more playful songs on mixtapes such as Beam Me Up, Scotty. Because Onika Maraj is a clever woman who has many stage personas and is skilled at both reading her audience and trying to work with the limitations imposed upon her by a racist, misogynist society. See also: the Lady Gaga stans trashing her after last night’s ~weird~ performance. Black women in the mainstream are not supposed to be quirky and weird, why couldn’t she just sing “Super Bass” tbh.

I had this argument with my father recently, because he was saying that rap lyrics this and rap lyrics that. And I said, “Look, listen to this Beatles song. Listen to ‘Love Me Do,’ what is deep or thoughtful about those lyrics at all?” Nothing. But they’re sung by non-threatening white British dudes. And hip hop and rap is every bit as thought-provoking and insightful as the classical or indie shit constantly lauded by white people; it just often speaks of experiences that are not understandable or accessible to a white audience. And increasingly it is white people who take the reigns at hip hop labels and push into the mainstream music that does not threaten other white people, music that suburban high school boys can feel badass listening to and hipsters can feel ironic quoting.

But even the mainstream artists are not just some vacuous materialistic idiots (well, not all of them). And you will often find much darker, less white-friendly, more politically-charged music on their albums, which you buy after hearing the softer, poppier stuff on the radio.

tl;dr JESUS CHRIST “Stupid Hoe” was not meant to be a masterpiece of our time and given that it’s performed by a Black woman, singling it out for mockery among all other dumb songs out there right now is just a bit transparent. Also, Led Zeppelin blows.

ETA: I am going to add that in the 1920s, there was moral panic about jazz as degradation of society and class values, clearly because of its association with black people. One could say that the 1920s were a less enlightened time, with more racism, and besides the fact that one would be wrong, there were plenty of veiled condemnations. It was about the loss of righteous values like one could find in the previous generation’s music and the loss of artistry in classical music and the hussies.

Of course, now that jazz has been thoroughly accepted into the American canon, it’s okay and those were the Good Blacks.

(Source: svetlana-del-rey)