[Severian]

Originally Posted by noisereductions

sev, I don't disagree w/ anything you said. Though I am curious if overt imagery like The Red Album or The Blue Carpet Treatment turned you off as well?

The Game's Red Album? Yeah. Also when he reps "Bompton" in "Roped off" and really whenever he makes an overt Blood reference, even though I do like his music for the most part.

With Game, it's a little bit different. YG's move seems like a calculated marketing ploy for his stupid fucking gang. He wasn't "Brazy" in 2014... not in this ultra public, in your face kind of way. Of course, you're not likely to miss it if you listen to My Krazy Life, but now it's like he's going out of his way to make sure that everyon, even the people who don't give a shit about him, aware of his affiliations.

It feels sneaky and dangerous. Like he made a crowd-pleasing album that put him on the map, and then, with his newfound influence, he decided to put his entire identity and brand into what amounts to a global Blood campaign. If he wanted to rep Blood culture, he could have done so this overtly from the start.

I think it's really irresponsible to use your influence for the sole purpose of propagating extreme violence. Had he come out of the gate like this, it would have felt less shady and negligent.

Of course, I'm definitely being a bit of a hypocrite here. After all, the lyirc "Talk slick an' get your neck slit quick, 'cause real street niggas ain't havin' that shit" has been in my life for 20 years now. But that's my personal nostalgia. Nothing good ever came of that shit, and nothing good ever will.

When you go from a life of violence and crime and poverty to a life of cultural influence, you do gain some responsibility for the messages you choose to promote. You have to make a decision, then, about how you're going to use that influence, and how you're going to acknowledge and accept your past while moving toward a future where people will hang on your words and actions, as stupid as that might be.

You can be a JAY-Z, and rap about how drugs and violence acted as a means to an end, something you used — something you owned — to help get to where you are today.
Or you can be a Ghostface Killah or a Kool Keith, and rap about violence in an almost cartoonish way, turning your experiences into fodder for fantasy and storytelling.
Or you can become a Kanye, and say all kinds of awful things, but remain selective about the topics you'll hit on, and balance out whatever negativity you bring to the table with equal amounts of positivity.
Or you can decide to use your experience to educate and enlighten, without ever glorifying. You can become a "conscious" voice, like Kendrick or Chance.

Or you can do something akin to what BIG and Pac did, and wear your violence on your sleeve, and continue to be a bitch ass child throwing tantrums. You can even do it in a genuinely brilliant way, as BIG did, or you can temper your testosterone with poetry and thoughtfulness, as Pac did. But ... y'know... Look what happened to BIG and Pac. You can't choose to become a symbol of violence in rap without being fully willing to meet the same fate they did.

If YG wants to commit suicide-by-drive-by, that's his prerogative. I won't cry about it. But the guy is essentially forcing his fans to fly a flag they might not even no exists. To me, he's a dirt bag. How hard would it be to, like, NOT insert messages in your music that makes your fans (can't help but think of teens here) a little bit more likely to find themselves in a "wrong color, wrong part of Cali" kind of situation? How hard is it to NOT play with fire?

Also, YG is no BIG, and he's no Pac. He managed to make a better than expected DJ Mustard album, but he sounds like HUNDREDS of other rappers out there. He should be thanking the good lord that he even has a shot at making a lasting impact. Instead, he's just saying, "Yeah, alright, now I can talk louder about Blood stuff! Blood stuff is the only stuff, after all. Yes. This is the right decision. I'm totally an artist."

Sorry to go off again, but fuck YG. I have zero respect for that guy. Anti-Kendrick is right. Sucks for him that "anti-Kendrick" is essentially the same as being anti-talent, anti-quality, anti-conscious, anti-thought, anti-original, anti-definitive and anti-all things that are good about hip hop.