worst protest song/political song to place in the Pazz & Jop singles poll

I don't know man, I just literally cannot fathom any other reason to hold this song in such high esteem beyond having a fist-pumping "right on!" reaction to the topic, which was the point of grouping these particular songs together for this thread.

i've always assumed people spelling his name as "kayne" must be doing it as some sort of joke, because i've seen it so much over the years

clemenza OTM. some dude's contempt is way OTT. I think in the days after Katrina it was acceptable to be looking for an anti-Bush rap and OK to enjoy one that's quick, witty and measured and it's incredibly obtuse not to accept that subject matter and circumstance can elevate a record above thousands of other no-name rappers freestyling over hit beats.

of course subject matter and circumstance can elevate a record; sometimes they also overshadow the actual music.

The guy is just dull as dishwater as a rapper and there's not a single hot line in the song imo. You say it's "perfectly valid to think it's a lousy record," but that all other conclusions I draw from that are too far; if such a lousy record gets that much praise why shouldn't I think aloud about why?

If you're saying #16 is too high on P&J, sure, I agree, and it's because of the phenomenon you're talking about, but I don't see why it's so worthless and terrible. Most of the other songs here have at least one line that makes me bite my fist with embarrassment - at worst this is solid.

Xpost Think it had more to do with lumping all who like it under an unflattering umbrella

For what it's worth, I don't think "George Bush don't like black people"; West's charge of indifference was much closer to the truth, I'd say. So I'm not sure that I exactly had what you call a fist-pumping, right-on reaction to the record. I found (and continue to find) it a compelling song. That 50 million rappers may have been out there trying to do the same thing with West's comment doesn't matter a bit to me. I haven't heard those records; if I ever hear one that's better than Legendary K.O.'s, I'll be happy.

I think the Kanye misspelling is just a case of "kay" being a natural thing for your fingers to want to type, and "kan" not being so natural.

Maybe an interesting question to pose re: the subject of the thread is, given that musical taste is subjective anyway, why shouldn't a listener enjoy a record in part for its political content? I mean, there are classic records I disagree with and awful ones I agree with, but most of the time it's not that simple. There's no doubt I like the Legendary KO record more than if the same rapper was rapping about something else over the same beat but so what? Don't all these factors feed into your enjoyment of a record?

It's this idea that "quality" is somehow sacrosanct and impervious to any other considerations, like when I hear people saying they don't care what race/class/gender a musician is as long as the music is good when race/class/gender may all play a part in whether it's good and what kind of good it is.

if such a lousy record gets that much praise why shouldn't I think aloud about why?

Sorry, missed that. I didn't mean it wasn't valid for you to voice your objections--I'd never say anything like that. I just meant I disagreed with the validity of your objections.

I ain't sayin' he's a gold-digger, but he ain't messin' with no broke niggas

cmon dude that's corny...what do those two lines have to do at all with what went on in New Orleans? How is the political content not clumsily superimposed onto the original 'Gold Digger' single?

Maybe an interesting question to pose re: the subject of the thread is, given that musical taste is subjective anyway, why shouldn't a listener enjoy a record in part for its political content? I mean, there are classic records I disagree with and awful ones I agree with, but most of the time it's not that simple. There's no doubt I like the Legendary KO record more than if the same rapper was rapping about something else over the same beat but so what? Don't all these factors feed into your enjoyment of a record?

It's this idea that "quality" is somehow sacrosanct and impervious to any other considerations, like when I hear people saying they don't care what race/class/gender a musician is as long as the music is good when race/class/gender may all play a part in whether it's good and what kind of good it is.

― I've been dancing since 9 and I'm tired and hungry (Dorianlynskey), Tuesday, January 25, 2011 8:53 AM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

obviously there will always be differences of opinion and quality isn't some kind of objectively measured criteria. but I believe there is a widespread impulse among music critics to inflate the enjoyability of a piece of music if it carries some kind of message or 'importance' that appeals to them or the artist's background is exciting to write about, and songs like the ones listed in this poll are ones that set off my bullshit detector for that kind of thing pretty hardcore.

saying "the political is clumsily superimposed onto 'Gold Digger'" is like arguing that the food content is clumsily superimposed into a Weird Al song

"Eat It is brilliant, my #2 song of 1984."

Yankovic labors over making the new lyrics fit the meter and rhyme scheme of the original way more than LKO or most other mixtape rappers using industry beats.

Someone in another EOY list thread talked about the "yearbook" aspect - you pick your favourite songs, sure, but also maybe a couple that represent the year to you and will remind you of it. Topical songs are bound to benefit from that. It's not bullshit unless you believe that it's possible for everyone to construct a list based on nothing except pure "enjoyability". I think other factors - cultural ubiquity, a dramatic back story, an aura of artistic "importance" - always enter into it.

haha i'm pretty sure i was the person that introduced the word 'yearbook' in that thread.

I wz trolling Whiney more than anything else dorian--sorry...

It's this idea that "quality" is somehow sacrosanct and impervious to any other considerations, like when I hear people saying they don't care what race/class/gender a musician is as long as the music is good when race/class/gender may all play a part in whether it's good and what kind of good it is.

― I've been dancing since 9 and I'm tired and hungry (Dorianlynskey), Tuesday, January 25, 2011 8:53 AM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i assume you dont mean this but this paragraph just reads as 'its good because hes black'

Sigh. If you honestly think it reads that way, then it's not even worth explaining what I mean.

i mean i get that your pt was 'why shouldnt politics enter into it' but that was just a weird example to use considering the circumstances. sorry if bringing that up complicates this argument it just struck me as weird

all that said its not a politically nuanced or interesting track, its just a straight retelling of what happened that day punctuated with 'george bush doesnt like black people' chorus. its the kind of condescending back-patting politics that puts me off from generalist critics trying to engage w/ rap music. 'why cant more rap be like legendary ko'

its the kind of condescending back-patting politics that puts me off from generalist critics trying to engage w/ rap music. 'why cant more rap be like legendary ko'

I'm at work and posting on the run, but now I'm a generalist critic trying to engage with rap music? I don't know why some of you guys always feel the need to start reading into why people like what they like.

not being able to spell Kanye was a tipoff

i thought it was understood that politics was the reason we liked this, then

xpost to deej. The idea of "quality" distinct from other considerations reminded of recent debates in the UK about the dominance of the affluent middle classes in rock and comedy - one response you always get if you raise this is "It doesn't matter as long as it's good," which ignores the fact that there are different kinds of good and that if an artform becomes too socially homogenous then you miss out on some of them. It's a related point - ie, sociopolitical factors do enter into how music is made and heard - but not the same as the specific Legendary KO point. Though for someone who often complains about having your arguments misread until they're ass-backwards, you're not allergic to it yourself.

You're always complaining about generalist critics. Well guess what? Hip hop isn't some arcane specialism, it's part of the general cultural conversation, and political hip hop has been given special treatment by critics since The Message so get over it. I also think it's weird to single out Legendary KO - a record that was specific, timely and recorded by people who were seeing Katrina refugees every day in shelters in Houston - as "condescending and backpatting". It's not Arrested fucking Development.

The only trend I do not like in rap right now is the message rap. I consider the message rap the equivalent of what strings were to rock 'n' roll in the late '50s - a capitulation to the adult norm who can't accept the music on its own terms. The people who considered "Sixty Minute Man" by Billy Ward and the Dominoes, "Annie Had a Baby" - as the pinnacles of '50s R&B now are super uptight over the - in quotes - hotel/motel lyrics of rap. Rap is definitely as true to the essence of rock 'n roll as anything that's out there today.

* Aaron Fuchs quoted by David Toop (1991). Rap Attack 2, p.120. New York: Serpent's Tail. ISBN 1852422432.

this is music that congratulates your existing political biases while engaging no novel aesthetic ones. and im not trying to erect some kind of gatekeeper bunker mentality around rap music, but encourage people who think legendary ko is great to engage w/ us about rap music more often & try to understand the critical framework we're using on the genre if theyre going to engage in rap crit (even if they plan on rejecting that framework ultimately)

I mean, i def agree 100% percent with deej that the long rock critic tradition of pandering to message-rap is NAGL of the highest order; but rap dudes has a tradition of completely dismissing the stuff which is also NAGL.

Like seriously I know it got the accolades that Stunts Blunts And Hip Hop prolly deserved, but the first Arrested Development album is dope and fuiud

Some dud: I misspell lots of words. Don't read too much into my typos and misspellings.

i know, couldn't resist the easy joke, sorry bro

xpost. Try making fewer condescending assumptions about what people listen to and know about. I don't know who you're referring to but I don't need any lessons in hip hop comprehension, thanks. I like that Toop quote a lot but for me it's not either/or - I like political lyrics and I like meaningless ones and I like bits of everything in between.

And again, I don't think you can say a record released less than a week after a major news event pandering to existing biases - it was a gut reaction. Would it have been more "novel" of them to write a song in praise of FEMA?

Also, I think the context of a topical message rap in 2005 is very different from the period Toop was referring to - there was a lot of weak, worthy stuff following Public Enemy but in 2005 there wasn't really a bandwagon to jump so Legendary KO did have the force of novelty.

its not a 'condescending assumption' i just never see you talking in any ilx rap threads so

based on evidence at hand

Do you know why? Because it's mainly you and Whiney bitching at each other and you playing hip hop gatekeeper.

BTW, I really don't want to quarrel with you - it is not a fun thing to do - but you make it very hard not to.

that really not what 99% of the rolling rap thread is
& im perfectly fine w/ arguing w/ people about music, sort of the point of ilx & part of why i like it. dont take it personally.

the stuff about me being a gatekeeper is imo way overblown. its a defensive maneuver not a policing one -- rap fans are used to having their genre be defined from outside & judged on aesthetic terms that miss the point. i mean u can look at how rap classics have fared on critics polls thru-out the years & see that -- im fine w/ arrested development these days, but where is diamond on the pazz n jop list exactly? im not arguing that stuff should be excluded nearly as often as im arguing that certain artists are being slept on despite their notable aesthetic contributions to the form

There's a difference between discussing a record and being driven to distraction by someone making false assumptions about your tastes and motives, and misreading every point.

I'm all for representing underrated records - it doesn't mean the more praised ones are shit. And doesn't every genre have that problem?

srsly, talk to the metal dudes sometime about being marginalized by rock critics

i think reading my generalizations about the songs appeal to 'critics' as being specifically about you is not something i should have to argue with. you can like whatever you like. what we're debating is the public sphere. if you think it stands up on its own then fine, it was your personal yearbook entry. i just cant conceive of how your reasoning justifies the intensity & broad spread of praise from the # of critics it did & will continue to feel justified in saying its overrated

srsly, talk to the metal dudes sometime about being marginalized by rock critics

― when the president talks to based god (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, January 25, 2011 10:32 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

the metal / rap equivalency is bullshit -- one of those genres is much more popular than the others & much more open to a broader spectrum of people

(may have been less bullshit in the 80s but now??)

I literally have no idea which one you think is more popular

try the one w/ hundreds of top 40 hits in the past decade

Or conversely look at the Billboard album charts?

I mean lets get real. Black Eyed Peas vs Metallica, can you really say one of these bands is "much more popular" than the other?

r we really gonna call BEP rap?

where is diamond on the pazz n jop list exactly?

i do hope deej is referring to diamond out of crime mob here. <3 her.

also talk to r&b fans about being marginalised from the crit world mmkay

the metal / rap equivalency is bullshit -- one of those genres is much more popular than the others & much more open to a broader spectrum of people

then why are you being so defensive about it? in one hand ur like "rap is so misunderstood!" (which I agree with) but then ur also like "rap will never be metal! metal deserves its marginalized status! rap is way more popular & only cloistered Satanists give a shit about metal!*" why does it have to be like that?

*(obv puttin words in ur mouth, but u get my point...?)