Erykah Badu: C /D, S&D

i like both badu's and coyne's music and they both come off like morons here.

This is absolutely right.

Old white dude is whopping ten years older than Badu.

once again i have go to ONTD for my faith in humanity to be restored. the kids there get it http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/69533898.html

i'm just gonna throw it out there that this old white dude using black womens' bodies for publicity is extra icky

tbf he's used bodies of all ages and races, including his own, to get publicity in reason years.

but besides that, i like both badu's and coyne's music and they both come off like morons here.

ugh ONTD is one of the most vacuous corners of the whole internet.

Coyne brings to mind The Genius of the Crowd by Charles Bukowski. '..and the best at hate are those who preach love'.

The controversy over the video is a bit of a storm in a tea cup really but I do like both of them artists so feel that it's a shame the collaboration is musically so mediocre. Time was when I would have been desperate to hear this... but it's a bit... pshhhhh.

Sorry to hear that a cover of a 40+ year-old cover of a song (that was already 20+ years old when Roberta Flack covered it) isn't miiiiiindblowingly raaaaaadical enough for some people. I think it's a really nice logical progression of Flack's version, which was already slow and expansive and had somewhat of a narcotic quality to it. I love her version so much, and these folks have done all right by it, imho.

I agree with you 100%. Time was when this collaboration would have promised more than nice.

song is okay, not great. more ambient than pop, but that's a reasonable approach afaic. the video is (was) rather sexy, but not particularly interesting beyond that.

sad to read about the ensuing blow-up, but it's hard not to side with EB. if she was supposed to approve the vid before it was published, and wasn't allowed to and felt violated by the leaked version, then she's in the right - period, regardless of other issues.

"miiiiiindblowingly raaaaaadical" would be one thing, but competent would be nice?

^

yep

i'm just gonna throw it out there that this old white dude using black womens' bodies for publicity is extra icky

Truly amazing.

Why? A video in which the men are clothed and get to look dignified while the women are naked hyper-sexualised doesn't strike you as icky? Quite frankly I'm fine with uploading nude material without the subject's consent being a criminal offense.

First of all, nobody looks "dignified" in that video. Regardless, Erykah Badu and The Flaming Lips collaborated on a music video where she, and/or her twin sister, sit nude in a tub and cover themselves with glitter, blood, and semen. As has been established, we DON'T KNOW the context of this fight. Talking about it as a question of consent is borderline irresponsible. My real groan, though, was at Lex's racial angle, which - with its suggestion of one-sided exploitation - is cheaper and more tawdry than anything either of the artists have engaged in.

Re-read what you just wrote. Nobody looks dignified in the video. But I'll focus on describing the two women sitting nude in a tub and covering themselves with glitter, blood and semen.

And discussing it as a question of consent isn't borderline irresponsible, it's what this entire thing is about. This is what Badu alleges, and this is what Coyne concedes. That isn't Lex's only angle and hardly worth belatedly quoting as if it was immediately obvious that Lex's point was ludicrous. And the idea that Lex's comment is cheaper and more tawdry than that video is laughable.

What I want to know is where they got all that semen.

I think that you finding the idea that Lex's comment is cheaper and more tawdry than that video laughable laughable. We'll all laugh about this someday! Except for that racist rapist. Lock 'im up!

Hmmm that's not what Lex said

No, you're right. The cheap and tawdry last part of my post was about a lot of posts. But this old white dude using black womens' bodies for publicity is just some flat out bullshit.

How is that not what Coyne is doing?

Jesus Christ. My issue is with the racial angle in that post, and what it implies, which is unfounded and ugly. And if there's exploitation at play here, it's *overwhelmingly* mutual.

how so?

I don't know either party's motivation for collaborating, but can't imagine it was ever a cynical move (I mean, she says "I have not one need for publicity. I just love artistic dialogue" in her posts). Before this whole thing, both Erykah and Wayne were Tweeting things about admiring each other's work. But both always stood to gain from the collaboration itself (as both have gained from the ensuing drama). This isn't some Linda Lovelace/Ordeal thing - the issue is over the final cut of the video, and we still don't know the actual circumstances surrounding that.

that's nonsense, mr. galt. they both chose to work together on a song and video. while a cynic might choose to call that "mutual exploitation", it's probably more reasonable to simply describe it as artistic collaboration.

wayne made an x-rated video and seems to have dumped his "director's cut" to the internet without first consulting his collaborators, something he had allegedly promised to do. that's the act of one-sided exploitation alleged here: that wayne chose viral shit-stirring over respectful treatment of his partners in art, women who'd obviously put a lot of trust in him. if the semblances and allegations here are true, then wayne exploited and betrayed his collaborators in order to generate "buzz". the race and gender issues involved only make his actions seem all the more slimy.

"nonsense" directed at your previous post. that last one more or less squares with my take on this.

do agree that we don't really know what's going here.

I really think people need to sit with the whole "race and gender" aspect of this for a while. Give it a good, long think. Consider whether that's a can of worms that you really think needs to be opened in this conversation. And then come back here and discuss those reasoned concerns when you've had, like, a week of nights to sleep on them.

that's nonsense, mr. galt. they both chose to work together on a song and video. while a cynic might choose to call that "mutual exploitation", it's probably more reasonable to simply describe it as artistic collaboration.

I totally agree with this! And the part about not really knowing what's going on here, which means I can't even sign on for things like wayne chose viral shit-stirring over respectful treatment of his partners in art, and especially not so confidently that I might also aggressively accuse the guy of anything sexist or racist. We have her rant, which has a bunch of weird contradictory stuff in it when taken with her Tweets, and we have Wayne's creepy RTing-everything policy. We don't know the story!!!!!

I really think people need to sit with the whole "race and gender" aspect of this for a while. Give it a good, long think. Consider whether that's a can of worms that you really think needs to be opened in this conversation. And then come back here and discuss those reasoned concerns when you've had, like, a week of nights to sleep on them.

― Quiet Desperation, LLC (Deric W. Haircare), Friday, June 8, 2012 12:11 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well done that was exactly the most condescending way you could have put this

i don't really have a dog in this fight except i adore badu but can we get a moratorium on referring to the lived experience of race and gender as a "can of worms"

horseshoe, you could not have missed my point or misread my post any more profoundly. The "can of worms" refers specifically to the implications lex's post and more generally to people wantonly throwing around racist/sexist allegations. Your misreading is exactly why I thought I'd suggest people maybe take just a little time before broaching the subject from that angle.

lol, deric, horseshoe totally understood what you were saying

maybe u don't understand what you were saying, tho?

o that must be it thank you for explaining my brain

lex's post was a little reckless, but i read your post as saying people should wait a week until they dare to bring up "the whole 'race and gender' aspect of this," this being a video of a naked black woman, possibly (definitely?) released to the internet without her consent. what part did i get wrong? we can't all be the sensitive readers that you clearly are.

Arright, y'all can just go on down that road without me. I was trying to keep shit from turning real ugly itt, but that was probably a fool's errand.

right it's lex that's being ugly

how is it "being ugly" to talk about what happened with an eye to race and gender?

This thread is now helping me to see just how unhelpful taking the position of devils advocate can be sometimes.

o that must be it thank you for explaining my brain

actually, yeah. when u say that discussing race + gender is a 'can of worms,' i understand what you're saying - that you think that it has the potential to be a huge clusterfuck and you want ppl to be delicate when they discuss it. however, what you seem to be missing is that by making such a request you are inevitably telling ppl that concerns about race + gender in this situation are too much of a livewire to discuss - when for ppl effected by them, they are too much of a livewire not to discuss. that's what you don't understand about your own words.

Yeah i dont think race has really come into these arguments yet. But yeah if you want to put it into that context and make it about race, go on ahead. I think trust is like a 1000% more relevant topic here. Perhaps you should ask ex-Lips guitarist Ronald Jones, who is of African-American and Filipino descent.

It's still kind of stunning that the Lips responses are being perceived as cynical and calculated while Badu's are kind of accepted as fact. Nothing calculated at all about publicly declaring your artistic integrity and decrying colleagues as hacks?

Perhaps you should ask ex-Lips guitarist Ronald Jones, who is of African-American and Filipino descent.

lol okay in a way i now wish no one had brought up race, too.

she looks a spoiled brat
he looks like an exploiting asshole

i kinda knew the first already. lips have been mostly annoying to me since soft bulletin. i came around to the realization that his wide-eyed wonder was really forced and cloying.

horseshoe, your posts are a perfect illustration of why I made the suggestion that people maybe just stop and think a little before discussing this particular aspect of the issue. It doesn't take much for people to get heated and start attacking people and making unfounded accusations over stuff like this. Apparently, the very suggestion that people take a breath and maybe let their tempers cool a bit before diving into the discussion is, in and of itself, enough to light the powder keg. Believe me: it was never meant as any kind of edict or suggestion that those aspects shouldn't be discussed. I just didn't want to see the inevitable ramp-up to shit-flinging itt. Also believe that I'll be staying allll the way out of that particular conversation.

That's a false binary; something can be 100% factual and still be calculated and/or cynical.

My takeaway from this is that fandom is a terrible thing that should be destroyed.

horseshoe, your posts are a perfect illustration of why I made the suggestion that people maybe just stop and think a little before discussing this particular aspect of the issue. It doesn't take much for people to get heated and start attacking people and making unfounded accusations over stuff like this. Apparently, the very suggestion that people take a breath and maybe let their tempers cool a bit before diving into the discussion is, in and of itself, enough to light the powder keg. Believe me: it was never meant as any kind of edict or suggestion that those aspects shouldn't be discussed. I just didn't want to see the inevitable ramp-up to shit-flinging itt. Also believe that I'll be staying allll the way out of that particular conversation.

For someone who says he doesn't want to fan the fire, you wield an effective flamethrower.

nobody did any shitflinging except me as far as i can tell, and i only did it after your post. you might reconsider your posts-from-on-high-above-the-fray tone. or not. whatever.

xp

Sigh. I genuinely fail to understand why suggesting that people don't hastily post about a topic that we all know is going to get tempers flaring is such a controversial and flame-fanning position. But whatevs.

you got that luxury to ignore a thing you dont like