Topic: The Music Thread

@Jimmer-jammer Cool, cheers for the share. Can't wait to hear it in game. Austin's name is a seal of quality when it comes to game soundtracks for me.

@Jimmer-jammer and @nessisonett What do you reckon of this?

@TheBrandedSwordsman Ha! I don’t generally get on with such a mocking tone but there were some genuinely funny bits in there. Perhaps Mr. Wayne could use less yes men around him and have better discernment of when to relinquish ego for the sake of your art.

@TheBrandedSwordsman I feel bad for Lil Wayne tbh because there’s a massive trope spread around by metalheads that black people can’t play the guitar. Sure, Lil Wayne isn’t a very good guitarist but Sid Vicious was a god-awful bassist and people still love the Sex Pistols.

@Jimmer-jammer Yeah, in other words give up the guitar? I'd agree with that @nessisonett What about all the great jazz guitarists of yesteryear and even the present day such as Charlie Christian, Grant Green and the present-day Jeff Parker? Plus there's the black guy in Animals As Leaders (metal group).

@TheBrandedSwordsman Well yeah, there’s plenty of fantastic guitarists of all backgrounds. Nile Rodgers never comes up because certain sections of metalheads never look outside their own genre, and he’s one of the most influential guitarists of all time. I’m one of the approximately two people that quite liked Kid Cudi’s Speeding Bullet 2 Heaven though, despite it being a mess. I like when artists actually try to do something new even when it doesn’t completely pan out. I respect Kid Cudi a lot for making a weird grunge album because that’s the sort of music that he loves instead of the music he’s expected to churn out an album at a time.

@TheBrandedSwordsman hey, if he had the respect for the craft to put the hours of hard work and dedication into learning it, I’m sure he’d be fine up there. All I’m seeing here is a mega star who thinks whatever he touches turns to gold, forgetting that those are paying guests in there, not your bro’s house party.

@nessisonett. From your posts on here, you strike me as a very smart person but I feel that bringing race into this was unnecessary and unwarranted. In the interest of progress, it’s a step back, not a step forward.

@nessisonett I think the trope is less "black people can't play the guitar" and more "rappers can't play guitar" which kind of links to what @jimmer-jammer said where there's people who are willing to put in the work and those that aren't and it's really really hard not to view much of the hip hip community* as mostly uninterested in "the craft" of it all, so not really trying to put in the finger-bleeding hours it takes when they can make way more money mumbling out half-assed bars over well produced beats.

Edit: probably don't need to say this but in the interest of civility I'd like to clarify that I know we're talking about a very diverse community of artists and I don't mean to paint them all with the same brush.

@zupertramp @nessisonett to be clear, my intent was also not to be quarrelsome. Quite the opposite actually. I think we all want the same thing, and @nessisonett is very passionate about the subject. That’s excellent. It doesn’t mean that we never go off track in our pursuits. And I just feel in this particular instance, that’s what happened. If for whatever reason I’m off base, I’m open to criticism.

@Jimmer-jammer I didn't take it that way but then, it wasn't directed at me.

I'm somewhere in the middle here where I could see there being a 'rappers aren't guitarists' trope but not one based solely on race. I mean there's Gary Clark Jr, Michael Kiwanuka, Leon Bridges etc. But then it'd be a tad disingenuous to act like there's not a racial slant to even the modified trope I proposed.

Guess I mean I don't see any harm in bringing it up.

@zupertramp “Guess I mean I don't see any harm in bringing it up.”
After re-reading his comment a few times, perhaps I jumped too quick in an attempt to stop the discussion from going where I (maybe wrongly) assumed it was going. I initially had the overwhelming feeling of, “here we go…” in an exchange that I just didn’t think warranted going there. There was no racist intent in the video, and the trope is something I’ve never even heard of. My head wasn’t remotely in ‘racism’ territory until it was guided there, a trend I’ve found on the internet. There are more than enough legitimate sources of true racism all around us worthy of dismantling than to invent them where they don’t exist. It’s counter productive.

I love Kid Cudi’s work but didn’t overly enjoy SB2H and can assure you that it had nothing to with his blackness. In fact, I’ve never even heard this argument. The insinuation that not enjoying that album is the result of racist motivations is absurd.

The fact is that some of the most obvious and offensive recent displays of racism, anti-feminism…you name it, are often masked by the overt boasting of standing against such things (looking at you, Mr. Trudeau).

Anyways, this was the method to my madness, and I hope it was well considered and presented gently. Again, if I’m off-base, I’m open to criticism. I’d rather say something I believe is meaningful and be corrected than never really say anything at all.

@Jimmer-jammer You mention "no racist intent". But the thing with racism is that most of the time there is no intent. People are completely unaware of their own racism most of the time. So it's kind of a...

I live in a country that considers blackface as part of their tradition, and they believe they have no racist intentions in painting the racist caricature all over town. And I believe most of them. Still, that doesn't make blackface any less racist.

@zupertramp as you’ve already alluded to, I have mistakenly and rudely “talked past you” with a message that is really directed towards @nessisonett. I’m sorry for that. It’s not fair to you. Maybe he’s tied up or something.

What I should have said to you was simply, I’ve never heard of that trope, and carried on with our own discussion.

Anyway, racism or not, I never really liked people making fun of other people playing an instrument. I just imagine someone giving that kind of feedback on a video of me finally playing Blackbird for the first time. :S

@Kidfried interesting. Put another way, you’re saying that walking out of a store with an un-paid candy bar unknowingly is stealing, which it totally is - technically. So in this particular situation, by poking fun at a man playing guitar poorly, who is black, I’m technically engaging in racist behaviour because there exists an obscure, racist trope that black men can’t play guitar…I’m trying to wrap my head around this but I’m struggling. Intent can’t be meaningless.

@Jimmer-jammer I think you’ve somewhat misunderstood my point. The Lil Wayne thing was 13 years ago and people still bring it up. There does exist a level of derision aimed at primarily black rappers who crossover into rock and metal. When you correlate that with the continued success of NSBM and people like Phil Anselmo being overtly racist at a bloody memorial concert of his bandmate of all things, it’s very hard to not be suspicious of intent. The Kid Cudi thing is a separate point, in that artists branching out into genres that they’re passionate about is surely a good thing, even if the resulting product isn’t perfect by any stretch of the matter.

Like to point out too that I’m absolutely not speaking about your intent specifically, but more the way that Lil Wayne especially is still brought up by ‘the wider music community’. I really don’t have any problem at all with what you’ve said.

@Kidfried “Anyway, racism or not, I never really liked people making fun of other people playing an instrument.“

Now that I can agree with wholeheartedly, which is why I framed my initial response around being not too impressed with the mocking tone but alas, I did engage and am guilty of that.

@Jimmer-jammer yeah fwiw I haven't taken anything to be rude. I'm not typically too stressed out about anyone's opinion (or approach for that matter). But yeah I kinda piggybacked off your comment and probably shouldn't have. Your words being yours and mine being mine.

I feel like I've stirred up enough trouble so I'll shut up and let nessi weigh in should they want to.

@nessisonett yeah, the deeper I’ve dug this hole, the more I’ve realized that I kind of unfairly jumped on you for a benign comment that was really just raising awareness around an important issue. Though I do think there’s a valid point somewhere in my rambling, it was misdirected and misapplied.

@Jimmer-jammer Honestly, it’s hard to really get across basically anything online. Probably a lesson for me to learn in articulating myself better!