You all know I'm the first to call someone racist, oftentimes based on the loosest of reasoning. I am a militant liberal when it comes to social issues.
You also all know that I'm incredibly critical of modern rap, that I draw a distinction between hip-hop and rap, and will argue with you for hours about what makes Lil' Wayne utter crap. I am the white kid in this Onion article/video. I automatically dismiss your song if it contains even one n-word, denigration of women, or any bragging. New Jay-Z album? Crap. New Kanye album? Crap. You all know this.
So it may come as a surprise that I do not agree with this Feministing blog post about some new, typically overproduced pop song by some young girl from Australia (Lorde). Atypically, the song contains some criticism of the subject matter present in most overproduced pop songs.
My friends and I – we’ve cracked the code.
We count our dollars on the train to the party.
And everyone who knows us knows that we’re fine with this,
We didn’t come from money.
But every song’s like gold teeth, grey goose, trippin’ in the bathroom.
Blood stains, ball gowns, trashin’ the hotel room,
We don’t care, we’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams.
But everybody’s like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your time piece.
Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash
We don’t care, we aren’t caught up in your love affair
The author of the blog post retorts:
Because we all know who she’s thinking when we’re talking gold teeth, Cristal and Maybachs. So why shit on black folks? Why shit on rappers? Why aren’t we critiquing wealth by taking hits at golf or polo or Central Park East? Why not take to task the bankers and old-money folks who actually have a hand in perpetuating and increasing wealth inequality?
I'm not here to say something mean in response to the blog author because the last two questions are completely valid and there most likely are songs about them - they probably just aren't mainstream. I mean, off the top of my head, I know The Procussions deal with income inequality in a lot of their songs.
But there also needs to be criticism, specifically, of things like what the author is taking issue with. Gold teeth, Cristal, and Maybachs are indicative of dumb behavior, not "black folks" behavior. It's entirely okay, and not racist, to call those things out - regardless of how many rappers/black folks seem to be enamored of them (which makes them stereotypes). It's okay to make fun of those stereotypes, however, because those things are stupid choices - and are just as worthless as golf or polo in Central Park East.