I'm a big fan of Drake. Drizzy Drake Rogers, Aubrey Graham, Wheel Chair Jimmy, that dude. I love all aspects of his music. I love that he doesn't claim to be the hardest rapper out there. I love that he talks about relationships with women. I love that he doesn't call women "bitches and hoes" and all that. I love that he doesn't talk about guns and the streets and the gutter and the trap and all that stuff. So you can imagine my dismay when a couple of people that I've talked to have told me that "Drake sucks, fuck drake, blah blah blah." It's only a few people that I've spoken to that have hated on my favorite artist, so I'm not trippin too much over it. But I just find it so hard to hate on a dude who doesn't claim to be hard, who does a remix to a santogold song, who can do a rap song like "Ransom", and then switch it up completely and do an R&B song like "Sooner Than Later." All this talk about how Drake sucks got me to thinking about art and religion and a lot of other random stuff that imma try to touch on in this note. Btw, i love writing notes like these. I always seem to get a lot of ideas out this way. haha.
When someone tells me that Drake sucks, I always have to kick it into "try to be as objective in the matter as you can" mode. I try to let go of all the love I have for his music and everything else he does, in order to better listen to what is being told to me. From the few skeptics I've talked to, the main arguments I've heard are that
1. Drake claims to be hard, when he's from Canada and was on Degrassi.
2. He's just another Lil Wayne, with a bunch of metaphors.
3. He's a liar, he doesn't have thousands of dollars to spend on getting "po'd up."
I don't think that Drake claims to be very hard. He seems to take himself pretty lightly, being humble and wanting to avoid confrontation. In a recent interview of his, he was asked how soon he expects to get dissed by some hater. His reply was something along the lines of "I don't wanna be in any beef, I just hope all of us up-and-coming artists just mesh together." He even said that a lot of people are trying to create something between him and Kid Cudi, but he said something about how he respects Kid Cudi, listens to his music, and he hopes they can all just co-exist. I don't see how you can hate on someone who's so humble about his competition. It's like hating on Derrick Rose, even though Derrick Rose seems to be the most humble dude on the face of the planet lol. You would have to have some kind of internal issue to want to create a problem with someone who is so humble.
I don't even know where Drake claims to be that hard. He knows he's from Canada and he knows he was on Degrassi, and it doesn't seem to bother him that much.
I don't even feel like turning this into a debate about Drake. What I really feel like talkin about is music and religion and tolerance. Somehow, hearing someone hate on Drake got me to thinking about those three things. I dunno how, but yeah. haha. Well here goes.
The few people that I've heard hate on Drake all seem to be under the same mold. They listen to Murs, MF doom, Jedi Mind Tricks, Andre 3000, and those types of artists. And I think that they listen to artists like Drake, and compare him to their favorite artists, when they're two completely different artists. They listen to Drake or T.I. or (insert random artist here), and expect to hear really intellectual lyrics. This is where a couple problems arise.
If you're trying to listen to an artist like Keak Da Sneak or Soulja Boy and you're going to compare their lyrical ability to Andre 3000 or Murs or something, then you're just not being realistic. They make completely different music.
Which leads to the question, why the need to compare? Our society loves to compare people who do the same thing. We do it in sports when we compare Kobe and Lebron to MJ. It's done in R&B when Chris Brown and Ne-yo are compared. It’s done in rock, when Pearl Jam and Nirvana are compared. It’s done in Hollywood, with Samuel L. Jackson and Morgan Freeman. We compare any chance we get. But I don't understand why we feel the need to compare two different monsters. Why not just kick back and enjoy what they do?
One characteristic that is shared among listeners of the Mos Def's and the Nujabes of the worlds is a very strong passion for the music that they listen to. If you ask them to, they can go on and on for hours about why the music they listen to is the only good music out there, and they can point out millions of reasons why the music you listen to is bad. That same passion for what they listen to reminds me of a passion I see in another aspect of people lives: religion.
I really respect very religious people for finding something that makes their lives have meaning. Religion brings a lot of happiness to people in many different ways. Alternately, there are millions of ways to disprove pretty much every religion ever created. So when I see that someone is holding steadfast to their religion regardless of all the facts against their religion, I can't help but be impressed. There are also millions of ways to prove that certain religions aren't entirely false, but to touch on that topic would take days.
Let’s go back to how music can be tied to religion. In both religion and music, one chooses what to follow. In the case of religion, one chooses what to believe in morally, what to believe as far as our purpose here on earth, and creation myths and other stuff like that. In the case of music, one chooses what they’ll be listening to on that drive to work, or when walking to their next class, or what they’ll dance to at the next party. In both cases, one has to choose what works for them. I like to hope that people make their choice regardless of what others think. Obviously, that’s very unrealistic, but I can dream, right? Lol.
I’m all for being passionate about the music you listen to. But I find it distasteful when one pushes it on others while telling others why the music they choose to listen to is bad. But if someone listens to Soulja Boy and that’s what gets them through the day, then why must you take that away from them, just because you have a different taste in music? If you’re following the comparison between music and religion, you might have already made a connection here. That same passion that most people have for their music is comparable to the passion that Jehovah’s Witnesses have for their religion. And the same way that Jehovah’s witnesses push and push their religion on others while going on and on about why other religions are wrong, listeners of Nujabes and Murs seem to push their music on others while telling others why the music they listen to is bad. I like to call this disdain of other’s music “musical intolerance.”
A good example of the way I feel that people should feel about other’s preferences and beliefs was exemplified in an episode of South park.
Some new kid moved into South Park from Utah. His family happened to be Mormon, and the entire episode was focused on showing why the Mormon religion is based on a very questionable foundation(“dumb, dumb dumb, dumb, dumb!”) The Mormon kid got shitted on the entire episode, being presented with a lot of very questionable aspects of his religion. At the end of the episode, however, he came back at his religion’s critics, saying something along the lines of “Yeah, there are a lot of things that seem to be really stupid about my religion, but my family has a very strong nucleus, I get along with most people, and it gets me through the day easier. So fuck you Kyle, fuck you Stan, fuck you Cartman, and fuck you Kenny.” This is why I love South Park; it’s hilarious and it talks a lot about very relevant societal topics, without being too one sided or coming across as being a know-it-all show. But let’s get back to the Jehovah’s Witnesses reference.
When Jehovah’s Witnesses bother me, I always get the same feeling: “Why can’t you just be tolerant of whatever I choose to believe?” I could understand trying to spread awareness for what you believe in, but do you have to be so damn pushy about your religion? I honestly could care less what the fuck you believe in, as long as it gets you through your day easier. Can’t you give me the same respect?
And once again, like Jehovah’s witnesses, a lot of listeners of very intellectual rap always seem to point out flaws in other types of music while pushing and pushing their music on others. I don’t understand why we can’t all just be tolerant of what we choose to listen to. I remember watching “Yes Man,” a movie with Jim Carrey. I’m sure you know what movie I’m talking about. If not, it’s a comedy where Jim Carrey says “yes” to every opportunity posed to him. But back to the point; in the movie, Jim Carrey encounters a love interest, some random beezy who’s in a band that makes particularly random music. The music doesn’t seem to flow very well together, and seems to go against everything taught in a music theory class. The band played very small gigs, and had the same 5 or 6 followers each show. However, everyone involved in the show, from the band to the groupies, was very passionate and very into the music. I hope that most people, including the passionate followers of intellectual rap, would choose to ignore the fact that these people choose to listen to really random sounding music, tolerating the fact that these people listen to what they want to, regardless of what others think. However, many listeners of intellectual rap don’t translate that same tolerance into tolerance for other types of music.
I don’t mean to bash listeners of intellectual rap. Upon a quick re-reading of this note, it seems like I hate them with a passion when I really don’t. Contrarily, their music is one of the most unique out there. It seems bulletproof, and very easy to defend. It’s hard to make a case for why that kind of music “sucks.” Although I personally haven’t listened to too much of that kind of music, the few songs that I have heard are very enlightening and I can definitely see the appeal in it.
This note is way too fuckin long haha. I have a lot more I want to talk about, but I’ll just end this note with a few questions.
Why the need to compare artists?
Why the need to define who’s “the best?”
How do you define success in music? Is it by amount of records sold? Number of ringtones sold? Number of people dancing to your music? Number of people reciting your lyrics on the way to the corner store?
Why be so selfish about your music? If you find music that you find to be good, why not share it with the world?
Why is there such importance placed on being the “first one up” on something?
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