cnelsen
Gold Member
- Banned
- #1
So, I'm sitting in the airport in Minneapolis listening to my phone shuffle through current pop charts and, once again, noticing the difference between the lyrics generally of white artists and black artists (no yellow, red, or brown artists were included, for whatever reason).
If I had to reduce the overall tenor of the two groups to one word each, I'd set
whites: defeating
blacks: chest-beating
Here are a couple of lyric examples picked at random but typical, it seems to me:
Chainsmokers:
I'm fucked up, I'm faded,
I'm so complicated,
I gave up three times this week
Those feelings I'm worth nothin'
I'm so soft, ... [and so on]
G Eazy and Kehlani:
I bought the crib and put it in escrow so you never have to worry (Mom)
We put the good in the good life
I'm alright
I toast to success
This champagne tastes better on jets
Life's only getting greater... [and so on]
As a white man, here is my take on that:
Some would argue that black and white artists are simply reacting to the reality around us. And, I suppose, by any measure it is arguable that black men (speaking of the US) are victors and white men (not including Jews) have lost.
Art, to be Art, needs to say something true about the human condition, of course, but Art is not simply a mirror. The artist's reality must, necessarily, pass through the artist's emotions and it is his or her particular reality that makes it interesting to humans in general. Therefore, the defeatism of the white artists is self-fulfilling.
I believe the old aphorism, "Art is the master for whom Science toils". Without Art (leaving Religion aside for this discussion), we would be animals consuming for the sake of reproducing like any other living creature. Art informs our desires in a way that frees us from the mere animal nature. Artists create the world for us. This means artists have an important role to play if white men are going to ever be able to raise ourselves from the ashes of defeat.
White men have been the most creative force in human history. It would be a tragedy if those who mold our perceptions of ourselves as defeated win.
If I had to reduce the overall tenor of the two groups to one word each, I'd set
whites: defeating
blacks: chest-beating
Here are a couple of lyric examples picked at random but typical, it seems to me:
Chainsmokers:
I'm fucked up, I'm faded,
I'm so complicated,
I gave up three times this week
Those feelings I'm worth nothin'
I'm so soft, ... [and so on]
G Eazy and Kehlani:
I bought the crib and put it in escrow so you never have to worry (Mom)
We put the good in the good life
I'm alright
I toast to success
This champagne tastes better on jets
Life's only getting greater... [and so on]
As a white man, here is my take on that:
Some would argue that black and white artists are simply reacting to the reality around us. And, I suppose, by any measure it is arguable that black men (speaking of the US) are victors and white men (not including Jews) have lost.
Art, to be Art, needs to say something true about the human condition, of course, but Art is not simply a mirror. The artist's reality must, necessarily, pass through the artist's emotions and it is his or her particular reality that makes it interesting to humans in general. Therefore, the defeatism of the white artists is self-fulfilling.
I believe the old aphorism, "Art is the master for whom Science toils". Without Art (leaving Religion aside for this discussion), we would be animals consuming for the sake of reproducing like any other living creature. Art informs our desires in a way that frees us from the mere animal nature. Artists create the world for us. This means artists have an important role to play if white men are going to ever be able to raise ourselves from the ashes of defeat.
White men have been the most creative force in human history. It would be a tragedy if those who mold our perceptions of ourselves as defeated win.