(AllHipHop News) The Beastie Boys did it. 3rd Base did it. Everlast did it. Eminem did it, too.
Vanilla Ice and The Young Black Teenagers… not so much.
Over the last four decades, there have been quite a few white rappers who have found their footing in the culture.
Even though they might be dope with the mic, nice with the vocab— white rappers have the problem that Black people have in general. T
They have to tip-toe through this s##t like they know they are “guests” in the “house.” Lord Jamar tells us that they are.
The other day, Eminem admitted that he is.
Only a few have been able to stand on the stage and not stumble over their own rhymes or an intense desire to say the “n-word.”
Only a few can say that there are no underground-grainy video floating where they are uttering the word.
Most certainly, Post Malone can’t.
In his recent interview with GQ, he talked about his own struggles with being in a world where his white privilege can’t give him access to any and everything he wants.
The “White Iverson” rapper says that while he has apologized for using the n-word (cue Ta-Nahesi Coates’ breakdown of why white men want to use the word), he refuses to apologize for loving the culture and the music. The weird thing is… no one has ever asked him to say sorry for loving our s##t.
In fact, in a weird way, he does quite the opposite. He diverts the attention from his poor choices in navigating race-relations in the music, and his mischaracterization of Hip-Hop.
USA Today refers to a 2017 interview he did with a Polish outlet, where he once said that Hip-Hop has no emotional depth.
Back then he said, “If you’re looking to cry, if you’re looking to think about life, you know, don’t listen to Hip-Hop.”
Surely, he had no idea what he was talking about because plenty of emotionalities comes from rap artists in each sub-genre of the art-form. He further told the Polish outlet, “There’s great hip-hop songs where they talk about life and they really spit that real (expletive), but right now, you know, there’s not a lot of people talking about (expletive).”
While GQ gave Post an out for being 24, and you know, at that age you supposed to say dumb s##t that you think sounds either “fire” to say or “uber-cerebral.” We over here are like, “that’s a dub.”
Rakim wrote “Paid in Full” at 18. By 25, Lauryn Hill had already given the world the Miseducation record and Eminem was a little older than that when he came out with Slim Shady.
This is about gas.
This is also about white privilege and no respect for the house you have been invited in.
The GQ article points to Post Malone no longer considering himself a rapper, but an artist. And no one is shocked here. We’ve seen this before. We know this play. We remember Elvis… who was a hero to most… We see you.
