White Critics Be Like taking things like “Be Like” and running with them…after admonishing generations for the use of that Ebonics phrase. That same appropriation and pseudo-scholarship is applied to all things Black, and in this instance, Hip-Hop.
I grew up in a time where the average white person would rather be spit and shyt on before being made to listen to rap music…and really that applies to all Black music but they were just ignorant of R&B. Not rap. White people were driven insane by rap. Now they’ve somehow become the authority and go to scholars on the culture. How did that happen?
Anyone who grew up in the 80s and graduated before the 90s were in full swing, knows about the thumb and pinky pointing white person going, “yo, yo, yo” doing a belabored human beatbox impression and hitting you with a bunch of “I be” sentences. It was a white person past time to mock rap.
But white people loved the Beasties — for obvious reasons — only “Fight For Your Right” though— not “Paul Revere” and surely not “Slow and Low.” White people loved Tone Loc and Young MC and Hammer and Vanilla Ice…and white people loved Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince…”Parents Just Don’t Understand” only. These white people who had a playlist of six rap songs would say they liked rap.
Then there were the white fans. These are the ones who for whatever reason, heard a rap song and it became their lifeblood. This is the Jon Shecter, Rick Rubin, Paul C, Ted Demme, white people collective. The ones that studied rap. The early adopters. The ones that made it safe for other whites to come in.
And those other whites — the ones that would become critics, not the casual listeners — but the ones that would begin to canonize rap — those are some mothafukkas: the ones who speak so matter of factly about things, the ones who scoured Billboard magazine to look up how rap albums fared on the charts, the ones who edit the Wiki pages. The ones writing books. These whites know no context and frame everything from their own perspective.
I can spot ‘em with one quick scan. It usually goes like this, “Heavy D and the Boyz never achieved success after Mister Big Stuff” or “Little known rap group, Super Lover Cee and Casanova Rud…” or some other form that belittles the impact of seminal artists. This works on a generation of rap fans whom history is of no import. But to those people who lived through the era spoken of, it usually incenses them; voiceless as they may be.
They throw terms like “one hit wonder” on people like Audio Two or Rob Bass and EZ Rock in a time where that term did not apply. These people measure rap and R&B careers against rock careers…really, rock legends and call 14 year careers — short. These people are the ones that dub acts as varied as Rick James to Big Daddy Kane as Unsung…oh, you didn’t know that was created by a white man. Here he is…
Joe Heally creator of Unsung
Recently I watched Complex’s Magnum Opus series where they focus on rap hits from various eras. Good stuff…until Noah Callahan-Bever pops up on the screen. I mean, I get it, somehow or the other he arrived at the position of Chief Content Officer but does that make him an authority on “Come Clean?” Every comment he made left me like, wtf — for instance, he claimed that Premier had not received notoriety as the “be all and end all” of “boom bap” beats….according to who, Noah?
Why is this a problem you might ask — it’s simple — the writers of history either make great or write out of history whoever they see fit. Which, again, means nothing if you’re born after 1984 and aren’t a self-proclaimed rap geek. Names like Larry Smith, (until recently before he returned) Howie Tee, etc. are seldom spoken of. Instead of teaching the history, modern media raises up the voice of any generational discord — causing young to fight older. Divide and conquer. And the spoils go not to the maker — no, they go to the owner.
Rap, like every aspect of Black life, has far more people who are the not-the-spotlight -types who have pushed this culture forward; the so-called little people. For every Martin Luther King Jr. there’s an E.D. Nixon. For every Jay Z there’s a Jaz O. But we seldom tell those stories.
Whenever we leave our story to be told by others we move closer and closer to being written up as a paragraph in the dictionary-sized Eminem book. I know you may find that hard to believe, but peruse the Hip-Hop tomes written by whites.
Characters like Rick Rubin are well-fleshed out, human beings with backgrounds that make their motivations clear while the larger than life figure of Russell Simmons pales in comparison. More often than not he’s a broadly sketched depiction that could just as easily fit Diddy or Andre Harrell. Ten years from now, he might not be mentioned at all.
Or have you forgotten, White Historians Be Like, “America was discovered by Columbus” or White Journalist Be Like, “Until Sunday, Cerveny appeared to lead a charmed life.” (written of Kiersten Cerveny who died in a ‘cocaine apartment’) or White Cops Be like…
But you go on thinking it’s not important.
I grew up in a time where the average white person would rather be spit and shyt on before being made to listen to rap music…and really that applies to all Black music but they were just ignorant of R&B. Not rap. White people were driven insane by rap. Now they’ve somehow become the authority and go to scholars on the culture. How did that happen?
Anyone who grew up in the 80s and graduated before the 90s were in full swing, knows about the thumb and pinky pointing white person going, “yo, yo, yo” doing a belabored human beatbox impression and hitting you with a bunch of “I be” sentences. It was a white person past time to mock rap.
But white people loved the Beasties — for obvious reasons — only “Fight For Your Right” though— not “Paul Revere” and surely not “Slow and Low.” White people loved Tone Loc and Young MC and Hammer and Vanilla Ice…and white people loved Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince…”Parents Just Don’t Understand” only. These white people who had a playlist of six rap songs would say they liked rap.
Then there were the white fans. These are the ones who for whatever reason, heard a rap song and it became their lifeblood. This is the Jon Shecter, Rick Rubin, Paul C, Ted Demme, white people collective. The ones that studied rap. The early adopters. The ones that made it safe for other whites to come in.
And those other whites — the ones that would become critics, not the casual listeners — but the ones that would begin to canonize rap — those are some mothafukkas: the ones who speak so matter of factly about things, the ones who scoured Billboard magazine to look up how rap albums fared on the charts, the ones who edit the Wiki pages. The ones writing books. These whites know no context and frame everything from their own perspective.
I can spot ‘em with one quick scan. It usually goes like this, “Heavy D and the Boyz never achieved success after Mister Big Stuff” or “Little known rap group, Super Lover Cee and Casanova Rud…” or some other form that belittles the impact of seminal artists. This works on a generation of rap fans whom history is of no import. But to those people who lived through the era spoken of, it usually incenses them; voiceless as they may be.
They throw terms like “one hit wonder” on people like Audio Two or Rob Bass and EZ Rock in a time where that term did not apply. These people measure rap and R&B careers against rock careers…really, rock legends and call 14 year careers — short. These people are the ones that dub acts as varied as Rick James to Big Daddy Kane as Unsung…oh, you didn’t know that was created by a white man. Here he is…
Joe Heally creator of Unsung
Recently I watched Complex’s Magnum Opus series where they focus on rap hits from various eras. Good stuff…until Noah Callahan-Bever pops up on the screen. I mean, I get it, somehow or the other he arrived at the position of Chief Content Officer but does that make him an authority on “Come Clean?” Every comment he made left me like, wtf — for instance, he claimed that Premier had not received notoriety as the “be all and end all” of “boom bap” beats….according to who, Noah?
Why is this a problem you might ask — it’s simple — the writers of history either make great or write out of history whoever they see fit. Which, again, means nothing if you’re born after 1984 and aren’t a self-proclaimed rap geek. Names like Larry Smith, (until recently before he returned) Howie Tee, etc. are seldom spoken of. Instead of teaching the history, modern media raises up the voice of any generational discord — causing young to fight older. Divide and conquer. And the spoils go not to the maker — no, they go to the owner.
Rap, like every aspect of Black life, has far more people who are the not-the-spotlight -types who have pushed this culture forward; the so-called little people. For every Martin Luther King Jr. there’s an E.D. Nixon. For every Jay Z there’s a Jaz O. But we seldom tell those stories.
Whenever we leave our story to be told by others we move closer and closer to being written up as a paragraph in the dictionary-sized Eminem book. I know you may find that hard to believe, but peruse the Hip-Hop tomes written by whites.
Characters like Rick Rubin are well-fleshed out, human beings with backgrounds that make their motivations clear while the larger than life figure of Russell Simmons pales in comparison. More often than not he’s a broadly sketched depiction that could just as easily fit Diddy or Andre Harrell. Ten years from now, he might not be mentioned at all.
Or have you forgotten, White Historians Be Like, “America was discovered by Columbus” or White Journalist Be Like, “Until Sunday, Cerveny appeared to lead a charmed life.” (written of Kiersten Cerveny who died in a ‘cocaine apartment’) or White Cops Be like…
But you go on thinking it’s not important.
