Dave - All alone in this together

DannyL

Wild Horses
I think it's also 'cos of the relative size of black communities there, that are effectively independent economies i their own right. There's a degree of self-sustainability that's not true about similar communities in the UK.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
That's what I mean there are a number of niches - black communities, country music fans etc etc - that are bigger and have more spending power than many countries, which means you can get rich appealing simply to them... no need to jump through hoops on telly pretending to be something you're not to sell to constituencies outside your natural one.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
In theory you lot are right but then idk if Dave IS the king of flaccid liberal rapper fantasy you might think of him as being. Nor stormzy. They still do hard bangers, just not whole albums of them. And then what was that recent number one, the drill one with the book English girl named fiona/African girl called abiola. It's not the 90s anymore. And idk how I feel about the semi fetishism of black militant rappers, as if, British rap will never be truly Authentic or pure and undiluted until you can get some rappers calling white ppl devils or whatever lol.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Oh I don't think I'm right 100% or the criticisms above are the last word. It's still a really good thought provoking record. It's just interesting to tease out some of these threads.
 
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shakahislop

Well-known member
enjoyed some early freestyle thing he did on 1xtra in about 2016. there's been very little uk hiphop i've liked, ever, and the rest of his stuff (that i've heard) falls flat to me. it's the same with some US hiphop though, if it's that kind of middle of the road beats and middle of the road bars thing i've got no time for it personally. the thing that i get out of US hiphop is generally the 'oh fuck did they just do / say that' discoursey element of it, the innovation in flows, the innovation in beats, innovation in moods and that. i like the newness. head-noddy stuff doesn't do it for me and Dave fits in that category insofar as i've listened to him.

i do have a sense from the guardian coverage and that that at least part of what's going on is people who don't live in the endz (come on i'm not spelling it with an s) are the big consumers of his stuff. i have absolutely no evidence for this statement but i think it's true. the audience quite often has an impact on the overall sound obviously.

one thing that seems totally fucking obvious to me, with the disclaimer that i'm not from either of these groups and so not intimately engaged, is that the african-american community in the USA and the black communities in UK are totally different things and the biggest connection they have is skin colour rather than culture. tend to think that this is a huge basic misunderstanding in the UK, that they're the same. though obviously this is fraught conversational territory to get into when you're not black yourself and are just observing.
 

wild greens

Well-known member
And then what was that recent number one, the drill one with the book English girl named fiona/African girl called abiola.

Russ Millions & Tion Wayne

I think the Nines album getting to number one was a clear sign that the old UK rapper model/cliche is pretty much done now, but then he got banged up so are the labels going to be conservative in doing that again, as they're all on 360s so it does cut into their margins if they can't tour.

AJ Tracey is the biggest streaming pop rapper outside of the Stormzys of this world but he tends to go under the radar of these discussions a bit
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
so guardian readers buy it. or glasto goers. or non urban black people. who dyou think buys hip hop in the US? you think its inner city black kids propelling migos or young thug or whoever to platinum? think again. for dave, substitute any rapper who is maybe a bit 'soft' (idk, kweli, mos def etc) then add something about them not really representing Real Black fans/rappers/music/culture/whatever and this slightly silly/borderline offensive line of attack starts to look a bit well, silly and offensive. apparently if a lot of white people buy a hardcore rappers music, its no blight on their authenticity, but if its a not so hardcore rapper, then suddenly its because pesky liberals like them and cos theyre pandering to white, middle class guardian readers. well okay then.
 

wild greens

Well-known member
Streaming has eliminated all the old ideas on rap i think, no coincidence that the rise of spotify has meant a resurgence of rap in charts in america and uk

a lot of the traditionally young rap listeners would have used datpiff or bootlegs or phones etc back in my day, whereas family spotify accounts democratise that

The earnest media coverage of a dizzee album etc barely matters now imo, who is reading alexis patredis or whatever these days

Not sure what point the last post is making but i am watching masterchef anyway tbh
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
tbh i have never sat through a whole dave (or j cole for that matter, but that track he did with dj premier went pretty hard in a 90s retro way) album.

BUT

when he raps on funky friday and the beat changes up, its this weird level of road/guardian reading (lol) cross alignment transcendence:
At this age, how are them man still hating?
My young boy in a different country
But he ain't ever been on vacation
One hand on the girl I'm dating
One hand on the cash I'm making
We come through like Funky Friday
And have all of your mandem skating


i dont think ill ever get bored of FF actually. genuine modern british rap anthem.

also, this line on titanium about neigbours voting tory did make me lol a bit (its better when you hear it than when you read it, all about the timing)

Jheeze, same old story
You can get soaked, or soaked in glory
I got a house in the sticks, it's awkward
I know that my neighbours are votin' Tory, surely


i think hes genuinely a really good rapper. i dont think that can be up for debate. you might want him to have a bit more edge or whatever, but hes just a naturally gifted MC in my opinion.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Yeah, I agree. It's the rapping that gave me pause and made me relisten.

First line of second verse on the first track is:
What's the point of being rich when your family ain't?
It's like flying first class on a crashing plane


That whole idea of community wealth and wealth distribution - that's interesting and a step above most rapper's fantasies about cash and ofc absolutely in tune with the liberal values Luke mentions above.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Obviously the fucked implications of that are that I/we are only going to be able to listen to obnoxious gangsta music which is another kind of fetishism. Doesn't leave much room for artists to change and develop either. But there it is.

I mean yes, in the sense that race is a social relationship and we're all complicit in some form or another - the racial fetishist is just as much enslaved to this logic as the racialised person, etc etc... but, in general, no, I don't think it always has to be necessarily like that. It's just important to be aware of that. there are many other pivots one could make if one felt like all they were doing was listening to gangster music, jazz, Billy Woods and co. as you say, house, rnb/soul, etc.

But the problem is the UK music industry as Luke says below your post.
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
the obnoxious gangsta music is very very recent and only appears in the mid '00s. but yeah, white liberals, slightly reductive in that it also includes well spoken Nigerian liberals called Obi who play for the university rugby team etc
we've talked about this loads before. black music in this country has, or is thought to have by the record companies, either/or, a kind of ceiling which is built in by demographics. you can get so far doing jungle, grime, whatever, but to unlock the real mass market you have to do something different.

Granted, although those Nigerian liberals are a relative minority compared to the overwhelming whiteness and non-london centricity of the UK music press. You'd be surprised how many UK music writers are not actually from london and hence don't have the childhood experiences of its scenology, despite living, working and writing there.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
so guardian readers buy it. or glasto goers. or non urban black people. who dyou think buys hip hop in the US? you think its inner city black kids propelling migos or young thug or whoever to platinum? think again. for dave, substitute any rapper who is maybe a bit 'soft' (idk, kweli, mos def etc) then add something about them not really representing Real Black fans/rappers/music/culture/whatever and this slightly silly/borderline offensive line of attack starts to look a bit well, silly and offensive. apparently if a lot of white people buy a hardcore rappers music, its no blight on their authenticity, but if its a not so hardcore rapper, then suddenly its because pesky liberals like them and cos theyre pandering to white, middle class guardian readers. well okay then.

That's not the point though. The point is guardian readers (its a reductive archetype ok all caveats) transplant indie values of authenticity onto their musical consumption, although as Luke writely notes liberals of colour do this as well. At the end of the day these people aren't your mates, yet so much of this middle class criticism unhinges on these artists not being quote problematic unquote. This, I believe, was what @blissblogger was railing against in the 80s when he was criticising music journalism as being a form of surrogate literature. I want to relate to different experiences, sure, but not to take people up as phantom role models to justify my own cosmopolitan liberalism, or whatever. I like a lot of nerdy shit, I like Kool Keith, Billy Woods, Elusid etc. But it's about liking them on the terms of hip hop. I also like Bandgang, Sata Baby, E-40, Missy, and yes, Lil John. For me there isn't a contradiction there because I try my best to treat rap as a social dialogue.

And bog off with the Migos thing, that's about 7 years out of date now lmao.
 
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