Bad and bourgy?

I was listening to this popular rap song called "bad and bourgy"? But when they describe how they are "boujee"(like the bourgeois) there is no mention of means of production, stocks, exploitation. This is what is considered the height of luxury, like the bourgeois

It is critique of ideology user.

Lumpen Internet Defense Force BTFO

They spell it "Boujee" in the title you fukken square.

This, but it's an implicit one made through an unironic desire to appropriate the lifestyle of the bourgeosie without the alienation that comes with decadence. They want to remain dangerous, liberated and effective (bad) while nonetheless being able to engage with and enjoy material pleasures guiltlessly (bougie, which in the slang sense often just means someone who has expensive taste). The Chanel chinese food in tbe video is a good example of this – they dont hate everything about their lives as poor people, just the suffering that comes along with being poor. The Chanel logo serves as a fetish that allows them to guiltessly enjoy a simple cheap pleasure like Chinese food without being reminded that the source of that pleasure is largely that it is low effort and inexpensive.


Yeah no shit theyre having a good time making good music for people from similar circumstances. It's not like this interpretation is a secret message embedded in the lyrics, I'm just trying to express with the language of critical analysis what is communicated through extra-linguistic performance and imagery

Trap music is of course not without major problems, not the least of which is its glorification of bourgeois lifestyles, but the situation is a lot more subtle than "fuck them theyre saying they want to be rich". Trap is far more interesting politically (as well as artistically) than corny conscious hip hop like Immortal Technique (who I have a huge fondness for nonetheless) and some apolitical gimmicky #smartnigga like J-Cole. Trap is a true expression of black american consciousness – as the name referencing drug trade suggests, it is highly capitalistic, but that shouldn't be a reason to condemn the artists or the culture and it's too easy to fall into the mistake of quick condemnation coming from a crude analysis. They are unique in that they are so fully incorporated into the logic of capital not in spite of but exactly because of as a group excluded formal, legal administration of capital. They arent an unfortunate side effect of capitalism, they are an integral part of its functioning, and the absurd tragico-comedy stories told in trap music are from the perspective of this group, and for that the quality of the music and the insight it provides should not be underestimated.

Also


Sorry if this is rambling and incoherent Im not home and am typing on my phone so this is sort of a half assed analysis but I'd love to discuss it with anyone interested.

young thug looks elderly as fuck in that pic.

Seems like a semi-relevant image to post in this thread. Fill in the blanks…

Go to a local rap show if you want to hear decent lyrics. Next you'll be telling me that it's not really a party in the USA.

What is the leftypol consensus on Kendrick Lamar

I hate the black bourgeoisie so much. They're all so fucking useless. I used to idolize Kanye foolishly believing he was going to be the next Malcolm X or Huey before I realized he was a dipshit pig. I can't believe I thought there was potential in him.

Peaked with GKMC imo but that's an unpopular opinion.

kanye is probably the most obviously autistic artist currently in the public eye, people need to cut him some slack

Kanye lost his mind around 2009

Beyonce is a shit but it's stupid as fuck to think she is actually so responsible for the sweat shops making her clothes. Seriously, she's a celebrity, her and Jay maybe have more say and control over their product lines than many other celebrities, but come on, pouring all that resentment into one random pop star whose agency just pinned the "Innovative Entrepreneur :^)" meme on her to sell her clothing line is just silly and shortsighted.


GKMC and TPAB were masterpieces that were only overrated because nothing could live up to the hype around them. I was really pleasantly surprised with DAMN., especially with the fucking U2 and Rihanna features lmao did not expect it to be as good as it is.


Relax man, Kanye has terrible politics and is fucking nuts but is still a brilliant musician. Like this user said the man is probably a genuine savant, and people treat his autistic traits like they're some mysterious genius strategy or performance art when the dude is actual just a massive sperg. Genuinely kind of sad imo

It's meant to be symbolic and a stand in for the entire industry and how it's commercialized. It's not a targeted attack on Bey as worse than anyone else of her ilk

the listed things are all activities and priviledges the bougies enjoy. They aren't actually what makes someone bougie. Black entertainers are extremely illiterate and uncultured, the only culture they come in contact with is second hand or the fashion industry. So excuse their ignorance. Pop-music is essentially EDM and R&B combined with Rap so just ignore their stupidity. The more appalling hting is that faggots still rap about the same shit and the same faggots bump it and go to their shows. That's a travesty.

its all the AIDS and Molly
latest shit was tight, not really "art" but still much better than To Pimp A Butterfly. I wish he would retire or try to increase his vocabulary and ability to pick beats.

Ok true I guess those were the blanks I failed to fill in

Whoah. I've thought this for a while but always kind of assumed it was something else cuz I don't see everybody making the same conclusion. That stare, his facial expressions - even his freestyle. There's a pretty obvious disconnect there, and he doesn't seem to be schizophrenic, so it doesn't leave much else.

Lol

t. musically illiterate resentful autist

pick one and one only.

Oh kendrick.. talking about him now saddens me.
I used to be a real fan of him, my personal playlists were full of his music. A lot of friends who are into the mainstream stuff (drake, kanye, rihanna beyonce, crap like that) didn't like him that much tho.

Then came the moment.. where he became a total sellout imo and his new sounds became.. literal shit in my eardrums. I think it was around the time he worked together with taylor swift (ffs kendrick how low can you go)

And his new album? Total trash imo. Kendrick lost all my respect. It hurts as a former die hard fan looking forward to his new album. (I liked every other album before it)

Fun fact: now the mainstream loving friends like him. He's just another mainstream puppet now.

Sorry current kendrick fans, don't take it personal. I'll go listen to some UK grime now, peace ✌️

great post.

do you think there is any room left at all for the emergence of (explicitly) leftist artists in popular rap culture? we all know that the immortal techniques/JMT's of the world will probably stay within their own lane of popularity for as long as they're around, and most attempts at some kind of ""consciousness"" by the mainstream are hillary clinton-tier, label-backed, corporate nonsense (looking at you, cole). i definitely suspect that if it were to happen, it would come out of the atlanta trap scene, i.e. the place any interesting rap music seems to get made these days. idk maybe i'm just fantasizing about outkast happening again.

in regards to trap's capitalistic tendencies, i think you're correct in stating that what we're seeing for the most part is a kind of subversive enjoyment of bourgeois culture by rappers who, wealth aside, are undeniably still not considered 'in' among the upper class (and they, of course, know this all too well). where i'm skeptical is how the narrative in trap (or areas which produce a lot of trap) has changed over time. if you look at atlanta in the dungeon family days, we see cee-lo/andre/et al/. very much doing what i think migos and thug are in their appropriation of bourgeois fashion/culture, however it was always grounded in some form of solidarity and real engagement in their community (i'd give some lyrical examples if i had time). nowadays, there seems to be a deeply conservative narrative of "i worked hard to get where i'm at, just me, and you can get these riches too if you grind hard enough" underlying a shit ton of trap. what do you think is up with that?

(also side note, i've officially decided that young thug has a lowkey grasp of psychoanalytic theory).

Thanks!


I don't see it happening tbh, at least not while hip hop in general is in the mainstream spotlight. But I suppose there's no way to know how much longer that will be since our crazy late-capitalist culture/basically global pop media hegemony is unprecedented, and if it's much longer I suppose it's a possibility.

My thinking tho is that anything explicitly political in hip hop will immediately be seen as cheesy and didactic conscious rap, which of course isn't necessarily true and Kendrick's TPAB definitely pushed the boundaries on that, and a lot of that album's lyrics were overtly challenging capitalism and assumptions about black american culture from black and white americans alike. But it seems like Kendrick is the increasingly rare bridge between the pop/trap and conscious/90s-nostalgic channels hip hop has divided into, and as much as I think Kdot is extremely talented and doing great stuff, his wide appeal definitely owes a lot to good marketing of him as exactly that bridging figure and (I'm assuming) a production team doing a good job creating music that justifies that image.


That's true, I've noticed this too. I think this also owes itself at least in part to just how unfashionable conscious hip hop has become. It's, not entirely unfairly, associated with dorky moralfags stuck in the >golden age who think claiming the high ground is the same as making good art. Tho most trap is very lighthearted to some extent, I think that lightheartedness is an unconcealed filter so the sincere hyperbolic self assurance is palatable. And though it's sincere of course it's not just simply "LOL so dumb and narcissistic", like you mention about Young Thug and I agree completely is that the desire for wealth, sex, and camaraderie in the context of ambitious adventure is already expressing itself in terms understandable to psychoanalysis.

The idealized life of the trap-rapper is absolutely life as "the apparatus of jouissance", the excess of life that Lacan talks about, an enjoyment beyond the pleasure principle that excites both pain and sexual ecstasy. Trap is the music of those who grow up amidst constant crisis, a world entirely immersed in poverty and violence. All pleasure is experienced within this context, so the pursuit of pleasure is irremovable from the subconscious maintenance of those conditions, i.e. the unimaginable utopia of abundance unremoved from energy, excitement and aesthetic that is the ideal trap world (unlike the polished domesticity and formality of stereotypical bourgeois lifestyles which seek a transcendental dignity to justify their unjustifiable abundance unlike the trap hero who is an undeniably more complex justification for capital likely because it's one thought up by those desiring capital instead of possessing it), the ideal trap world needs to necessarily exist within the ideological parameters of capitalist urban decay or it is not realizable. The trapper is doomed unless they make the world their trap house.

Of course, this is the interpretation of trap's appeal and pathology as it applies to the artists making it and the community they're speaking about and to. The pathology of surburban white americans who find comfort and belonging in trap music I haven't thought as much about. I'm sure it includes the fascination with and idealization of black people in general that makes up so much of the racial pathology of white americans, but that's of course not the entirety of it and there's a reason there's such a divide between suburban kids who listen to Yachty instead of the Wu-Tang clan. I think part of it is definitely the recognition that poor trap rappers have developed a far more attractive and genuinely effective way of dealing with the financial and emotional excesses of wealth.

rap is cancer

"Get Out Ye Black and Tans" by Derek Garfield is real music.

Looks like your fat ass needs a one way trip who to the gulag.

...

I'm about to drop some bars from the mixtape I'll be releasing on leftypol in June.

THIS NIGGA THINKS HES BILL NYE, GETTING MAD PUSSY EVEY NIGHT. I SAID THIS NIGGA FUCKING DORA THE EXPLORA, LIKE A WHORA.

Among poor blacks it tends to be a very toxic culture you don't really find amongst poor whites. It's creates a completely low trust environment, where a community is essentially held hostage.

lmfao that is fucking delusion my man

poor black americans are definitely reactionary as fuck and liberals are lying to themself to think otherwise but poor whites are AT LEAST as bad, usually much worse because they wholeheartedly believe le american dream is real and is only being prevented by liberals and/or darkies and immigrants

There's a big difference between poor communities full of patriotic retard wagecucks, and poor communities of sociopaths where 16 year olds are shot for wearing the wrong color on the wrong block.

confirmed for knowing nothing about what the ghetto is actually like and falling for the warzone meme

it's not sociopathy, it's the real material struggle that comes with living in a heavily policed ghetto where your only dependeble income is the drug trade or robbery, your middle school school is the most violent place in the neighborhood and the only way anyone enjoys themself is getting high

no, being a poor rural white isnt any easier in most ways, but the amount of space between people means violence breaks out less often and it does is easily ignored, and there arent slave catcher cops breathing down your neck every day

and as if cletus seems any less sociopathic when he says "just nuke the middle east/africa and be done with it". shit is a lot more complicated than just dumb violent black people having a bad culture

Interesting considering the fact I have family that risked there lives comming the US from Mexico, without knowing really any English, or even having a fucking highschool diploma, yet still have enough dependable income enough to raise a family and send kids to school without harming others. Sounds a lot like you want to justify a shitty sociopathic culture that worships material possessions because "struggle" is present in it. I've lived in some of the shittiest places LA, and I've NEVER seen blacks, or whites wanting to do day labor, you both just fucking exploit.

I'm not that user so I'm not here to bitch about rap and Black people. However, the way that Black America has been systemically criminalized and lumpenized, and the way that Rappers have internalized the sorts of secret American values of dogged pursuit of hedonism and wealth accumulation is just heartbreaking to me. So I don't enjoy hip-hop all that much despite liking quite a bit of what I hear, but maybe I'm off base

LA has had a long history of racism against Blacks when it comes to hiring practices, and policing. You don't just find that kind of stuff in the South.

im one of those poor whites from the city and that immigrant success story is cute and im happy for your family but youre full of shit

youre talking peak idealism right now. generations of economic suppression, marginalization and impoverishment in the context of a developed capitalist economy is responsible for the lumpenization of urban whites and blacks. Theyre more useful for capital as criminals working in prison and poor unemployed making the #middleclass scared of becoming them. Mexican migrant workers are in a different position, not one I understand as well but I do know theyre more useful as proles than lumpens which is a different sitation, one im sure most people dont escape but it's still relatively easier for you or your kids to move up from any kind of job than it is to move up from a prison cell or crack house

Best rapper of his generation

Two families sharing a one bedroom apartment isn't a cute success story.


Than why preach, what are you trying to accomplish? The point in trying to get across is that harming people, or selling narcotics isn't the only fucking option if your a young black male, and you're a fucking idiot if you support its glorification because struggle is tied to it. Sage because this "discussion" is going nowhere fast.

Oh im sorry so why should proles slave away like that if theyre going to live in garbage anyway? No shit making a life out of a gang economy is not the only option and its not a good option but most of the people who end up there chose that instead of being good little miserable proles and good for them.

Are you a socialist cause you sound like a conservicuck bootstrapper to me

Rap is fake culture.

What interesting I think is the link between the new Future song "Mask Off" and Tommy Butlers "Prison Song" from which the beat is taken. On a surface level it seems as if Future took a song about Civil Rights and turned it into a song about drugs, a perfect analogy for the Black community. If you read comments on this they imply that Future did it unintentionally however, looking at the music video and paying attention to the lyrics gives the feeling that the contrast was intended.

I was curious if any anons had seen the video or heard the song and come to the same conclusion? Are these trap stars more woke than we give them credit for?

Absolutely, and they dont need to express it by the standards set by european language to provide a coherent message

inb4 i get called an SJW, im not saying at all that the european intellectual tradition isnt useful and invaluable in its own right, only that european global cultural supremacy (contingent on historical material factors not the inherent evilness of pale skin) has suppressed other legitemate forms of expression useful for conveying things outside of the literal semiotics of language

if you think all postcolonial theory is sjw garbage you either got unlucky and read something bad or are a retard with terrible reading comprehension