Zsenicorpse wrote:

Liz Enkittengasm wrote:

...and everything to do with the fact that Roots Manuva always sounds condescending and insincere.

It's annoying when you're condescended to by someone you don't even respect.

Ha ha! Snoop Dogg sings sappy love raps, Tupac tells women to keep their heads up, and countless slimy boy bands base their whole careers on promising deathless, yet banal, adoration to anonymous women.

And Roots Manuva is condescending and insincere!

It seems like black people who stay on message (guns, hos, drugs, parties, or safe love songs and soft beats, or sadness which is not too pronounced or specific and generally directed at the "streets") get way less flak than ones who don't. Those naughty artists get shuffled away into various unloveable categories, accused of letting their consciences get in the way of the party, or informed that they are boring. It's a kind of subtle racism. Or, you know, black people who aren't on message might be told they sound condescending and insincere. Condescending and insincere! And who tells them that, anyway?

But none of the condescending and insincere stuff can be pulled out of the flattening label "hipster music for casual perusers." That criticism says nothing about condescension or insincerity. It has everything to do with who's listening, and it also makes the claim that serious music lovers (serious!) love something else for some untold reason, so if you like Roots, you're clearly not a serious music lover (serious!)

In other words, you were playing the Safe Edgy Game. You even namedropped a critic who hated the right albums!

you do admit you have a brand, and you're protecting it.

See, that's a problem I just don't have.