if I was already of the opinion that Kendrick was going down that road it would have reinforced that opinion. I would be pretty mad at Kanye for that same line in the same beef.
but I think there is a perfectly plausible reading where that’s not what he’s going for and I’m choosing that one
[note: I can't see the OP]
I don't know if 5% stuff is always a red flag, Wu-Tang is full of 5% stuff but AFAIK they have never had any issues with antisemitism
I mean, the Five Percent Nation "philosophy" isn't far from anti-Semitism, I'm not sure that the reference to it here encompasses all of that, just shorthand for figuring out references. But I could be wrong!
yeah I guess my thought is that there's some fucked up shit in there, but also some people have steered clear of that, so an isolated reference to 5% doesn't set off warning signs unless there's more context I missed!
like some Black Hebrew Israelites are cool and some are Very Much Not
The next track could be straight anti-Semitic and then we will both look silly, who knows? Being a colonizer of Atlanta, as it stands now, is a good line.
(Here's the OP for reference)
yeah I guess where I come down on it is that this is still well within benefit of doubt and therefore yelling at him about it is likely misguided
I do kind of think that if Kendrick was going to hit that angle he would likely be less subtle about it- lots more room to dogwhistle with deniability
and I personally think we collectively should pick fights about benefit-of-doubt cases less when the baseline level of antisemitism is higher, which is a strategy call with which one can reasonably disagree.
ditto, "colonizer" for me maybe *could* be an Israel reference if there were a lot more context, but that context isn't here
FWIW, though I'm not at all up on everything, in the I/P discourse I usually hear the word "colonialist," "colonizer" seems more about antiblackness
It’s because Drake has gone through half a dozen black rappers for clout. He literally has branded eras where he steals the entire energy, vibes, aesthetic of a specific rapper (or two), will pull them into features on an album, and then he ghosts the entire scene after he’s made his money.
A child actor who hasn’t really worked a day in his life vs people who actually came from the hood and went through the maw of American urban violence pimps out their images for his own tours. There is a reason why everyone hates him. Metro Boomin and Future made 2 whole albums dedicated to it lol.
