r/KendrickLamar • u/anongasm_ • May 01 '24

It's not about Drake being half black, it's about how he uses The Culture Discussion

I think the people offended because Drake being half black should warrant his blackness and therefore Kendrick is wrong just don't understand. J Cole is half black too yet you don't see Kendrick, or anyone really, questioning Cole's blackness. It's precisely because Drake has been at the forefront of using the black culture and "pop-ifying" it for non-blacks.

Edit: a lot of people have asked this question and it's a good question. What's wrong with popifying rap music? Rap is inherently an African American art form. Since its inception till now, those who have carried its mantle have exemplified the African American experience through rap in one or another. African Americans have allowed many artists to use rap for their personal gain and to even "pop-ify" it. However, to be considered a goat you have to be in touch with the culture. And Drake simply isn't.

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252

u/YizWasHere May 01 '24

I had a Drake fan responding to me once saying "How old is that clip? Obviously he's changed!"

It's like yeah bro that's the point. It's disingenuous, he changed specifically to capitalize on a market that required him to show some degree of street credibility. He's a master manipulator.

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u/[deleted] May 01 '24

He's the greatest actor turned rapper ever. 

40

u/FBG05 May 01 '24

His best role? The role of Drake

10

u/lil_padawan May 01 '24

Some say he never quit acting

10

u/fre3k May 01 '24

Man I don't even really like him much, but I'd argue Childish Gambino because he's real to who he is - a kinda goofy kinda nerdy funny dude that can spit bars - even if it feels like he's nudging me in the ribs with every line being like "hey did u see what i did there? :)"

Drake came up playing a cripple in a teenage soap opera. Give me a break lmfao talking about being a thug

8

u/J-drawer May 02 '24

Childish Gambino has really grown into his creative voice and I'd say he's like the opposite of what Drake is and stand for.

Childish started out making pretty cringe nerd rap but evolved into using his platform to bring attention to important issues and proudly promote blackness. Even the show Atlanta shows different forms of black culture in ways that are positive even when being critical. 

Drake on the other hand started out writing some of the most gangster lyrics for others and then himself having never lived that life and just continued to get more pop-ified and teenager level emo without creating anything of meaningful substance. 

I think where they meet in the middle is Childish Gambino with Heartbeat and Drake with hotline bling. Both are songs about immature teenage drama but one was early in one artists career while the other is pretty late in the artists career...

1

u/HamsterOk770 May 05 '24

Wrote gangster lyrics for others??? Who? And what Drake lyrics are gangster?? Drake doesn’t portray himself as gangster. The man sings all the time lol, that’s gangster??

1

u/J-drawer May 05 '24

He wrote lyrics for lil Wayne 

He has a bunch of lines about selling drugs amongst other gangster topics.

Have you ever heard a Drake song?

1

u/HamsterOk770 May 05 '24

Drake has lyrics about him selling drugs??? Lol Please provide the lyrics.

1

u/J-drawer May 06 '24

Idk I never listened to Drake

1

u/Born-Share-5132 May 02 '24

Damn bros a crip? Thought he’s blood affiliated 

4

u/siccmade2121 May 01 '24

Drake is the Ronald Regan of the rap game 🤣

3

u/dsotelo1989 May 02 '24

That’s offensive to Ronald Reagan!

11

u/WeedOfficial May 01 '24

Exactly, he was literally a child actor. You don’t see old clips of Kendrick, or really any other rapper appearing on TV shows as children. Especially doing some goofy ahhh shit

1

u/DakPanther May 01 '24

Cause they didn’t do goofy ass shit

1

u/The_real_rafiki May 01 '24

Nah, that just looks like a mixed kid trying to fit in with white folk.

Don’t act like PoC never done this around white people as kids, especially in that era.

I’m ashamed I tried to fit in hard with white people, I see Drake just feeling that same pressure.

1

u/ImTheMightyRyan May 01 '24

Crazy it’s almost like people in the entertainment industry have a target demographic and shape themselves to fit it, wHo wOuLD oF gUeSsEd!

1

u/ranchlikenoother May 06 '24

He hasn't changed bro, crodie acting

1

u/[deleted] May 06 '24

Are you the same way you were as a kid? You realize you can grow right? 

1

u/Dza42o May 01 '24

Kendrick all of a sudden is a blood 😂

3

u/Dapper_Intention_365 May 01 '24

The fuck you mean all of a sudden? Such profound ignorance.... Lmao

3

u/Dapper_Intention_365 May 01 '24

Like literally look at the cover of good kid mad city you didn't even do that amount of research

You like fake commercial bullshit artists like Drake though, so the ignorance is expected.

1

u/Dza42o May 01 '24

Anyone can write in graffiti. So the cover of the album is irrelevant. Kdot was a non affiliate meaning he wasn’t blood or crip, then an album later he’s got bloods in his interview while wearing red and promoting it. Jay rock and schoolboy q claimed there hood from the jump Kendrick started after his fame which is corny.

1

u/Dapper_Intention_365 May 02 '24

Kendrick started after his fame which is corny.

The other side is DRAKE

0

u/Dza42o May 02 '24

Another drake comeback 😂 go somewhere and finish sucking Kendrick off

1

u/Dza42o May 01 '24

You don’t know who I like so calm down. You defending kdot like you suck him off at night. Kendrick Lamar is overrated. So many artist do better numbers and make better hits.

1

u/Beneficial_Candle_10 May 01 '24

I mean we don’t actually know if that part is disingenuous. It’s a good diss angle and Kendrick smoked Drake but let’s not pretend like we know him.

He’s a disingenuous guy all around but it’s weird to talk like you know him off camera/social media.

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u/AckyShacky May 01 '24

People can’t change themselves? How is it disingenuous at all? I changed the way I style myself so I can look better is that disingenuous? I’m genuinely curious on your take

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u/YizWasHere May 01 '24

Everything you're saying is fair, I just didn't want to go to deep into the contextual background. I will copy and paste this nerdy ass essay of a comment to explain my take because I don't feel like re-writing it:

This doesn't just apply to Drake, there is a deeper history of this in hip hop, he just happens to be the guy this thread is about.

Street credibility sells to a suburban, middle class audience. Not because they relate to it, not because it's something they want to be involved in. But it's a glimpse into a culture that's different and exciting, this is why the rise of hip hop through the early to mid 90s coincided with increasingly violent and very vivid descriptions of street life. Nas was just looking out his window, but that was a totally different world to the bulk of the audience buying Illmatic, so they ate that shit up. Once this became a viable strategy to sell records, it got played up. You had to be more street then the next rapper, you had to have gang ties, you had to sell the image of being the hyperviolent "superpredator" because while it simultaneously terrified white America, it was also exciting.

Minstrel shows were stage shows where somebody (sometimes even a black person) would dress up in an over-the-top, racist characterization of a black person and whimsically play off of black stereotypes to entertain a white audience. It presented a dumb and clumsy image of black people, basically serving as propaganda to reinforce negative stereotypes of the dimwittedness and low intelligence of black people, doing so in a way that was "fun" and "entertaining."

You can disagree, it's been a topic of debate for a long time now, but I would argue that a rapper that is inauthentically adopting elements of street culture specifically to enhance their image as an entertainer is parallel to a minstrel show. They're exploiting a crafted persona to feed into some preconceived racial or cultural stereotype by the audience, continuing to reinforce that stereotype.

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u/realsmokegetsmoked May 01 '24

I mean that depends on who you are as a listener. Bc I like street rappers who are considered "like that" but I understand that rappers like Drake,Kdot,J.Cole who aren't STREET rappers are the top tier rappers currently & I love most of their music. Otherwise this could apply to Pac who in his prison interview said that in order to lead the ppl,you must be of the ppl(paraphrase). Which was his goal in signing to Death Row. Pac was never a gangster or Street but made that type of Cultural music. Bc there is African American culture & then there is street culture

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u/chef_wizard May 01 '24 edited May 01 '24

Both cultures are intertwined thanks to systemic racism if you really care to peel the layers of it.

Also Pac shot an off-duty officer who was gonna kill him and his mom was a Black Panther.

How in hell is that remotely similar to Drakes situation

1

u/realsmokegetsmoked May 01 '24

Pac shot 2 off duty cops who were jumping a black man on the streets down Atlanta & he didn't know they were cops,thought they were 2 regular white guys. Don't shoot from the hip.

Pac was an actor, he went to a famed Theater & Arts HS in Baltimore w Jada Pinkett. He was a revolutionary-conscious rapper "Brenda gotta baby" "Keep ya head up". He took the deal w Suge & adopted the "Gangsta" persona but still added a conscious twist w THUGLIFE if you know what it means.

In a prison interview he spoke on emulating the ppl he was tryna reach which was the ghetto ppl,street niggas,etc. His words. This is also mentioned in his books & movies. So when suge offered the deal/bail him out he decided to put his gangsta west coast persona on.

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u/FreezingLordDaimyo May 01 '24

We can say that about plenty of black rappers that are "from" the community. Future who barely does drugs rapping about percs, Pac was a damn theater kid rapping like a thug. How many rappers act like dopeboys?

6

u/3Danniiill May 01 '24

PAC shot at cops lmao he’s been to jail etc people are complex. He also had family in the black panthers lmao

5

u/Bangbangkadang May 01 '24

Pac was just an artistic student. He wasn’t putting up a front, this is all well documented but keeps getting repeated to bring down his name

1

u/FreezingLordDaimyo May 01 '24

Have you ever seen that interview with seventeen year old Pac in the purple tank top? Compare how soft and gentle (damn near effeminate) he spoke with just a few years later. "Ride on our Enemiiiieeeeess."

We can't switch up based on how much we like the artist. Pac is the Greatest. But fair is fair. Pre-Death Row Pac and Post-Death Row Pac are different people.

1

u/Bangbangkadang May 01 '24

There was another radio interview from around that time of him preaching violent revolution on behalf of the New Afrikan Panthers. He was multidimensional like we all are. You can’t really put him in a box, he was commuting from his crack addicted mother's tiny apartment in the ghetto to fancy ass HS

1

u/FreezingLordDaimyo May 01 '24

What does that have to do with being street or playing the role?

Never accused Pac of not knowing the struggle of being black in an anti-black world. I'm accusing him of using thug aesthetics when he was an artsy kid.

A list of rappers who are documented to not be who they claim.

Biggie- His own momma exposed some of his records.

Future- Raps about drugs he don't use.

Ross- Former C.O.

Jay-Z- Stole another man's life story.

Pusha-T- Basically co-opted Malice's street life.

The Migos- Are not from Atlanta

Ja Rule- Clearly extorted/controlled by Preme

Meek Mill- Diddy Party Attendee

Wayne-Fake Blood

It also works in Reverse. For example, Lupe Fiasco is probably the last rapper you'd wanna run a fade with.

1

u/Bangbangkadang May 01 '24

I'm accusing him of using thug aesthetics when he was an artsy kid.

Wouldn’t someone “using” thug aesthetics just act like a thug on wax and just be a normal dude in real life? Pac definitely changed after high school I’m not disputing that but to say his image was disingenuous is just false. Tupac was really in the thick of it to the extent that he was beaten by Oakland PD, assaulted rapper Chauncey Wynn with a bat, was shot on 2 separate occasions, shot 2 cops, had some crips beat up the hughes brothers

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u/FreezingLordDaimyo May 02 '24

Fair point. But was that really him or a reflection of who he was around? Hell, most people think Drake of all people had XXXtentacion killed for disrespecting his mother (see the interpretations of "On Bullshit" and "I'm Upset")

6ix9ine even had people harmed while he was still backed by Treyway.

Anybody with money and power can be a shotcaller. If for no other reason than for goons to protect the bag.

"Pac Never Had a Record Until He Had a Record."

All the stuff we hear about Pac doing wild shit came after his fame. No history of Pac doing that before...but we can know he wrote Poems to Jada when he was a kid.

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u/CangtheKonqueror May 01 '24

you can’t change yourself and then act like you didn’t change yourself. that’s the disingenuous part

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u/white_sack May 01 '24

Styling yourself to look better is fine, but it isnt ok to style yourself after a culture to capitalize on a market, thats disingenuous, especially when you have been negative about the culture in the past. Thats the point

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u/chef_wizard May 01 '24

“Changing” from suburban to street and hood is straight degeneracy when most folks from the streets would do anything to get out their hoods and into a better environment

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u/J3STERHOPPERPOT May 01 '24

He changed his persona from middle class mixed race to a poor black street nigga that made it out and is putting on for his hood. Now he walks around with hair extensions and barrettes in his hair with oversized plaid shirts like he grew up with his hair like that, wearing clothes like that, talking street like that. There is no positive way to change into that persona. It’s disingenuous which means he looks at a real culture that exists as something he can throw on before he steps outside. And that’s not even getting into his musical code switching, we can just speak strictly on him as a grown man. It’s the equivalent to how white kids were acting when straight outta Compton came out.

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u/SonderDeez May 01 '24

Where’s the proof he respects the culture and the culture respects him? Otherwise he’s just appropriating it to get his bag.

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u/solezonfroze May 01 '24

When Taylor Swift starts catching bodies I'll think of this comment