[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Severian

Yeah, but I already went over this. My take is that Pac balanced his violence with a poeticism and thoughtfulness that resulted in the creation of a greater artistic statement. YG, not so much (at all).

sure but that doesn't erase all the literal gang banging tracks Pac did talking about shooting, robbing, and killing people and repping M.O.B Pirus. perhaps because those tracks weren't on the radio you forgot how frequently they played a part of Pac's music.

he wound up fucking DEAD. So did BIG. Both of them had layers in their music that — intentionally or otherwise — elevated what they were doing to a higher plane, but they're fucking dead, dude!

i have no qualms with this statement, such is gang life. hence the tracks Ballad of a Dead Soldier, How Long Will They Mourn Me, Why The Good Die Young..

but again i think you mistake reflecting the reality of violence for somehow trying to romanticize or glamorize violence. very different scenarios. maybe because you might not have experienced gang violence might explain why you can't understand why people would want to listen to music that reflects this violence. well, it helps people cope with and make sense of it in some ways.

Uh, yes. Obviously, I am that "naive." Although I don't think it's naïveté, since this kind of thing happens all the fucking time. Art imitates life imitates art. You work at a school. I've worked at a school. You were a dumbass kid once, I was a dumbass kid once. You know how stupid and impressionable kids are. How is it unthinkable that stupid impressionable kids will be influenced by pop music? It happens constantly. It's almost a guarantee.


Even if nobody does "join gangs" or "commit violence" as a direct result of this shitty inconsequential YG album, YG is still choosing to use his influence this way, which makes it more likely that someone will. Again, why do that? Again, how hard is it to NOT play with fire? To NOT take the chance?

see again this is where your naivete is showing. i don't mean that in a pejorative sense btw so please try not to take offense. kids don't join gangs because they hear music or watch movies, kids join gangs because they live in neighborhoods with gangs and they join them because they are caught up, whether to defend themselves from other gangs, to find opportunity to make $ hustling, or even just to develop a sense of family and support system having come from broken family situations. point blank the number one reason most people join a gang is because another gang committed violence against them or a loved one. its a kind of security mechanism, a kind of community, and a kind of solidarity. hence why i feel it shouldn't be disrespected. sure i disagree with the violence but i understand the situation.

I'm not out of my league because I don't come from fucking Compton. I'm not out of my league because I don't have an up-close, intimate knowledge of gang rituals and behaviors. I lived through the '90s. I am entitled to have an opinion about this. I'm not spouting bulkshit rhetoric here. I'm arguing in favor of discretion on the part of musicians when it comes to highly volatile issues that potentially have very real ramifications and consequences for everyday people.

trust me You're out of your league. that is probably a good thing btw, means you don't have the psychological scars and baggage a lot of neighborhood kids have. memories of people getting shot or killed, memories of neighborhoods falling apart, memories of drug abuse.. kids that join gangs do so for some very serious reasons, the other people in the gang can relate to experiences based on somethings you have said that you clearly can't relate to.

You're not listening to me.
I've already stated that I'm being a bit of a hypocrite here, since I do happen to be a fan of 2Pac and BIG (and NWA ad Eazy, Wu-Tang, and blah blah). So, yeah, my entire stance on this one is full of holes because of who I am and what I've listened to, and what I liked in
As an adult, when I see this kind of ultra-overt gang culture promotion, it makes me concerned...

again this is where your different experience causes you to completely misunderstand the situation. this kind of music is NOT promoting gang culture it is simply reflecting it and i can't explain it any further either you "get it" or not but it is what it is.

what i find hilarious is maybe you didn't "get" all the other blatant gang culture references in other rap the same way you didn't know when e-40 said "merking a nigga" he meant explicitly to kill someone. the music of A LOT of gangta rappers is filled with gang references, gang symbols, gang imagery. probably much worse than YG btw (i don't know i haven't listened to Brazy Life yet)..

seems to me that if you understood the references you had more of a problem with a lot of rap that you probably listen to because it reflects a lot of what you have been so critical of here.

Originally Posted by Severian

But just because we have the freedom to do something doesn't mean that thing should be done. For instance, some part of you knows that what I'm railing against is SES-related youth and minority violence, black on black crime and murder, and the longstanding gangland tradition of recruiting children into a world of drugs and violence and death.
I'm sure you realize this on some level, even though you love to argue with me.
You have the "right" to — for some reason — fight with me about what I'm saying (again: gangs bad, violence bad, encouraging violence bad), but WHY? Is this a right that you *should* exercise? Playing devil's advocate for Bloods and Crips? Sure, you can do it. You can take all kinds of umbrage at my disapproval of minority and child violence and you can cook up some rationale for why I'm, like, wrong to have a problem with this.

But Jesus Christ. Really? Is that really something you feel you need to do? Because it seems like you're making a case in favor of the Bloods and Crips (because Culture!!). Of course you can do it, but I have a hard time belie being that you even really want to. I think you just want to have an Internet beef and remind everyone for the thousandth time that you're from LA, and therefore must school anyone who mentions LA or anything related to LA.

Dood.

you missed the point in your pontificating. i ain't mad at you or judging you, just trying to share a perspective that you obviously don't understand. i ain't even arguing with you more so sharing some thoughts to enhance your own perspective.