#26 Moor Mother: The Great Bailout

Man, as a British person, I can’t help but shake my head in bewilderment at the simply awful race problems that they have in the US of A. I don’t mean to sound judgmental, but considering that we don’t have that sort of trouble over here in the UK, you can only come to the logical impression that the UK is simply a more liberally developed country than the US. More liberally developed than white America, I mean, all you African-Americans are obviously being treated horribly over there, it looks ghastly. George Floyd, isn’t it? Awful business, truly horrid. #BlackLivesMatter, ammi right? If only Obama was still president, I do so wish that I was able to vote for him. I’d have voted for him in the next three elections if they’d let me. Quite, quite, quite. You have my sympathies for that ghastly country. You’re welcome to come and romp in England’s green fields with me. So long as you don’t outstay your six month visit Visa Britain is full, I should stress, and we simply can’t take anymore people with skin as dark as yours. Oops, did I say that last part out loud?

You know why I think is the reason we’ve ended up a slightly more civilised society? You know why I don’t think any of us really even see colour? The reason why I don’t even notice if my cleaner, my personal driver, or my pool cleaner is black? Actually… I think my personal driver might be Indian or Pakistani, or maybe one of those Muslim ones… But whatever they are I don’t notice! And I believe the reasons for this go back to us ending slavery first! Yes, you Americans might go on about your Abraham Lincolns and your ’12 Years a Slave’ and your Sylvester Magees and your thirteenth amendments, but to be honest, us progressive Brits are chuckling behind our china tea cup! 1865, you say? Oh, how cute! Erm, cough, erm, cough cough, eighteen motherfucking thirty three, bitches! Golly, that must mean that the UK is a whole thirty two years more progressive than the colonies across the pond! And, to be honest my American chums, the UK is so much more progressive now, that I doubt you’ll ever catch up! And I believe your hick, backward country is still debating reparations, but I can see that the United Kingdom of Great Britain already paid some sort of reparations when they passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, I assume that all the slaves were fairy remunerated and that’s why the UK is free of racism now? I don’t mean to talk down at you, but when both my high horse and my ivory tower are this high, it’s difficult not to.

Najwa Mahmoud Fathi Radwan

8 Ethel Cain: Preacher’s Daughter

Fucking hell, first today I have to write about a black kid born into Jim Crow Alabama (like, literally Jim Crow, not just modern Alabama, which may still be accurately described as ‘Jim Crow Alabama’), now I get to Hayden Anhedönia, raised in one of those creepy Southern Baptist communities (Hayden was literally the preacher/dean’s son, and when their Daddy would visit they’d come along, while Mummy sung in the choir) and was home schooled. Home schooled!! You know that they’re fucked up. Why am I covering all of America’s weird and traumatic – but always buttressed by religious belief – traditions today?? Oh, and before you ask: no, there isn’t a song here as good as Olivia Rodrigo’s ballad of a homeschooled girl, so let’s nip that in the bud straight away.

I talked to this hot guy, swore I was his type
Guess that he was makin’ out with boys, like the whole night

I don’t get religious people. Hayden told their Mum that they liked boys when they were 12 and, yeah, I get how religious people don’t like unrepressed homosexuality (“I was the spawn of Satan to most people. The first person who told me that I wasn’t going to hell when I died was my therapist that my parents forced me to get when I was 16.”). Hayden left the family home aged 18, shaved their head for a while to try and be as masculine as possible (““I’m going to be a boy, and my family is going to love me, and I’m going to make them proud”), but that didn’t last long. On their 20th birthday, they came out as trans. What I don’t get is… Won’t their family accept them back now?? I get how they need to repress homosexuality – that’s kind of their ‘thing’ and it would be culturally insensitive for me to criticise that – but now Hayden is a woman who likes boys! They’ve come back around the other side! They’re straight again! Show me the part in the bible that disproves what I’m saying, you bunch of freaks. Didn’t Jesus come out of that cave three days after being crucified dressed as Trinity from The Matrix while praising the positive effects of their recent top surgery? Dude, look at that gorgeous flowing hair! You’re telling me a cis guy takes that much care over their hair routine?? Also, a carpenter?? So obviously a lesbian.

IF I TAKE A STEP BACK TO SEE THE GLASS HALF FULL

22 slowthai: TYRON

2019 #76

What do you think your chances are of making it as notable musical artists? Pretty slim, right? What about if you’re not already born into financial success, if you socioeconomic status is closer to the lower 50% than the highest ten, if your Daddy doesn’t know someone else’s Daddy, if you weren’t already on the Disney cocking Channel? Honestly. next to zero. Like, right next to. Absolute zero. Sorry.

Tyron! The drool! The droo…! Eugh, too late, gross…

How about rap music though?? The supposed authentic ‘sound of the street’, where the idea of hustling your way out of economic barriers and the laughable inequalities into which you were born are valued especially high? A genre where being born into prosperity or privilege are looked upon with particular distrust? A music and a way of life that has long been appreciated as the one direction out of poverty for people desperate to find some sort of alternative? What kind of chance does that offer? I mean, seriously? It’s still pretty freaking low, right? It’s not like you’re the one person who had that idea, and many of your peers will be actually really good at what they do and still struggle to achieve the success that you so crave. It’s another longshot, sorry.

Nothing Great About the Rest of This Post

12 Kanye West: Ye

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Next September, it’ll be ten years since Kanye West famously interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 VMA awards. Which award? Which Taylor Swift song/video/album won? Which work by Beyonce was Kanye so aggrieved didn’t win? Literally nobody knows. And yet I promise you that every person you mention the moment to will be able to do a pitch perfect Kanye West impression from the moment. It was a dumb moment at a dumb musical award that nobody (at least in this country) gives two shiny shits about, and yet that moment of Peak Megalolz was still honestly one of the biggest and most discussed cultural events of the 21st century. Such was (and still is) the cultural cache attached to Mr. West.

Continue reading “12 Kanye West: Ye”

6 Fever Ray: Plunge

I Decided to Love Her.

but She Didn’t Make it Easy

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Sometimes I envy NME. And The Guardian. And Pitchfork. And Melody Maker. And Q Magazine. And the Manchester Evening News. And Rolling Stones. I envy The Roling Stone’s money, but I don’t envy being them, as that would mean losing 50 years of my life and a complete morality lobotomy. And Crack Magazine.

How many others are there…?

And Kerrang. And the Telegraph And NME. I said that one, didn’t I? I envy it twice. And Mojo. And Uncut. And Mixmag.

I envy all these vessels of music journalism- to different degrees and holding it to varying degrees of importance- because, I don’t know if you ever noticed, but they manage to get their albums of the year list out at the actual end of the year!!

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(Falling)

How do they do that?? I mean, even if Mojo is in a terrible place mentally, and is considering if it’s really worthwhile writing anything anymore, it still manages to garner up the motivation to try and and convince us that David Bowie’s ‘Blackstar’ was the best album of 2016 (nonsense, I have the science to prove it was actually 27th) on December 11th!! I didn’t even get around to explaining the truth until October 30th 2017!!

Continue reading “6 Fever Ray: Plunge”

44 Lil Yachty: Teenage Emotion

The Teens are Revolting

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A revolution doesn’t mean that things are being changed for the better. It just means that things are being changed

It’s for this reason that Donald Trump

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is probably the most revolutionary American President in generations.

Barack Obama certainly wasn’t revolutionary: he was a notable and genuinely inspiring representation of the progress made in perhaps considering the possibilities of equal opportunities in the country (and by extension the western world) but aside from the colour of his skin his rise to power (best at school – notable stint at very high paid but extremely dull job – moves into politics – doesn’t do anything horrendously embarrassing for about a decade – gets good at public speaking – becomes president) and pretty much the entirety of his term in office was generally a cut and paste job from near enough every democratic president in history (Republicans are nearly exactly the same, except they claim their family owned a farm, wear cowboy hats on distinctly more occasions, and actually talk about guns rather than change the subject in fear of losing votes). He was smart, he said the right things, he wore the right suits, he never slagged off Will.I.Am on Twitter for declining record sales after he stopped working with him. Hopefully Obama’s time in office will encourage far more non-white feasible presidential candidates in the future, but right now the most revolutionary thing to come out of his presidency may be the future popularity of drone strikes.

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Continue reading “44 Lil Yachty: Teenage Emotion”