How Many Crickets Can't You Hear?
"Since 'Gucci Gucci' landed on the Internet this summer, Kreayshawn’s face, her song and her name — that name! Ooh, I want to crush that name flat between two good, old, important books — have been everywhere, including at the MTV Video Music Awards, where she was nominated as best new artist; on the cover of Complex magazine; and on the payroll of Sony Records, where she signed a deal for an album due out early 2012. (For a million dollars! A figure no one will confirm!) She was even recently on NPR. 'The rapper describes L.A. as overly materialistic,' reads NPR’s adorably NPR-ish online description of its interview, 'where dress and possessions divide people.'"
—Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. ("The Internet is basically like being at a house party and trying to find the bathroom and opening up a door to a room where a bunch of kids are playing a game or doing a drug or having an orgy (metaphorically) or something and you get all flustered and say, 'Oh, my God, I’m sorry!' and they all look at you like, 'You pervert,' and you quickly slam the door shut.")
Really? Kreayshawn is a sea-change away from "ass-pirational" rap that has been prevalent for over a decade. The non-materialistic, low-key vibe is "of the moment". I mean, I get it and I'm a 44-year old white man. Granted that probably lumps me in the same age as a Sony A/R guy, but still.
Wait, it's pronounced CRAY-shawn? Are you people messing with me?
@boyofdestiny The rapper Kreaychoire's name is impossible to pronounce .
@zidaane If you say it backward, s/he gets transported back to the fifth dimension.
Shut Up, Twentysomethings.
@Clarence Rosario Shut up, ELDERLY WHITE DUDES. Don't you have to go reminisce about the panama canal or something?
@deepomega Speak up, sonny! Don't you have a quarterlife crisis to tend to?
Sometimes I miss the days before the internet, when talentless people who desperately wanted attention were limited to robbing banks or dancing in cages in nightclubs.
This is absolutely wonderful! Except that when the internet-looking-glass reminds me that I am old, it is a relief. I don't have to be cool anymore!
@morose_delectation Yep! In line with what Clarence Rosario commented^ I am looking forward to turning 30 and washing my hands of all this uncool cool. A young curmudgeon gets slightly older.
I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the Beastie Boys' "So What'cha Want" because it was the first song I ever played that seemed to actively confuse and disorient my super-hip dad. (This would have been in 1993 or thereabouts, so he would have been 45, which I guess is around the time this happens?) Anyway, I had managed to avoid actually listening to Gucci Gucci to this point, but having YouTubed it I am now pleased to report that it doesn't send me into some kind of existential terror, so I'm going to go ahead and keep believing that I've still "got it."
@jfruh How about those rainbow suspenders? Pretty cool way to hold up your pants!
I didn't understand anything about this post except for the alt-text, which I love because I am old and I love PJ Harvey, so there.
Looooove when white people complain about, basically, the fact that LA doesn't respect their privilege enough. "I don't understand!" they cry out. "In Portland, I would be wealthy and popular! What is this feeling, where I am no longer the top of the socioeconomic food chain just because I went to a school and really really want to be important?"
@deepomega None of this makes Kreayshawn any good, though.
@boyofdestiny I will wrestle you if you keep talking like this. I swear it.
@deepomega Also, judging a whole city by that one time you hung out with entertainment execs on the Sunset Strip is kind of shallow.
I'd hit it
But I'm losing my edge to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent.
And they're actually really, really nice.
– Similar, albeit more generous, sentiment from James Murphy, waaaay back in the mid-aughts.
I guess the coolness obsolescence cycle has accelerated since then.
Can someone explain to me the difference between Kreayshawn, Ke$ha, and Tyler the Creator and whether or not any of these people are actual people.
@Matt Kreayshawn-terrible rap music. Some conception of performance art. Plays with ideas surrounding identity.
Ke$ha-annoying pop music. Doesn't really attempt to do something arty.
Tyler the Creator-mixed bag in terms of rap. Yonkers and some of his other songs are strong, but most of them are weak. Overtly mocking the current state of rap music.
All-liked by hipsters, and massively annoying.
Can someone tell me what this has to do with A$AP Rocky?
Kray-shawn, huh. I always thought it was some stupid, "suburban girl does it 'hood" play on the word "creation". I'm old so…whatever.
How do artists like Dominique Young Unique, Jean Grae and Bahamadia get bucked on, but this shit blows up?
Damn it, youth culture… Figure it out.