Editorial: You’re the rapper, I’m the critic
Quan Vu, writing a post for SDRaps.com
I’m a couple months late but I’d like to take this time out to introduce myself: Hi. My name is Quan Vu. And I am a critic.
And if you’re a rapper or artist, you probably hate my guts. After all, everyone’s a critic. Assholes are like opinions–everybody has one. What the hell gives me the right? Who the fuck do I think I am? Why does my opinion matter more than anyone else’s? Why does it matter at all?
These are just some of the thoughts that I’m sure have gone through the heads of the few rappers that I know I’ve already pissed off (or at least have greatly annoyed) with negative reviews or remarks about their music. And that’s fine, I can see why they’d be mad. I’d be mad too. Here they are, having slaved over their music, having given everything up to follow their dreams, hustling and grinding for years to get to where they are today. Only to have some punk-ass kid with a laptop, a cable connection, a worthless college degree, and entirely too much time on his/her hands just shit on their music. Yeah, that sucks.
But that’s what being a professional artist is: putting your art out there. Putting yourself out there. To be judged worthy or unworthy. Once you release your music to the world, you have to know that you’re signing this unspoken agreement that your music isn’t entirely your’s anymore. Once you release it, it’s out there for the public, your audience, to do what they want with it and say what they want about it. People might love it and people might hate it. That’s the risk you take by sending your music out to an audience.
Believe it or not, my role as a critic is not to hate. These days, there are so many more rappers and so many more musicians competing with each other for an ever-shrinking audience. I serve that audience and they don’t need me to tell them about crappy music. They need me to do three things: 1. filter out all the music they shouldn’t bother with; 2. highlight the music that’s worth their time; and 3. give them the right context in my writing to help them appreciate the music, i.e. explain why said music is worth their time.
That is my job. I have an obligation to the music-listening audience. If you’re a rapper and I’ve offended you in some way, that was not my intention. But know that it’s not personal. And also, it’s not about you at all. It’s about the audience.
PS. Just to reiterate, this is not a diss. If you feel dissed, don’t.
Reading be fun though:
