Editorial: On Brother Nature and Quan’s Biases
UPDATE: I guess I’m still not being clear enough. I said this in the comments section but I figure I’d bring it up to the top of the post for the sake of clarity:
Like I said, I’m only trying to lay my own biases out on the table. This isn’t to diss them. Actually, it’s the opposite. I’m warning you that my previous dismissal of them really WAS unfair. Their music forced me to ask myself, Do I not like this because it’s bad or because of some other personal biases? And I’ve now recognized it was the latter.
Reader William_will brought up a good point in the comments section of the previous post on Real J. Wallace’s new EP. I had tried to respond in the comments section but my response turned into a long-winded essay that was too big for a comment so I’ve reproduced it here. Also, shout out to reader Tomham for the Blues vs. Jazz comment in that same post. That’s on some next level spit.
William_will says:
I’ve seen you review thiss guy a few times & your reviews have made me pass on his projects, after listeing to this and giving Real J Wallace a chance I come to find he is witty honest and a breath of fresh air. I find it odd that your site seems to love “ganster” rap and all its vulgarity and mislead truths but you talk down honest & crative music such as this project. I’m interested to see what you will say about this Godspeed JahBless project I just downloaded from the other cat from Brother Nature. I understand difference in taste but damn Quan Vu you really do have some sort of unspoken hate for these guys.
“Hate” is pretty strong but here are my biases, the best I can figure. There are a lot of factors at work here and I’ll try my best to address them.
In regards to gangster rap, yeah, I mean, I’d be lying if it were as straightforward as there just being a lot of good gangster rap. My “love” for gangster rap is at least partially a political statement. Gangster rap is dying and most people are saying “Good riddance” to the vulgarity, violence, immorality, etc. But I got this strong fear that the death of gangster rap also equates to a silencing of the voiceless people that gangster rap is supposed to speak for. I’m a fan of Kanye but the celebreality rap that he popularized just worries me more that hip-hop is getting less and less connected with actual people. There are for sure plenty of issues with gangster rap. But there’s still this general idea that they’re at the bottom of society and their they’re trying to come up, which is something I can get behind.
About Brother Nature, I’ve met them but I don’t really know them personally. They didn’t like steal my girlfriend or get me fired or anything. At one point, they did correctly call me out for not really being in the scene, going to shows, etc. and I’ve tried to be better about that since then. This isn’t a personal vendetta, but I’d understand if you took it that way.
Anyways, yeah, I’m biased against them for a few reasons and I might have stated them before. Read more of this post
