Tuesday, June 7, 2011

"They're so articulate!": Das Racist, "hyper-literate rappers"

I started my last post wanting to talk about how racist and condescending the coverage of Das Racist has been, but I got sidetracked. I feel like a lot of the coverage of DR falls into a few distinctive tropes.

1.) The gist: Wow, these guys are actually smart. Who would have thunk?!

Racist.

Examples:

"Das Racist!: Smarter Than They Seem" 

"They’re bringing their semi-intellectual brand of rap to the Independent on Wednesday, February 2nd with BABS favorite, Hottub."

WTF does SEMI-INTELLECTUAL MEAN? So if you talk about diaspora and colonization and then talk about beer and weed, THE FIRST ONE DETRACTS FROM THE SECOND ONE? If Michaelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel and then went on to do a series of low-brow comics, would people say he was only a semi-genius?!


If you pegged the Brooklyn-via-Wesleyan duo Das Racist's shtick as simple joke rap... you would've been half wrong: Das (pronounced like a crude "that's") Racist's shtick is extremely complicated joke rap, a hyperliterate hodgepodge of hipster irony, endearingly nerdy humanities banter, rhetorico-surrealist wordplay, hardcore fast food loyalties, and two-brown-dudes-walk-into-a-bar postracialism.

This one is actually pretty accurate for the most part, but in what way are they post-racial?


2.) They rap about fast food...and post-colonial theory. ARE THEY HIGH ART OR LOW ART? I CAN'T DECIDE! AHHHHH!

If the idea that three brown men could be complicated enough to rap about White Castle one minute, and Homi Bhaba the next minute makes your head want to explode, you are probably a racist.


3.)  Um, you can't be a rapper if you went to college. Everyone knows that.

"Why, as two Wesleyan graduates who met in college, would you think you could rap?"

They're not rapping about being from the hood, or how many times they got shot. I think if they were making up stories about having been to prison that were untrue (like for example, Johnny Cash) that would be one thing. But just because someone has had access to education, doesn't mean they can't or shouldn't rap. Is anyone making that argument about Asher Roth? PURELY based on the fact that he went to college and NOT based on the fact that he is white and made jokes about "Nappy Headed Hoes." I feel like hip-hop is the only genre where people tell you you can't be a part of it if you went to college. And guess what? DAS RACIST!

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