Talib Kweli admits Macklemore's audience don't know hip hop

[Slim Timmeel]

Talib Kweli Greene ✔ @TalibKweli

RT @bryden78 I was offended when u said Macklemore audience don't know hip hop (I just toured with Macklemore. 40 dates. And they don't.)


Talib Kweli Greene ✔ @TalibKweli

@bryden78 the fact remains the vast majority of Heist buyers do not know hiphop. This is not a diss, its a fact. Don't be offended by facts

https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/statuses ... 2090356736

https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/statuses ... 8473431040

[Rattle1]

no shit sherlock

[TonyTilt]

FUCK. YES.

[yoda you can call me]

#Faxonly

[DƎRDYPK]

typical old guy thinking he knows every thing & then some

[King Lance]

its been known...even Macklemore has said this same exact thing in his interviews

[therapist]

Am I the only one who sees that this doesn't matter? The community resisting new styles like this and insisting that we emulate old stuff rather than embrace new stuff is counter productive to the growth of hip-hop culture. Stop resisting change and give him props. Em's initial audience was white america (i know some ppl bumped him in the hood), and, like Eminem, this is pushing the genre forward and it will take a while for people to accept it.

People act like the influential figures in hip-hop are the end all be all of music, and their opinions will never die. Well... if Macklemore became the #1 artist in the world independently without hip-hop backing him up, then that means that there are that many, many people who are now getting to hip-hop because of Mack. Over time this number will grow larger and larger and people who like Macklemore will start to make up a bigger percentage of "hip-hop".

Whether you like it or not hip-hop is changing, blowing up world wide. Can't stop it now. To cling to the old ways of hip-hop as if it were some divine code is pointless and narrow-minded and will keep hip-hop small and largely unrelatable to the masses. Mack spits great lyrics. Ryan makes great beats. The hip-hop community's hate wasn't enough to stop him from becoming more successful than anyone else in the rap game. The fight is pointless, quit resisting change! M&RL will keep winning, and they will become a bigger and bigger part of rap.

The hate will be accepted and promoted now, as it always is with huge blow ups like this, especially white rappers, but in a few years, when he is part of the culture you haters will just seem like a bunch of stubborn, change-resisting babies.

P.S. And for what it's worth I knew Macklemore was going to blow up this big the day the Heist came out and I listened to the album. Before the blow-up, before Same Love, Thrift Shop, and Can't Hold us. I knew it just by how raw it was. I only wish more people had found him before he went "mainstream".

[therapist]

Is this not the same guy that said the common hate for Macklemore is misguided? He's not trying to discredit him as a rapper. It really isn't that weird of a statement. If someone said "the majority of people that listen to The Monster don't know hip hop". That is probably a fact. Does that mean Eminem himself is not hip hop? No. Just that a lot of people that made that single popular probably don't listen to a lot of hip hop. I really don't think he's trying to be disrespectful. I don't support the blind hate, but Talib respects the guy. He's just making a statement.

Secondly, genuine question, how is Macklemore the most successful rapper in the game? What is the criteria for that? Because Drake and Em have outsold him in a significantly shorter period of time. Sales don't mean everything, but if we are looking at "most successful", what do you mean by that? Again, I'm genuinely curious because I've seen people say that before and I don't quite understand it. I'm not trying to discredit him in any way.

Well by most successful I mean a combination of album sales, overall popularity, and amount of influence around the world. And while Drake's sold faster and such, M&RL had the #1 and #3 biggest hits of the year, as well as being the most streamed artist of 2013 on spotify AND youtube. There's also Same Love, which gained him the respect of the majority of the gay community. I'm no demographics expert, but I'd say that's at least a few million peeps right there alone. Drake's success has a lot to do with his record label. YM/CM spends quite a lot of money marketing Drake and such, where as Mack's music spread organically by word of mouth. Most people won't consider that when thinking of success, but in my personal opinion that amplifies his "success" exponentially. It's like beating the game on Very Hard as opposed to Normal. MISSION SUCCESS!

[therapist]

Well by most successful I mean a combination of album sales, overall popularity, and amount of influence around the world. And while Drake's sold faster and such, M&RL had the #1 and #3 biggest hits of the year, as well as being the most streamed artist of 2013 on spotify AND youtube. There's also Same Love, which gained him the respect of the majority of the gay community. I'm no demographics expert, but I'd say that's at least a few million peeps right there alone. Drake's success has a lot to do with his record label. YM/CM spends quite a lot of money marketing Drake and such, where as Mack's music spread organically by word of mouth. Most people won't consider that when thinking of success, but in my personal opinion that amplifies his "success" exponentially. It's like beating the game on Very Hard as opposed to Normal. MISSION SUCCESS!

So what I think you're saying is that at this point their accomplishments are more impressive, relative to their situation. Eminem is more successful, but perhaps at this point it is less impressive. I'm not trying to be "nitpicky", I just didn't know what you meant by that. Got it tho

Ohhh, I see what you meant bro. I meant to imply of all the rappers who are putting stuff out right now, and of the year of 2013 in general. My bad

[EminemBase]

Neither do Lil Wayne's audience.

More racist bullshit from hip-hop's black elite. Double standards up in this bitch.

[Snakebeast]

Neither do Lil Wayne's audience.

More racist bullshit from hip-hop's black elite. Double standards up in this bitch.

wat? You know this guy actively defends Mack, right?

[EminemBase]

Neither do Lil Wayne's audience.

More racist bullshit from hip-hop's black elite. Double standards up in this bitch.

wat? You know this guy actively defends Mack, right?

Yeah I do. Presumably because he's on tour wit him.

But wtf does that have to do with this comment?

Has he ever said this kind of thing about a black rapper? Would he say it if Mak was black? Doubt it.

And da's my point. There's a plethora of black rappers who make much more bullshit music than Mak but nobody is mentioning them; they get auto-passes because they're black.

So whilst everybody is rallying on about Mak getting more attention for being white... bullshit, he gets more attention for making concepts against the grain like Same Love, and because his shit is catchier (prime reason for all popularity) and he gets more hate and scrutiny because he's white. Because if he was black, you can bet your dirty asshole Talib would be saying he is challenging the status quo and expanding hip-hop as apposed to ''his fans don't know hip-hop'' or bringing in to question his authenticity. Black rappers are the most racist people in hip-hop.

[Kill You]

MOST of his audience. He still has a good amount of hip hop heads who know their shit. People need to back off of this guy though. Rappers are embarrassing themselves these days talking all this nonsense.

[EminemBase]

MOST of his audience. He still has a good amount of hip hop heads who know their shit. People need to back off of this guy though. Rappers are embarrassing themselves these days talking all this nonsense.

Also, I think the statement / presumption is even more bullshit than that...

I don't know anybody who even knows who he fucking is BESIDES people who actively listen to hip-hop.

The general man doesn't know or care about Macklemore, and how the fuck is "Thrift Shop'' with that classic New York jazzy beat vibe and dope rapping, and the producer-rapper team-up... NOT hip-hop?

Him teaming up with 1 producer and creating a consistent vibe and actively promoting that producer-rapper partnership and many things he does and cares about IS fucking hip-hop and much more hip-hop than Lil Wayne crooning some ass-attempt melody about how to love over some wannabe confused as fuck country vibe.

Fuck outta here.

Just because he's a white kid, who isn't a black kid from a ghetto... okay.

And Drake IS hip-hop? Why are no fucking rappers mentioning him? Hmmmmm. Drake is more bullshit than Macklemore any day of the fucking week.

I ain't even dug Mak properly but "Thrift, intuitively sounds like hip-hop. It's funky, jazzy, there's playful bravado... it's almost like golden-age fun-loving, funky, musical hip-hop. Where as when I hear Drake whine a fucking RnB hook and auto-tune another cringing pun out his asshole, over cheap toy music... doesn't feel like fucking hip-hop to me. And if Drake was white - every radio DJ would question if he's fucking rap up.

[therapist]

Here's something else a lot of people probably aren't thinking about. Macklemore has completely dismantled the rules of the music industry and shattered the ceiling off while all the labels just had to stand back in awe (and disgust). He is getting bigger and bigger every day. He and ryan are worth 16M each already and they're back in the studio now.

Labels, if they're smart, will realize what Macklemore is doing and do anything they can to stop him. All labels reputation/worth are at stake right now if this indi thing doesn't get a lid put on it. Everyone else knows they can do it now too.

My point being...hip-hop labels, and magazines associated with or owned by labels might be trying to create a certain depiction of him that isn't true to bring him down and ruin his rep. Which contributes to things being said like this by respectable rappers. Not saying Kweli is in on it, but a lot of people have been saying some really similar sounding shit about him.