Lil Wayne = AFROPUNK??

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Wheredawhitewomenat on January 26, 2009 at 1:26pm

Fuck, Lil Wayne I'd rather listen to chamillionaire (Why , don't ask)

Permalink Reply by Rosenda on January 26, 2009 at 1:35pm

WDWWA, Cha-Cha-millionaire actually got TALENT, that's why. Lil Wayne's voice is horribly annoying. And I can only think of maybe 3 songs I've ever heard him do where the background music was GOOD enough to drown out the fact that his voice is annoying as hell.

Aneesah.........I AM curious to hear what kind of Rock he does, though, even if I'm not a fan. I'm curious to hear any new rock. Me being old rock head and all. One of my old bosses' son on my former job once referred to me as "Old Rocker Chick". Ba haha hahahahaah.

Wheredawhitewomenat said:

Fuck, Lil Wayne I'd rather listen to chamillionaire (Why , don't ask)

Permalink Reply by Ghettopunkrocker on January 26, 2009 at 3:26pm

Lil Wayne as an Afro Punk? NO, NO, AND FUCK NO! THIS IS WHY I DIDN'T WANT ANY KIND OF MAINSTREAM EXPOSURE FOR AFRO PUNK! But, if anything Chamillionare has talent though. Clever lyrics.

Permalink Reply by Ken-K on January 26, 2009 at 4:28pm

Damn, you beat me to it!! But yeah, uh . . .no. I'd rather Ice-T reunite with Bodycount than listen to any of Lil' Wayne's rock fuckery!

Permalink Reply by Aneesah on January 26, 2009 at 4:50pm

Ghettopunkrocker said:

Lil Wayne as an Afro Punk? NO, NO, AND FUCK NO! THIS IS WHY I DIDN'T WANT ANY KIND OF MAINSTREAM EXPOSURE FOR AFRO PUNK! But, if anything Chamillionare has talent though. Clever lyrics.

surely, you didn't think i was serious?
lol

i'm not saying it's good. it's just...not terrible?

Permalink Reply by Ghettopunkrocker on January 26, 2009 at 5:05pm

Be wary, if he get's the right push. He might get the label of Afro Punk or the dreaded...Blipster!!!

Aneesah said:

Ghettopunkrocker said:

Lil Wayne as an Afro Punk? NO, NO, AND FUCK NO! THIS IS WHY I DIDN'T WANT ANY KIND OF MAINSTREAM EXPOSURE FOR AFRO PUNK! But, if anything Chamillionare has talent though. Clever lyrics.

surely, you didn't think i was serious?
lol

i'm not saying it's good. it's just...not terrible?

Permalink Reply by Matthew on January 26, 2009 at 11:49pm

Thanks for posting this Aneesah. The track was taken down, not sure if that was an indication of what folks thought about it, the comments on Youtube were not very flattering.

I actually got a chance to listen to it and didn't like it. Unfortunately, I wanted to like it and thought I might but didn’t. I'm down for folks stretching outside of their designated boxes, I guess that's why we are all here right ? Are we not allowed to experiment ? Is it really terrible to want to be creative or mix musical genres ? I'm asking these questions guys cause i'm interested in what you have to say.

Wayne has been around Hip Hop all his young life. You grow, your taste changes, you get inspired by new things especially when you travel around the world, or is that not allowed? Most people don't know that this guy has also been on the road performing since he was 14. He has also been self-producing his recordings and distributing them through informal channels for going on a decade - is that not punk rock ? Wikipedia's says so.... LOL

Perhaps the problem is that he doesn't exactly fit into that Wikipedia's notion of punk rock is. Are we to hang on to every word? Now what if that notion wasn't from a Caucasians perspective. You see different punk rockers have different notions. Phillmoore Browne is a band from Philly. One of my favorite bands that have graced our Afro-punk shows. Gravy from Philmoore Browne says, "The First Punk Rocker was a Run Away Slave" that changes things somewhat....
James and I sat with Ian McKay one afternoon and his notions were somewhat different from Wikipedias definition. Ian explained that he thought Punk Rock was like a wave leaving the beach, the first ripple to break was Punk Rock. I'm sure their are many different perspectives some of which our members share with us, can any one person have claim over everyone else? Surly that's not punk rock.

Are we as black folk, allowed to redefine what that means to us? I have for years kept away from defining Afro-punk as a genre or a style because I don't personally feel it has been fully realized as yet.... I'd much prefer you the community to define it. We have simply wanted to create a platform for alternative black expression. To make it viable and enable people to share their voice and art.

Here's the Wikipedia's version of punk rock:
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock. They created fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY (do it yourself) ethic, with many bands self-producing their recordings and distributing them through informal channels.

Rosenda, our conversation is echoing in my ears as I write this. The most important aspects of Afro-punk to me are - anti establishment lyrics (although that doesn't mean I don't nod my head to some dumb shit every now and then). Nor would I say something wasn't "Afro-punk" if the lyrics weren’t anti establishment in nature. DIY (do it yourself) is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT ethos we should learn, especially because black folk have been ignored, almost excluded from a musical genre that we created (rock) for so long. Self-producing recordings and distributing them through informal channels is invaluable. This is what we do, this is how we came about, when I say we - I mean "Afro-punk".

And to answer your question. Yes, I would book him for a show if he had a great band behind him. Why would I do such a thing? In the hopes that a young black child that thought he was coming to see Lil Wayne caught a glimpse of Cipher or Saul Williams or Like Gravity or The Noisettes or any of the 250 bands that are on here who could open him up to something new and different. I would like to think we are a gate way.... A safe place for black people to experiment as James puts it.

Ok so i stuck my toe in and now i will retreat to my hole.

Permalink Reply by Ghettopunkrocker on January 27, 2009 at 1:00am

Okay, all I can say is. As long as what they're (artist, fan, musician) doing is genuine, I'm cool with it. But, until proven, he's suspect. I mean, don't get me wrong, they're tons of artists in rap that admit that they're really into rock. I mean, you have artists like Esham, Tech N9ne, Outkast, MF Doom, Ice Cube, Three Six Mafia, Ice-T, Run D.M.C., Lupe Fiasco, Tupac, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West and The Neptunes, all have said that or have dabbled into rock.

I'm not trying to be elitist, but I'm going to be suspect of anyone that claims to like rock music but really haven't showed any interest until now where it's starting to become a trend to look like a rocker. If anything, he should get better on guitar. I mean, even by punk rock standards he sucks at it. But whatever...

Permalink Reply by Ken-K on January 27, 2009 at 8:55am

I definitely have nothing against experimentation. But I agree GPR, it's a lil' suspect to me. Nothing about it feels very organic. It's almost like it was just generic rock music taken from one place, and Wayne's vocals taken from somewhere else, and spliced together. It doesn't sound like they were meant to compliment each other as a cohesive song. The vocoder effects don't help either.

Permalink Reply by Ash Elle Aye on January 27, 2009 at 9:08am

Sigh.....

It was taken down before I could hear it, but I'm not optimistic. He can be a blipster for all I care, I just don't want him to make Afropunk into a fad like he does everything else.

Permalink Reply by Ghettopunkrocker on January 27, 2009 at 10:20am

THANK YOU! You get it!

What's Your Poison said:

Sigh.....

It was taken down before I could hear it, but I'm not optimistic. He can be a blipster for all I care, I just don't want him to make Afropunk into a fad like he does everything else.

Permalink Reply by Ken-K on January 27, 2009 at 11:26am

Yeah, even the zShare link on my blog is dead.

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