You make soup in a big bowl. You serve it in a smaller bowl. And then you convey it, using a spoon, to your mouth. But what is the spoon? Simply a smaller bowl still

Greek philosopher thinking right there. But it needs to go further, you yourself, are just a bowl for soup.

Whenever I see this…

I think of the Talking Heads

Like this had to be what they were going for right ???

you think poor troubled midwest princess white boy dean winchester born in 1979 wasn’t an eminem listener in the late 90s/early 2000s? you think fuck the police dean winchester wasn’t a hip hop and rap fan in general?

i have been thinking about tumblr and rap

it is evident that the general tumblr populous has written off most historically black art forms near entirely. this applies to music, film, art history, etc. rather, the art engaged with and popularized in tumblr spheres is that of "good representation" which usually takes the form of idk, a black side character on your tv show whose personality is a huge nothingburger, but is appealing because they are not "problematic."

i think alot of this comes down to people's inability to make judgement calls for themself about what is ethical and what is right. this can be seen in conversations about kink when people say "anything as long as it's legal," sorry but, that is an incredibly bad faith and spineless read. the law should not decide your morals, you should, because anything can be criminalized, and your distinction of a perverse harmful action versus an acceptable one hinges upon your ability to make a decision about what you think is right.

when white allegedly woke users don't engage with black art, what i see is this: a person who does not know how to engage with art in a critical way that is decided by what they think–because this art causes them to confront what they think. often, when white and engaging with black art, you will be confronted by your own racist presumptions, your own back-of-mind urges, and that is the most important part. everyone is racist, because we undeniably live under white supremacy and are thus subject to racist propaganda near constantly (insert sydney sweeney jeans ad).

i really do think some white tumblr users are afraid of engaging with content made outside of their culture because they could be "appropriating" or having "incorrect thoughts" about race. this thought police bullshit will only coddle your racism. you need to undo it yourself by engaging with black people and black art. nobody else will for you, you will not one day be cured, you are the only one who can dismantle your own racism. you cannot avoid your racism by pretending race does not exist (i.e. by [consciously or unconsciously] not engaging with the works of black people). that is the titular thing, really: do you really want to stay racist? you could be listening to tha carter ii, like

You are a racist person

I should've put this in the initial post, but I need to say now that Even if rap WAS all about getting money and bitches and having a fat ass, it still wouldn't be inherently bad or lesser art. Conscious hiphop is not the only rap music with merit in fact, many of y'all in the notes saying 'just find rap you like, which will be conscious hiphop because it's actually deep' are giving these racist bad faith arguments merit by saying "not allll rap is like that!!! there's also good rap!" it's just so weird, gangsta rap and club music ARE indicative of a lot of the genre, and a lot of the rap that's talked down about on here for its supposed misogyny and capital fetishism is actually fucking phenomenal. black music is not exclusively good when it's got a deep message and is totally metatextual / self referential. No offense but, sometimes music is for fun. Lol. And you simply don't understand

HAYLEY WILLIAMS | TRUE BELIEVER The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, 8th of october 2025

i just started listening to hozier (ik, like over a decade late, whatever), but bruh. some of y'all did this dude so dirty. everything i've ever seen of him on here has been like "uwu magical forest man" and so my black ass goes into it expecting white boy indie music, but instead i get this radical leftist irish guy straight up singing the blues, like?? (singing the blues/having a lot of blatantly black musical influences, BUT crediting his influences in the process, which is a an important distinction)

like y'all. has anyone told tiktok what kind of music this man actually makes? bc some of them might be shooketh to find out their precious forest man is actually telling them to dismantle the oppressive institution of colonialism while actively paying homage to artists of color

well, that and also to eat pussy, but same thing tbh

Considering people keep getting engaged at his shows while he's singing about domestic abuse, no. Apparently noone has.

I think a lot of people are only hearing the vibes and not actually listening to what he's saying. Which is a fucking shame.

this will forever be my all time favourite review of florence's music

🙃 Regular reminder that while Hozier has amazing love songs, he is ALSO very outspoken about his leftist politics, specifically anti-fascism, anti-racism, reproductive rights, Palestinian rights and more.

Take Me To Church and Foreigner’s God are scathing critiques of organized religion, specifically the Catholic Church.

Moment’s Silence is about oral sex but it’s ALSO about how that specific sexual act is often distorted to a show of power rather than that of love.

Nina Cried Power is an homage to various civil rights activists from the US and Ireland and a call to follow their path.

Be specifically criticizes anti-migrant policies and Trump and his ilk.

Jackboot Jump is about the global wave of fascism.

Swan Upon Leda is about reproductive rights and the violent colonial oppression of Ireland and Palestine.

Eat Your Young is about the ruinous way the 1%/capitalism prioritizes short-term profit over everything else to the detriment of the youth/99%.

Butchered Tongue is about Irish and other indigenous languages being suppressed and erased by imperial powers.

If any of the above surprised you, please, please delve deeper into Hozier’s music, you’re missing such an important part of his work.

Thanks, ⬆️ is a much better explanation of Foreigner’s God than my off the cuff mention

OP you’re my personal fucking hero

I am once again reminding people that it wasn't unusual to have this sort of politics on the radio in the 2010s. It's not ahead of its time, your culture just got fascist since then.

Okay, I’m gonna ask that nobody try and track this person down and harass them because sometimes we gotta be wrong in public before we can learn something important.

First off, I’m gonna explain this in terms that emphasize qualities valued by white culture in order to communicate a point to you specifically, but things don’t have to be valued by white culture in order to have value. The idea that things that don’t have worth to white people are worthless contributes to all manner of racial injustices, including attitudes towards Black music as you’ve expressed above. So maybe that’s something you can chew on for a bit, figure out if that’s something colouring your opinion.

Second off, I have to ask what kind of rap you’re describing. Gangsta Rap? Boom-Bap? Jazz Rap? ‘Mumble’ Rap? What about Crunk? Emo Rap? Drill? How about UK Drill? Metal Rap? Horrorcore? Can you tell the difference, or is this all the same to you? Are all these genres nothing but slightly different beats and imagery to “sing swear words fast” to? That’s weird, since Country and Bubblegum Pop and Opera aren’t all just about wanting to fuck. Which I COULD say, if I was feeling uncharitable. Do you see the parallels?

Thirdly, I’m not convinced you’ve spend any time at all actually listening to rap. Kind of hard to form an educated and meaningful opinion on something you haven’t actually spend any time studying, isn’t it? I’ve never read The Great Gatsby, but I’m pretty sure it’s just about some dumb rich kid and his girlfriend, so it’s probably just some shallow faffy crap anyways. Fuck off if you’re the kind of person to waste your time on that.

Fourthly, and hopefully lastly- this one is just between you and me. You can keep it a secret if you like, nobody has to know. You don’t even have to do it if you don’t like, I’ll never find out anyways, but I think it’d be interesting for you: why don’t you write a few bars?

It shouldn’t be that difficult for you. I’m not even asking you to compose music, or a beat, or anything at all. Just a few lines. Maybe for a diss track. I happen to enjoy rap, so why not “sing swear words fast” at me? I’m a 5’3” single dork in a polyester polo shirt, I don’t fuck and I’ve got daddy issues from here to Poland. I’m a bad dancer, I don’t pull hoes, and I get really sweaty when I’m nervous. Can you work with that? I also have a really bad haircut right now, and my new glasses look like Clark Kent had no cool alter-ego to fall back on.

Rap is poetry. It’s wordplay. It incorporates simile and metaphor and figurative language, rhythm and beat and double entendre and onomatopoeia and idiom, connotation and denotation and implied meaning, symbolism and rhyme and the basic mouth-sounds within the syllables of individual words in a way that communicates with an audience, in a way that no other art form I know of does.

And good rap- like, REALLY good rap, the stuff you either haven’t heard or didn’t understand because if you had then you wouldn’t be writing it off like this- makes you play it on repeat, listen to it over and over again, look up the lyrics and study them the way you study classic lit in school because the layers and nuance and craftsmanship need to be disassembled to be appreciated fully- like notes in a fine wine, or individual instruments in an orchestra.

And frankly, that kind of skill- even if it WAS all just people shooting insults back and forth for the hell of it- it’d still be impressive.

You ever look at a Caravaggio or a Matisse and go “fuck that boring shit, it’s just dudes and flowers”? Or do you study the history, the symbolism, the craftsmanship? Do you admire the technique? The artist’s unique style, the texture, the way it elicits an emotional response?

Are you the kind of person who walks into the Louvre and see nothing but worthless smears, meaningless portraits and a hundred different ways of drawing fruit?

Or do you take it all in as a meaningful, cultural experience, a product of history and human emotion and passion?

If you do, why can’t you do that for Rap? What’s stopping you? What’s the difference?

And if you don’t, perhaps it’s not the art that lacks depth.

Imagine being cast in a Lady Gaga concert as Lady Gaga because Lady Gaga wants to do this to Lady Gaga

yall are really into this one huh

some of yall didn't know that Lady Gaga is currently touring a concert that's plot revolves around toxic yuri selfcest and it really shows

I just discovered a band I'd never heard of by finding two of their albums in a mysterious plastic bag in an abandoned school building. Finally, I'm at the start of a fantasy novel

To make things even weirder they're called Vampire Weekend and they appear to be some kind of weird One Direction knock off from 2008? If forced to describe their music I'd say maybe soft rock, but honestly I have no idea. They're kinda good though??

you guys CAN NOT tell me Vampire Weekend was actually popular this is so embarrassing I'm going to take the high dive off a cliff

I HATE YOU GUYS SO MUCH 😭

I'm going to kill myself for real

Please don't let me go down in Tumblr history as the guy who's never heard of Vampire Weekend 😭

You guys are tearing me apart for this one but what I hate is that you're actually being really funny about it

Okay I've never heard of Vampire Weekend either. Sounds fake tbh

Also it's pronounced "Led Zepplin" not "def Leppard". What even is that?

Also it’s pronounced

“Led Zepplin” not “def Leppard”.

What even is that?

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

Thinking bout that mixtape again and about how even if Cas didn’t realize the significance, Dean would and much more importantly both Jensen and Misha, teens/young adults of the 90s, absolutely would too.

I feel like this is relevant

fr fr!! also, maaaan they have timing. Just the other day i was trying to assemble a massive playlist of music Dean would listen to, for fic writing background music. and I was thinking about the mixtape, and wondering if anyone more familiar with Led Zeppelin than me might have laid out a possible track list. and two days later thee manifestation of Dean Winchester himself gave us a list.

It's a good day to be a Destiel/JenMish fan.