All too often I hear that white kids are “wiggers”, or “posers” when they listen to rap music and such. I’m just wondering if other races catch flame too when they listen to it. Just from what I’ve observed, it seems it’s more accepted for hispanics and asians (for example) to listen to rap and hip-hip music than for whites to listen to it. Is it a “white people just don’t get it” kind of thing? Because I don’t think other races would “get it” either, if that makes sense.
Just for the record, I don’t care what anyone listens to, I’m just wondering if whites are the only ones who catch slack for it or not.
This question is brought on because I was listening to my 50 cent CD, and some of my friends give me shit because of it. “What are you, black or something?”, is basically the kind of shit I get. I like 50 cent. It has nothing to do with me wanting to be black in any way shape or form. I like the beats, and I like the lyrics so shoot me.
I’m trying to find out if other races, other than blacks, if they catch shit for listening to rap.
I don’t think they do. I think (for better or worse) non-whites get lumped into the “ethnic” category (by themselves, as well as by whites) in America, at least. And so ethnics listening to ethnic music is not necessarily unusual, at least not as much so as, I don’t know, Mormon suburbanites striking gangsta poses.
I find the whole non-black-rap-enthusiasm a bit incongruous, though no one asked me. I’m a little surprised by Latino enthusiasm for rap (Latino culture historically having at least as much in common with Europe as with Africa; not to mention longstanding Latino caste systems revolving around race, and not necessarily elevating African culture). Went to a Sikh wedding where the kids were all jamming out to a very weird mixture of bhangra and Ghetto Boys; cf. Morrissey’s Bengali In Platforms?. I am not a hip hop fan, for the most part, and am susceptible to the notion that many (non-black) hip hop embracers embrace it in some form of over image-based compensation, attempting all too eagerly to be more street, more real, more studly (think Japanese teens mouthing Tupac lyrics) – which, to me, is a form of condescension/patronizing/caricature.
But yeah, I think only white kids are really subject to the wigger appelation – because, frankly, no one in the white/dominant culture (and perhaps the other sub-cultures) particularly expect “proper” (i.e., rock, or alternative, or punk, or indie) taste from non-whites, who haven’t exactly been at the forefront of creating or listening to “mainstream”/white-favored music (pace James Iha, I guess).
It isn’t white kids that listen to hip-hop that are wiggers. A wigger is a middle-class suburban white kid that listens to hip-hop and then decides he’s thugged out and straight from the ghetto, bee-yatch. It isn’t listening to hip-hop that counts here; it’s listening to hip-hop and then, as a result, adopting cultural aspects of the music that have nothing to do with you.
It’s as if a white kid started acting like he was a poor cotton picker from Mississippi after he listened to a John Lee Hooker record. Adjusting your actions so as to appear part of a culture that has nothing to do with you. Also known as being a complete wanker.
Umm… just for future info. ParentalAdvisory “slack” is what you get when some one cuts you a break. Using the term “catch slack” makes absolutely no sense. You might “catch hell” for listening to rap and you would want people to “cut you some slack” in this regard.
I’m guilty of turning down the volume ala Michael Bolton from Office Space if I’m listening to rap at a red light or in my neighborhood. It’s not that I’m embarassed for liking rap I don’t want to be that guy.
You have to admit there is something comical about a 28 year old white guy shouting to the top of his lungs: “Boy whatcho gon’ do? Act a fool!”
I don’t think it’s whites per se, but particular groups of whites. If your group doesn’t listen to rap, then it may think you are acting black. If you’re black and your particular group doesn’t listen to rock, then you may be labeled as acting white. But most of my friends listen to most types of music, so it doesn’t raise any eyebrows if one of my white friends is listening to hip-hop or if one of my black friends listens to rock.
As for general consensus, it seems that rock is seen as white music by the general population. This means that most minorities seem more comfortable with hip-hop or something more “street.” The exception, in my experience, tends to be hispanics who will listen to either.
Screw that noise, Bruce. I sit at the light with my music blaring and me singing, at the top of my lungs: Trust in my self-righteous suicide. I cry when angels deserve to die…
Do I get funny looks? Dunno, I’m to busy using my steering wheel as a drum set!
I’m Indian (dots, not feathers), (well, half, but its the half that shows) and get made fun of for EVERYTHING I listen to. The only hip hop I’m into is old stuff, other than Busta Rhymes, which probably doesn’t help…
My enjoyment of rap as a 37YO white man has nothing to do with culture. I was in Junior high school when Sugar Hill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight came out. At the time, most of us suburban white kids figured it was just some sort of novelty record, as we had never heard anything like it, and we never heard anything like it again until years later. In fact, I don’t think most of us even knew that it was called “rap”.
I suppose most of my classmates took it at face value and then forgot about it once it dropped out of the Top 40 and some time went by. But I was absolutely entranced by it, and was disappointed that I never heard another rap song as a kid. I graduated from high school a few years before rap really hit the mainstream again, but I continued singing to my self, “a-hip-hop-a- hippy-to-the-hippity-hip-hip-a-hop-ya-don’t-stop-rockin’…” for years.
I just thought it was really cool, not to mention that I was a fan of bass and cool beats anyway. And so when, a few years after high school, there were suddenly rap songs popping up all over the place, I was ecstatic. It was like, “Hey, I remember this from way back…”
But yes, I caught all sorts of flak from my friends. Here I was, a white adult getting into that “rap crap”. To make matters worse, the only black guy I knew (smallish town, very few blacks) hated the stuff.
