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djchameleon · 06-22-2014, 12:06 AM

White Trap Rap’s Hip Hop Minstrel Show Iggy Azalea and the New Face of Pop-Culture Racism | notes from the Ghetto Side

Pretty interesting article. I have this love/hate thing for Iggy but I like how the article kind of drags her through the mud along with Riff Raff and Lil Debbie.

Quote:

Iggy Azalea is a white Levi’s Jeans model from Australia who uploaded some freestyles to Youtube and went viral, the Sn almost immediately got signed to two major labels. She claims that success in the rap/music industry is based solely on hard work and that anybody can be a big-time celebrity if they just try hard enough like she did (I think she brags about scrubbing some floors in one of her songs – that’s some real ****, eh?). Her supposed goal is to “make people question and redefine old ideals” — likely a reference to her often stated desire to make rap less about black culture. Azalea frequently braggs about being white in her music– she’s even gone so far as to write a punchline about being a “runaway slave master” in one of her songs, which she says“has been used to unfairly slander [her] character and paint [her] as a racist person.” So not only does she feel she has the right to use the medium of gangster rap to joke about being a “slave master”…. she also sees it as “unfair” that she gets criticism for it.

Judging by the content of her interviews and lyrics, Iggy seems to see this as a form of rebellion against a perceived black supremacy in hip-hop. She has obviously never had to deal with any racism, nor will she ever, but what she is saying echos the sentiment of many people when the topic of ‘cultural appropriation’ comes up – people who perceive the empowerment of minorities as an encroachment of their rights. The reasoning behind this sentiment is generally that white people aren’t ‘allowed’ to do certain things that other people are, and they see it as an example of oppression. They fight back against this with a kind-of “**** all the haters” attitude, as if they are also fighting against the same degree of adversity and overcoming equally unfair discrimination. Iggy Azalea uses the language of social justice to argue that everyone (no matter their skin tone or background) has an equal claim to rap, and goes as far as saying “This idea that rap should be black is almost like Segregation” …yup.

This comes out of a sense of entitlement that has long defined white culture. Because so many white people have been allowed access to almost everything, it comes a shock when they face even slight criticism for their participation in something. North American people of colour are well accustomed to being criticized and left out at an early age – by seeing overwhelmingly white protagonists in television and movies, being educated in school about European history as the norm (and other cultures as ‘special’ topics) and being taught that whiteness is generally the default, whether it be in terms of culture, appearance, history, etc.

There is so much more at the link.