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Originally Posted by Zahara
Azealia Banks also spent days cleaning up the chicken blood in her closet to revive her failing career due to her attitude, so probably not the person you want to prop up.
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And I totally agree with you on Azealia's attitude being what brings her down. But hear me out on this: When has it EVER been OK for a black girl to be angry? Like ever? Has there ever been a point where we went, "Hey, this chick has a good reason to be swinging at people?" Because I feel like pointing a finger at Azealia Banks' attitude sometimes is like pointing a finger at POC and going, "You can't be angry." And why? Why not?! Sure, she's said some extremely homophobic and totally racist crap, and she's been xenophobic and just an all-out weirdo at times, but watch the video for Yung Rapunxel. There's a total point to every cut in that video, and it's so obvious what she's saying in scenes like her whipping her hair back and forth against the green screen or smashing a bottle on a cop's helmet, or laying on the ground surrounded by riot police. And that track is what I consider to be the best example of someone taking that topic and crossing over with it because it's totally, completely solid as a work piece. You just can't look at any part of the lyrics, or the PV, or the artist and say, "Any single part of this doesn't make sense," without missing the point completely.
And I just want to see FKA, Sevdaliza, and Kelela bring that fire to the table. Show me the passion and connect the dots for me--especially for me. Because what FKA does may make sense to some POC, but I'm listening and I'm not connecting the dots because I don't know what the hell any of it means. And if the point is for FKA to get an equal shot at an audience, I'm going to need some help here because I'm not black, I'm not a POC, and I have no clue what any of these references to that culture mean.
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Originally Posted by mi|kshake
Can you please?
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I'll keep this short. Never Say Never was not an R&B record. There is nothing on that album that remotely qualifies as R&B when you are listening to other well-known R&B artists from the same time, like Mary J Blige. And what a goddamn shame too. Because when Brandy did songs like U Don't Know Me Like U Used To (and sure she worked with Darkchild), but the entire PV was about as aligned to the BSB/NSYNC/Britney/Christina-style PVs that you can get. It was a fucking awesome track too. And did it EVER get serviced to mainstream radio? No. But did it sound like everything else that was on mainstream-fucking-radio? YES.
Now, let's get to Full Moon. There isn't a
single. goddamn. non-electronica. track. on. that. album. "What About Us?", "Full Moon", "I Thought", and "Can We" --all electronic tracks. Brandy really threw herself into the pop sphere with that record. And the only argument I need to make here about Brandy being black being the reason Full Moon got labeled an R&B record is if you listen to Britney Spears' Britney and listen to Full Moon back-to-back. Listen to Christina's Stripped then listen to Full Moon back-to-back. If you don't hear the
exact same R&B/Hip Hop tinge on every track of those records, with the only difference being Britney's work with Max Martin, you're deaf. Plain and simple: You're fucking deaf. I don't even need to bring up the fact that I'm A Slave 4 U was produced by the Neptunes... but is it labeled an R&B track? Nope. It's called "Dance-Pop". Was it sent to mainstream radio? Yup! Do you think "What About Us?", which is clearly NOT an R&B track, was labeled "Dance-Pop"? Here's the fucking link so you can check yourself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_A..._(Brandy_song)! Here, you can also see if "Full Moon" was labeled "Dance-Pop":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Moon_(Brandy_song). And seriously, go back and listen to I'm A Slave 4 U or Dirty and then listen to Full Moon and What About Us? Same era, comparable styles of music, completely different segments of radio.
The biggest fuck-up was with Afrodisiac. I want you to listen to Afrodisiac then listen to Britney's In The Zone back-to-back. I don't even have fucking words. I can't hear a single fucking difference between those records. But Britney's a POP artist and her shit gets sent to mainstream radio. Brandy, however? Not a SINGLE one of the songs on Afrodisiac was serviced to Top 40 radio. And keep in mind the title track was released as a single. I don't even words for that. Brandy was let down so hard by Atlantic on Afrodisiac. And I don't why she blames Darkchild, because there was never anything wrong with his production -- he's one of the best cross-genre producers that's ever come out of the 90s. Also I just want to point out that Darkchild did almost all of the production on the Spice Girls' Forever record...
which isn't labeled an R&B album.
I think I've made my point.
OK. I'll let this go now! <3 But seriously, if you guys find an artist like FKA or Kelela who clearly has the story laid out, I'm all ears. Feel free to throw me a name or two!
Edit: And thank you all for being pretty cool even though I've been really frank and pretty tactless about my opinions.