We Need to Be Careful of How We Label Problematic Artists
Just so we're clear, I dislike most of 6ix9ine's music and think what he did was stupid and disgusting. However, I refuse to call him a pedophile. To be completely honest, people are way too quick to throw labels like "abuser," "sex offender," or "murderer" at someone who may have just made an honest mistake or deeply regret their crime and work to reform themselves. Someone is only deserving of those labels if they have done it multiple times. 6ix9ine is not a pedophile because there was only one instance of sexual misconduct during his young life. He admits that he didn't know the girl was 13 and while she was naked, they did not have sex. He hasn't slept with other underage women nor has any other underage girl come forth and accuse him of sexual misconduct. I get that it is very hard for a victim of a sex crime to come forward and report it but in order to rightfully call someone a pedo, we need more evidence of 6ix9ine doing pedophilic things. Another example is Famous Dex. He had actually been caught on camera beating an ex-girlfriend and has said himself that he deeply regretted it and wanted to reform himself. People were quick to label him as a "domestic abuser" even though there was just one instance of Famous Dex being the perpetrator of abuse. He doesn't deserve the label unless he has had multiple instances of abuse. You know who does deserve these labels? XXXTentacion is VERY deserving of being labeled an abuser because of the awful things he's done to multiple men and women. There is actual hard evidence of him beating his then-pregnant ex-girlfriend, "playfully" sucker punching a woman, punching a fan in the face during a concert, beating a guy until he was unconscious and making his beaten face part of the cover of a released single, and the list just goes on and on. R. Kelly is VERY deserving of being labeled as a sex offender because of multiple reports of his sexual crimes coming out over the past couple of decades. Chris Brown is VERY deserving of being labeled as an abuser because he almost killed Rihanna according to the police report and even got a tattoo of Rihanna's beaten face on his neck. Tay-K is VERY deserving of being labeled as a murderer because of the many crimes he was arrested for. I don't have a problem with people listening to or refusing to listen to artists with disgusting criminal records. In fact, I will admit that I listen to and enjoy some music from XXXTentacion, Tay-K, and other artists deemed problematic. It happens to be very easy for me to separate the artist from the art they make. What I'm trying to say is that people need to stop throwing around these labels if the artist is actually trying to reform him or her self. Scumbags are only deserving of being called scumbags if they do scummy things regularly.
Using Autotune =/= No Talent
Many casual music listeners believe that if an artist uses autotune it means that they can't sing. That isn't true, or at least entirely true. Autotune is mainly used as a pitch correction tool to clean up an ugly high note. Basically, it is meant to quickly hide flaws in one's singing. If you're not a good singer whatsoever, autotune will make you sound even uglier. Not too many singers can hit high notes very well and it takes A LOT of practice. In fact, artists like T-Pain and Travis Scott only use autotune to fit a certain mood or aesthetic. There is actual proof that T-Pain can sing without autotune. Need another example? Here's a video of Lil Uzi Vert singing 7am live without a backing track or autotune. It sounds almost identical to the original song. Autotune is not just something that can magically make anyone sing better. In fact, I have criticised multiple artists that normally rap for how their melodic music sounds.
Trap Music Is the Best Thing to Ever Happen to Hip-Hop
In the past three years, hip-hop and rap have been absolutely exploding in popularity. If you like following the weekly Billboard charts like me, you can see that there are more hit songs in the genre than ever. Hip-Hop has passed Rock as the most popular genre in America, and why is that? Because of the accessibility and appeal of trap music. The popularity of trap music and "mumble rap" has made more fans of rap than ever before. More and more people will trash the latest wave of hip-hop because of "trash lyrics" or "getting carried by production." To an extent, I do agree. I enjoy many trap artists and I am willing to admit that many of them have incredibly shallow and basic lyrics. In fact, I'm listening to a Playboi Carti song as I type this sentence. But as hip-hop fans, shouldn't the end goal be getting as many people to listen to and appreciate the genre as possible? I personally think so, and if someone is curious about the artists or era of music that you think is "better," you should be willing to show them instead of being so goddamn hostile about it.
Like I said at the beginning of this post, these are my opinions. You don't have to agree with them, and that's the beauty of music discussion. If everyone shared the same opinion, what would be the point of debate and discussion? Anyway, I will come out with my What am I listening to? post sometime tomorrow.
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