Hip Hop

Tillman said:
he's certainly not my favorite but I have no real issues with Melon's reviews. I know that the majority of people here don't like him but I think he does a decent job of doing fairly in depth reviews for multiple genres on his channel.
Click to expand...

I can't speak on his non-hip hop reviews but all the hip-hop reviews I've seen of his read as someone who has no history, context or understanding of the culture but who wiki'd some info so he didn't come off as a complete mormon on topics he knows little to nothing about. Again, can't say if that applies to other genres but that's how I feel about all of his hip-hop reviews and can't help but think that that's how he approaches most of his reviews.
 
Clint Howard said:
To me he is beyond lame. Don't understand his appeal at all.. and the fact that he sold tickets to a tour of him going around speaking just makes my hate-o-meter for him go through the roof. Dude is corny af. He's like a more famous Too Many Records.
Click to expand...

Dont mind his videos or social media presence at all, but the live show concept baffles me a bit too. He doesn't just speak btw:

 
sorcerer said:
He's like 6 foot and is super meaty despite being vegan, so be careful.
Click to expand...

I'm 6'3" and have been described as a goon. I'm not concerned about a vegan vlogger.

edit: just to add cause this sure reads like #imabadass but I have a serious issue with some internet white kid co-opting rap culture for a room full of white kids cause they all think it's funny. that is cultural appropriation used for mocking purposes and that shit will always deserve a punch in the face from me. I got no time for that shit at all.
 
Last edited:
sorcerer said:
I skimmed through a video of one of his shows. Part of it was that Cal Chuchesta character, his rap persona. Another part was slowly reading and analyzing the lyrics to "All Star" by Smash Mouth.
Another part was him live refuting a video by right wing youtube Paul Joseph Watson, who he got in an internet scuffle with a while beforehand over the quality of music nowadays.
The final part was an incredibly awkward Q&A.

Fantano is just such a milquetoast personality. His videos have become formulaic over the years, and basically function as wikipedia articles with inter-spliced ramblings of "squelchy bass" and "ratting hi-hats" and "soaring guitar leads" because he feels he needs to include more adjectives.

I find DeadEndHipHop to be far better at reviewing albums because they dedicate more than two minutes to actually analyzing the content of an album beyond the basic layer of instrumentation / production, and they discuss the albums place in the artists discography. There just isn't any substance in Fantano for me.
Click to expand...

I guess that's meant to appeal to the younger side of his audience. When I went to see Brockhampton, not only did I feel the oldest I've ever felt (in my early 20s), but I heard his name mentioned in snippets of conversation I think 4 times. It seems most of us are too far past 15, but I'll say I wish I had Anthony to tell me what to listen to at that age, rather than how I was discovering music then.

I admit I haven't looked very far, but I've never enjoyed any other music review YouTuber, they all seem to just pander to the fans. Deep Cuts is pretty good as a music opinion channel, but he never really did much reviewing. It probably helps that I never seem to disagree with Anthony's positive opinions, just the negative ones so I don't really care then.
 
BoilerRhapsody said:
I guess that's meant to appeal to the younger side of his audience. When I went to see Brockhampton, not only did I feel the oldest I've ever felt (in my early 20s), but I heard his name mentioned in snippets of conversation I think 4 times. It seems most of us are too far past 15, but I'll say I wish I had Anthony to tell me what to listen to at that age, rather than how I was discovering music then.

I admit I haven't looked very far, but I've never enjoyed any other music review YouTuber, they all seem to just pander to the fans. Deep Cuts is pretty good as a music opinion channel, but he never really did much reviewing. It probably helps that I never seem to disagree with Anthony's positive opinions, just the negative ones so I don't really care then.
Click to expand...

I think I'd rather have 15 year olds discover music on their own. It just creates the same echo chamber that radio did twenty years ago. I remember working with a girl 10-15 years ago who proudly told me she didn't listen to the radio, she only listened to what Pitchfork told her to listen to... and she couldn't see the irony in that. Ditto for people that rely on Fantano or anyone else. Discover shit yourself and don't let any one person dictate your taste.
 
Clint Howard said:
I think I'd rather have 15 year olds discover music on their own. It just creates the same echo chamber that radio did twenty years ago. I remember working with a girl 10-15 years ago who proudly told me she didn't listen to the radio, she only listened to what Pitchfork told her to listen to... and she couldn't see the irony in that. Ditto for people that rely on Fantano or anyone else. Discover shit yourself and don't let any one person dictate your taste.
Click to expand...

Trust me, if I fully let Fantano dictate my taste it would be much more diverse and less echo chambery than my 15 year old small rural town white kid taste. But still, I didn't mean he should have fully dictated my taste; but just as a way to find new music, which is still what I mainly use his content for.

I've honestly never considered the Cal Chuchesta character as coopting Hip-hop before, and with the mockery aspect I can't refute that at all. I guess it's worth noting that Cal at least didn't start as a Hip-Hop characature but as Anthony's 'roommate', and was just a daft character that sometimes appeared in his reviews who's popularity grew with Anthony's and the character expanded into what it is.

He has a hot take/unpopular opinion series where people post stuff on Twitter for him to talk about, and the whole white audience thing came up recently:



He doesn't address any racism issues with Cal, but I might try and post that next time and see if he'll respond to it, I'm very curious as to what he'd say. Especially as his sometimes edgy humor has been misconstrued as 'alt-right' previously after The Fader tried to cancel him for it.
 
BoilerRhapsody said:
Trust me, if I fully let Fantano dictate my taste it would be much more diverse and less echo chambery than my 15 year old small rural town white kid taste. But still, I didn't mean he should have fully dictated my taste; but just as a way to find new music, which is still what I mainly use his content for.

I've honestly never considered the Cal Chuchesta character as coopting Hip-hop before, and with the mockery aspect I can't refute that at all. I guess it's worth noting that Cal at least didn't start as a Hip-Hop characature but as Anthony's 'roommate', and was just a daft character that sometimes appeared in his reviews who's popularity grew with Anthony's and the character expanded into what it is.

He has a hot take/unpopular opinion series where people post stuff on Twitter for him to talk about, and the whole white audience thing came up recently:



He doesn't address any racism issues with Cal, but I might try and post that next time and see if he'll respond to it, I'm very curious as to what he'd say. Especially as his sometimes edgy humor has been misconstrued as 'alt-right' previously after The Fader tried to cancel him for it.
Click to expand...


So why doesn't Cal mock all the endless tropes of 'indie rock'? Because that's for white people. Mocking rap culture is fine as far as mainstream white audiences are concerned. The more you tell me about him, the more my irrational hatred of him seems completely justified. What a fucking punk bitch.
 
Clint Howard said:
So why doesn't Cal mock all the endless tropes of 'indie rock'? Because that's for white people. Mocking rap culture is fine as far as mainstream white audiences are concerned. The more you tell me about him, the more my irrational hatred of him seems completely justified. What a fucking punk bitch.
Click to expand...
I think Cal Chuchesta is dumb as shit, but it isn't mocking rap culture, it's mocking a stupid white dweeb wannabe rapper. The (cringey, dumb) joke is about how dumb that is, it isn't in any way mocking real hip hop. It's mocking poseurs.
 
dhodo said:
I think Cal Chuchesta is dumb as shit, but it isn't mocking rap culture, it's mocking a stupid white dweeb wannabe rapper. The (cringey, dumb) joke is about how dumb that is, it isn't in any way mocking real hip hop. It's mocking poseurs.
Click to expand...

Does he do it for any other subculture or is it just rap?
 
Clint Howard said:
So why doesn't Cal mock all the endless tropes of 'indie rock'? Because that's for white people. Mocking rap culture is fine as far as mainstream white audiences are concerned. The more you tell me about him, the more my irrational hatred of him seems completely justified. What a fucking punk bitch.
Click to expand...

Edit: accidentally wrote my response inside the quote.

Well Cal doesn't, but Anthony is certainly not 'above' mocking white culture, especially in regards to indie rock or what you might call 'Pitchfolk', arguably even more frequently than Cal with Hip-Hop. He can be quite self deprecating in that sense as he is a big fan of that kind of music as well as Hip-Hop.

I'm not trying to tell you how to feel, or even convince you to like him, you've honestly opened my eyes about this a bit. AFAIK white people have been co-opting Hip-Hop for as long as it's existed and I just think that's an appropriate, important and interesting thing to be discussing in the Hip-Hop thread.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top