I just listened to it and I don't agree with you or
@chrb98. This has nothing to do with feminism. You can't play both sides on everything. On one hand you are powerful, but if anyone critiques you then it's unfair and a cheap shot? That's bullshit. If she responds back now with a verse claiming that he's misogynistic and condescending, do we all clap for women empowerment?
This song isn't about tone policing her, either; it's literally a response to her being condescending toward him. He's saying that he doesn't appreciate how she's being classist toward him. He makes it perfectly clear in the song that he's responding to comments she's made that seem to be about him and at least one other person that he knows, specifically. So, he's telling her that he thinks it's pretty condescending to speak down to people and be so judgmental when they are living in and dealing with certain circumstances that she may not be. And he suggests that, if she's genuine about her intentions and thinks he and others are so ignorant, then she could actually say that in a more constructive way, otherwise she's just being classist and insulting. He's calling her out for telling him that he's not doing things right, not the other way around.
When I met Noname, she was incredibly fucking pretentious and rude. Meanwhile, she was wearing a Menace II Society shirt. Just because you're black, doesn't mean you can't exploit a culture -- it just makes it easier. I haven't read the tweets he's referring to, but I'm taking it like, in his opinion, she's trashing a culture she eats off, becase SHE believes she knows the proper way to do things and that SHE has been trashing people she views as deviant, ignorant, and/or below her. I'm literally going by Cole's lyrics. This song is a response, not an attack.
Noname definitely acted as if she was too good to address me, when I met her, and it exposed a lot about her persona to me really quickly. Basically, that it's bogus. She seemed like a pretentious art student. Just because you listen to someone's music and they project something doesn't mean it's real. In this case, I have zero doubt that it's 100% the opposite. And we aren't dealing with subjective shit here, we're dealing with racial and class issues. Cole isn't critiquing how she chooses to be an activist, he's telling her not to judge how he chooses to live. Somehow you both automatically flipped that one and viewed her as the victim, while I viewed your comments as blaming the victim for speaking up.
To me it feels like you view her a certain way and him a certain way. I wonder why that is. Honestly. Because this doesn't seem based on the content of the song, but as if he's a certain type of person attacking a different type if person. On lyrics alone... he's asking her not to be shitty to him and you're both so appalled that he had the audacity to come at her like that.
This reminds me of why I've hated Bill Cosby for so long -- it seemed that I was earlier than most on that one. Cosby once addressed a crowd -- I believe it was an NAACP event -- and chastised inner city youth and the younger generation, in general, by telling these kids they need to use proper English and pull their pants up, etc. A lot of white America thought that was great. I just thought he was a rich asshole. He gets to judge people living in a different environment, because he honestly believes he's above them? Yeah, he's black, but he'd been rich and famous for decades by that point. Not to mention, he was literally getting away with rape. But he looked like the good guy. Dr Huxtable. He was condescending as fuck to Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy even did a whole bit about how he treated him a similar way. And like with Noname, plenty of people would easily take Cosby's side. The Cos showed suburban America a new image of successful black elegance. He gave them images of people that were like them. The negative byproduct was that it also presented the idea that to be respected, they needed to assimilate to them. That's why A Different World was a more important show, but also so much less soluble for mainstream America. It was "too black."
I'm not surprised that people will view the educated conscious spoken word poet woman as being attacked by some uncivilized rapper, but I don't see that in his lyrics at all. I see the opposite. This is more layered to me in some ways, but also pretty simple to me, if you actually listen to the lyrics.
So... I can't really accept the "c'mon man" on this one. I understand if that's a response to me assuming he's right, without context, but let's be real about how many will assume he's wrong by your post. I'm someone that already sees her as incredibly disingenuous. And yeah, when I met her, she was terrible. I simply reached out to shake her hand and introduced myself. She left my hand hanging and eye rolled me. I had a press pass and was covering the event. I've met folks from Killer Mike and Scarface to KRS-One. All pretty solid, because they had no ego and nothing to prove. I already know she thinks she's above certain people, but she's not above wearing them on her T-shirts for clout.
You might disagree with my take, but I genuinely do not believe this situation is as cut and dry as some of you might see it.
