Go back to previous topic | Forum name | The Lesson Archives | Topic subject | Sorry, but that opinion is your own insecurity playing out. | Topic URL | http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=17&topic_id=169781&mesg_id=169836 |
169836, Sorry, but that opinion is your own insecurity playing out. Posted by Orbit_Established, Fri Jan-23-15 11:29 AM
>The issue with post-"The Cool" Lupe Fiasco is that he >intentionally goes over his audience's head. He seemed to take >pride in people not understanding him. And Lupe didn't go over >heads in the "I'm a dope rapper, I'm more clever than you" >way, but in a "I'm smarter/more well read than you" way. >There's a big difference between "I have this vision and I >don't care if you get it, because one day other people will," >and "I'm making this complex SO you don't get it." For a >while, I associated Lupe with the latter.
Because no self-assured intelligent man interprets Lupe that way.
None.
I interpret him as a talented person with strong opinions who is irritated by dumb people who don't read and think carefully.
That makes him similar to, literally, every single really bright person I know. I'm talking McCarthur geniuses and people who almost won the Nobel Prize, and I'm being serious.
The only difference between Lupe and the others I know is that Lupe is more public about it, because he's a public figure.
One of the people I'm referring to is a mathematician who is a rockstar, but doesn't require a general audience the way Lupe does, and so doesn't have to be constantly irritated by dumb people who don't listen...in a very public way. He is, however, thousands of times as arrogant and dismissive (despite being a nice guy) as Lupe.
Also -- Lupe Fiasco is black.
Its always harder to be smart and black, especially in non-traditional ways (Lupe isn't only "hood" smart. He actually is smart, in a white wonky nerd kind of way).
For example, he was legitimately talking about drones, openly, well before Atlantic Monthly or New Yorker were. And He got slammed as "arrogant" for it. He knew about it because he reads and understands more than most wonky white nerds.
Another example is him being *years* ahead of everyone on the Obama skepticism. While everyone else was cheering, he was rightfully looking at dude with caution (whether you like POTUS or not overall, you have to admit that Lupe was right about some of the contradictions).
When you think like Lupe, Black people call you "cocky."
And white people REALLY call you "cocky," because fundamentally, white people are irritated by intelligent black people.
Truth is, Lupe is like 1/400th as off-putting or arrogant as his talented white counterparts. We just let white boys get away with it.
----------------------------
O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"
"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."
(C)Keith Murray, "
| |