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And I don't choose some white plunderer of old valuables that lightly, as an approaching middle age white guy. Leaving that alone for just a moment, the depths of that forums contain fans of artists that'll make you reconsider whether you were ever a fan of anything you thought you loved, ever. Getting closer to it, there are so many this or that debates that have way more to do with regions, counties, neighborhoods and/or corners/clubs than the basic "I prefer Freeway to Cassidy" discourse you'd find almost anywhere else.
Taking a few steps closer to the core of it, no matter how much a dude like me could devour the music and articulate some thoughts about it, that forum was such a humbling mechanism. Especially if by way of location, age, race or as the blog era blew up - just like politics, honestly - you (I?) could mistake your (my?) passion for expertise. There was always a relevant Lesson thread prepared to humble many, even those who had the simple disadvantage of frequenting the wrong uptown McDonald's or interstate exit Church's.
Briefly, like you said at the end, The Lesson at its peak might've deferred a bit to East Coast Golden Age sensibilities, but otherwise was most remarkable for how fucking Black it was in a sea of professional criticism both in print and online, or amateur debate in Tower Records aisles and forums, that was dominated by bored, lonely white kids (KIDS) with 56k/128k DSL internet connections like me. I can't even begin to imagine what it would've felt like to follow the liners of a Roots or Soulquarian release - or, like me, a Kweli lyric - to that forum and instantly recognize that it was the Nodima's squirming to fit in for once.
But beyond all that, which I hope I gave all due deference and respect to, as somebody who's endlessly bothered by Spotify insisting on playlists (or bar patrons complimenting me on an "awesome Roxy Music playlist" that's just the Avalon album front to back), the return to a 1950s-esque mentality of album-as-novelty rather than talking point and a general feeling across all pop culture that hypebeast influencers are more trustworthy than the buzzkill dorks labeled by legacy media as "critics"...what was truly so seductive about The Lesson is that a thread might contain 200 posts, 20-25% of which were as long as this and probably fractionally MORE self-indulgent, and it was just normal.
It seduced record store trolls who loved to write, knew how to get laid when the browser window was closed and wouldn't glimpse six paragraphs in the corner of their eye and immediately respond with (edit: for you edit watchers, this is it, the death of this forum - the Too Long Didn't Read abbreviation still translates to an emoticon because of ) "TL:;DR" too short, didn't chuckle quips like "damn bro, unplug." Or whatever. The Lesson didn't pretend to be a "safe space". If you didn't bring it, and the given artist aligned with the wrong user's paid vacation, your take might get GOT. But even back then, because again so much of the internet was white dudes gorging on Black culture from afar, the more I checked in on it debates didn't seem to rate unless they'd happened on The Lesson; sometimes, the more buried in a sub-conversation about yet another conversation, the more authentic it felt.
Which offers me a sidebar to say, that's why I still love the format of OKP. Reddit *kinda* has it, but you never notice the names of people, and because it defaults to upvotes it's damn near impossible for a new post to light a fire under the ass of an old post the way GD hall of famers specifically excelled at but plenty of Lessonheads had the gift too. Always envied it.
Ultimately The Lesson was OKP so inevitably it had a healthy dose of GD shutdowns, most of which was amazing in its own way...
And again I think it's greatest purpose (especially, early 2000s, as I found it then lurked for years until I made an account, let alone participated) was operating as both a safe and exceptionally challenging space for a Black perspective of Black music at a time when white money was driving so much of its artistic direction...for myself, I'd have probably never started actually interacting with these boards without sites like LiveMixtapes making clear that even the worst rappers were being crushed by a machine that once effortlessly cast aside nu-metal for snap rap, and that it's either impossible or foolish to project passion for THE IDEA of rap without ruminating the restraints constantly attempting to wrangle its rebellion.
I was kinda hoping I'd read this back and pare it down a bit, but then I realized that wouldn't be very Lesson-y. The worst part about it is, I say all this, I've somehow become one of the straggling OKP regulars...and I might check in on The Lesson every 3 months or so. I'm not even stuck in the "old guy that prefers the music of his 20s" rut, let alone the more generic "damn they don't make 'em like they used to" trench of personality death. I wanna listen to, and talk about, new shit from anything Xtian Adjuah blows to internet darlings like DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ to why exactly I stopped caring about Big K.R.I.T. despite being his loudest advocate a decade ago to that one comment somebody made somewhere on OKP about Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift and the Hip-Hop 50 Tour all converging on downtown Detroit in a single night and Eminem choosing the Sheeran show for his spotlight.
But I don't even think to open the forum when I hit my OKP bookmark anymore. And too many awesome, way more interesting people have meandered into the same indifference over the last ten years. Though maybe if they hadn't gotten on with their shit, had kept partying most nights, working in kitchens and record stores, the lowest rung desk jobs and "my boss is totally fucking with me" assistant gigs rather than tying knots, making babies, earning wild degrees starting their own businesses becoming internet/real world famous or/and falling asleep to graphs of 401(k)s The Lesson would still be that cool.
Unfortunately for jerks like me, its users outgrew its coolness and, I feel like I have to end this diatribe as lame as I can...
Lssn aint bussin nemore, fr fr. 0 🧢 (cap)
~~~~~~~~~ "This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517 Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz
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