I don't think anyone cares tremendously if people call Death Grips white people music, and I'd wager most of their core audience are white. I won't be obtuse here lol

But a sizable part of Death Grips' core fanbase are also black people too, who are no less black for it. A lot of black people I've met who are core fans of DG are more into music outside of hip hop, but still very much listen to black artists regularly, just outside of hip hop. A lot of black people I've met take issue with how black folks can be portrayed and marketed in white media within hip hop

Friend of mine is a gigantic JPEGMAFIA fan and, surprise, he's black, and isn't conservative/white worshipping lol. Not the only one in that regard either

lol Future does not have more of a core black fanbase than others. Right there, you just showed how wrong you are. There’s tons of white frat mfs that bump him just as much as black people do these days.

i don’t like his music or him as a person lol, what does that have to do with anything?

you don’t even know what i listen to

The reason one is branded as white people music and the other as black people music is because in general one appeals more to white people and the other more to black people. It’s such an extremely simple concept lol you gotta laugh at these think pieces

These are your bros @edumist

okay, let’s go back to square one

what is it about experimental/abstract music that black people cannot get into it?

I agree that it’s lame to question people blackness based on what music they like. A lot of my favorite music throughout my life has been stuff that people would say is for white people, or for this group or that group.

I enjoy some of Thug's music but bro has said some of the stupidest s*** ever recorded even within the lane he is occupying and ran a criminal enterprise that included murdering people as a millionaire rapper who didn't need to materially engage in criminal activity at all

He's a bad dude lmao, and rly hasn't made a project I've been deeply drawn to since like 2016

Black people listen to lots of experimental and “abstract” music. It’s just not seen as that by a lot of you guys because it doesn’t check certain boxes as to what you think experimental and abstract should be.

You don’t think Future has more of a core Black American audience than Jpeg Mafia?

ive said i don’t like most melodic rap, trap, drill whatever on here about a million times, my taste for hip-hop is all bent towards older forms (like boom bap) or experimental s*** for the most part, obviously im not gonna like Young Thug

In terms of percentage of overall core fanbase, definitely not lmao. White girls and white frat boys/gym bros love Future

In terms of raw number of black people, definitely has more, but that's in part due to commercial exposure and the relative accessibility of his music when compared to JPEGMAFIA

Both have strong black fanbases though

The fact that the internet will slurp up Lil Yachty for making a bad psych rock album and act like he’s a totally different tier of artist now is proof in itself that a lot of you guys inherently see hip hop as a lesser art form.

The Internet

Go to concerts and physically see who is in attendance. Go to the last remaining music stores or musically-themed cafes and see who is actually there. The Internet is not real life and black people go to JPEGMAFIA shows lol

In terms of everything. Futures music simply appeals to a greater percentage of black Americans than Jpeg mafias.

Yeat circa 2021 probably appealed more to black fans than Jpeg mafia

Nobody is saying black people don’t listen to Jpeg mafia

The people who are posting and liking are real people. If anything the internet skews it more towards artists like Jpeg

nigga that Yachty album was doggy bag s***

he didn’t earn any points from me for that album, it was awful and a limp wristed attempt at psych rock

only the niggas on here who largely look down at 60s rock (if not rock in general, honestly) and whatever else were impressed with that s***

I thought you were Chinese for the longest time.

But how can your first point be empirically gauged if the raw number of black people who've been exposed to JPEGMAFIA's music is drastically less than Future, given their wide gap in commercial success? Most people who are like younger than 35, across the board, know who Future is even if they don't listen to him. JPEGMAFIA is a straight up underground rapper, albeit one of the more visible ones

Like 50 Cent vs MF DOOM, more black people are fans of 50 Cent, because more black people have heard 50 Cent, simply because he has more commercial machinery behind him to get him exposure. But there are plenty of black people, "street dudes" who are black included, who heavily f*** with MF DOOM lol

The Internet is an echo chamber where one dude can make five accounts on five different websites and spout the same 5 talking points to get approval from dozens of other people doing the exact same thing. This is, amongst many other reasons, why streams don't always indicate actual commercial popularity if we measure said popularity by concert tickets sold, or even why high follower counts on social media don't even translate to strong streaming numbers. It's hyperreal on a good day and a straight up madhouse on a bad day

If the Internet resembled real life in a consistent and serious manner, Bernie Sanders would be president, China would be vaporized, Saweetie would be packing out arenas, and Death Grips would have a Gold plaque

Not only that, but a lot of people on this very site complain about how the disproportionate level of attention trap and trap-adjacent music get in mainstream American media, which is white-owned/controlled overall and has had a history of selectively broadcasting certain types of black art in certain ways to convey certain negative, racist, and stereotypical messages about black people, is watering down the genre, but then when someone is listening to something other than that music and it's maybe pretty abrasive, suddenly they come to trap's defense lol

Or if it's outdoors tbh

an indoor death grips concert without seating sounds like a mild form of torture

I think that's the point of what we're talking about though

What's cringey is when white people pick and choose which forms of black art they're willing to respect, and then shame black artists and even black culture for not producing art catered to their tastes as white people exploring a foreign culture to themselves. But you get this in every kind of black art lol

• White oldheads are insufferable with their "real hip hop" bullshit
• White trap fans are insufferable with their "streets not bumping this", "I don't go to rap for songs with messages" bullshit
• White experimental hip hop fans are insufferable with their "that stuff is too remedial, Death Grips is what hip hop should sound like if it wants to be taken seriously" bullshit

Point is, blame white people, not black creatives and their black fans lol. White people, writ large, in America, suck

so many facts in this thread it’s borderline too much