Honestly, so far I don't see Earl and Navy being as committed to acting seriously feminist and queer-positive as for example Siifu or Slauson.

Billy Woods would be kind of a bridge between Mach, Siifu and others tho I guess

Earl I understand (I guess), but Navy seems pretty profusely feminist tbh

As weird a thing this is to categorize, I’d put woods behind both Navy and Earl in this case tbh. He definitely throws in the occasional derogatory line whereas they rarely do if ever

Let’s put that one song on EARL aside

this master holy song im sittin on is so crazy
cant wait 2 release and show u lot

From my queer and feminist perspective, I believe present-day Earl and the rest of the scene and affiliates are all allies (Medhane isn’t there, but I won’t give up on him).

woods and Elucid are a step behind, which may be because of the oldhead homophobia and misogyny of the era of hiphop they came up in. However, they are progressive in their own ways and making a noticeable effort, and I fw that.

Mach and Roc have consistently shown that they have no interest in true allyship (disappointing but it is what it is)

On woods and Elucid being "a step behind," do you just mean they aren't as outward proponents of feminism as the others mentioned? Aside from the rare questionable line from woods, I don't really see them as showing any traces of that "oldhead homophobia"

That’s exactly what I mean. True allyship is outward and active. In that respect, they don’t compare to guys like Mavi and Earl. It’s also a process, and I can see them getting better at it

4th spin on the new DJ Blackpower while filling bookshelves in my new room I'm already loudly singing along to U KNOW

Is that the Slauson joint? Anyway, I’ve had the mix on repeat too. Props to you and @marcusg for mentioning it, otherwise I’d be sleep. That’s why this thread is one of my fav websites period lol

I mean tbf Earl got the "it's not a black woman I can't thank" line and Navy got the "black beans over rice don't compare to a black woman plight" line, which is a lot. And of course they are key players in nurturing and contributing to a scene which includes some of the most "radically" feminist and in other ways politically pogressive ppl in US hip-hop rn.

But I dunno, otherwise, lyrically, I can't recall too many active stuff, and in contrast I kinda got a hunch from some lyrics that they're not quite in a completely progressive mindstate yet, though I can't quote anything off top rn. Na'kel who's rly close to both (used to room with Earl, just like Navy) got some straight up sus lines when it comes to women, I kinda blamed it on overall skate culture just being (maybe even unknowingly) kinda misogynist

Can't really comment on woods yet because I haven't studied his lyrics enough so far

s/o @marcusg !

and it's the one after the Slauson joint, called U know lol

Don’t forget Mavi’s “And I offer free smoke to any nigga behind a #MeToo. Cause to my niggas: we ain’t free until she free too. And tell my sisters we ain’t free until they free too”

Oh, that’s the one with MIKE crooning. Yeah, he killed that

Yeah for sure, that's an important verse I was just talking specifically about Navy and Earl :)

Legit one of the most beautiful things he's done to me already tbh, soul music

highly recommend this recent EP by Keiyaa's partner to everyone enjoying the new blackpower, similar dance vibes

rateyourmusic.com/release/ep/bstfrnd/proof-of-pace

This is fresh. I won’t lie, when I heard MIKE say “bstfrnd” at the end of KeiyaA’s album, I thought he was calling her his best friend as some of my homegirls say “best friend!” when they see me

This isn’t the Backwoodz thread, but I’ll say this here anyway. The fact that Armand Hammer sampled Frank Ocean (a queer male) on the last track on Paraffin, and how woods made an entire album with Moor Mother (a queer woman), that alone says enough about their progressivism to earn my gay ass support.

I would like to see them be a bit more sensitive (“slap yo b**** open-handed” “I think queer but I don’t suck d***” - Elucid on Osage) (“social worker said, ‘close your eyes, tell me where you see yourself in five, then write it down, come on guys, it's just a thought exercise’
she walked down the road, she had thick thighs
big hips, ass kinda flat, but that's fine” - woods on Hiding Places), but I think they’ll do better in the future

i wouldn’t hold my breath for ELUCID...

I feel you, and agree that being helpful is being active, although I think it should be said that in the larger context of rap––and I know how this sounds––woods and Elucid are hardly guilty of

Also I feel like we have to adjust our standards as listeners, in the sense that these artists don't owe us any certain values that we impose on them, no matter how pressing. For us to wait here expecting artists to just recalibrate to these ideal standards seems somewhat futile to me

But yes, I'd love if they became more overtly feminist

No doubt––Earl and Navy (and Mavi) are def occasionally outright about their feminism (which I anticipate will become more commonplace in the genre in time). Earl has thankfully come a VERY long way lmao

As far as woods and E, @justynbass pointed out a few kinda jarring lines, although I think they're hardly misogynist on the whole

Yeah the Backwoodz camp no doubt has a lot of really favorable modern values. That's why I don't really sweat these occasional insensitive lines––what they're doing by collabing/giving light/opportunities to female + queer artists (did not previously know that about Moor Mother) significantly outweighs those moments.

This is all to say I fully agree with what you've been saying bro

What an eventful page

Blessings to everyone in this thread. Y’all some real ones 👍

To me this is not at all about labelling anyone a straight misogynist anyway, not even with Mach (where you can make a good case) I think that's entirely productive. I mean first off the language we speak and the systems which run society, - culture - all of that is subtly misogynist and queerphobic, and this is particularly true for rap and skating culture. This means that even women can be misogynist, gays homophobic, etc, no one is completely exempt in this society.

So it's more about seeing in how far they manage to break out of systematically toxic thinking and to appreciate that. And we should stress it as not being a stationary, essentialst quality of a person, but something they can work on and develop more or less.

I mean Earl is probably the best possible example for this, he made a name of himself through rape jokes and talking about how his d*** is having guts for lunch (tho ngl that one is still a bit funny to me :shrek:) and now he established this scene

Interesting reading this thread I only have a look incase that navy blue kid drops anything because he's nice with it, most of these other dudes are weak though.

But into the topic ya'll discussing. And I ain't about to get onto no real deep discussion or nothing but ya'll need to really hear this. The culture where this s*** comes from, where hip-hop is from, where my culture been, is conservative. Straight up conservative values. I was raised to be anti-gay, same goes for damn near everyone I know.

Now look as I got older I realize I don't really care about nobody lifestyle, let them do them. But this idea that hip-hop is all part of some progressive left-wing liberal movement is back to my points about fetishizing the culture to fit ya'll ideology.

I seen plenty white folks trying to hijack the black lives matter protests on some "what about trans lives, gay lives" etc but ya'll need to know culturally we ain't with that, we ain't with none of that. Culturally we are anti-gay, we don't liberate females like we should, we are sometimes racist. I'm not saying that it's right or wrong and I'm not saying it's not a shift and that it ain't changing. Most peoples wouldn't recognize it, I didn't either until I was exposed to some different views that most of my peoples ain't have.

For the record my views have definitely evolved too so props to anybody showing a greater tolerance but if a rapper runs through songs using specific words or language then understand this is probably because within the culture this s*** is still normal.