Surprise surprise, the Lord Mayor of Sydney Clover Moore has branded the cities’ lockout laws as “terrible.” When your own mayor is branding the lockout situation like this, you know you’ve got a problem. With foot traffic down by a whopping 84 per cent and the demise of more than 40 nightlife venues, it’s no surprise that the Mayor is calling for a revision to the arcane laws.
The City of Sydney is suggesting a different strategy to that of the blanket lockout laws currently in place, which prohibit entry into a club after 1:30am and the sale of alcohol in said venues after 3:00am. Instead, the council is taking a middle-of-the-road approach, arguing that “safe” venues falling within Sydney’s lockout zones should be exempt from the normal restrictions.
Moore believes this approach would strike a balance between safety and keep the nightlife economy going.
“We want a civilised, safe late-night economy with different options for people of all ages to go out and enjoy themselves after dark, without the blood-soaked, drunken punch-ups on the street,” said Lord Mayor Moore.
The public condemnation comes at a time when there is mounting pressure on the government to revise their laws after seemingly implausible exemptions have been to made to both Star City casino and James Packer’s new casino currently under construction in Barangaroo, as well as a number of other Sydney venues too.
Describing the lockout laws as a “sledgehammer”, Moore is arguing what every sane, rational human being in Sydney believes: a moderate strategy in place which focuses on harm minimisation instead of punitive measures which target the population in its entirety for the actions of a few.
Coward punch victims, musicians and entrepreneurs have all called for an end to the measures which were put into place in 2014 after the deaths of two coward punch victims in Kings Cross, the epicentre of the lockout war.
A submission made by the City of Sydney to the independent review of the laws will propose 31 new recommendations as a last attempt resort at resuscitating Sydney’s flagging nightlife. Under the proposed changes, special consideration would be taken into account based on the venue’s history of safety. If the venue is compliant with liquor and safety laws, then they should, theoretically, be allowed to continue to serve alcohol after 3am as no danger is posed.
Conversely, venues who continue to violate RSA requirements will have their liquor licences revoked or they will not be renewed.
Additionally, the Council wants live music venues and well-managed bars, clubs and pubs to be exempt, which is a great idea considering that these places not only add to the culture of Sydney, but form a significant source of employment and revenue for the entire inner-city area of Sydney.
This is something Moore is incredibly aware of: “It has had negative impacts on businesses, including live music venues, small bars and restaurants, and many people have lost their jobs. It’s a significant sector – in 2013, late-night activities were valued at over $17.8 billion and employed more than 30,000 people.”
Matt Barrie, the entrepreneur who wrote the damning essay, Would The Last Person In Sydney Please Turn The Lights Out?, whose words reverberated around the internet in resounding agreeance, has submitted another 70-page essay, this time, titled The Death of Sydney’s Nightlife and Economic Collapse of its Night Time Economy, claiming manipulated data and the political agenda behind the laws.
However, the proposed measures are not without their critics, with emergency workers labelling the laws as ‘irresponsible’, which is understandable considering that the paramedics and police have to pick up the pieces when things go wrong.
Scott Weber, who is the spokesman for Last Drinks, a coalition representing emergency workers, thinks that any changes to the law are putting this group lives in the firing line. “It beggars belief that our elected officials would be so willing to disregard the evidence that shows the current laws are saving lives.”
“Winding back the current alcohol-related violence laws would be a disaster and would undoubtedly put lives at risk.”
Last Drinks puts forward the old argument of the “huge decrease” in violence and assaults in the CBD since the introduction of these laws, which is by now a very defunct argument considering that there is less violence simply because there are fewer people in these areas to cause such disturbances. Lies, damn lies and statistics on behalf of the Baird government, a Fairfax investigation found.
Instead, violence is pushed into the satellite suburbs surrounding the CBD, such as Newtown. This resulted in transgender Sydney musician Stephanie MacCarthy being viciously assaulted by five men.
Even though the absurd lockout laws have met nearly universal resistance and condemnation in Sydney, they have since been introduced Queensland. They were introduced, despite us knowing that they do more harm than good.
Lockout laws suck, guys. Even with the best of intentions, they are having a negative impact on some of the most salient aspects of contemporary Australian culture, like live music.
When the Lord Mayor of Sydney’s cultural and economic centre says something is wrong, it’s time to listen.
“Well-managed late-trading premises are essential to our city’s cultural life and economic growth – and people need to feel safe, no one wants to wake up to blood and urine on their doorstep,” said Moore.
“We need to get both right.”
We couldn’t agree Moore.
Image: Daily Telegraph
Harvard, one of America’s most elite Ivy League universities, now has another cause to greatness: the institution recently played host to a talk by none other than rapper Pusha T.
The president of G.O.O.D Music gave a lecture to Harvard students at Harvard Yard & Yenching Library, where he discussed some of the most seminal moments of his illustrious 20-year career, as well as the dispersal power that large musical platforms mean for artists. Push also brought up the socio-political impact his music has had and his success as an African-American artist.
During question time, he was quizzed about his new role as president of G.O.O.D Music. He answered with, “I feel like it’s my job and my duty as well to help uplift the new creatives coming in.”
The lecture was followed by a 45-minute Q&A session where the audience members picked his brains on topics including the glorification of the drug dealer lifestyle as well as his views on contemporary rap.
Even one of the professors at Harvard managed to slip in a sneaky Pusha T reference, drawing laughs from the audience, saying, “I philosophise about glocks and keys / N*ggas call me young black Socrates,” from his song Momma I’m So Sorry.
The Harvard Business School appearance comes in the middle of Pusha’s Darkest Before Dawn World Tour, which visited Australia in January.
There’s a strong, growing relationship between hip-hop and universities, and we’ve seen a massive surge of rappers talking directly with students over the past year: Killer Mike spoke about race relations at MIT last year, while more recently, Joey Badass gave a lecture at New York University during Black History Month, and Stormzy spoke to Oxford University in March. Furthermore, Chance The Rapper spoke about police brutality, streaming and Kanye West at Harvard back in May last year, and J. Cole made an appearance as far back as 2013 as a part of a conversation named “The Next Move: A Conversation with J. Cole.”
Read our review of Darkest Before Dawn here.
Source: hotnewhiphop.com
It was only last week that Big Grams released an a very bizarre animated video for Born To Shine/Run For Your Life, the animation courtesy of Adult Swim, the network that brought you such twisted hits as Robot Chicken and Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Now, the collaborative project from Phantogram and Big Boi are back at it with the live action accompaniment to Drum Machine, off their incredible self-titled debut album, released last year.
The video, directed by Outkast video co-colloborater Bryan Barber, begins with an anime inspired opening sequence, before cutting to a scene with a bunch of rambling hobos and trolleys. A furry costumed wolf (‘Red Wolf’) emerges from a broken down car and proceeds to go cause havoc in what looks like downtown LA and Hollywood.
Frolicking among other street performers, the wolf attempts to grope women before ‘Dabs’ the squirrel appears to suck down some smoke from a vaporiser. Then some weird thing called ‘Purp’ proceeds to steal the car of a man entering a club. While Red Wolf is unsuccessful in gaining entry into a club, Purp has no such trouble.
The eureka moment comes when all the animals remove there masks and turn out to be Phantogram’s Sarah Barthel, Josh Carter, and Big Boi. Then the video again cuts to big, colourful cartoon letters saying ‘Next week on Big Grams’, showing a bunch of lazy and inept cops eating donuts and generally doing nothing. A sneaky little reference about Skrillex comes when the two cops start to beat up ‘Sonny Panda,’ referencing his real name, Sonny.
The video gives an interesting glimpse into the gritty streetlight of LA and its clubs, as well the maltreatment of misbehaving furry animals.
Image: vevo.com
Bubbles. Nary a person alive doesn’t enjoy their soapy, spherical presence and bright, rainbow sheen. Except perhaps, for one Noel Gallagher. Apparently the British musician was not impressed by an audience member blowing them in the front row of his concert in Melbourne on Tuesday.
Gallagher literally stopped his show at the Margaret Court Arena to chastise the fan, who had reportedly brought a bubble machine in. The logistics of smuggling a bubble machine into a gig aside, Gallagher was not impressed.
“Hey El Houdini,” said Gallagher according to The Independent. “Someone actually brought a fucking bubble machine to a gig. You’re a magician? Why don’t you make the fucking bubbles disappear then? Did you pay to get in? Or did you magic yourself through the fucking door? If you bought a ticket you’re a shit magician.”
At the conclusion of his performance, Gallagher managed to slip in one last warning: “If they mention in the fucking review of this gig that I had a shit bubble machine on stage you’re in fucking big trouble.”
Obviously trying to perform some of your greatest hits while translucent floating orbs block your vision must be pretty distracting, but still, it’s not as if the audience members were throwing bottles of urine.
The bubblegate episode clearly did not escape some reviewer’s pieces, because Cameron Adams from news.com.au started off his review with “Sorry Noel”. Classy.
Playing a selection of his High Flying Birds catalogue, as well as some of his most revered Oasis hits, the bubbles didn’t seem to detract from the overall enjoyability of the concert. You can breathe easy now Noel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuubqoEb4jE
Gallagher’s been having a bit of an interesting time throughout his NZ/Australian tour. His equipment was delayed on a flight over from South America and he didn’t seem to happy to be touching down in Adelaide either, wearing his characteristically morose expression as he sauntered through the airport to his next commitment.
The Project also failed to bleep out Gallagher after he swore during an interview, saying “chock-a-block with the fucking things” when asked about dealing with record labels and awards. In fairness to Gallagher, it was a pre-recorded interview which clearly wasn’t scrutinised closely enough by the editorial team.
Image: news.com.au
Redfoo, a.k.a Stefan Gordy, the man who brought you such hits as Sorry for Party Rocking and I’m Sexy And I Know it (questionable) won’t be in the mood for much party rocking after the latest numbers roll in on his new album.
The album is named Party Rock Mansion, and it has sold 144 copies in Australia. Despite his short-lived status in Australia during his tenure as a judge on X Factor, it seems us Aussies just can’t get around the budgie-smuggling wearing fiend and his new musical offering.
The dismal sales numbers mean that Party Rock Mansion entered the ARIA charts at 172. This is doubly disappointing for Redfoo, who once counted Australia as one of his most successful conquests after Let’s Get Ridiculous hit No. 1 in 2013, the only country to do so… Probably (hopefully) only because it was filmed in Manly.
New Thang also managed to make it No. 3 in Australia back in 2014, as well as Juicy Wiggle, which didn’t go down well considering that in Melbourne ‘juicy’ is the term used to describe someone rendered incapacitated by GHB.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWyuglGCKgE
This isn’t the first time Australians have expressed their disapproval of Redfoo. The former member of LMFAO was glassed at the Golden Sheaf in Paddington back in 2014. The assailant even had the audacity to wink and blow a kiss at Redfoo afterwards. Luckily, Redfoo only sustained minor cuts to his forehead.
Undoubtedly, Redfoo’s ego has taken an even greater bruising than the glassing incident could have ever inflicted on him in the wake of his low Australian sales numbers. But the abysmal performance of Party Rock Mansion is not really surprising when you take a look at the track-listing of the album, which includes songs called Good Things Happen When Ya Drunk and Booty Man.
Apart from producing music that is the auditory equivalent of sonic diarrhoea, Redfoo has been in hot water before for featuring in such classic hits like Literally I Can’t, by Play N Skillz, a song lambasted for its misogynistic lyrics for telling college sorority girls to “shut the fuck up” after they repeat the phrase “literally I can’t” when pressured to drink, dance and make out with each other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NCHE1sGy80
All of this controversy surrounding Foo and his questionable musical choices eventually lead to his ejection from the X Factor Judging panel. Which begs the question: Why was Redfoo ever a judge on a musical talent show?
If you’re having trouble comprehending why this is such an issue, take a look at our list of the worst things that Redfoo has his name on.
Image: Youtube
Kanye West is the kinda man who inspires artwork. Namely, a mural of him kissing himself painted on a wall in Teggs Lane of Chippendale, Sydney; something which would no doubt elicit slightly confused feelings from the rapper.
Called “Kanye Loves Kanye”, the painting depicts an amorous display of passionate kissing between the two Kanyes, with the taller one groping the bum of the shorter Kanye lasciviously, inspired by an actual photo of him and wife Kim Kardashian that was circulating the web a while ago.
Despite the widespread viral popularity of the mural, Australian artist Scott Marsh has apparently been asked by someone on Yeezy’s management team to remove the mural.
Speaking to ABC’s 702, Marsh said that one of Kanye’s reps had reached out and offered him a “pretty decent chunk of money” to paint over the provocative mural.
Spot the difference – Image: ABC
Marsh responded in the most Kanye fashion possible – by asking for six-figure payment for a print of the painting and a lifetime supply of Yeezy Boost sneakers.
“I’m offering an oversized print which has been painted over for $US100,000,” Scott Marsh told the radio station.
“It’s an open invitation to Kanye. If he buys that print then I’ll paint over the mural…Me, personally, I love graffiti, I love it all. The thing I like about it is that it’s unsanctioned. It’s probably one of the last pieces of free media and I think that’s the whole point of it. Whether you like it or not, it’s art. So some people like it, some people don’t. It’s all open to interpretation.”
Marsh even had the gall to the goad Kanye over social media, posting a video to Instagram of someone painting over a print of the mural. He has given West just two weeks to buy a print from online art store 1XRun.
Despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of the mural, Marsh claims he’s all for West. “I’m actually a huge fan of Kanye, I reckon he’s awesome – he’s a character, he’s super-talented,” Marsh told the Guardian Australia. “You’ve got to have that – I guess it’s arrogance – but you’ve got to have it if you’re going to be successful on that kind of level. You’ve got to back yourself.”
While the mural depicting the Kanye-on-Kanye romance has supplanted the picture of Kardashian smooching West, she lives on in a piece of artwork herself. Just a stone’s throw away is another mural painted by Melbourne based street artist lushsux. This painting depicts Kim Kardashian naked, based off a photo the reality TV star released last month.
Standing two stories high, the mural covers the side of Zigi’s Art, Wine and Cheese, and has already earned the ire of local authroties. The City of Sydney has told the bar owner Zigi Ozeri he has 14 days to remove to the mural, or else. A neighbour who isn’t a massive fan of the artwork submitted a complaint, meaning that Ozeri could face a $3000 fine for failure to submit a necessary development application. Funnily enough, ‘Kanye loves Kanye’ has received no such complaints yet.
Artist lushsux, real name Mark Walls, also painted another mural of Kardashian, this one down in Melbourne, depicting her infamous nude Instagram selfie, which spiked a massive dialogue around the world about slut-shaming and a woman right the free sexual expression.
A photo posted by lushsux (@lushsux) on Mar 12, 2016 at 1:49am PST
Naturally, the mural was quickly defaced with words like “slut” and “whore”. Despite the tasteless act, the painting has since gone to gain the approval of Kardashian, endorsing it on her website. Even the local council has gotten around it.
Melbourne seems to be a little more appreciative of street art than the bureaucratic quagmire that is Sydney City Council. According to a council spokeswoman, murals need to gain “development consent” and require “consultation with neighbours”, before they can go up. Takes a little bit of spontaneity out of it, if you ask me…
Image: Music Feeds
Tidal, the much-maligned music streaming service, is in hot water once again. Just one-year since its inception, rapper and music mogul Jay Z has accused previous owners, Norwegian media company Schibsted ASA, of inflating the amount of subscribers it had when Jay Z and other investors purchased it.
Bought for the price of a cool $56 million, it seems like the mogul is looking to recoup some of his losses as Tidal is still less popular than Spotify and Apple Music.
“It became clear after taking control of Tidal and conducting our own audit that the total number of subscribers was actually well below the 540,000 reported to us by the prior owners,” Tidal told Bloomberg in a press release. “As a result, we have now served legal notice to parties involved in the sale.”
Anders Rikter, a spokesman for Schibsted, responded with, “We disagree with the accusations in the letter and any potential claims. We would like to point out that the company was listed on the stock exchange with everything that entails regarding transparent financial reporting.”
Schibsted claims that Jay Z’s holding company S. Carter Enterprises LLC had already inspected the company before deciding on its acquisition, which happened in January 2015.
These accusations come in the wake of a very few shaky first months for the celebrity venture. The company has had three different CEOs thus far, as well as accidentally leaking Rihanna’s new album ANTi, AND releasing some pretty impressive statistics about the performance of Kanye West’s new album The Life Of Pablo, which seems a little dubious in our opinion. It’s even been rumoured that Jay-Z has been shopping to the maligned streaming service around to potential buyers.
Despite boasting a hi-fidelity catalogue of music, including some exclusive content, Tidal still can’t seem to keep up with the big guns of the streaming industry. It’s ‘owners’ (introduced at a highly publicised launch party) include Alicia Keys, Win Butler & Régine Chassagne, Beyoncé, Calvin Harris, Chris Martin, Daft Punk, Jack White, Jason Aldean, J. Cole, Kanye West, Deadmau5, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna and Usher.
The hope that its celebrity endorsement, exclusive content and hi-fi music would create an attractive niche in a frankly saturated music streaming environment has fallen flat. The $19.99-a-month fee seems a little hard to justify when Spotify is offering an even larger library of music for just $11.99-a-month. As of this week, Tidal has surpassed the three-million-member mark, however, that also pales in comparison to Spotify’s 30-million subscribers and Apple’s 11-million mark.
Additionally, Tidal was hit with a $5 million lawsuit by Yesh Music Publishing and John Emanuel of American Dollar, alleging that Tidal had infringed on their copyright as well as owing them unpaid royalties. However, Tidal rebuked the claims, saying they had indeed paid in full all of the applicable royalties to Yesh Music.
Despite the recent spat of strife for the company, there is a bit of good news for first-time subscribers of the streaming service. Tidal has now decided to extend the free trial period thanks to none other than Yeezy himself, which makes sense considering that the rapper’s exclusive release of TLOP onto the platform has ended up doubling Tidal’s fan base.
Furthermore as of today, TLOP will be available across all streaming platforms, including Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play and Rhapsody. It will be interesting to not only see the stats of TLOP now that it’s available world wide, but also where Tidal will go from here. Things do not look good.
Image: thesource.com
Once upon a time, the only glowing objects held to the sky at a concert were lighters. These days the airspace at any given performance is clogged with glowing the LED of a thousand mobile phones. We’re so desperate to record and inform others of our musical extracurricular activities that we miss the very point of why we’re even at these venues in the first place: the live experience.
Given the ubiquity of mobile devices, apps and social media, we are constantly competing for attention – as are Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and so on. You’d think that if you fork out $25 – $150 dollars for a ticket, you’d want to enjoy the experience, as opposed to watching it on a screen at home. But for many, we seem to be more focused on capturing the moment instead of living it.
Of course, nobody is wholly innocent. I too, have been a culprit of the film-or-forget mentality. After some concerts, my phone’s memory has been stuffed to the brim of shoddily shot footage that is barely audible due to the thousands of screams overloading the phone’s inadequate recording mechanism.
But how many of us actually go back and watch these grainy videos with poor audio? There’s nothing really interesting about shoddy phone footage, when the click of a button can bring you high-def audio and visual components online.
It’s so frustrating to see audiences watching a stage through a tiny screen. What is the point? As bad as it is for us as fellow audience members, I can hardly imagine how annoying it is for the actual artists who spend their time practising and perfecting their craft specifically for these live performances.
A thread currently circulating on Reddit recently details the account of a concert-goer at an Ellie Goulding concert. Apparently Goulding asked everyone to put away their phones for the final song with the promise that if they did, they might be in for an extra song.
However, the plea fell on deaf ears.
“3 seconds into the song the arena lit up like a night sky with phone torches on recording. After the song she commented again. She’d like no phones and people just ignored her,” wrote Ollie Crook.
Crook bemoaned that although people had recorded the concert for the past three hours, they couldn’t even refrain from not filling the last three minutes. He then reposted an Instagram of Goulding’s that her drummer had taken of the sea of lights.
Although the perpetual phone-fiend is just your run-of-the-mill fare at concerts these days, it’s important to remember that this kind of dissociative behaviour has been going on for a while. The Beatles, at the height of their popularity, could barely hear themselves play for all the screaming going on at their concert.
Seriously, it was that loud that they simply could not compete with the volume of their audiences gleeful screams. Even after they acquired powerful 100-watt amplifiers. If you think it’s implausible that a group of people could scream that loud, you have to remember how incredibly popular the Beatles were. When they visited Adelaide in 1964, approximately 300,000 people lined the streets to see them. The population of Australia at that time was just over 11 million.
Eventually, the Beatles grew tired of having to compete with the ecstatic screams of their fans and they stopped touring, concluding that their performances were no longer about the music. Fans were so busy screaming that they forgot what they were even screaming about.
And that brings me to my point. Have we become so obsessed with narrowcasting our entire music spectatorship that we’ve forgotten what the magic of live music is all about? Seriously, a Snapchat disappears after 24 hours. But if you properly engage with what’s happening in front of you, that memory lasts a lifetime.
Think about the instances where you can’t actually access your phone, like at a music festival. Now I turn my phone off as soon as I enter the festival site because let’s face it, it’s going to die anyway, and there’s hardly ever decent reception. After a few hours, I already start to feel… lighter. As if this cellular anchor has been cut loose from me and I can actually just live in the moment. Does the fact that I can’t document the event with my own audiovisual output mean I wasn’t there, or I had a worse time, or that I wasn’t as invested or passionate about the artist? No. Not even close.
As well as limiting your own live music experience, it’s disrespectful to the artists and everyone around you. How many times has an errant arm desperately trying to capture a phone video 9that is realistically just bobbing heads with some noise in the background) smacked in you in the side of the head when you were simply just trying to watch the show?
Some musicians have gotten so fed up with the practice that it has prompted them to pre-emptively request that fans refrain from doing so. Case in point was the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who had a very specific request for their audience:
The not-too-subtle request. Image: Spin.com
Maybe it’s time to heed their advice. Instead of spending the entire concert wasting your perfect view of the stage desperately trying to record your favourite song, put your phone down. Seriously, just put it away. Someone else, with better technical expertise has undoubtedly got you covered already. You are wasting your time and your money and your life experiences.
So for next time: please put your fucking phones away.
Image: Rolling Stone
Pop powerhouse Ariana Grande has finally officially released her new single Be Alright, after performing it live during her stint as host/performer on Saturday Night Live. It’s the second single off her highly anticipated new album Dangerous Woman. The singer announced its release on Instagram:
The song starts off his with Grande’s typically honeysuckle-and-dulcet tones caressing our eardrums, before graduating into a more EDM-infused beat – a new and refreshing sound for the firmly pop-orientated artist.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBAHqRnSgRw&w=560&h=315]
The song is now available for purchase on iTunes, along with Dangerous Woman, which is set for release on May 20. Interestingly enough though, Focus doesn’t seem to make an appearance on the track listing, despite rocketing to the top of charts everywhere.
In a live Q&A interview back in February, Grande said that the new album was representative of the all the development she had experienced in her life as of late.
“I feel like my personal growth is reflected in the sound. I’m really proud of it… To me, a dangerous woman is someone who’s not afraid to take a stand, be herself and to be honest.”
Image: Billboard
Hip-hop is one of the most prominent genres in the contemporary music world. Its influence is unparalleled and since it’s inception in the 1970s, it has gone from strength to strength as an artistic medium. However, one prominent musician seems to think that hip hop’s influence is rather benign, in fact, that it would eventually go away.
Gene Simmons, otherwise known as the bass guitarist and co-lead singer of Kiss, made some pretty inflammatory comments in an interview with Rolling Stone, entitled “Gene Simmons Skewers Pop Charts, Is ‘Looking Forward to Death of Rap,” in which he, yes, explicitly states, “I am looking forward to the death of rap.”
“I’m looking forward to music coming back to lyrics and melody, instead of just talking. A song, as far as I’m concerned, is by definition lyric and melody … or just melody,” he adds.
Continuing to assert his rather controversial stance on the matter, Simmons adds: ”Rap will die… Next year, 10 years from now, at some point, and then something else will come along. And all that is good and healthy.”
Simmons, ever the expert, revealed to countless disillusioned hip-hop heads out there that rap is “just talking.” He goes onto to say that he doesn’t have the cultural background to appreciate being a ‘gangster’ because rap comes from the streets.
“A song, as far as I’m concerned, is by definition lyric and melody … or just melody,” he says.
Oddly enough EDM seemed to gain a seal approval in Simmons eyes. “EDM is honest. EDM says, ‘Here’s a guy onstage who does fuck-all, he does nothing. He presses a button and puts his hands up in the air. He doesn’t pretend to be lip-syncing to a track.”
Naturally some took offence to these rather reductive comments, namely Talib Kweli. Striking back at Simmons over Twitter, Kweli had a pretty ruthless comeback for Simmons.
Would it be unfair of me to say I’m looking forward to the death @genesimmons or nah? Chuck Berry shits on Kiss. pic.twitter.com/ZNGkeAjaGT
— Talib Kweli Greene (@TalibKweli) March 18, 2016
Simmons had a curt retort prepared for Kweli on Twitter.
Apparently pointing out that everything is cyclical – even music – is “controversial”. People are very easily offended. — Gene Simmons (@genesimmons) March 18, 2016
Me: Rock is dead
people: outrage!
Me: Rap will probably die eventually.
People: outrage!
Me: the sky is blue.
People: sometimes it’s orange!— Gene Simmons (@genesimmons) March 18, 2016
Kweli had good response prepared for Simmons Twitter diatribe, firing back:
Pointing out everything is “cyclical” is different than “looking forward” to things dying. Do better Gene. https://t.co/7OJHZLHPdf
— Talib Kweli Greene (@TalibKweli) March 18, 2016
He finished off by posting a picture with the lyrics of KRS-One’s song Hip Hop Lives
Some KRS One lyrics for @genesimmons
A photo posted by Talib Kweli (@talibkweli) on Mar 18, 2016 at 7:12am PDT
This isn’t the first time Simmons has expressed incredulity about the inclusion of rap into the annals of music greatness.
When asked in a 2014 interview with radio.com about his book Ladies of the Night: A Historical and Personal Perspective on the Oldest Profession in the World, Simmons said that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was “a well meaning organization run by about ten guys,” and “these ten guys, some of them are good guys, some perhaps not, decided that there would be rappers and disco artists inducted.”
“A few people decide what’s in and what’s not. And the masses just scratch their heads,” he continues further on in the interview.
Hey Gene, what about hair metal? You know, that overly-theatrical genre you’re a part of which focuses more on leather pants and makeup than music and lyrics? Reckon that will outlast rap? Oh wait, it’s already dead.
Images: thesource.com