Found the van I want if I ever get to play.

As a professional runner I would prefer one of the U-haul vans in the clip.

.... I want the shopping basket/carriage. Yes, the one with the undercarriage lighting, the oversized tires, and the active hydraulic suspension. ROFL. Stuff like that, is why we NEED from-scratch drone/vehicle design rules ...!!

Awesome song btw

Also, somewhat SR-related.

Perfect for when you're looting the Metroplex Guard Armory! Another reason I posted it here.

Second that emotion!

So... The van's okay, but a bunch of rich white guys psuedo-rapping about being broke seems ridiculous.

... but it's not ridiculous when rich BLACK guys rap about it?

Pffft.

Yes, because we've never known white people to be broke, right? Or rappers?Broke is the new Black, as one of the signs in the video pointed out.

Actually it's more the standard for poor black dudes to rap about how rich and successful they are...

The very idea of a 'music industry' makes me sad.
It's all just marketing.

"My message is a product. Even my name is a product."
"You want another song about bums? I can do that. Will this one go double platinum too?"

Not a big fan of Everlasts, but he did pretty much make his riches by clawing himself out of one of the worse parts of Brooklyn with his rhymes. He's Irish, which in the area and social ideas of the times was much like being black. House of Pain is legit to me, though this Whitey Ford nonsense is pretty much blues without the good bits

The Medium is the Message, actually.

The sarcasm wasn't necessary, nor was the strawman. The video linked is a rich white guy rapping about being poor. Is your sarcasm pointed towards his race? gender? vehicle of lyric? Fine. The video linked is a rich person singing about being poor. It's still goofy. I didn't mean to piss on your cornflakes by pointing that out. Being poor blows. Having a rich person tell me about the woes of being such comes across as condescending and idiotic, no matter how he grew up.

Given his past, he's a rich person who KNOWS what being poor is about - from first-hand experience.

Also, you'll almost never hear POOR people singing about being poor - not on the radio, nor on any video channel, nor in any music store. Because by the time you hear someone in any of those, they're not poor anymore.

Also, I want you to think about this carefully - because it's the very question that prompted MY incredulous response: you brought up the guy's race. You said "rich white guy", not merely "rich guy".

Why is that, exactly?

Easy with the bold, killer.

PC nonsense aside, Rap is a black medium. Alternatively, if Jay-Z did an Irish Jig about how much it sucks to be poor, I'd find it equally goofy. Does that clarify things for you?

I would say that is a pretty limiting statement much like: white guys can't play basket ball, only gay men can have a sense of fashion, white cop arresting a black professor for B&E is racist.

As with most forms of entertainment, some people with like it and some will not. Personally, I hate stereotypes and having been very poor when I was young, I have no problem with the medium or presentation.

I would find it goofy because I don't think he has the talent to pull it off... but to make a blanket statement that a person can't pull off an Irish jig about being poor because of their skin color... No. I wouldn't say that.

It's easy to confuse race and culture, and I personally believe it's wrong to suggest that there isn't an African-American culture. I'm not suggesting that's your position, merely that skin color is an easier and often valid method to ascertain one's culture. Rap is a product of black culture, and I personally find it goofy to see a cultural vehicle used to make money, by an outsider of that culture, especially when the vehicle being used is singing about how bad it is to be poor.

No. Rap is an inner-city medium. And there are *gasp* white people in the inner cities. Poor ones, even!


No, it doesn't. Jay-Z is a specific person, with a specific history and background ... which does not include"Irish".

Would you have a problem with a black man you didn't already know, who grew up in/around Dublin, performing a folk ballad about being poor, with a thick Irish brogue?

Needless sarcasm removed; you're wrong.






Color me shocked! (Puns!) Are you suggesting race isn't the same thing as culture?!

Honestly though, if you're going to go down a militantly politically correct path, just let me know so I can stop wasting my time.

Just like The Blues was.

Now, I seem to recall where Rock and Roll came from... Where was that again?

Oh, right, white people wanting to sing The Blues.

Sorry Almost Normal, but you're feeding me way too many lines I can't ignore for sarcasm.

As for Jay-Z doing an Irish Jig about being poor... Only if he was doing it in an Irish Bar. (Hell, the patrons might join in with him! The Irish know about poor as well. Starved out of their own country and all.).

And you, sir, are a closet racist and an ass.

Good-bye.

We're going to get ModHammered so bad for this...

I can put on a fat sombrero and wrap a mexican blanket around my shoulders. Doesn't make me a part of the Mexican culture, and I'd look damn goofy. Am I allowed to wear such things? Of course. It doesn't make me a part of that culture though, and again, I'll look damn goofy.

If you don't find it goofy? Good for you. I do though, and my personal taste prevents me from doing it.

I would counter that it is part of the American Urban Culture so as not to dismiss the contributions by Beastie Boys, Eminem and others. It is easy to misapply a label based upon race when a significant percentage of the group are of a specific race, but that is still stereotyping. _Pax_ made a very valid observation in regards to once you hear someone singing about being poor, they usually aren't anymore.

In any case, this conversation has steered way outside of relevance to Shadowrun and should either return to such or one of my peers will come along and lock this thread.

So Rock and Roll is damned goofy? News to me.

Smart-ass. You know what I meant.

Smart ass? Me?

You're just figuring this out now?

Oh no! I've known for a LONG, LONG time... I'm still trying to decide if gaming with you at Gen Con will be a Pink Mohawk adventure or a ride through a psychedelic nightmare!!

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Yes.

This conversation has failed to evolve.