The Kreayshawn Hype Machine

Kreayshawn Photo: FADER

If you didn’t kill yourself after Rebecca Black’s “Friday” took over YouTube and gave The Internets a free pass (just this once!) no doubt you’ve heard Kreayshawn’s “Gucci Gucci” — Or at least, the controversy surrounding everyone’s newest “favorite white [girl] rapper we love to hate.“

One side of the fence believes the hype, with cred among the guys from Odd Future, a string of music video directing credits, a recording session with Snoop Dogg, Oakland roots and a playful take on the rap game. Even NPR knows who she is. The other side of the fence is crammed full of haters throwing the race card, calling her a cartoonish parody of rap music, over-intellectualizing and under-appreciating. OK she’s no Guru, but give it a break.

This kind of discussion is fascinating from several stances. Being friends with Kreayshawn’s mom on Facebook (through mutual East Bay friends and her tenure in the punk/surf band The Trashwomen), I hadn’t even realized just how big this controversy got until the articles and comments went from supportive and excited to jaded, elitist and downright cruel. It’s even more fascinating to see how people shift from music and talent debates, to handle the race discussion in today’s world. If we are to believe The Internets, Kreay somehow became the “Based Goddess” and Satan practically overnight.

Pretty much every article you read on her is going to start out with “white girl rapper from Oakland.” So you know this much about her. She has since moved to LA, but to people questioning her “authenticity” like she’s any other over-privileged hipster who dropped out of school and still lives off a trust fund: it’s not exactly like this girl grew up in Rockridge and just wrote a song about being from the Avenues, West O, etc. That kind of made up personal history is incredibly common in commercial rap music, and even more so in lo-fi and urban art arenas. People will gently debate the “street cred” of many hip hop artists, but passing any judgement on it is beyond taboo because some of them became icons. The “inflated hustler image” should be accessible to anyone who wants to, well, inflate it. Go ahead! Would Kreayshawn selling crack make her more legit?

Did she make a mistake by throwing out “N-bombs” in the past? Yes. Perhaps indefensibly so. Shit comes back to haunt you, and once it’s on The Internets, it will never, ever die. [Ed Note: If you're ever in doubt about that, check any twitter aggregation RSS feed (even after you think you've deleted a tweet), or a trip to the Wayback Machine should fix you right up.] One of the many write-ups on her so far pointed out the sad fact that the N-word & racial discussion will never be obsolete. Socially this may be true for years to come, but you’d think the multicultural artistic arena would be able to detach and discuss that shit without being a necessary supporter of it.

She has been criticized for making a parody of Hip Hop and hip hop culture; while her image and persona may be a bit cartoonish, it seems just as absurd to assume her representation of a culture she is immersed in is any less authentic or genuine. Further, if she were merely a parody of the culture and music, does that mean artists such as Snoop are merely patronizing her? Or is he in on the joke? Are these critics ballsy enough to be calling him, along with P-Diddy and Columbia Records, assholes? People seem incredibly possessive of talent — or if the talent is debatable, then at least, success — that is not theirs to trumpet or regulate.

Timmhotep Aku makes the assertion that “White America likes to see white people rap, even if they’re bad at it. It’s part of a misguided notion that white people doing “black things” are complex and therefore noteworthy” (The Kreayshawn Myth). Picture the uproar if someone started talking about “White things.” Even throwing down the reverse-race card is boring — I’m not here to police or discredit something that is still very real. The line is so incredibly precarious even to this day that there will always be tension around it, but NYMag’s Nitsuh Abebe made an interesting cultural assessment of the Bay Area — and indirectly, the boo-hiss clamor around particular members of Kreay’s “White Girl Mob” — when he put it this way: “You nearly get the sense that folks from Oakland view the rest of the country’s racial sensitivities the way Europeans view Americans’ attitudes toward sexuality.”

While that doesn’t excuse anyone acting ignorantly or disrespectfully, I’d say it is reasonably accurate. Nevertheless it is just sad that it has to be about “that.” I have mixed  feelings on Aku’s article linked above, but if you want to read a well-written though incredibly polar boner killer, check the link. If you’re still lost as to what is being over-intellectualized, well, here’s the video in question:

“It’s interesting to what depth they were willing to intellectualize it. They paint [an] odd picture. You can live in the same neighborhoods and exist in the same financial circumstances, etc. and yet, the fact that you happen to be Euro-descended, that somehow means that you have more “power” and that it’s “easier” for you. They really didn’t flip the script and talk about how hard it is for a legitimate artist to be taken seriously in hip-hop because your skin color automatically makes you less “authentic.” [Critics] even go so far as to imply that [Kreayshawn] couldn’t be possibly speaking from her own experience or perspective, but that she’s simply “mimicking” behaviors and mannerisms of another group, to which she cannot possibly belong, solely based on her skin color,” noted Lincoln Smith, a friend of her mother’s, during one of our many Facebook discussions of Kreay’s latest press.

All this over a song that drops Arby’s, Adderall, shitting in litter boxes, and Google maps into a catchy as hell three-minute bumper.

If you happen to be on the side of the fence that is actually stoked for her, good news: she’s blowing up. My boys the Rock-It Scientists, also from the East Bay, just dropped a hot remix of the Gucci Gucci track, too. Her next gig happens to be directing the “The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie” video for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Just sayin’.