A popular rap song from Ben Shapiro expressed “white male grievance” and “racist” and “sexist” views, according to a “hip hop” professor...
Associate Professor of Hip Hop A.D. Carson applied his expertise to the song “Facts,” by Shapiro and Canadian rapper Tom MacDonald.
“Given today’s bitter partisan divide and extremist culture wars, it comes as no surprise that Shapiro’s track quickly found a devoted following,” Carson wrote recently in The Conversation.
“But his racist, anti-rap rap lyrics ultimately repeat the same tired charges right-wing politicians have used against hip-hop since its birth over 50 years ago.”
The University of Virginia scholar, whose doctoral thesis was a rap album, compared the “blatant racism” in the song to other music, like Jason Aldean’s anti-riot song “Try That in a Small Town.” That country song contained “coded” racial language, according to several professors.
He wrote further:
By performing over a popular-sounding trap-style beat, Shapiro and MacDonald might lead listeners to overlook their heavy reliance on Black vernacular speech, which toes the line between minstrelsy and abject cultural appropriation.
Because it’s delivered in the form of a conventional rap song, a listener might even be convinced that the racism and sexism the artists are performing are expectations, and Shapiro and McDonald are just doing what all rappers do.
“I would love to believe that racist, sexist, white male grievance rap isn’t where the zeitgeist is in America,” Carson wrote. “But Ben Shapiro and his conservative followers are betting that it is – at least for a brief moment.”
The song topped the Billboard list as a number one single. The pair’s rap plays off Shapiro’s famous line that “Facts don’t care about your feelings,” and focuses on how this song won’t be promoting sexual immorality, guns, or drugs.
It has 16 million views as of this writing.
MacDonald rapped:
This ain’t rap, this ain’t money, cars, and clothes
We ain’t sellin’ drugs, we ain’t gonna overdose
We ain’t pushing guns, ain’t promoting stripper poles
We won’t turn your sons into thugs or your daughters into hoes
“I hope I offend you.”
