Mac Miller and Bro Rap

It used to be the musical world of bro's was populated mostly by white guys with acoustic guitars sitting at parties and trying to get laid by strumming the same three barre chords while sing-mumble some uninspired love song they totally wrote themselves.

But times are changing.

I first noticed this sometime last year. I was at a party, and there was a guy there with a faux hawk and a backwards baseball cap talking to every girl he saw about how he was a rapper. This struck me as odd, I'd never seen some desperate tool try to pick up chicks with his "dope rhymes" before. But I forgot about it pretty quickly, when the guy actually dropped a few bars, he was awful. I chuckled. Forgot about him.

Then I listened to Mac Miller.

See, I have this friend who likes hip-hop, but his taste is awful. He introduced me to Mr. Miller and, keeping in line with his usual taste, it was awful. I could've forgotten about it, not made a thread here, but then I learned this guy has quite a bit of buzz surrounding him and a pretty sizable fan base. He's being called the "next big thing" for chrissakes.

Why?

This makes Mac the fourth rapper in just a couple years that has been billed the "next big thing" for apparently no reason whatsoever (the previous three being Asher Roth, b.o.b, and Wiz Khalifa in chronological order). His lyrics are bad and his beats are a snore, as are all previous hyped rappers I've mentioned (more or less, more on that later). It seems a new generation of hip-hop is upon us, a movement that I have named "bro-rap", so called due to the genres popularity among college age white males in fraternities.

So why do I name this thread after Mac Miller? Why him in particular?

Because he seems to be the best/worst example of this subgenre. He's the best in the sense that he exemplifies all the genre's most recognizable elements in the most obvious ways, and the worst in the sense that he embodies every negative aspect of the subgenre perfectly. Asher Roth and b.o.b. had some cool beats, Wiz Khalifa supposedly has better, harder earlier stuff (I don't listen to much of him, so I'll take my rapper friend's words for it). But Mac Miller...

If you want to get a good grasp on what Macster sounds like and is all about, just give this a listen...



If you listened to this and thought "what? This is just some unimaginative guy rapping about getting toasted and hanging out!" Yes. Congratulations, you have now discovered the subject matter of every song Mac Miller has ever written. He calls his crew "K.I.D.S.", an acronym that stands for "Kicking Incredibly Dope Shit". macmiller.org is also called Most Dope Fan Site. He went on a tour called "Incredibly Dope Tour". On October 14th he released a mixtape called "I Love Life, Thank You". If all those above facts, combined with the video I showed you doesn't make you want to slap this guy, I don't know what will.

Some people have said I just don't get it, it's just not my style and I'll never get it. Maybe they're right. My drug use isn't exactly a secret, and I usually don't care who knows about it, but at the same time I really don't like songs about getting baked. It's just such a boring topic. It's so common I feel like writing a stoner song is like writing a song called "I Woke Up This Morning and Poured Myself a Bowl of Cornflakes And Then I Ate It". I have never heard a single weed song where the lyrics didn't just consist of "I got high and I enjoy getting high".

Overall, though, I'm ok if you write one, maybe two weed songs. But when your entire career is nothing but vapid, feel-good, chill-out little numbers about smoking weed? So maybe those people are right, I really can't relate to someone whose life has, apparently, been that good that all they can manage to talk about is weed and how cool everything is. It's the same reason I don't like Jimmy Buffet, though I've had people tell me Jimmy Buffets songs are mostly ironic. It all seems to come from such a privileged, one-dimensional place, I feel like the creator is either someone who's A) boring to the point where I would want nothing to do with them, or B) dishonest.

As far as I'm concerned, this is bubblegum music. And I don't care that it talks about drinking and weed, it's still blandly inoffensive crap. This music is Justin Bieber targeted at the college male.

It's so willfully safe that I wouldn't be surprised if it was written in Record Executives studio.

It's sonically inoffensive and understated, and lyrically it's about smoking weed, a subject guaranteed to appeal to that all important teen demographic.

Remember when rap was about real social issues?

Hot Cancer wrote:

It's so willfully safe that I wouldn't be surprised if it was written in Record Executives studio.

I am beginning to suspect most of "stoner culture" is a targeted smear campaign against pot funded by whatever big businesses made it illegal in the first place. You see, some crappy "rapper" gets a bunch of money thrown at him to make him a pop star and sing boring-ass stoner songs on constant loop, then whenever you try to talk to someone seriously about legalising pot they instantly tune you out because they are just fucking sick of hearing about pot already.

Well, it is a theory anyway.

Eh, messageless songs about partying/clubbing/getting drunk or high are pretty much the only shit that's marketable now, so I'm not surprised this happened. This just strikes me as a low-rent version of "Lazy Song," which was pretty boring and stupid in its own right.

EDIT: You know what? Snark time.

0:11 7 AM waking up in the morning- wait, did you just blow your nose in the comforter?

0:16 "KIDS! KIDS jyaaaaah"? Ras Trent?

Quote :

People tend to think all the drinks on me.

Why would they think that?

Quote :

I don't even have the money to spend to buy Patron for you and all your friends.

Ah, so you're a spoiled, rich asshole in college who thinks being out of spare cash for expensive booze in large quantities is a hardship.

Quote :

Get high get high get high get high get hiiiiiIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiigh

This is why, no matter how much I believe marijuana should be legalized, I still want it to stay illegal just to spite stoners.

0:36-1:00 Rambling nonsense devolves into Rebecca Black-esque listing of random shit from his morning routine.

Quote :

What's on the telly girl we won't need the house

1.) I am pretty sure that using Brit slang in a rap song is a capital offense.
2.) What the fuck are you babbling about

Quote :

We escape the world, escape the stress
But I don't give a fuck if the house a mess

Just like Lazy Song, this is about an asshole with no problems in life just kicking back and doing nothing, and he feels the need to tell everyone about it. Like Lazy Song, there is no reason for this song to exist. It's stupid, smug, meaningless pap about doing fuck all because you're a rich douchebag, and you can. Cool story bro.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Remember when rap was about real social issues?

Considering most of us here weren't born until at least the late 80s, and white as hell frozen over... more than likely no.

Necro'd



No more EZ Mac with the cheesy raps and co-production with the likes of Pharrell Williams and Flying Lotus?

I can dig it.