Let's Not Take It Slow

It was like feasting with panthers.
2 weeks ago
102 notes
theatlantic: The Rise of Female Rappers Has Nothing to Do With Gender Female rappers have been around ever since the music’s inception, and over the years many of them proved themselves to be peerless writers and rappers, made deathless records, and contributed immensely to the form and the culture. But mainstream pop success has always been another story. Minaj ‘s cartoonishly exaggerated sexuality, giddy quick-fire rapping, adoption of multiple personas, and penchant for provocative spectacle have pushed pop music to new heights while also being enormously profitable. But before she exploded in 2010, there hadn’t been a charting female rapper since Missy Elliott in the early 2000s. Before Missy, Lauryn Hill had dominated the late ’90s, as Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes of TLC had dominated the mid-’90s, Queen Latifah the early ’90s, and Roxanne Shanté the mid-’80s. Just prior to the ascension of Minaj, Kid Sister and Lil Mama were the great female hopes of hip-hop. Ten years ago, it was Lil’ Kim, Da Brat, and Eve. Today, it’s Rye Rye, Azealia Banks, Brianna Perry, and Angel Haze, all of whose prospects are boosted by Minaj’s unprecedented success, their own unconventional styles, and the hit-making potential of the Internet. Read more. [Image: N.E.E.T.]

theatlantic:

The Rise of Female Rappers Has Nothing to Do With Gender

Female rappers have been around ever since the music’s inception, and over the years many of them proved themselves to be peerless writers and rappers, made deathless records, and contributed immensely to the form and the culture. But mainstream pop success has always been another story. Minaj ‘s cartoonishly exaggerated sexuality, giddy quick-fire rapping, adoption of multiple personas, and penchant for provocative spectacle have pushed pop music to new heights while also being enormously profitable. But before she exploded in 2010, there hadn’t been a charting female rapper since Missy Elliott in the early 2000s. Before Missy, Lauryn Hill had dominated the late ’90s, as Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes of TLC had dominated the mid-’90s, Queen Latifah the early ’90s, and Roxanne Shanté the mid-’80s. Just prior to the ascension of Minaj, Kid Sister and Lil Mama were the great female hopes of hip-hop. Ten years ago, it was Lil’ Kim, Da Brat, and Eve. Today, it’s Rye Rye, Azealia Banks, Brianna Perry, and Angel Haze, all of whose prospects are boosted by Minaj’s unprecedented success, their own unconventional styles, and the hit-making potential of the Internet.

Read more. [Image: N.E.E.T.]

2 weeks ago
1 note

Itz my birthday bitchez. 

You gotta spend a lot for this behavior; if it ain’t about a dolla ima holla at you l8r. 

3 weeks ago
Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse, and, just as the reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability. The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.

—Joan Didion, Los Angeles Notebook.

3 weeks ago
1 note

Lately, maybe because graduate school turned out to be such an unmitigated drag and my flat is cold and cheap and smells like dog, I’ve been drifting in and out of thinking like a writer, being a writer. And I feel a lot about Aidan but nothing that I want to say to you (or, if I do want to say it, I don’t want to say it for very long). But I’m on a break from school and the dull grind of internships now, and I’ve set about trying to “re-inspire” myself or whatever, whatever dumb thing I called it, this mission, but here’s the thing— it’s actually working. There’s something romantic about this life, the typing and Joan Didion (I love Joan Didion, why do I love Joan Didion so much? It’s sad to read her earlier work when you know how it all ends) and a book every two days, eating and reading in the same cafe across the street every day, cheese omelets, hash browns, tea with too much sugar. The weather has been so bad for so long that I don’t want it to get any better. I don’t care about the five minutes I spent on the floor of Camden Town station crying at the weekend, or whether or not I embarrassed myself at the Hunger launch party last night. I just feel good, like I’m working something out. Do you know that feeling you get when you come home from vacation and you turn on the lights and your bedroom is clean? I have that feeling.