if you want to know the racial politics of pitchfork. look at their albums of the decade lists. thats their identity to the world. afterall, what does all this music journalism add up to if not to cannonise the music geniuses of our time and for all time. what you listen to and what you like and who you honour says a lot about you does it not?
so not only do black artists overall get the shaft, but white people performing black music get a lot of love. its a double humiliation and disrespect.
lets take a look at their best albums of the 80 list.
what rap album, in your opinion, should be the highest placed rap album? i think we can all agree It Takes A Nation Of Millions is the consensus top rap album of the 80's. or Raising Hell. or Straight Outta Compton. or 3 feet High and Rising.
Nah, pitchfork gave that spot to Beastie Boys. i love the beastie boys. but the biggest and greatest new black music had emerged and in Pitchforks opinion, the best practitioners were 3 white dudes.
i can understand one or two people on their graduate student cac voting staff genuinely belivening the beasties were the best rap acts out of the 80's, better than PE, Slick Rick, De La Soul, NWA, BDP, LL Cool J, Eric B and Rakim, EPMD etc, but was there no one there to say nah B, not only is it not accurate to place beasties above these legends, but it sends a bad message to the public to yet again, credit white dudes for performing black music, ahead of the black people who originated it.
here is their list.
http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/5882-top-100-albums-of-the-1980s/10/
but maybe that was just an anomaly. well, lets look at the 90's.
we had so many great rap statements in the 90's in album form. PE, De La Soul, Nas, Big, Wu, Rae, Tribe, Snoop, Cube, Outkast, Dre, 2pac.....
which one of these rap albums got the highest spot for their 90's collection? first of all, wasnt a single black artist in their top 10. but rap did get a spot.
and the rap spot went to DJ Shadow. again, i like that album fine, and we can debate its merits compared to the many masterpieces the 90's birthed. but just on a political level. on an optics level. to again credit a cac over the dominant creators was telling.
http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/5923-top-100-albums-of-the-1990s/10/
so for two decades, the best practitioners of the new black music were white. pitchfork are making a statement here with this. its implicit not explicit but its clear.
black people create the music, but it takes a white genius to come and genius the shyt out. like elvis, the beatles and dylan. they needed rythmn & blues to create what they did, but they came up with something which we cacs just happen to think is more genius than chuck berry, little richard, fats domino,ike turner etc. thanks blackies for the raw materials but it needs our intellectual brains to take this shyt next level.
like tarzan calming and controlling the africans.
shyt, look at their 70's list, stevie wonder didnt make the top 10 with all those classics.
Sly Stone did but he again was the only black artist. shyt, were black people not making music in the 70's wtf.
http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/5932-top-100-albums-of-the-1970s/10/
so i am very skeptical of the new found love of all things hip hop over there at pitchfork. just seems a lil too obvious. like all of a sudden rappers topping all their lists. how can good kid mad city be the second best album of the 2010's so far, yet Illmatic is not even sniffing top 20 for the 90's. its damn near the same album did white people music fall off? or what? lol.
shyt
so they fukk with this cat, interesting. 
