And In Arts News

In juvenile detention, she would write “really radical raps” that rattled her supervisors. 

Why, yes, I am reading the Guardian. Where the paper’s Janine Israel is positively gushing over aboriginal rapper Barkaa and her “politically potent” music.

The Malyangapa Barkindji woman… is on the verge of releasing her debut EP, Blak Matriarchy,

You know you want to.

Based in south-west Sydney, Barkaa takes her moniker from the Barkindji word for the Darling River. She comes across as warm and humble, 

Warm and humble. An interesting choice of words. And followed almost immediately by:

Earlier this year she played the Sydney Opera House forecourt, the lights of the harbour stretched out before her as she performed her song Bow Down: “They used to look down on me / Look who’s looking up now. Bow down.”

Regarding said ditty, our mistress of the surly pose and monotonous loop informs us,

Bow Down is one of my favourite tracks to perform because a lot of people growing up [were like]: ‘Oh you’re not going to be much, you’re just going to be a lowlife, you’re just going to be a junkie, you’re not going to get anywhere, you’re just going to be in and out of prison.’ It’s kind of like: middle fingers up to them.

Same article, seconds earlier:  

Born Chloe Quayle, the 26-year-old rapper was a former teenage ice addict who did three stints in jail – during her last, five years ago, she gave birth to her third child.

Despite three children, no father, or fathers, are mentioned. Well. Perhaps we should move on.

Being “unapologetically truthful and unapologetically Blak,” Ms Barkaa’s other contributions to human betterment include claims of “trauma” from being “colonised”; endless middle-fingering; and For My Tittas, in which the musicianship and wordsmithery are, like, totally next-level, dude:

Embrace your black skin

And your race within

You’re blessed by your blackness

And your dark-skinned kin

Raise strong black kids

Throw those drugs in the bin

And you’ll be bound to make

Your old people look at you and grin

It’s potent, world-rattling stuff. No wonder the Guardian is all a-gush.

 

Update, via the comments:

Jen notes that the Guardian’s comment section is heavily “pre-moderated,” presumably to ensure a unanimity of approval. As of the time of writing, some 62 hours in, only 8 readers have managed to penetrate the paper’s famed moderation, all scrupulously enthusiastic and very much on-message:

Strong, powerful, Earth Mother, Kali, survivor, loving mama, we hear your voice.

For instance.

In the comments, Daniel adds,

The irony - that absolutely no one would have ever heard of Ms Quayle had Ebil Yte music producers not picked her up out of whatever the Australian equivalent of the gutter is, packaged her for consumption by Ebil Yte Australian teenagers, and financed her distribution channels to Ebil Yte music stores and venues - does not go unnoticed.

I was poking through Ms Quayle’s YouTube videos, a joyless task, and couldn’t help noticing just how often approving comments would begin with some variation of “As a white…” It seems our Lady Of Limited Talents, to whom harmony and key changes, even simple rhythmic variation, are things of infinite mystery, is being marketed, with some success, to racially neurotic lefties.

And so, the Guardian’s Ms Israel somehow fails to register the details touched on above, or is at least careful not to acknowledge them, busying herself instead with airy waffle about artistic and political potency. Apparently, it takes near-superhuman talent to loop the same four bars of someone else’s music over and over again. Indeed, in terms of appeal, the music, such as it is, seems secondary, rather notional. What’s prompting the gushing appears to be the pigment and the pose. The idea of a jabbering aboriginal woman and her “really radical raps.”

What that says about enthusiasts, I leave to the reader.

Heavens, a button. 

Comments

[Darleen]

OT, but it is about flippin' time.

[Jim Whyte]

Darleen - many thanks, I saw the link at Instapundit but can't vault the WSJ paywall. Agreed, damn near time.

[Daniel Ream]

I've mentioned in other fora that I don't think the western university system can be saved. Most of the worst offenders are running not off of alumni donations but interest on their endowments, which can't be affected short of massive lawsuit judgments *cough*Oberlin*cough*. The state university system essentially guarantees that universities will always be beholden to the politics of the day because that's where the funding comes from.

There are a couple of current attempts to start new private universities focused on a traditional liberal arts education, but Conquest's Second Law will not be denied.

[Ben]

racially neurotic lefties.

F*cking hell. 🤡

[David]

F*cking hell. 🤡

Well, yes. Quite. You see, you can’t just listen and make up your own mind. You must approach with deference and promptly atone. For being white. Because rap music can only be appreciated via prostration, neuroticism, and racial agonising.

Wokeness, needless to say, is very bad for realism, and for one’s mental health.

[Steve E]

There are a couple of current attempts to start new private universities focused on a traditional liberal arts education,

Like this one? Though it's odd they would pick decidedly left-leaning Austin for its location.

[David]

[ Fixes Steve’s HTML, resumes slurping of coffee. ]

[Steve E]

Oops screwed up the html. Preview is your friend. Preview is your friend.

There are a couple of current attempts to start new private universities focused on a traditional liberal arts education,

Like this one. Though its odd they picked decidedly left-leaning Austin for its location.

[Steve E]

[ Fixes Steve’s HTML, resumes slurping of coffee. ]

Fastest HTML in the west! A cup of java after Java?

[David]

Fastest HTML in the west!

I just can’t abide mangled HTML. I hope you heathens appreciate all this behind-the-scenes labouring I do.

Utterly unrelated.

What?

[WTP]

From Darleen's wsj article:

To allay Mr. Neuss’s concerns, the development office introduced him to some politically moderate professors, he said. The attempt backfired. The professors, he said, told him they felt humiliated by the diversity training they were required to attend and perpetually afraid they would say something factual—but impolitic. “If you say the wrong words, you could lose your position or be shunned,” said Mr. Neuss.

I have zero sympathy for these people. Then quit and get a real job. Ooh, how they love to dress up in grownup clothes, well figuratively anyway, and have their every utterances taken seriously. Don't you dare touch my tenure! Yes, I can even come to work, open a bottle of beer and drink it through my lectures! Tenure is my right and a fundamental element of education! How dare you criticize me for anything that I choose to do in my intellectual pursuits! I am brave! I will stand up to you and your silly middle-class values and beliefs! You must listen to me for your own good!

Get lost you worthless leeches. The greatest threats of institutionalized anti-intellectualism are our college campuses.

[WTP]

The confidence she expresses here is almost as funny as the exposure of the coverup.
https://mobile.twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1465486435050561540

[pst314]

FWIW, the Sunlight Foundation and ProPublica have a fairly longstanding initiative to auto-archive politicians' tweets and automatically generate reports of deletions.

They should do that with journalists' tweets, too. Not to mention people in academia.

[Tony]

You provided a link to her song (?) “For My Tittas.”
I obediently clicked on your link, and was subjected to the full breadth and force of Barkaa’s artistry.

You owe me 15 IQ points.

[pst314]

You owe me 15 IQ points.

Credit note only.

[Bob]

Aborigines get very uppity when somebody does a 'dot painting' (as if they were the first to use dots in art, but, moving on...) yet they can't spell the English word "black". They indulge in this twee, arch practice of spelling it "blak", perhaps as a badge of honour that they failed English at school. Apparently no-one's allowed to misuse their culture, but they make a pig's breakfast of everybody else's culture. The moral of the story is, they are best ignored. And btw if you want to make an angry activist's head explode, just correct their spelling on "Blak". It works every time.