#I am lucky I follow lovely people and I have sensible mutuals so i don't have to see these takes on my tumblr dash very often

[aeolianblues]

same folks that are like 'I'm overwhelmed by the speed at which So Many Words are coming At Me' have no problem memorising and singing "Arabella's got some interstellar gator skin boots/And a helter-skelter 'round her little finger, and I ride it endlessly/She's got a Barbarella silver swimsuit/And when she needs to shelter from reality, she takes a dip in my daydreams"

The same people had no trouble spending hours trying to memorise Eminem's Rap God. The same white people were rapping along to Red Hot Chili Peppers songs for the last 30 years.

All the while, it's worth pointing out that genius.com has existed for years (and started as 'rapgenius.com', incidentally), and azlyrics.com has always been your friend. Use it. Find out the meanings behind those songs. If you can empathise with someone driving country roads home to Tennessee (or let's be honest, over half of Tumblr's fanbase seems to be American so this may be a better example), or with some 19 y/o boy getting shitfaced drunk in the north of England, you can find something that resonates with you by a Compton or Brooklyn boy.

Also, most people that complain about being uncomfortable with the themes with in rap music, are referring exclusively to about 50 songs that have been talked about the most and are most popular. It would be like if someone said 'all white people sing about is breaking up with their boyfriends and about strong coffee'. That's only two artists (or two songs), you realise that now, right?

Find other songs. There are so many posts listing different songs and artists who sing about a variety of themes, same as with any style of music.

Some folks talk about their upbringing, about growing up in times of poverty, about misogyny, about their dedication to their music and wanting to make it to the top, about wanting to spend time with their friends and have a good time, about playing FIFA, about loving their partners; about how they always need to present themselves with a certain amount of refinedness and dignity because of how they would be perceived by society if they didn't. They sing and rap about police brutality, about how eating healthy is a form of protest. The rappers out there are punks, they are indie kids, they are hip hop kids, they are blues lovers, soul music fans, gospel enjoyers, synthpop-heads; they are street kids, working class kids, middle class kids, they are literally musicians as any others are.

'Rap music' as a whole is about spoken word poetry that goes on top of a beat or instrumental. There are literally 0 limitations on what genre that instrumental can be. Anything you like, there's smoeone out there performing rap music with. What is stopping you.

genuinely it does make me insane how every time a post blows up that's like "hey y'all should try listening to rap, here's a playlist to get you started 👍" my fellow whites come rushing out of the woodwork to explain that they have a little known but fatal condition wherein if they can't understand every individual lyric in a song on the first listen they'll throw up blood until they die