LET'S ARGUE: Denzel Curry Is Great

What am I doing on here? What is even life anymore? What is the whole point of any of this? Why are we thinking? Why are we feeling?

Why are we listening? I don't think anybody is even doing any of that stuff. Everybody's brain is completely shut off. Are you even paying attention to anything that I'm saying right now? Are you paying attention to the world around you?

Like, what the heck is going on? People really, truly are becoming too foolish for their own good. Increasingly, the most unscrupulous, annoying, cringe-worthy, and moronic individuals of the century are controlling the levers of power. The guy who might end up running the Department of Health and Human Services is working on his second brain worm while eating a Big Mac, probably on a plane that Jeffrey Epstein flew at some point. It's time for "Let's Argue."

Yep, we're hopping on the internet. We're arguing because that's what time it is. It's time to argue, baby! Hype Denzel is better than introspective Denzel. Don't get me wrong.

Zell is great at both. I love "Taboo" and "Melt My Eyes." However, "Zoo" and "King of the Mischievous South" are so overlooked. Plus, he flows best on those types of tracks. Maybe I'm the wrong person to respond to this take because I famously keep giving Denzel eights.

Yeah, it's just one hit after the next. I just can't stop, and I apologize. I truly think the best thing about Denzel is his continued evolution and his ability to explore different sounds and vibes, as well as thematic concepts. The fact that all of his projects are so vastly different is cool and refreshing.

It's what's actually made him continue to be relevant long past the point of many artists who might have had much larger commercial peaks than he did at the start of the 2010s, in the middle of the 2010s, and toward the end of the 2010s. I don't think it's really a matter of determining which version of him is better than another. Every version of him so far has been great. Honestly, if you were to erase one version of him in favor of another, I feel that would only be detrimental to him as an artist. I don’t want to see just one version.

Of Denzel, without the other version of Denzel, I feel like it's the greater context of his abilities and everything that he does and can do that makes him an awesome artist. Politics and music are important. Not all music needs to be political, but discussing what is happening in the real world is completely natural. Wanting a world without political music is political in itself and also a cowardly desire to retreat into mindless consumerist escapism.

Yeah, and another thing that I feel is important about politics and music, or just art in general, is that it can be motivating and validating. I feel like in music and in content broadly, there's this pressure placed on people or that people put on themselves to have the most original, most new, most fresh, or most cutting-edge take on everything. No, you can just find a different way or even the same way to say the correct thing or the right thing, or to express the most compassionate, sensible, or common-sense idea. You can just say it, and there's value in that. You don't have to have the perspective or the take that everyone agrees with.

You don't have to have a doctorate in political science or social sciences to have a perspective on things and to have a valid perspective on them. Of course, the art shouldn't suffer at the hands of the message at the end of the day, but it is unfortunate how many people are afraid to really jump in and say something of substance sometimes. You know, on the topic of issues as important as, I don't know, human rights, it’s frustrating to lose a few people who think that genocide is acceptable. Forget those people.

Who cares if you lose them? They're assholes. What's the value of having freaks like that in the ranks of your audience, honestly? Which is worse: hearing someone rhyme a word with itself or being able to predict a rhyme before it happens? I suppose, like, I'm happy to hear both, depending on the context, when I'm able to complete a rhyme in my own head before it actually happens.

I'm not going to lie; sometimes it happens kind of often. I feel like that's just a result of having heard a lot of things. You know, I mean, if you hear enough, you can see a lot of things coming, and that doesn't just apply to lyrics. It also pertains to certain transitions, chord changes, and musical ideas that tend to resonate well in a mainstream context across different genres. At some point, you have to suspend the need for music and art to be surprising. Just because a piece of art is surprising doesn't mean it's good, and a piece of art doesn't need to be surprising to be of quality.

If I have to choose between these two, I would say rhyming a word with itself. However, there are contexts in which that can work, where it can be kind of funny or self-aware. Additionally, if you're rhyming other words surrounding that word, that makes it a bit more acceptable. So, that's my answer to your question. Okay.

That's my answer. *Minecraft: Volume Alpha* deserves more credit for putting an entire generation on to ambient music. It's really like the "Music for Airports" of our generation. I think you could probably argue that the *Minecraft* soundtrack had a further cultural impact than Brian Eno's ambient works. I mean, a lot of people have certainly heard his musical contributions to the Windows sound set.

Brian Eno, in his own way, has definitely contributed to a modern music aesthetic—an aesthetic that is deeply embedded in our psyches. This is largely because so many people have been exposed to his work in casual contexts, whether it's through playing video games in the background or just logging onto a computer for leisure activities. I believe that big artists have a moral responsibility to prevent the entertainment industry from exploiting their fans. It’s important for people to understand that much of what happens with major ticketing corporations and similar entities is often beyond the control of many artists. For instance, if you're as big as The Cure or Taylor Swift, you certainly have the ability to leverage certain situations and guide things in your favor. However, many smaller artists simply do not have that luxury.

And on top of it, a lot of artists are getting ripped off when it comes to actually making money on touring as well. It's one of the biggest issues that is continually growing in the music industry right now. For a long time, as artists have been making less and less money from digital sales and streaming, the argument was always that at least they could make money from touring and performances. Now, it seems like that is becoming more and more difficult, and only the Taylor Swifts and the biggest artists in the industry are truly raking in substantial profits from their large festival performances. It’s just getting harder for everyone else. Doechii has the potential to be on the Mount Rushmore of female rap artists; she could even be recognized as one of the greatest rap artists overall.

Not female rap artists, just rap artists. She's a good lyricist; she picks some excellent beats sometimes, and she has the ability to come together with good concepts and great storytelling too. You know, it's just a matter of whether or not that evolves into a quality catalog. I feel like her new project, "Alligator Bites," is really just, again, obviously a mixtape and has been marketed as such, but it's more like a compilation of all the various things that she can do, pull off, perform, and execute. I'm hoping that she and her team are paying attention to the moments and the tracks from that project that are doing the best and receiving the most attention.

I received the most. I feel like the most popular tracks off that record are actually the best moments. I hope she drifts in the direction of the most well-received bits from that record. I think if she does, we’ll be in for a really killer rap album come 2025 or 2026—fingers crossed! Music discourse on Instagram is absolutely terrible.

It seems like I'm talking to people who make listening to one genre of music their entire personality—aka the "born in the wrong generation" kids. If you slightly disagree with them, they resort to the same unfunny jokes, calling you a "Swifty." You probably listen to Cardi B, random GIFs, etc. But if you show any form of enjoyment, you're labeled a "Glazer," which is just ridiculous. Literally, the only artists on Instagram that you can like without getting banished to the shadow realm are Kanye West, Clairo, The Beatles, Radiohead, and for some reason, Creed. I feel like you've also simultaneously described music discourse on Twitter, too.

And really, music discourse on social media at large. Though I do think there are some pockets of YouTube that are a bit odd, niche, and specific. I think that is also the case for some pockets of TikTok too. I feel like discourse on the internet is getting worse and worse. I've talked about this in many videos and pieces of content. If I'm to summarize that opinion or view down to two key reasons, it would be:

One, comment sections are curated. It's not just comments that are being posted in succession; comment sections are designed to prioritize and highlight posts and opinions that are either polarizing, extremely disagreeable, or are short, fast, and humorous. Rarely does anything thoughtful or that takes a while to digest rise to the top in the comments, which incentivizes a certain kind of discourse. Algorithms have become so effective at walling people off into very specific sets of interests that, as a result, there’s no greater shared understanding or appreciation of many topics these days. Everyone is isolated in their own little world, and there aren't many things that we all collectively like and enjoy.

It's easy for people to be at each other's throats because there's little appreciation for what other groups are listening to. I'm going to eat a hot dog for lunch. If you want one, I'm not going to stop you; after all, I really can't. But if I were there with you, I would cook something better for you. I'm hungry, so I'm going to have a nice dinner. I'm just heating it up in the microwave, and I've got my meal ready. I set the timer; that's how I cook.

I'm going to leave it there. You guys are the best. Love you! Over here next to my head is another video that you can check out. Hit that up or click the link to subscribe to the channel.

Anthony Fantano, let's argue forever.