When Artists Can’t Take Criticism
When being an artist, especially a well known one, or maybe an artist who had just started putting their work out there, there is criticism everywhere, it doesn’t matter if you’re underground or in the mainstream. Criticism, whether it’s constructive or just plain hate, is apart of growing as an artist. However, the way you react to criticism can determine if people should take you seriously or not.
Imagine you are a well-known artist that had just released a project that you have been working for months or even years on, and you look on a hip hop news channel, or you go to your favorite radio station, just to hear the project you have been working on for months get trashed on. Then you go on social media and almost everybody is trashing your new project, commenting ‘L’ under every post you have. This happens a lot in an industry of people making art.
Russ, well-known music producer, rapper, and singer was in the center of all of the criticism during 2017 and 2018. When addressing the hate, the rapper would blame his ‘gift of writing, making beats and rapping’ as the cause of all of the criticism that he has received. “I felt like he [Russ] was digging himself into deep holes,” Eastside senior Courtney Bonne begins. “…His arrogance is what made him unlikeable like you’re a producer AND a rapper, that’s great. But nobody cares, there’s a lot of rappers who make beats, bro. Relax.” As an artist, you can’t just blame your art as to why a whole group of people doesn’t like you when you have done or said things that do not connect to the art itself. “I was a fan of Russ, but after all of that corny sh*t he’s said, and that smokepurpp incident, I’m like ‘Nah,’” Bonne concludes.
Smokepurpp is another rapper, who happened to have beef with Russ in 2018 and ended up getting jumped by Russ’ goons and confronted by Russ himself the next day. This and more caused a lot of Russ’ fans to disconnect from the rapper.
Another way of harming your career is to compare yourself to other people in the same category as you, arguing with anybody who you deem wrong, and sending your fans to bully the other person. In August, that is what retired rapper Nicki Minaj did when she married a convicted murderer and rapist. When an Instagram user commented on a post with the rapper and the rapist together, the rapper replies with an insult to the commenter’s appearance, followed by the hashtag #blackgirlstragic.
The hashtag #blackgirltragic is also a hashtag used to spread awareness about the missing and murdered black women whose cases have been closed before an investigation. “I would think a grown woman wouldn’t be acting like a highschooler, especially as a female rapper who claims to be all about female empowerment,” Eastside Senior Anne Brown begins. “And right before she retired, she even repeated the phrase, talking about she doesn’t care about the actual meaning of the hashtag because it’s always the ‘black b*tches’ who would always come for her and her rapist boyfriend, it’s odd for somebody who has fans who have been raped, or fans who have been murdered to act like this.”
Being a celebrity or a semi-celebrity is stressful, especially if you’re a big name in the industry. there are going to be haters everywhere you go. If you want to grow as an artist, learn the difference between constructive criticism and hate.
