Jump to content
Hondo's Bar

Qveen Herby


Recommended Posts

God, is Karmin considered EDM?  They're certainly on the bubblegum pop side of that spectrum if they are.  I can see why she went solo though, she's doing about 90% of the work in the Karmin songs (hilariously the guy half of the duo just kind of stands around in the videos), juding by the lyrics in her Qveen Herbie stuff she was also dissatisfied with how her label wanted her to tone down the more adult themes in Karmin.  It's pretty Gwen Stafani post-No Doubt, but I like some of it.

 

But yeah, Qveen Herby seems to be a better fit for her, She's a pretty good speed rapper:

 

and her dark sleepy style is catchy

 

 

Seems like she's tiptoeing on the line of being problematic from a visual standpoint.  Her reinvention seems to involve lighting that makes her skin look a little darker than it is (she's a Lilly-white mid-westerner) combined with her new dark hair color with the brownish lipstick seems to be trying to make her appear at least multi-racial if not actually black.  Maybe I'm being oversensitive, I've seen no controversy leveled at her yet.  But so long as she doesn't make an Iggy Azalea-sized ass of herself trying to break into rap then maybe society will let this slide.  She's talented, so I'd hate to see her torpedo her career over this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I'm going to assume it was EDM cause that's what WIkipedia told me and I had zero interest in listening to it. I was specifically trolling for hip hop and rap when I found her.

 

Why do you assume that she isn't a natural brunette? Perhaps the blonde was a result of haircolor and not vice versa. I'd say you are being overly sensitive. Cause I was picking up a Gothic vibe from her look rather than trying to come across like Rachel Whatshername that had to step down from the NAACP.

 

Explain your comment about Iggy, please. You know I live under a rock.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Prior to the Qveen Herby makeover she has never had hair a shade darker than a really really dark blonde that I can find a picture of, it is at very least not the very dark brown nearly black color she wears in her rap persona.  Also her obsession with hip-hop slang and signifiers of the musical genre (she literally has a song about how much she loves Gucci) were almost entirely missing from her previous career, also she seems to be affecting a more black sounding accent that wasn't in her previous stuff.  There is definitely a gothic vibe to it but she certainly pivoted into a more traditional hip-hop vibe with this persona which is at least a little problematic.  I don't think she's actually trying to convince people she's black but a lot of her videos make her look much darker skinned than she is and it's weird quirk.  And honestly I think she's using it as a crutch, the songs that lean heavily on hip-hop tropes (her songs Gucci, That Bih, and Everybody Mad) just aren't as interesting as the songs above.  It's interesting that she completely jettisoned her whole high-energy Gwen Stefani thing as that was one of the big charm factors of Karmin but her haunted vocals and skill as a speed rapper are a lot more appealing than her navel-gazing badass hip-hop queen stuff.  I think this is her first album as this persona so I'm hoping she sees what does and doesn't work here but there are things she should probably address going forward.  While I'm certainly not the person to comment on what good rap music is or what is or isn't cultural appropriation I'm certainly a lot more appreciative of white rap or rap-adjacent artists who use the medium in their own style rather than parrot decades of black artists.  I'd say she's doing about a 60/40 in that regard but I'd really love to see a 90/10 out of her.

 

As for Iggy Azalea, I've looked and looked for the article I read explaining her fall from grace and how the hip-hop industry was far kinder to her than she deserved but I cannot find it, though there are other lesser articles that give the truncated version. @The NZA was it you that posted that on Twitter?  Basically she's an arrogant asshole, maybe not a full-blown racist but certainly culturally insensitive, and possibly homophobic.  She is at very least a seemingly unpleasant person and that's the reason her promising career died on the vine.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

i might've a while back?  she broke out under T.I. and got exposed a while after, azella banks (talented but toxic/insane rapper, long since banned from twitter) i wanna say was part of digging up her old tweets to show the homophobia/casual racism.  not to excuse that in any way, but complex did a piece on that years back that got so, so many rappers to delete their 2012 or so tweets of the same nature (or just dissing drake/etc)  this just happened like last weekend to cardi.  

 

it got really bad when banks went in on her for cultural appropriation & she showed her ass on the subject.  q-tip gave a really good breakdown on the history of the culture & how it's been affected/hijacked before, in a really respectful manner to show her why it was a concern, and she just disrespected him & anyone else that day and i wanna say that was when she was effectively locked out as a vulture.  

 

recordings of some of her live "freestyles" from around then didn't help. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ah, I didn't know this about Iggy. I liked some of her stuff. Pity.

 

With that extended explanation, I see what your saying about Herby.  She does lay it on thick in her vocabulary and such, but I really don't think she's doing it with her appearance. She looks like my sister. Maybe that's why.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your sister is intentionally trying to look and sound Latino.  I mean she's not trying to pass as Latino, but she's made that her aesthetic.

 

And I mean, look at the before and after here:

gijtcQZ.jpgx64tBtD.jpg

 

And that IS lighting on the right picture, not make-up, and she's shown with pale skin at different points in the video but the dark skin illusion turns up a lot in her videos and promo images.  It tells me that someone knows what they're doing.  With that said, I looked up interviews with Amy Noonan from the Karmin era and during the Qveen Herby era and she still acts like a doofy mid-westerner when talking to her Instagram followers, so there's that.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...