Hopsin (Three Song Listen)

Some people on livestreams have recommended him to me.

The Finnish Wikipedia page says he's American, born 1985, doesn't use drugs (incl. alcohol and tobacco) and that in 2014 he tricked fans that he's quitting but wasn't. 🤨 The last fact seems kinda random, I'm gonna skim through the English Wikipedia article to see if I fuck with him as a person...

He's a school dropout and youth criminal, but that's pretty much all the relevant information I found about him. He seems somewhat controversial and divisive (if people think he's a "good person" or a "bad person"), but I don't really have strong feelings one way or another, yet.

For the songs, I chose Happy Ending, because he got backlash for it and I want to make my own judgement on it, Nocturnal Rainbows because that's apparently about his views on drugs, and Ill Mind 7, because when he was recommended to me, they named this song specifically.

Ill Mind 7

Lets start here, because the people said to start here. 

Sure, I fuck with this! It's about his struggle with religion, which is SO much more interesting as a topic than what the majority of rappers rap about. I do see why people recommended this to me, they know that usual rap song topics right off the bat would make me go "meh, not my thing, I'm bored".

My own journey with religion was a lot more calm than this. I was baptized as a kid, but my parents aren't that religious. This is quite typical in Finland - religion is so engraved in our culture that most people practise it but don't believe in it. As long as I've been able to think such complex topics, I've thought we can't KNOW if God exists, and growing up I didn't believe He did, either. When I was a teen, I needed someone to love me unconditionally (my depression claimed to me that no human did) and God felt like the right choice at that moment. About a decade later, the faith slowly and calmly faded out of me, much like it had faded into me. It wasn't as dramatic as it was for Hopsin.

Nocturnal Rainbows

I want to continue with the more serious topics before moving on to a less serious one.

"You think you original? You ain't original.

You were programmed to be you. You're a slave and you don't even know it.
The shit you think of ain't even your thoughts.
Let's step out the box for a minute."

Facts! Bars! The truth!

The sooner a person realizes and accepts this, the better. We can all only see the world from our own perspective, no matter how open-mindedly we listen to others talk about their experiences. IMO, no one is fully "awake" or "woke" or "enlightened" or whatever. We all have blind spots.

Ok, I disagree with the bar "The shit you think of ain't even your thoughts". Yes they are. The thoughts may not be original, but they're my thoughts. They're a combination/reaction to everything I've heard about anything, that's how the human mind works. It takes what other people have thought and forms more thoughts from that. If they're not my thoughts, then whose are they? And if you say "other people's", then why do those people get to have "original" thoughts and I don't? Huh? Make it make sense. Think things through before you put them in a song.

There's obvious symbolism with the light and the dark ("seeing the light", "being in the dark" about something), and I think the rainbows represent the nuances of any given topic (things not being "black and white"). You can't see a rainbow if it's dark, but it's still there. The nuances are there, but all you see is black and white, if that. He also says "But the darkness provides the light for me" - like, when he feels down, depressed, he sees more clearly.

For me personally, yes and no. Mostly no. When I'm depressed, things look more black and white (for example, a recent thought I had that is inaccurate: "all men are bad authors"), when I feel fine I see more shades of gray, even colors if you want to use that analogy. But I also see more of the darker shades when I'm depressed and then I can assess those further when I'm fine again. So I do see his point.

Very poetic.

"The moon is my only homie" is hilarious, though, cracks me up every time. 🤣

I disagree with him about Obama. Partially. From what I know, Obama tried to make the US more like European democratic countries are like, such as Finland. He tried to put in place free healthcare, etc. But all this means taxes are higher and stuff in the stores costs more, because the money for the healthcare needs to come from somewhere. Everyone pays an X amount of taxes, so that paychecks and other expenses of running hospitals can be paid, and then everyone can go in and don't have to pay a dime for health care. "By the people, for the people", and so on. You'd think it's a pretty simple concept. But no. Americans saw the taxes and prices go up and they think that means the economy is bad. Pssh.

I don't know about the latter part of the verse - personally, I don't believe in the conspiracy that they're feeding us dull music to keep us in check. I think dull music just sells more. Because 1) most people listen to music to chill and have fun, if the music is too complex lyrically or musically, they can't do that, and 2) if the lyrics are generic (=not specific), a lot of people can relate. If the lyrics mention names and very specific circumstances, less people can relate and therefore less people are interested. People want music and other art that helps them understand themselves. But they want it easy, the lyrics can't be too complex.

I like this man, he makes me think.

Happy Ending

Oh, it REALLY got backlash. I found a fan-uploaded version of it on YouTube and the headline says "YouTube deleted"... Interesting that a fan is allowed to have it on their channel, though... I can think of three possible reasons (all of them are 100% guess-work, there are zero proven facts here): 1) YT algorithm reacts to bigger channels more harshly than smaller ones 2) he has a lot of haters and they flagged the shit out of the video, but didn't bother to do that to a fan-uploaded video 3) this is a marketing tactic, he wants to seem more controversial and took down the video himself. I don't know him, I don't know if he would do that. It seems to be considered cool to be controversial, in the hiphop realm. In the metal world, it's not. Like, in general. Scenes vary from subgenre to subgenre, but in most, it's cool if your music and lyrics are heavy and brutal, but you're a good and chill guy outside the music.

We'll see. 

It's one of those songs that are so bad it's good. A tad sexist, a tad racist, but nothing too bad. I don't think it's the third thing, I don't think he tried to be controversial or pretend it got taken down. I think it got taken down. There's no excessive use of cuss words or anything like that, no female nipples or genitalia showing, so I think it just got flagged a shit ton. I sort of get it, I think it's in a bit poor taste, but it's just a silly song about a guy making up a story about getting laid at a massage parlor (and even if the sex did happen, it was concensual). It's hopelessly 90s/2000s-esque and old-fashioned, but that's not a crime. People are over-reacting, I think.

This last one is the only Hopsin song out of these three that I won't put on my Rap & Hiphop playlist. I like him, I'll put him on my Deep Dive list, with a side note that I need to approach his work one song at a time. They each deserve the attention and so far, I've had a lot to say about each.