Anthony Fantano made it very easy to be a fan of experimental and underground music during periods of my life where I couldn't find time to investigate things on my own--but there are certain terms on which he can be sort of dismissive of artists in ways that would be perplexing if his channel wasn't entirely about explaining his personal taste and feelings about music, as opposed to my personal recommendation algorithm (Spotify does a decent job of that).
Fantano's favorite albums tend towards self-abusive levels of emotional intensity and maturity, so it's not too surprising that he's more dismissive of artists who are lacking in those departments--especially if he finds their perspectives particularly disagreeable or immature. This is fine, and I also tend to prefer emotional complexity and depth in my rap music especially; but as a fan of the genre and friend if fans of the genre I've become more patient with some of the “emotionally immature" rappers as some might consider them.
As a ‘91 kid, my parents listened to alt-rock radio, spun Sublime’s self-titled CD and Green Day's Dookie in the car,. My first memory of hip-hop is the result of having been a three year-old when they ran a clothes stand on the Lalapalooza tour and I overheard Coolio perform every day. I'm sure I saw hip-hop in Beavis & Butthead as a little kid, but the earliest stuff I remember being cognizant of were the mega-hits of the MTV TRL era--and my favorites tended to be those with cartoony music videos and hilarious lyrics, such as Missy Elliot, Ludacris, and Eminem.
Now, having grown up in major coastal cities--mostly the one Missy Elliot grew up in herself--I never considered my whiteness as a part of my identity which had anything to do with what I could like or project onto--but most people are not so automatically unaware of how they are conceived based on their appearance, and there was meaning at the time in Eminem's ability to connect with the emotional immaturity of the midwestern white boy.
I remember being afraid of Eminem's albums as a kid. If I remember correctly, my gay friend whose cousins would investigate new rap albums and gossip had told me in outrage that Eminem raps about beating his girlfriend, and the image I got in my head based on the lyrics he quoted was so visceral as to scare me away from the stuff I hadn't already heard--but I loved Real Slim Shady enough to memorize it all and start reciting it under my breath at the lunch table.
I have probably rapped that song, The Way I Am, and most especially Without Me hundreds of times throughout my life, for no reason more greatly than that they are so much fun to rap. The creative, intricate flows and rhymes are infinitely fun to say. As a kid I was vaguely aware of the celebrities Eminem was dissing in these tracks, but not enough to understand why he was calling them out or with the words he chose--hell, there are a ton of lyrics in these songs I didn't understand until I was much older--but even though I must've listened to Linkin Park's first two albums thousands of times between ages 10 and 15, there isn't a single verse I'd be stoked to just bust out on command like I would Lose Yourself.
I'm not going to pitch these songs or Eminem himself as someone Fantano considers emotionally immature specifically, but I use him as an example of a rapper with whom even I in my childhood had the complicated relationship with of loving some of his songs so much that they would be a major influence in my life and future, while totally avoiding other songs that I found scary because of their subject matter.
Eminem created a trap in his wake where ineveryone comparable to him (including himself) is going to be judged against the very best tracks he's ever made--but because Em is Em, Fantano will always dedicate a full video to the reasons that this new album is a five, six, or seven out of ten. To be clear, I would love to get a 6/10 from Anthony Fantano--many of my favorite albums have worse scores from Fantano. If you made an album that Fantano isn't talking about because he loves it and wants to promote it, then it means you're either popular enough to always be worth talking about, or he's invested in you, which is good in and of itself. I am more concerned by artists whom I never would've investigated because of how negatively Fantano presented them--the likes of Hopsin, Tom MacDonald, Token, or even early Childish Gambino--all of whom I now know fans of and have listened to an amount of that allows me if not to be a fan, at least to be sympathetic to their existence.
Anthony Fantano has to listen to a lot of bullshit music from every conceivable genre, so I don't begrudge his avoidance of characters whose personalities he simply finds annoying. I wouldn't give these artists the time of day if I didn't have people around enjoying it and talking about what's good about it or thinking about the things I appreciate about it, but for those same reasons I am open to doing so.
When I talk to my friend about Token, we agree that he is nearly an untouchable technical rapper, inventing some of the most fun flows to listen to since Eminem--and he wrings every ounce of interest there could be in analyzing himself, his career, and his potential—but he says it himself: he doesn't have enough life experience beyond rap addiction to have a ton of interesting stuff to rap about. It puts you as a listener in the bizarre superposition of thinking about how you feel as you navigate these dizzying flows that if some deeper narratives were attached to them, then you'd have the greatest rap song ever or something.
But it isn't any song’s job to be the greatest ever--hell, I'm impressed if it can pull off being the best version of itself. All a song really has to be is what it is, enjoyable for the reasons that it is. You can enjoy singing along to a teenager’s angst because his flow is so tight and cool that you’ve never heard anything like it, just like you can empathize with a guy screaming ‘fuck you’ at his mom because it sounds hilarious in context. I think it is very important for emotionally-mature music to exist, and also that immature music is more than just the ladder by which teens climb into better taste; approached on its own terms, it can be legitimately enjoyed on its own merits.
"it can be legitimately enjoyed on its own merit" how i feel about TOTGW 🤗🤗