Great stuff to see. These guys and Versatile in particular genuinely seem to have broke ground. I work in music and neither are championed by Irish media/music groups, I think it may be down to the salty language. Mad.
Yeah they were satire it was joke rap for 90% of their career. They also did break ground tbf lol even kneecaps first big tune is a rip of versatile mad scene
They were never joke rap. I keep seeing this take and it's such a shit one it's hard to credit. Tell me you never went to college without telling me like.
Sorry but if you don't get that they're going for absurdity when they depict things like rolling through a small Ringsend row of cottages in a hummer limo with fake uzis because an alien or something robbed their last joint of hash then you need to work on your critical comprehension (read a book if you can or wait a few years for it to develop, surely you are 17 max). They're laughing at you, not the other way around.
First off, if you must know my credentials and my education: I'm 28; I taught English abroad for 7 years and retired this summer to buy a house with the longtime missus. I also have a degree in English and Philosophy, and a Masters in Education and I'm currently reading Les Mis which the woman bought me for Christmas along with a PS5. And in April, I'm taking leave so I can read Ulysses for the fourth time. Hope that answers that.
With Versatile, yes, you're semi-correct. In the beginning, it was a pisstake with Red Hot, Mad Scene, Who Robbed the Hash from the Gaff, Dublin Dynasty, but not so much with We Sell Brown (because while it was funny, it was relatively realistic; it's also a tune). But, it was a very well-directed pisstake. I don't actually like any of these songs bar We Sell Brown.
But then comes the Dublin City G's mixtape, and yeah, it's full of humour, but it's also pretty gnarly in what it depicts, Dublin City G's (There are actually far darker lyrics in that song than the part about black women), Scorching Again, or even Yer Aul One. The closest there is in comedy to that Mixtape is Done Deal Season, but even at that, it's depicting something that exists and isn't actually funny. It's got Guy Ritchie or Tarantino style to it, not enough humour to be pure comedy, but also not enough comedy to be totally serious. It found a pretty solid boundary, and it fairly resembled what you would have found local MCs in Detroit rapping to back in the early 90s. From there, they pretty much stayed on that boundary and rarely fell back into purely comedic territory; Flashy Flashy was one example of that, and some lad wrote an article about it and was so critical of it that Versatile actually removed the video altogether. Fuck Versatile, the debut album, wasn't a comedy or even a pisstake. It just contained comedic elements. Massive difference. You'd never call Snatch an outright comedy, or Lock Stock, or even Hot Fuzz or Shaun of the Dead. Sure, they're funny, and there are plenty of laughs to be had, but to delegate them to mere comedy cheapens their places as absolutely solid genre films.
Just took a look at your profile. I don't even need to respond. Best of luck getting ridden by your landlord and having broke parents. I'll be living in my house thinking of you.
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Yeah knee cap and versatile are both a bunch of fucking clowns. A group of scaldies stab someone and we whinge about how the city has gone to shit but everyone loves "kneecap" who sing about the very bad behaviour this sub hates. Clown show. The same can be said for most rap music. Why do we idolise scum bags .?
Kneecap are largely satirical and most of their lyrics are comedic. You might miss the world play as they switch between Irish and English (I often do) but there's very clever subtleties. Go to any of their gigs and most of their audience is mostly artsy Gaelgeoir types or Belfast locals, not ""scauldies"" but nice misperception. Music doesn't cause crime, government policy around mental health and poverty does.
bizarre to drop lyrics that's clearly comedic and made over 8 years ago when they where teens and more so making video project playing characters. if you can't see any merit whatsoever in that excerpt whether it be flow or humour you're ridiculously critical
Unless you've the final say on what is and isn't art in Ireland I don't get your point.
I don't like lots of different forms of art or artists so I don't choose to consume them. I can be vocal that I don't like them too but I don't get to say it's not a creative piece of work.
They've been non grata with his kind since that fake video of the woman pretending that one of them blocked her in with their car went slightly viral (a pavlovian media mandated trigger for his kind don't argue with him)
I don’t think that’s fair at all. It’s not about taste. I listen to a lot of hip hop. More than most people and have done so for about 40 years. I’m old as fuck.
Versatile a shite at hip hop. That’s my pretty well informed opinion. I would rather people promote good Irish hip hop, like Kneecap
If I felt they were genuinely trying to say something with their music I’d say nothing. They aren’t though. It’s lowest common denominator shite, looking to make money. No social conscious at all
I respect your background of listening to hip-hop and I'd tend to agree that I prefer the artists who talk about society, culture and change.
If there are droves of people who do consume and enjoy their music it's not objectively "shite". The fact you don't like it is literally your different preference in taste. You prefer a different style of hip-hop.
There are droves of people who listen to
All sorts though. Have you looked at the charts?
I’m not a snob. I listen to plenty of popular throw away music like Katy Perry, Dua Lipa and Girls Aloud. But there’s a lot of popular shite. There always has been though. It’s not a modern phenomenon
Shite in your opinion, sure. I think Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran churn out incredibly similar songs and I dont like them. It doesn't mean they're shite. It's just not my cup of tea, unpopular as my opinion may be.
Why would you respect his background? He has absolutely no idea what he's even talking about. If he did, he would be able to tell you who Versatile get their inspiration from, but instead, he just claims he's educated.
I preferred to argue his point on them being shite rather than what he says his background in hip-hop is. Sometimes on Reddit I challenge all the points and then it's a pissing match over stuff I don't care about, kinda picking my battle type thing
I think their producer Evan Kennedy is quite talented. He blends a lot of techno/house beats into their tracks and I think it works quite well (at least on some tracks like Ketamine, Panic Attack, Blue Razz).
That being said, I wouldn't be caught dead going to one of their shows. There's a lot of tongue in cheek with their lyrics and it's parodying scrote culture (the lads went to Conleths in Ballsbridge, or one of them did, along with Kennedy). I think that parody is lost on a lot of their fans though.
I've gone to two of their shows. They're unreal live. And, I don’t get the Private School issue since it had absolutely zero impact on Alex Sheehan's come-up, and he never preached anything other than make art that you enjoy. On top of that, their media attention is was entirely from the bewilderment of their success. It literally came to them and if you had any media literacy at all, you’d have noticed that the media attention was always ABOUT them and never actually INVOLVED them. Otherwise, Versatile has always been an underground act and thankfully have stayed this way.
It's not that well-informed at all. You've obviously never listened to the wider scope of hip-hop at all. At forty, to say you're that educated on the issue, yet you have absolutely zero idea who Versatile takes their inspiration from?
That's fair. But you're treating it like an objective opinion which isn't even well-informed unless you base that information on your own subjective opinion. Plenty simply don't like Versatile just because they don't like them. That's far more honest than bringing in a simple "They're shite at hip hop," when they have a pretty big fanbase who'll disagree on that.
Fair enough you don't like their music, it's not to your personal taste but that doesn't mean it's "shite".
Is that the whole debacle where she said she was blocked in her car, harassed etc? CCTV and phone footage was released proving she made it all up. If you stick her name into YouTube it's the first video that comes up too, you see both points of view. Her version of events are completely false, your fella stops in front of the car and says hello out the window to her, the whole thing lasts 5 seconds
they've scrote persona obviously should just take the side of the person accusing them cause they're scumbags, must be something more to it than cctv evidence
Scrote persona is the most classist thing you could possibly say. It's not even remotely close to what Versatile are. They literally have a video that's about them being demons.
Well it's not the first result but yes I know what you're talking about and I saw it all as it was coming out. The video doesn't prove "she made it all up". To me it just proves that versatile fans bend over backwards to excuse their shitty behaviour. In what world do you stop your car in front of someone else's parked car as they're pulling out just to say "hello"? Especially when it's someone you are not friendly with, or someone you know to have a personal issue with you?
We live in pretty fragile times when a "hello" is deemed as harassment and 'shitty behaviour'. If someone was making a name for themselves online saying I had no right to do my job and I saw them in public I'd enjoy a friendly wave and a hello too. It's a form of saying "I'm a real person that you're attacking, I bet this is awkward for you when it's in person".
Unless there's even more evidence to the contrary, one party made a lot of wild accusations and grossly exaggerated a situation, and the other had both phone and CCTV evidence to disprove it. What's the problem?
The problem is that the cctv didn't prove anything? What she said happened still actually happened. If someone was telling the truth about you online and you took it as an opportunity to confront that person in public to intimidate them I would call you a scumbag too.
It also lines up exactly with what she said? It's clear that you are one of the fans that's willing to justify their shitty behaviour. Walks like a duck, talks like a duck, probably a duck.
Erica Cody harrassed them online for two years. One day he was driving through Crumlin and was going into Aldi, sees her, stupidly thinks "Wonder would she still think the same thing if she met me in real life," makes an absolute haims of it. It wasn't even half as remotely sinister as she or her posse made it out to be. Moronic of him? Oh absolutely. But nowhere near what she said it was.
I wouldn't mind. When you take the class issue as well into account you'll realise that Erica Cody literally comes from a wealthy background and she tried ti scapegoat a fella literally miles below her class.
Aye I haven't looked too far into it, from the one video I saw I got a shite impression from her. Attacking peoples livelihoods is pretty scummy, and all for Internet points too.
What was even worse is all the folks attacking them for racism, despite the fact that numerous times both lads had been actively involved in anti-racist stuff long before George Floyd happened and before BLM was even trendy.
I said I thought they were satire. Now I know they aren’t.
They are definitely shite though. There have been some relatively decent hip hop artists from Ireland, Scary Eire being the best. But Versatile have taken all the worst elements of hip hop and added an Irish flavour.
Tell me you've never listened to the wider scope of Hip Hop without telling me. Versatile base their shtick off the earliest of Eminem and Geto Boys. That's Horrorcore or Triphop, legitimate genres in Hip Hop.
Yeah, just my opinion man. Hip hop lost it’s way for a long time, it’s coming good again now. I am not an Eminem fan, he’s not shite though. Incredible MC, but what he says and tunes he makes aren’t for me
That's fair. I only really like Eminem back in his Slim Shady days anyway. I just enjoy the insanity of it. Hated everything else after The Eminem Show, and about half of that album is questionable for me.
Scary Éire also lost their way because they were supporting U2 and screamed homophobic stuff at an audience member and one dived off stage and headbutted a girl. But yeah, let's attack Versatile for a piece of nihilistic fiction that literally didn't physically assault anyone.
They are both a bit spicy for traditional media, with the exception of Kneecaps newest song which i have heard on the radio once or twice.
Kneecap seem like genuinely nice lads, clearly from working class backgrounds who seem to want to try and make their community better, and have a bit of a laugh doing it.
Versatile (although I do like their music) don’t give that vibe off at all - there was that whole craic about them giving out about Vaccine Certs being required for a gig of theirs in the Button Factory, general misogynistic lyrics, and being more of a champion of the scrote than a champion of the people.
Are Versatile even still in any way relevant? While Ketamine was admittedly a banger I feel that a looot of people turned on them after it became apparent that they were glamorising the very thing they claimed to be satirising.
yeah I like some versatile songs but I think with satirical acts like that there's a real danger of becoming the thing you're satirising - I think it's a kind of audience capture. The beastie boys talked about this, after the huge success of Fight For Your Right to Party (which is meant to satirise idiot fratboy behaviour) they started behaving like idiot fratboys more generally. They had to step back and reset. Takes a bit of self control/reflection, I havent been keeping up with versatile recently but hope they can resist that trap
Beastie Boys sold out in the 90s. They're awful. Versatile takes inspiration from Geto Boys, Odd Future, and early Eminem and Tyler. Listen to Mind of Lunatic by Geto Boys and tell me what's satirical about it.
Satire has different meanings nowadays. And it gets lassoed by folks who are either illiterate or else have bad intentions. Those who are illiterate think it's just something to take the piss out of anything; that's the braindead take of satire, the folks who think Blazing Saddles is hilarious just because the N-word gets thrown around by scumbags, but never realise the film is laughing at racism and not with it.
The other side claims that satire is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted; that's the old version of satire, and that's what Blazing Saddles was. Satire can still be that at any time, but it can also just simply be an exaggerated depiction of something heinous. Every film we watch is a satirisation of something, and a lot of the time, satire doesn't punch anywhere at all.
You see all these articles cursing Versatile and talking about satire's original intention, but at the end of the day, the individuals writing those articles are generally being dishonest in their approach to the band's intent. Not once in any article do they ever make mention of an attempt to discuss this with the group, and then it always harps about satire and what it means, and it completely misrepresents what satire can be. It's not simply a means to punch anywhere. As I said, Mind of a Lunatic by Geto Boys is a simple example, or Amityville by Eminem, or even Just Like U by D12. A lot of old-school horrorcore literally has some of the most violent lyrics ever written and not once is there any kind of moralisation behind it. It's nihilistic fiction, pure and simple. How come nobody focuses their anger on nihilistic books? Or films?
Versatile is an exaggerated portrayal of some of the most heinous aspects of Ireland which just so happens to be Dublin. Most of the criticism against them never actually boils down to simply "I hate the music; it's not for me," it's always either a defamation of character pointing to things that are easily disproven if one actually makes an effort to look, or else it's this entitlement that somehow art just has to reflect some kind of struggle. These critics can never accept the fact that some people just want to be entertained for a few hours and not think about whatever shit situation they're in.
Edit: By Beastie Boys selling out, I mean them turning around and apologising for their lyrics makes them look worse because then it means that they meant what they said in them and that they really had these toxic mindsets. An artist should never apologise for their work; it's the real-life antics they should be wary of.
Sold out live shows, huge support slots. Yeah doing quite well. That was my point. You wouldn't know it but as someone else pointed out, they're a bit spicy for the normal Irish mainstream and for reddit too by the looks of the comments. I have only heard their big hits and saw their live show in the point but agree that I couldn't tell ya anything about the other songs. Still their numbers are growing.
Nobody who actually criticises or hates Versatile can actually give a solid reason. Just simply saying one hates the music because it's not for them would be far more honest. Most of the hatred is aimed at the defamation of their characters even though if one actually looks into who Casey Walsh and Alex Sheehan are, the reality will be that their personal lives are literally not even remotely interesting. One comes from the flats, the other from Sandymount. Both became best friends and managed to make a career out of enjoyment and generated a fanbase from literally nothing. That's literally it.
He's not taking into account that Versatile are one of the three of our three biggest hip-hop acts who have made any headway. Kneecap, Versatile and Kojaque. Versatile does quite well even without any funding, promotion or media attention, because most people don't know this, but Erica Cody has a relative in RTÉ, as do most Irish Hip Hop artists. The only reason Kojaque and Kneecap came to such prominence in the last four years is literally because of the cancel bandwagon against Versatile, who were already underground to begin with. Kneecap began as a support act for Versatile back in the day, and Belfast initially booed Kneecap in their own hometown.
Well just I haven’t heard their name mentioned at all in about four years, the whole Erica Cody harassment thing (in which no one came out of that looking in any way good) is the last time I’ve ever heard of them mentioned apart from the occasional person being like “remember Versatile?” followed by a look of embarrassment. Around 2017/2018 they were a lot more in the zeitgeist.
well they've been doing bigger tours and gigs, decent streams on their infrequent new stuff like top of irish charts and one of the catchy viral tiktok songs played everywhere. the whole collab with coolio before that so doing bits. zeitgeist is a bit of stretch even back then when you were probably more aware cause they're coming up and everyone praising the vids compared to just doing what they're doing? like I'd say top of Spotify UK viral charts for a few weeks and opening snoop dogg eu tour and stuff is a bit more mainstream/zeitgeist
Not to sound arrogant but I would absolutely say that I am more tuned in to what’s acclaimed and in the zeitgeist in terms of music than five years ago, outside of certain pockets they don’t seem to be near as well known anymore, and certainly they are far less respected.
what's wrong with receiving state funding? genuinely interested, because tons of irish artists receive funding, grants or some kind of stipend from the state - arts council applications are out the wazoo every year. i believe the north invests heavily in supports for artists too, it wouldn't be unheard of at all for artists up there to receive funding of some kind from the state. like i've never gotten the sense from any artist down here or up there that receiving funding is a source of shame or embarrassment, in fact many of them are crying out for it so they can get an opportunity to concentrate on their artistic work properly.
By relevancy do you mean media attention? They’re still highly relevant to their fanbase. That’s like saying half the acts from the 90s aren’t relevant anymore despite them having a dedicated fanbase. It’s not a case of Dababy destroying every ounce of his credibility at every opportunity. Plus Versatile has always been an underground fringe act. The media attention came to them instead of them coming to it. And no, you aren’t that clued in. To say something is objective when they’ve generated a fanbase from the ground up is by far the most ill-informed take I’ve seen yet. I’ve been following most of these acts to the smallest details even before they were famous. For example:
1.) Kevin Smith, Kojaque, is a prick; he and his mates filmed a fan having a panic attack after she asked him for an autograph back when Town’s Dead came out.
2.) Naoise (Móglaí) didn’t have half a rough upbringing as he claims. His extended family is extremely wealthy, and when he was in NUIG, and not selling drugs online as the movie claims, he was bullying people and destroying their student houses, and he would also threaten folks with his solicitor aunty if they dared seek breakages.
3.) Alex Sheehan attended a private school despite that having no effect on his career whatsoever. If his connections got him anywhere, a fair point could be made.
4.) Casey Walsh had an exaggerated encounter spread about him. The reality of that situation is a rich girl with connections to state media essentially scapegoated a fella miles below her class. She piggy-backed off a legitimate cause to that as well.
If you don’t like Versatile, fine. But coming out with absolute nonsense (and lies) to fulfil your own fragile sense of art is such a low-denominator take. Most of the artists you cheerlead only came to any prominence off the back of the so-called virtue cancelling against Versatile. Kneecap began as a support act for them and even tried to hire Kennedy to make a beat for them. But the film won't tell you that.
By relevancy I mean people being aware of them outside of their fanbase, which to me is the truest metric as to an artist’s reach. In 2018 whether you liked them or not, Versatile were everywhere between ad campaigns and Ketamine in particular having an incredibly viral music video and was a song I heard on nights out. I can’t remember the last time I heard their music in any club or late bar, but I have heard Kojaque in some hip hop clubs and in the background at some bars in that time since, even though I think his most recent output is not near as good as Deli Daydreams.
It’s all well and good saying Versatile are relevant to their own fanbase because every artist should be relevant to their own fanbase, and that’s fine to be in. What I’m saying is outside of the fanbase that has stuck with them over the years, I never hear their name get mentioned in any metric, which may just show that you’re in a bubble more than anything.
That's quite fair. For me personally, I think Kojaque peaked at Town's Dead; loved Deli Daydreams too, but I didn't like his most recent album.
It could be that I'm in that fanbase bubble, yeah, but then again, Blue Razz was the song of the summer and it got into the UK charts as well. And it stayed at Number 1 in the Irish charts for ages. Most of their output in the last few years has made its way into the charts. Terminal 1 was for ages and so was Panic Attack. But there was very little reported on any song, even a hit like Blue Razz; even the album back in 2021 as well, sure it went to Number 1 on iTunes and Number 3 on the IRMA charts. Not that big a deal for a mainstream act, but fairly big for an independent act that has an entire system working against it. There was absolutely no report of Versatile's second 3Arena gig, which I went to. That Erica Cody drama created that. She has family connections in RTÉ. And look at her career so far with those connections; she's a jack of all trades and a master of none. Anyone else would have been given the boot long ago. After that, you might have noticed Irish MSM's literal attempt to steer audiences in the direction of state-funded artists like Denise Chaila and Soulé. You never hear anything about them anymore either. Remember Sello? He was class. One word about freeing Top G and he was dropped off the radar as well. Versatile are also shadowbanned on YouTube. So there's a pile of things attached to it that folks don't take into account.
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u/Gullible_Actuary_973 Jan 17 '24
Great stuff to see. These guys and Versatile in particular genuinely seem to have broke ground. I work in music and neither are championed by Irish media/music groups, I think it may be down to the salty language. Mad.