Drill Time: Why Slim Jesus Isn’t Cultural Appropriation
Slim Jesus may be the bridge from overwhelmingly white middle America to the hood.
In a phone interview with Complex, we learn Slim Jesus is an 18 year old rapper from Hamilton, Ohio. Apparently, he’s only been seriously rapping for the last couple of months, but has been making music for a few years now. He makes drill music now because that’s what he listens to regularly, especially Keef, Lil Bibby, Lil Herb, and more. His friends started calling him Swag Jesus and over time it transformed to Slim Jesus.
Drill Time
The video now has over 2,000,000 views. People are comparing him to Eminem because he’s white, skinny, with short blonde hair. His flow is definitely drill. He’s not as animated as Em. The ice is reminiscent of Paul Wall, but he clearly rhymes with no discernible accent whereas Paul Wall was Houston all day. To be honest, when it comes to lyrics, he’s harder than them both. Speaking of hard, the best part of the video is the disclaimer because it’s also the smartest as there were minors on the shoot and “They gotta keep the cops off that video”
Criticism
The beat is hard, but he’s too stiff. He sounds, at times, like he’s rapping off a teleprompter. He can be clever when he’s not rhyming about guns, bitches, murders, and drugs. “You always chasin a check. Bitch I’m really bout mine. You a broke boy, but you wear designer? That shit don’t really sound right.” I agree Slim Jesus.
I can’t fault him for rapping about things he does not and has never done. That seems to be par for the course in the game.
Cultural Appropriation
I don’t think it applies here. Whether Slim Jesus grew up and lives in the hood, or just needs to be scared straight would require us to know more about him than we currently do. Hood culture depicted in this video stems from poverty and is not indicative of though certainly apart of black culture. There are poor people of all races in our union. It just so happens that poverty overwhelmingly affects black people in these great states of ours. Some of us think that history has shown us that this is purposeful, but that’s another article.
Chuck D said rap was “The CNN of the ghetto”. As a Baltimorean and drill fan, I think it’s just indicative of the blatant disrepair that some of our cities have been in throughout our country for a long time now.
