MUSIC
Ed Sheeran Announces Hiatus After Stealing Music (Again)
The singer announced an "18 month" hiatus to be with his wife, but we know the truth.
08.29.2019
Ed Sheeran announced at a show in Ipswich last night that he will be taking a break from music for "probably 18 months."
'Thinking Out Loud' vs. 'Let's Get It On': Does Ed Sheeran's song sound too similar? www.youtube.com
"There is something very bittersweet about it. I love that you guys are here and we are ending it in Ipswich," Sheeran said before oddly closing out his set with "You Need Me, I Don't Need You." The news came as a shock to his prepubescent fans, who handled the news rather dramatically.
ed sheeran: *goes on hiatus* every single radio station: https://t.co/Y2ifko84nW— cal 👼🏼 (@cal 👼🏼)1567093638.0
ed sheeran announcing a 18 month hiatus ;((( bitch i cant ;(( he better make sure he'll comeback 👊 cos the last tim… https://t.co/Q47dI1BUsp— LUO (@LUO)1566999656.0
While Sheeran claims that the break will be an opportunity to start a family with his wife, the timing of the break is eerie considering the singer is two weeks away from a scheduled court date over plagiarism allegations. Sheeran is accused of ripping off Marvin Gaye's 1973 hit "Let's Get It On" on his 2014 smash "Thinking Out Loud." The court appearance comes after it was additionally announced that the singer would not be able to receive royalties for his smash hit "Shape Of You," due to another set of plagiarism accusations from musician Sam Chokri. Chokri alleges that the track's chorus was lifted note for note from his 2015 song "Oh Why." He claims he sent the song to Sheeran's representatives in a bid to collaborate with the singer. The High Court Of England will review the case in 2020.
The most recent allegations also come after the singer recently settled another plagiarism suit outside of court with a former X-factor contender, who claimed that Sheeran copied his song "Amazing" note-for-note on his song "Photograph." As you can see below, Sheeran is no doubt guilty.
Did Ed Sheeran plagiarise Matt Cardle's “Amazing" with his song Photograph? (Comparison / Mashup) youtu.be
Whether the world will miss Ed Sheeran is yet to be seen. No other musician has been such an epitome of toxic masculinity. From the self-deprecating ego-trips of "Shape of You" and "I Don't Care" to the unrealistic and unhealthy relationship guidelines laid out by tracks like "Thinking of You" and "Galway Girl," children and teenagers alike will no doubt be better off without the mediocre singer/songwriter. Perhaps his socially inept fans can start living in the real world and learn how to start and maintain healthy relationships before it's too late.
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Culture Feature
Dear White People: AAVE Is an Actual Dialect, Not Your "Stan Culture"
Using a Black dialect isn't a meme—it's cultural appropriation.
08.03.2020
As Black Lives Matter protests have rightfully taken the world by storm over the past couple of months, we're long overdue for thorough evaluations of just how often aspects of Black heritage have been co-opted by white audiences.
It should be obvious that much of fashion and music as we know it today was invented by Black people. We (hopefully) all know by now that we can no longer accept Blackface and use of the n-word by non-Black people as the norm—and Internet users have tried "canceling" offenders in the public eye, with varying degrees of success.
<p>It shouldn't require much explanation to understand that explicitly racist jokes are bad, but there line between "acceptable" and "offensive" can be a little more muddled in some other instances—like in the case of non-Black people using AAVE, or African American Vernacular English.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p><a href="https://www.languagejones.com/blog-1/2014/6/8/what-is-aave" target="_blank">AAVE is a specific dialect</a>, like British English, and it's used by Black Americans and some Black Canadians (hi, Drake!). It comes with its own set of rigid grammar and pronunciation rules, despite decades of white people condemning it as being a "ghetto" way of speaking. However, as memes, hip-hop, and shows like <em>RuPaul's Drag Race </em>have spread AAVE outside of its typical Black communities, non-Black Internet users—such as Brittany Tomlinson, better known as the <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/daniellaemanuel/woman-trying-kombucha-meme" target="_blank">Kombucha Girl</a>—have demeaned AAVE to a simple source of the slang du jour.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-633"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent1 - mid_content --></p><p>In a TikTok video that's recently resurfaced on Twitter, Tomlinson seems to be addressing her previous use of AAVE, defending it as just a byproduct of "Internet culture."</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-634"> </div>
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</script></center><p></p><p>"I feel like it's a very fine line between genuinely calling out a creator who's using AAVE or 'the blaccent,' like, putting it on for comedic purposes, versus quoting something," Tomlinson explained. "The Nicki Minaj thing— 'big boobs? Chile, anyways...'—that's a meme, obviously. So when someone's quoting that, or when someone says 'periodt,' 'sis'—it's very much Internet culture. Like, stan Twitter. Stan culture has its own language… Collectively as a generation, if you're on the Internet, this is kind of how we all speak." Tomlinson has since <a href="https://twitter.com/brittany_broski/status/1289341598115889153?s=21" target="_blank">apologized on Twitter </a>and removed the videos.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-635"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent2 - long_content --></p><div id="49ca2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d2d2aef010af7c5d32765942f3b32e0a"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1289286200285569024" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">y’all really let this yt woman sit up and here and boldly tell black people AAVE is “stan culture” i’m sick https://t.co/QjD4mixEr0</div> — flo millicent stan account (@flo millicent stan account)<a href="https://twitter.com/slitmyclitt/statuses/1289286200285569024">1596224758.0</a></blockquote></div><p>It's true that many words rooted in AAVE have become so common that many people who use them have become desensitized to their racial connotations; <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black-slang-white-people-ruined_n_55ccda07e4b064d5910ac8b3" target="_blank">slang terms like "lit," "bae," and "throw shade" can all be traced back to AAVE</a>. Words like "sis," "periodt," "deadass," and "chile" are more recent arrivals in the general cultural consciousness, but as the responses to Tomlinson's video indicate, they've already been used by Black people for ages.<br></p><p>There's a lot of issues with Tomlinson's statement, and perhaps the most obvious is her assumption that "we all speak" in this culturally appropriative manner. Plenty of white people know that using AAVE is culturally appropriative, and for Tomlinson to diffuse the blame onto an entire generation just comes off as an attempt to dodge responsibility for her own covertly racist actions. And even if Tomlinson genuinely does think "we all speak" that way, that just further proves the troubling degree to which AAVE has been co-opted.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-636"> </div>
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</script></center><p></p><p><strong>Furthermore, it's incredibly reductive to call AAVE a part of "stan culture." It's an actual dialect. </strong>There's a lengthy list of specific pronunciation and syntax guidelines to follow in AAVE—learning it as someone who learned English as a typical white American would require some tedious brain rewiring. There are even anonymous Twitter accounts dedicated to broadcasting embarrassingly misused AAVE by non-Black people (a quick tip: "chile" means "child," not "chill"), proving it's a language with complex structures and not just a batch of fun slang words to use as you please.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-637"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent3 - longer_content --></p><p>Since <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/blackenglishhistory/what-is-black-english/a-note-about-stigma" target="_blank">AAVE has often been considered "incorrect," "lazy," and "poor grammar"</a> since its beginnings during Civil War-era of slavery, many <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2019/12/17/culture-code-switching/" target="_blank">Black people feel the need to code-switch</a>—or change their way of speaking—in hopes of being better respected by White peers. It's pretty disturbing, then, to see AAVE become a "trend" among white people trying to be funny in 2020—especially when <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/21857/people-killed-in-police-shootings-in-the-us/" target="_blank">Black people are still disproportionately murdered</a>, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2018/10/10/faces-poverty-social-racial-factors/37977173/" target="_blank">impoverished</a>, <a href="https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/" target="_blank">incarcerated</a>, and <a href="https://www.popdust.com/megan-thee-stallion-shooting-reaction-2646844030.html" target="_self">made a mockery of online</a>. </p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-638"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent33 - longer_content --></p><p>Sure, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziM8LHGzFlk" target="_blank">that one video of Nicki Minaj</a> that Tomlinson referenced is pretty funny—probably because of her sheer confusion. But why is a behavior that's inherently Black, like speaking AAVE, considered humorous among stan culture? Whether intended or not, a white person using AAVE is likely doing so to be considered funny or cool among their peers online—I can't imagine them using phrases like "periodt" or "it really do be like that" with their parents or teachers.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-639"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent4 - longest_content --></p><p>Long story short, AAVE was only considered "ghetto" until white people appropriated it; that should be a dead giveaway that white people shouldn't use it at all.</p><h2></h2>
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