GettyHere we are now, entertain us… but not at the price of appropriating another culture if you’re Kurt Cobain.
The legendary Nirvana frontman told an interviewer back in 1991 of his feelings towards rap, and in particular white people entering the genre in the early 90s.
A 21-year-old student radio host by the name of Roberto Lorusso conducted the interview four days before Nirvana dropped Nevermind – which went on to sell 10 million copies – but he only released the audio this month, 27 years later.
Lorusso posited in his meeting with one of the founding fathers of grunge:
I read you’re a big fan of rap but dislike white rap groups, and this is a quote: “The white man has ripped off the black man for long enough.”
Kurt replied:
Oh, I don’t know. Was I drunk at that time? I’m a fan of rap music, but most of it is so misogynist that I can’t even deal with it. I’m really not that much of a fan, I totally respect and love it because it’s one of the only original forms of music that’s been introduced, but the white man doing rap is just like watching a white man dance.
We can’t dance, we can’t rap.
I mean, whoever could Kurt be talking about?
Clearly times have changed and there are plenty of white rap artists whose skill flies in the face of comments that ‘white people can’t rap’ – but in the early 90s, yeah, Vanilla Ice wasn’t exactly delivering a masterclass for the likes of KRS-One to follow… but different strokes for different folks, I guess.
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