Hating is For Suckas & You Suck
Haters are just confused admirers. I know because in my life I have been prone to hate. When I think of hate I think of 1 Corinthians 13:11, which reads, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”
Well, I like to say, "When I was a child, I envied like a child, got jealous like a child and hated like a child. When I became a man, I put my childish hateful ways behind me.”
Now, there’s a difference between hate and someone's honest critique. I don't like being labeled a “hater,” I prefer the term "Cultural Critic" but there’s a very fine line between hate and cultural critique.
A cultural critic would say, "Nicki Minaj is dope, she's doing her thing. I actually think her rhymes were a lot harder when she was doing On The Come Up DVD's but she's still nice and I hope she does the right things with her cult-like following because she has a lot of young girls looking up to her and trying to be her. I hope she leads them to do the right things because with great power comes great responsibility.”
End quote.
A hater would say, "Fuck Nicki Minaj, the bitch can't rap; she's a fake Lil Kim and she be trying to sound like Wayne. Fuck her and all the Barbies that want to be like the bitch.”
End quote.
Do you see the difference? The cultural critic gave his honest opinion on the Nicki Minaj movement. He said what he thought about her, what he used to think about her, and what he thinks she should do with the power she has. The hater had nothing good to say, it was all disses and insults. You know why; because with ENVY comes needless criticism.
JEALOUSY destroys from within. Haters can never think rationally about a situation because they are too busy wondering why they are not in that situation. They are unhappy with what they’re doing so they bash what someone else is doing because it makes them feel better about themselves.
Most losers are haters; that's why you should never listen to a loser’s opinion. They sit around on their keyboards all day and throw insults about people via Twitter and FaceBook and they post negative comments on different websites, which is what LOSERS/HATERS do. Go to any news article on XXLMag.com right now and I guarantee that out of the 50 comments on any one article only about two or three will speak on the artist mentioned in a positive light. That's because in this day and age there are so many people LOSING at this thing called life that everybody hates anyone that's winning!
Think about some of the most storied franchises in sports, Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics, New York Yankees and my favorite team ever the Dallas Cowboys. People either LOVE or HATE these teams. If you love them it's because you’re a loyal or fanatic fan like me. If you hate them it's only because you grew up watching them beat the shit out of your favorite squad. You hated seeing them win Super Bowl after Super Bowl, World Series after World Series, NBA championship after NBA championship and you wished it was your squad that was winning so the jealousy and envy you felt manifested itself into pure hate for these teams! It's the same exact thing with people!
I personally feel like nobody has experienced more hate than Sean Carter aka Jay-Z. Since 1996 he has done nothing but win. When he first came out we all wanted a movement like Roc-A-Fella. He was the star player on a team he owned but there came a point when you started to hate Jay-Z because he was winning WAY too much.
Haters started to look for flaws. Haters wanted Nas to knock him off his pedestal, and cultural critics just wanted a good hip-hop battle. Haters graded his presidency at Def Jam an “F” because LL didn't sell records, or Meth and Red didn’t get proper promotion, or because Memphis Bleek and Young Gunz didn’t do what he said they would. Cultural critics took all those aforementioned things into consideration and still gave him an “A” because he was instrumental in Kanye, Rihanna, Ne-Yo, Rick Ross and Jeezy’s careers.
I remember when Kingdom Come came out and people bashed it and still do, but I loved it because it was grown, executive, Jay-Z reporting live from the boardroom. He was taking us someplace we had never been and I appreciated that. Music is like books, when we read about things we've never experienced it takes us places we've never been but shows us where we can go. That's what he did with that album. It had a couple of wack joints on it, “Anything” featuring Usher and Pharrell was one of them but overall I thought it was solid. Haters just said, "Fuck Jay-Z, he need to stay retired with his old ass; he's wack now," with no real reasoning behind why they feel he's wack.
American Gangster I didn't like so much. Musically it was great but I felt like he was going backwards and using the movie as an excuse to rap about the D boy lifestyle again. I feel like Jay-Z was bigger than the trap lifestyle. We know he used to do that and didn't need to hear about that anymore. Then when he dropped “D.O.A.” haters (me included) said, “Why is he declaring death to AutoTune?” All the things he could declare death to in hip-hop and he chose AutoTune? Why not death to the drug culture in hip-hop? Why not death to rappers disrespecting women?
Then, when I stopped hating, I understood why he did that. Jay-Z is all about the culture of music, the pure grassroots boom bap of hip-hop. He wrote that song because he felt that's what the cultured needed at the time and it did. Then he brought it right back around full circle from where he was on Kingdom Come with the BP3. He was spitting like the grown man, veteran, executive/slash kid from the projects that he is and I respect him for that.
But, you know what a hater would say?
“Fuck, Jay-Z! If Big and Pac were alive he wouldn't be shit. He hasn't dropped a dope album since the first Blueprint; all he does is bite Biggie… What the fuck he mean death to AutoTune? Niggas is eating off that shit and his old ass want to hate? Man, I hope Beyonce leaves his ass. I can't stand that camel-looking nigga! You know the only reason he on top is because he part of the Illuminati and he worships the devil, right?”
What kind of world do we live in, when people are losing so much that whenever they see a Black person winning they have to say it's because he worships the devil? Forget God, talent, and hard work, the only reason he's winning is because he worships the devil?!?!?!
That's when hate has gone too far.
We must challenge ourselves to understand the difference between honest opinion and hate. Honest opinion and constructive criticism are great for you. It can only help you get better. Hate is destructive and it doesn't cause you to grow as an individual and you’re only hurting yourself in the long run because instead of focusing on how you can become a winner you are too busy hating on whose winning to the point that you’re falling behind in the race and not even realizing you’ve lost!
Next time you speak on a person ask yourself, “Am I jealous of this person? Do I envy this person? Do I want to be in this person's position?” If you answer yes to any of these questions then don't speak because you won't have anything constructive to say. It's better to remain silent and be thought of as a hater than to speak out and remove all doubt.
In closing, I would like to end this how I started by saying, Haters are just confused admirers. As you grow older remember my remix of 1 Corinthians 13:11: "When I was a child, I envied like a child, got jealous like a child, and hated like a child. When I became a man, I put my childish hateful ways behind me.”
Being a hater is childish and we cultural critics are quite grown.
May Allah bless you all.
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