Noname has already responded and the dust has settled. J Cole missed the point, and posted something that re-enforced a patriarchal system that silences women, specifically black women. Well, that was the perspective that was immediately applied as fact. I’m just not wholly convinced. Was this song tone deaf, and a bit trivial at this current point in time? Yes. Misogynistic and dismissive of a woman who has given her time and energy to support a righteous cause? No. His criticism wasn’t because she was stepping out of the preexisting gender roles of women, it was simply because it’s hard to receive new knowledge when you’re being called an idiot in the classroom. Then again, I’ve never had the ego to be swayed from the truth because of how it was conveyed. Whether you think he was right or wrong, her response in Song 33 brings the raw truth- there are too many other things to be focused on in the community than to a battle song. He could have done like others on our short list of conscious rappers. Crickets.
