Why Is This Insulting?

Maybe it's just the same racism that had people hating on my friend Leon for posting to Gawker about this guy who blogs in the voice of Chauncey Billups and also does blogs in the form of fake emails to Jay-Z.

Is it always misguided to dislike a cover of an awesome R&B (I think I'm gonna spell R&B "R$B" from now on) by a sub-awesome not-punk band or any other group of twentysomething white boys? I remember there was a folky acoustic cover of Boyz N Tha Hood a while ago and I felt the same nauseation going, you know, just thinking something like "What gives them the right to do this."

It's very hard in these sarcasm-soaked times to draw a line between doing a cover of an R$B or rap song just to be cute and doing one because you love the music and want to participate. Sometimes the gig rings true and it's just happy times, but mostly when something like this shits itself out I just cringe.

I'd like to attribute my distaste for these covers to the fact that they rob songs of their original vibrancy and attitude, that they take a passionate and legitimately felt sentiment and turn it into crass pomo cuteness. But again the problem is one of intent, and who can really properly attribute that from the outside? I guess the most logical critical perspective is that these covers just don't add anything to the existing song, don't appear to have a reason to exist, the original song is infinitely superior, bladie bladie bla.

Whatever it is, I will continue to disfavor this effort, as much as it might align me with socially conscious rappers and others with whom I generally disagree aesthetically. Sometimes you just gotta bite the bullet.