Free Weezy Mug Night not meant to offend

First of all, let me say that those who did attend the Free Weezy: A Mug Night will no doubt attest to the success of the event. We created a safe space to play Southern hip-hop and a cool alternative party for those who were not attracted to the Miami ViCE party. With that said, let me also say this.

I genuinely appreciate hip-hop music and culture, and was really psyched that everyone seemed to be supporting this music and our party over ViCE's electro DJ party. However, it soon came to my attention that some of the posters my colleagues and I designed had offended some people within the Vassar community.

Initially, I was hurt that people had misinterpreted my genuine appreciation for a music genre, and more specifically, for Lil Wayne, as a racially insensitive assault on black values, and I still honestly believe that the backlash against the event was misguided. For every potential criticism of our event, there is an explanation that will not only show how our critics were misguided into calling out what they perceived as racism, but how we were blinded by white privilege to the potential of our marketing scheme to be misinterpreted as such.

We never intended to offend or harm. We only wanted to play Southern rap and have a fun party in Lil Wayne's honor, given his recent incarceration. In marketing our event, we were thinking solely on a personal (not racial) level that appealed to our outlandish senses of humor and our infatuation with Lil Wayne: not Lil Wayne as a black man, but as an artist who maintains a public persona so outlandish that he even raps "we are not the same I am a martian," and "you can't get on my level, you'll need a space shuttle or a ladder that's forever"—a man who regularly incorporates drug use into his lyrics. He is, in a way, hip-hop's Hunter S. Thompson: creating a bizarre, drug-fueled persona that we cannot help but be attracted to for all the right and wrong reasons. That aside, he is a musical genius who often addresses more serious issues such as former President of the United States George W. Bush, Hurricane Katrina and the tragedy of the American ghetto. He is a man whose wordplay is impeccable and magnetic beyond its bizarre, marijuana-fueled eccentricities. But given that this was an event meant to be in good fun, we chose to focus on the bizarre side of Lil Wayne, thus the more fun side of Lil Wayne.

As a person who appreciates art in all of its forms, I have always been particularly critical of the notion that we must analyze the intent of every piece of artwork and design. In my humble opinion, there are many things in this world that are beyond a deep investigation. They mean to provoke solely through the visceral reactions that one personalizes upon experiencing the medium. A cartoonish poster of Lil Wayne, the McDonalds character Grimace gripping codeine syrup, Bun B and Pimp C, is not meant to provoke any deep critical theory. It is meant to bring chuckles to people; what LSD was to the hippies, purple drank is to Southern rappers, a drug identifiable with a specific culture, often referenced in lyrics and artwork.

Beyond our posters, what do I say to those who were offended by the word choice in our event description? It's simple. I was inspired by the shoutouts that I heard on the hip-hop radio stations for club parties while driving through the South. Our description attempted to reflect upon this, as well as poke fun at goofy suburban white boys who attempt to emulate their hip-hop idols by awkwardly adopting their speech patterns. While I never intended to offend or to mock an entire culture let alone a race, it was brought to my attention how my comments and posters may have been seen as such through a discourse with many of the offended folks about white privilege and hip-hop in general.

I unconsciously made posters appropriating the more humorous and cartoonishly magnetic elements of Lil Wayne's personality that I myself am attracted to, without thinking about how palatable they would be to a general audience, let alone people who were not of my color. The grammar we used in our event description, particularly the phrase "ghetto hood grammar," was also seen as offensive. Although I was merely trying to pay tribute to a song by Memphis group Three 6 Mafia, in my ignorance of how others would perceive my campaign, I simply assumed that everyone would be in on the reference. Many were not, and I soon realized this as they came up to me and confronted me for apparently trivializing working-class black vernacular. I did not take into consideration how what I perceived as a pop culture reference could be seen as racism by others, especially considering who was throwing this event and how we expropriated symbols and phrases (essentially symbols and phrases belong to the black community) that could be seen as being condescending when used by a white person. Although this was not my fault as a person, the systems in which I have been raised have sadly never taught me to acknowledge this fact. In fact, I am glad that I had this experience, as it has given me a firsthand experience of the consequences of white privilege and has granted me the newfound knowledge and ability to recognize it in action and stop it.

Moreover, while I have learned from my mistakes and would never again create a piece of art or an image that appropriated imagery or phrases that could be deemed as insensitive or offensive, I will say this. The Free Weezy Mug night was an attempt to celebrate one of our favorite musicians and to create a space where Southern hip-hop could be blasted incredibly loud in a judgment free environment, where sweating bodies and fun, dirty music created a night typical of the madness that goes down in Matthew's Mug. We never meant to offend, merely to provoke and entice people to come to our event via loud, cartoonish imagery, guerilla marketing and a general reflection on the aesthetic of Southern rap in general—in particular, the cartoonish aesthetic of Southern rap mixtapes cover art. Just Google image Gucci Mane's The Burrprint 3D or OJ Da Juiceman's Orange or Paul Wall and Rick Ross's collaboration Dirty Business. In the course of our party, people of all types told us how fun it was to finally have a Southern rap party in the Mug. Those who claimed that we were throwing a minstrel show in the vein of a "Compton Cookout" were thus misguided. Unlike the Compton Cookout, which was an exclusively white event, the Weezy Mug night was an all-inclusive event and was always intended to be. Students of color had even voiced their excitement for the event before somebody chose to get offended.

Can we not say that just as much as I do not have the right to satire the outlandish aspects of Lil Wayne's persona, as I ultimately will never be able to share his life experience as a black man from the hood, those who criticized the Free Weezy Mug night without attending and seeing the fun mayhem that occurred can not truly criticize the event for the same reason?

As I said before, I believe that within the field of art and criticism in general, people tend to overanalyze intent. Lil Wayne himself has constantly detracted reporters who analyze his work abstractly, calling him the next Elvis or the next Sammy Davis, Jr. As Weezy himself says, "I'm just me baby." His work is not necessarily tied to any racial, social or economic construct (at least explicitly) other than the drug-fueled, eccentric world of his own creation. I hope that rather than focus on the whole miscommunication of the whole pre-party marketing fiasco, the Vassar community acknowledges the success that our Mug night was on a purely visceral scale, which was our sole intent in the first place: to provide an environment where we could pay southern rap at loud volumes and where people could dance and hook up and have fun listening to the music they love. Think about it. Open your mind like I have mine to the ramifications of my otherwise well-minded actions.

—Nick Burrell '12 was "DJ Rubben Studdard" at the Free Weezy event.