When Tom MacDonald arrived on the scene and gained self-made fame by being a conservative rapper who was completely self made it seemed pretty exciting to me. Despite the fact that YouTube suppresses his videos and the industry is working against him because well, the industry in liberal, he rose to fame and made a ton of money without the assistance of an record label or promoter. He is just a talented rapper who if you were to just look at him, you wouldn't guess at all that his a conservative.
He is so much, as far as he looks, the opposite of a conservative that I don't actually believe that he is one. I think he is creative for sure and his raps are really good, but I think that he might have just been capitalizing on the fact that there really wasn't anyone out there that had approached the social and political landscape of today the way that he has and he thought he could make money off of it.
For one thing, dude is Canadian. That doesn't mean that as a Canadian you can't have an opinion about USA politics, which is what he raps about almost exclusively, but I'm a bit curious about why he doesn't ever rap about Canadian political issues because they have their own, don't they?
I feel as though Tom was trying to take advantage of the political turmoil that has existed in the USA since Trump was elected and saw an opportunity to gain an audience and it really has worked for him if he is just faking it to make it.
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not your average looking conservative
Most of his videos get between 20-100 million views and this equates to a lot of money for him and to me, I just kind of doubt the sincerity of the message that he is portraying. When NWA started back in the 80's with gangster rap, none of those guys other than Eazy-E were actually gangster, but they portrayed themselves as such and it worked. So Tom went the other direction and it has really worked for him. I would say that since he isn't a slave to a record label, that it may have actually worked out better for him than other people.
Music doesn't have to be a true reflection of self though and I realize this since a lot of the music that I really enjoy is metal that is about fantasy topics. I'm not necessarily looking for everyone who sings to be representing how they truly are because if they did so, music would probably be boring.
This isn't the main problem I have with Tom MacDonald though because I am very aware that a lot of artists are just writing words that rhyme, it isn't a reflection necessarily of how they really feel. The real problem I have with Tom MacDonald is that every single one of his songs follows exactly the same format.
It goes like this
- musical intro
- verse
- (normally) boring and uninspired chorus
- verse normally done by someone else
- repeat boring and uninspired chorus
- bridge that is normally just a bunch of talking / preaching
- repeat boring and uninspired chorus (sometimes twice)
- end of song
I was in a band for years and no, we were not good and I realize that this is the format for 90% of music out there including the greats of all genres follow this same format. It is just more noticeable to me in Tom MacDonald songs for some reason and I think this is because his hooks or choruses are just too damn long
I'm not saying that the guy is not talented because I have to say that I really like the way that he spits, for sure. But seriously? Does every single song have to follow exactly the same format?
Tom actually had a very good upbringing and he misrepresents his youth in his songs so I don't think he is drawing his "experiences" in his songs from things that he actually witnessed. I think he is taking advantage of the political and perhaps even racial divide that exists in USA as well as a tinge of "I'm the next Eminem" thrown in there, just to sweeten the pot.
I like the message, because he is pro-gun (or purports to be) and pro-freedom and I am all about both of those things but I'm sorry.... I just don't believe that he is genuine and when I do listen to his songs, I tend to skip a lot of it because it's just rather boring in my opinion. Oh, and he uses the word "tobacco" in almost all of his songs, I guess because it rhymes with a lot of things.