Words by Jess Smith
Three Decades
For three decades, Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has been altering the hip-hop landscape through his patronage and collaborations with some of the biggest stars in modern music. However, today the news will tell you a very different story; a story of a music giant toppled, and an empire crumbled. After a series of lawsuits and over 100 allegations of sexual violence towards women, men, teenagers, and children, the public has rightfully turned on the entrepreneurial rapper-producer — so why then has there reportedly been an 18.3% increase in streams of his music the week after his arrest?
The question opens up an extremely complicated and sensitive conversation that forces us to confront not only our morality, but also our obsession with celebrity, nostalgia, and the conflict between logic and feeling. The vulnerability and introspection such a discussion requires are uncomfortable and challenging. But in a cultural landscape in which personal consumption has public consequences and the ‘canceling’ of celebrities continues to disrupt our treatment of the media, it’s a challenge we must face.
Ethical thoughts, moral feelings
When a famous person does an obectivelybad thing, our instinct is either one of two things: we tear ourselves away from their work, refusing to consume what is now poisoned by wrongdoing. Or, we can’t help but watch, trying to repair their image with memories of great artistry. More often, there’s a push and pull between both, depending on our personal taste and attachment to the artist. Nevertheless, both feelings are brought about by a strange sort of grief.
Anyone who knows me well knows of my love for Stevie Wonder. Even in the womb, I was dancing to Songs in The Key of Life. Now, I go crazy for a Thursday night at Casablanca because I know the band often plays Superstition. His music and lyrics have done a lot of good for the world, and I often think of how desperately heartbroken I will be when he dies. However, it doesn’t compare to the hypothetical soul destruction that would follow if anything unrighteous was revealed about Stevie. I don’t know whether I’d be able to detach myself from him, knowing that his music had once felt as though he had put it on this earth for me, but with a new moral barrier preventing me from engaging in that nostalgia. For many, the death of a character is harder to accept than the passing of an artist. While I personally have never attached this amount of sentimentality to Diddy’s music, his impact on the industry is undeniably important to a lot of people, especially in certain black communities.
The thing with music, like all art, is its inherently personal nature. The musician’s emotions, fears, opinions, and desires are laid out for the listener’s consumption, whether consciously done or not. Art is subjective, and when we find something that strikes a chord with us (no pun intended), it makes us feel seen or reflects a moment in our personal history, and is thus natural for us to hold on to it as tight as we can. We place it on a pedestal and flood it with light like an artefact at a museum. Yet, unlike this artefact, we mustn’t encase it in glass, because it is good for a work of art to be changed over time, constantly criticised by fresh eyes. Yet doing this also leaves it vulnerable to damage and destruction. It is our own morality that decides how much of the object is destroyed; only the consumer truly determines how much of the artist lives in their art. It can be very difficult to make a logical decision because our reactions are seldom logical and nearly always emotional. Writer and critic Claire Dederer puts it wonderfully in her book, Monsters. She says “We tell ourselves we’re having ethical thoughts when really what we’re having are moral feelings.” It rings true.
Perfect listeners
Contributing to these ‘moral feelings’ are biases we hold based on our personal contexts. Someone who refuses to believe the Diddy case may feel that way because of a negative preconception regarding black women as the primary demographic of Diddy’s victims. Perhaps there are also individuals out there who are conscious of the judicial bias against black men in America and don’t wish to contribute to a negative image of black men in positions of power. Someone who condemns Diddy may argue there is no point in rationalising his behaviour or that of his sympathisers. And they would be right: when it comes to sexual violence and the perpetuation of rape culture, it’s about effect, not intent. No matter the individual’s reasoning, their defense of such atrocities undoubtedly contributes to a wider defense of rape culture and patriarchy. But if we attempt to empathise and contextualise the emotions and biases behind why someone may be unwilling to denounce wrongdoing, it helps us to become more culturally sensitive and understand our own biases too. Engaging in this process will give us a better idea of what we can do to make a collective impact on problematic attitudes.
It’s impossible to be a perfectly moral listener; the internet culture of cancelling is progressive in theory, but often lacks nuance and requires a pop culture awareness that not many people have. But in a society where personal choice dictates collective action, it is somewhat irresponsible to attempt to separate the artist from their art. Mass cancellation of a celebrity can be effective in creating a stigma around a name, resulting in less engagement, streams, plays, or views. The hope is that the artist’s market value declines and they become de-platformed. But judging by the increase in streams, this hasn’t been the case for Diddy, nor can it be truthfully said for the likes of Chris Brown or Johnny Depp, whose music and movies respectively remain ever popular and their characters still respected in the industry. Their maleness seems to have afforded them a suit of armour so strong that the punishment ricochets onto their female victims.
I recently came across an article in the Guardian’s Observer that attempts to explain why powerful men seem to get away with this. Martha Gill writes that “unequal societies are inclined to banish low-status victims.” The reason why accusations and the collective action that follows fail to have an impact in these instances is because the political climate we live in protects men in power, and outcasts those who threaten the system that keeps them there. But by refusing to be critical about our media consumption, we remove the possibility of that being changed.
Legacy
Folk singer Labi Siffre once said, “I would like the audience not to know who I was, not to see me. […] not to know the artist, not to see the artist, not to know who wrote the song, but to hear the music completely devoid of anything and evaluate the music on its merits.” Could this be the aim of all works of art? For them to be so influential that the person behind them is forgotten? It’s the ultimate ideal, but simply not realistic.
I don’t think we can ever not see the artist. A refusal to acknowledge is acknowledgement in itself. Listening to the music of a disgraced rapper-producer just to see what the hype is about is rooted in a curiosity about their character, however innocent that curiosity might be. It is a response to their crimes. It’s saying “I have seen what they have done, but I either care too little for or am far too disturbed by their disgrace to withdraw my gaze.”