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Cole Alexander of The Black Lips spoke out against Lorde's "Royals" on Tuesday to defend, in his words, "ghetto and ratchet sounding" rap music performed by people from "ratchet-ass ’hoods." It gets worse. The AV Club asked Alexander to talk about his hatesong — the song he hates the most — which gave him a chance to talk about how racially problematic he found Lorde's problematic song. Alexander manages to find a new way to white-splain rap music. While Lorde's song implies that chasing gold teeth and Maybachs reveals the empty materialism of rap music, Alexander argues that that materialism is what makes rap music great — it's the smart stuff he finds boring. Both have the same narrow, one dimensional view of rap culture, they just value it differently.
The problem with "Royals," according to Alexander, is that it puts down poor black people in ghettos who want material goods. "I feel like they come from worse parts and they aspire to get Maybachs and diamonds because they come from ratchet-ass ’hoods where they have no hope," he said. "I think it’s a bit righteous of her." That's a criticism Lorde is familiar with. As Spin argued in November, the problem with "Royals" was that it marked "the second time this year that a white pop song has appeared on hip-hop radio while framing its anti-materialism message around a critique of hip-hop signifiers." The other song was "Thrift Shop."