Reviewing Whilst Black: The Occasional Necessity of Being a Hater

“Rooting for everybody Black” doesn’t mean EVERYBODY Black ALWAYS

A few weeks ago, the BBC released the music-based drama series Champion. The show followed the bubbling sibling rivalry between Boscoe (genuinely lovely to see that Ra’Nell from Top Boy is still booked and busy by the way) and Vita Champion (*sighs*) as they dealt with fame, the music industry, their cartoonishly abusive parents etc. The show was written by the best-selling author of Queenie, Candice Carty-Williams, and… yeah…

It’s not… great.

I won’t go into the problems I had with Champion but if you want an idea, try to imagine a less sophisticated, South London version of an old-school Disney original movie. Think Let It Shine but with a bit more sex and swearing yet somehow still not as mature.

Naturally, I decided that I would write down my thoughts on the series, similarly to how I did with Rye Lane (which you should watch), but as I was typing, a certain something stopped me. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure what that something was. It hadn’t plagued me when I wrote glowing reviews about Rye Lane, or Timewasters, or even when I wrote a piece talking about the appeal of Top Boy. It was only when I really thought about it that I realized what this something was.

The paralyzing fear of being a hater.

As Black Brits, many of us have a complicated relationship with public critique of Black art. We make efforts to show up and support “our own”, we rave about them on social media and make sure to give them their flowers largely because we know how difficult it can be for Black artists to make it in the entertainment industry. As someone who works in said industry, I’ve seen first-hand how non-Black commissioners can baulk at the idea of a pitch that explores a facet of Blackness that they either don’t understand or aren’t comfortable with. As I wrote in my piece about Timewasters, even a show as fun and light-hearted as that was still plagued by overbearing interference from non-Black executives. We know how easily good Black art can be disrespected and dismissed in mainstream discourse, and we know how quickly a Black artist can lose the trust of a white executive who is anxiously watching for any reason to say “I knew this wouldn’t work” and lock the whole thing off, so this in turn causes us to think twice about giving them that reason.

Hoooowever…

Maaaaaybe the fact that many of us are so aware of this has led to a wee bit of… overprotectiveness or even a siege mentality when it comes to defending Black art.

I’ll explain using a recent example.

A few weeks ago, freelance journalist and writer Jason Okundaye wrote a review of Nigerian singer Asake’s performance at The O2 in Brixton for the home of radical lemon, herb, and pepper politics, The Guardian. It was a good read with Okundaye offering fair and constructive critiques while also giving credit where credit was due and ultimately giving the experience 2 stars out of 5 (which really isn’t the end of the world, I’d give Champion a 1.5, but there are bits I’d still go back and re-watch).

In the aftermath, it’s safe to say that there were some who had… less than good feelings about Okundaye’s review.

That last one… Just… Come the f*ck on, my guy…

While a lot of the backlash against the review can generally be chalked up to the scourge that is social media stan culture, the responses that piqued my interest were the ones that somehow portrayed the mere act of doing his job and critiquing a concert as a betrayal that would set the pursuit of Black liberation back further than the Roc Nation Brunch (a celebration of Black capitalism is still a celebration of capitalism, regardless of how many Black berets Beyoncé wears).

Okundaye was hit with accusations of being something of a hater, a snob, a mouthpiece in some white supremacist plot to keep Black people (specifically men, always men) down, a c**n, a house n*gger, and many other slurs that I would usually see reserved for Black Conservative MPs or 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿Dave Lammy🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿.

It’s important to stress here that the things that Okundaye pointed out in his review are objectively poor practices, especially for an artist who expects their audience to pay money to see them during a cost of living crisis. Doing dumb sh*t like showing up late and, in this particular case, putting out a half-hearted tribute to the two people who were killed at his previous concert (having not even engaged with their families) should be widely condemned and viewed as instances of unacceptable behaviour because they are. The fact that criticizing these glaring issues, as well as merely stating his own opinion on the rest of the performance, was enough to see Okundaye labeled as a race traitor speaks to a larger issue that Black reviewers (both aspiring and established) face.

Of course, many people who would accuse a Black reviewer of being a race traitor are simply being disingenuous, and are using racial justice as a handy device to try to shut down critique of their fave. But this line of thinking also reflects a much wider anxiety that even some of us who know better can’t help but feel. It’s the idea that by airing our (Black people’s) dirty laundry in public and being critical of Black artists in spaces where white people can see these critiques, we are now opening the floodgates and condemning this artist to be canceled and shunned by the mainstream, and possibly even emboldening racist culture warriors to join in. We are ruining the lives and careers of our own people all because we have to go and have an opinion.

And yeah…

Nah.

This, like many anxieties, isn’t entirely rational and prevents us from expressing ourselves in a healthy manner.

While I understand that we want to support Black artists and show out for them, there is not a single artist, Black, white, or Gallifreyan who deserves your complete uncritical support.

I own a sweatshirt with Issa Rae’s immortal “ROOTING FOR EVERYBODY BLACK” emblazoned on it, but I also once saw a white boy wearing a t-shirt saying “MORE BLACKS, MORE DOGS, MORE IRISH”. Sometimes there are terms, conditions, and caveats to what we wear on our bodies that mean they should be taken with a grain of salt. This idea that we can’t be critical of Black artists, regardless of the sh*t they pull, often leads to us letting them off for behaviours that can range from unprofessional to downright abusive.

The simple fact is, showing up late to a concert for no good reason is unacceptable and shows blatant disrespect towards the same fans who genuinely want to see you succeed to the point of investing their money into you when the Telegraph says they could have used that money to buy some houses or some sh*t. It is absolutely correct that we should be honest with our critiques of Black artists when we feel they have erred, because by drowning out all dissent with uncritical adulation, not only are we telling them that these bad practices are okay, but we are also depriving them of the feedback that is often so critical to the self-improvement they need to grow and survive as artists. The only thing more insufferable than an entitled artist who shows nothing but open contempt for their fans and craft is the fact that stans often will reward this entitlement.

If I’m being totally honest, in my view, I can’t really talk about stans who are oversensitive to criticism from Black sources without briefly acknowledging the way in which some Black artists encourage this behaviour. Whether it’s by publicly calling out individuals who don’t like their work (knowing damn well that their stans will follow suit), or long rants denigrating Black consumers for failing to support their work (as if they’re betraying the Black community as a whole by not giving money to one person); these artists fuel our anxieties by (often cynically) dangling the idea of Black freedom of expression and even liberation to make us feel like critiquing their work will somehow undermine those things.

Perhaps the most important consequence of this anxiety to avoid being dragged as a hater is how it robs us of mainstream Black reviewers. I’ve lost count of how many Black people I’ve seen voice their desire to review an often-acclaimed piece of Black entertainment but ultimately decide against it. Often they’re discouraged because they’re either worried about not seeming supportive or they’re anxious about the backlash they might receive if they offer an even slightly negative opinion. Of course, everyone is within their right to express disagreement with a negative review, many white reviewers can tell stories of people who have taken issue with their own critiques. But when I see Black people and even sometimes artists and creators accuse one of us of being a hater or unsupportive because we’re criticizing them in front of the whites, it’s hard not to feel like this is somewhat holding back our ability to honestly engage with art from our communities.

When I watch something like Champion, or Timewasters, or Top Boy, or even American projects, I often find myself wishing that I didn’t have to delve into the far reaches of YouTube in order to find some Black British critics who are able to understand and critique these shows in a way that other demographics can’t. But it annoys me knowing that there are those who watch these things, and have opinions that they want to share, but deprive us of their thoughtful addition to any discourse around it, out of guilt and fear that they will be shouted down for being a hater.

This anxiety is how you end up with a sea of white reviewers who give shows like Champion 5 stars and say sh*t like “it talks about race” (Champion talks about race in the same way that I talk about race with white people who I absolutely do not want to talk to about race). The problem isn’t the reviews by themselves, the problem is the lack of diversity of opinion and perspective; the fact that I know there are people out there who could offer much more detailed and insightful critiques but don’t feel emboldened to do so, and that’s a real shame because I believe that art suffers without honest opinion.

The truth is that if being honest and constructive in your critique of Black art makes you a hater, then so be it, the more that label is meaninglessly thrown around, the more we must become comfortable with it. Because at the end of the day, a bit of hate really is necessary.

*I was going to write a paragraph about how this desire to not be a hater and the shouting down of critique (specifically critiques from Black women) landed us with Chicken Shop Date, but maybe another time.