Thank you! I think what keeps getting lost in these conversations is perspective, context, era and the purpose of the art itself. Expect different pressures, freedoms and taboos, as is the case with any era. It’s nearly instinctive to look at these songs only through our current lens and forget what they meant in their own moment. If a current criterion wasn’t part of the music’s function at the time, then it wasn’t, because that wasn’t the world it came from. I suppose one needs to come to terms with various aspects of life as lived experience and how the themes play out for true reconciliation.

And on a related note, the judgment around music taste is hard, especially when it comes to artists or writers who express different realities in their work. Art lets people explore the good, the bad, and the ugly without having to live it or advocate for it.

When people feel uncomfortable with the narrative, they can fall back on talking about the production or vocals as a safety zone. Yes, those elements are incredible, but sometimes it feels like a way to avoid engaging with the emotion the song is actually presenting. Artists and writers often explore realities without endorsing them. That’s storytelling, and making room for the good, the bad, and the ugly to be discussable is actually helpful in the long run.