Talk:Smoking on My Ex Pack

R&B vs Hip hop/rap

There is a very confusing section in the introduction.

> Before SOS, SZA had been known as an R&B artist who made "sad girl" music, a narrative she wanted to dispel because she viewed it as reductive. She found the R&B categorization in particular racially insensitive. As such, she wanted to experiment with "aggressive" hip hop music for SOS, leading to the conception of "Smoking on My Ex Pack".

She finds being categorized as an R&B artist as racist, so now she wants to make more rap/Hip hop music. But rap/Hip hop is also stereotypically black music. So how does any of that make sense? Am I missing something? - Rooiratel (talk) 07:47, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

@Rooiratel: She finds being labelled strictly R&B racist, something the prose itself discusses more in depth. ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ ^{💬 "Will you call me?"}
_{📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?"} 07:55, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

> Black music doesn't have to just be R&B [...] Why can't we just be expansive and not reductive?

I still don't get it. Who's saying that black music is just R&B? Reading through African-American_music there are many genres and sub-genres. And nowhere does it say that it is typical to only stick to one genre only.

But I realize that my confusion lies with her weird opinion, and not with the actual editing/wording of the article. - Rooiratel (talk) 08:22, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

@Rooiratel: If you actually read the cited sources, you would understand what her "weird opinion" means, which is that no matter what music she makes some people are still going to call her an R&B musician because Black artists tend to get confined to just one genre precisely despite the wide variety of African American music. I feel like that’s super disrespectful, because people are just like, ‘Oh, ’cause you’re Black, this is what you have to be’ — like, put in a box. And I hate that. But we are not here to discuss her views---merely to work on the article content---peculiar as you claim her said views are. Either way, I have reworded the lead to make her intended message clearer. ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ ^{💬 "Will you call me?"}
_{📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?"} 08:57, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

I did read the cited sources, but didn't find them helpful. I guess my problem is that I have not listened to a lot of her music, so I wouldn't know if it did already span multiple genres before her latest album. If that was the case, then I guess it makes more sense. I'll dig in to it for my own interest's sake. But anyway, thanks for making the article clearer. - Rooiratel (talk) 09:04, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

External links

Is the external link section really necessary? The only thing linked in it is the lyric video of the song which is already linked in the infobox. 2001:2020:319:7C8A:65E3:D5B5:1DD0:63C2 (talk) 10:22, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Good catch. ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ ^{💬 "Will you call me?"}
_{📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?"} 11:41, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Title meaning?

Perhaps somebody could explain in this article what the title of this song actually means? Because it's complete jibberish to me and I would hazard to guess that I'm not the only reader for whom that is true. Ieneach fan 'e Esk (talk) 23:23, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Ieneach fan 'e Esk: To smoke someone's pack, in rap terms, is to celebrate someone's downfall or insult someone (see Know Your Meme; yeah I know I know this is not RS but this is the best we got). While I'd love to put that in the prose, there is no actual reliable source about the song that explains the title, as already mentioned. Besides, one can deduce from context clues what the title means by reading the article's coverage of the lyrics, as with many songs. ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ ^{💬 "Will you call me?"}
_{📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?"} 23:30, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

@Your Power: Thanks for explaining that to me. Yes, you are right, you can deduce it from the text if you read the entire article, but not if you just skim the introduction. Personally, I would put it in without a source and put up a ^{[source needed]} reference. Knowing what the title means seems to me a rather important element of an article about a song. Ieneach fan 'e Esk (talk) 01:20, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I would advise against doing that. Because then the article would stop being up to FA standards. ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ ^{💬 "Will you call me?"}
_{📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?"} 02:28, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree that this article needs some explanation of the song title. After reading the entire article and devoting some effort to parsing the phrase, I understand it to mean "[this song is a demonstration of] me engaging in the process of figuratively killing [by means of my polemic] members of a group of people which is made up of my former romantic interests". Academic publications are rife with analysis by experts who identify and explain dialect such as this—it would be easy to find a key in some reliable source. Visitors to this online encyclopedia ought to find here an exegesis of this quizzical conceit. —catsmoke ^talk 08:44, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

No need to be facetious, @Catsmoke. Anyway, as I already mentioned earlier, there genuinely are no RS that explain this; this AAVE term is not used widely enough , unlike words like "slay" or "spill the tea" , to be considered for documentation in academic material yet. It is not my fault or the article's fault there is a paucity in coverage. FAs exhaust all available literature, and this article exhausts all available literature. I am not sure about continuing to babble about a topic so miniscule. ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ ^{💬 "Will you call me?"}
_{📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?"} 08:57, 10 November 2023 (UTC)