Talk:Smoking on My Ex Pack

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Smoking on My Ex Pack is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on November 8, 2023.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
April 3, 2023	Good article nominee	Listed
July 19, 2023	Featured article candidate	Promoted

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on April 28, 2023.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that one can change from doing 'sad girl music' to dissing your favorite rapper?

Current status: Featured article

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TFA

Hi Your Power. I was copy editing the draft blurb for this prior to its proposed TFA on 8 Novemeber when I spotted that the lead said "ridicules her past lovers in various ways, for instance insulting their penises" and the article "she finds various ways to insult her past lovers." Ie, the article gives a summary of what is in the lead, when it should be the other way round. Perhaps you could look at resolving this, possibly by simply switching the two statements? Cheers. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:56, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Gog the Mild: I believe I already addressed that in Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Smoking on My Ex Pack/archive1#Coordinator comment ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ ^{💬 "Will you call me?"}
_{📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?"} 00:26, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

At least I'm consistent. Oh kaay, let's go with that. I suspect I won't be the last person raising this point though. Pun intended. Gog the Mild (talk) 00:36, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

> 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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]