“Fake Woke” by Tom MacDonald

On “Fake Woke”, Tom McDonald confronts a modern-day social phenomenon known as “cancel culture”. Cancel culture is another name for what transpires when a person says something politically incorrect and resultantly is ostracized by the online community.

nd McDonald himself, being a rapper who isn’t afraid to say what’s in his heart, has had his own fair share of encounters with online haters. But this track really isn’t about him. Rather he is calling out people who engage in such practices as being “fake woke”, which is basically a roundabout way of labeling them hypocrites. In other words, they will attack a countercultural figure like himself while at the same time accepting someone like say Eminem, a rapper who says things even more controversial than Tom. Or they would consider the likes of Cardi B as a viable role model for young girls or push rappers who advocate illicit drug use to the top of the music charts, despite themselves claiming to be “woke”, i.e. aware and sympathetic to what’s going on in the world. 

McDonald also brings up controversial political and racial issues also, as is his norm. But basically what he is saying throughout is that if a person decides to be socially-aware in one area, then they should also endeavor to be so in all areas.  Once again going back to Eminem for instance, Shady shouldn’t always be talking about his love for his daughter while simultaneously making tracks about “slay(ing) hoes”. 

And overall McDonald goes about calling out all types of people he feels are contradictory and criticizing a number of popular social movements of the day as being misguided and/or uncompassionate.

Facts about “Fake Woke”

This track, which was both written and produced by Tom McDonald, was officially released on 29 January 2021 via 999 Records.

Upon being released it instantly blew up on iTunes, first scoring a number one of the US Hip-Hop Songs Sales Chart and then replicating the feat on the US Song Sales Chart in general. Moreover within a day it also garnered in excess of 1,000,000 views on YouTube. And of course McDonald relished its success on Twitter.

His achievement was also celebrated by the folks over at Alex Jones’s Infowars conspiracy theory website. And what they are particularly impressed by, besides the song “bashing cancel culture”, is the fact that it blew up “not having a record label, manager or distribution network”. So the implication is that the aforementioned 999 Records is perhaps a front for Tom McDonald, who is in fact known as an independent artist, releasing the song himself.

This track may read like its dissing Eminem during a moment of time when it’s been open season on Slim Shady. But the lyrics which refer to Em don’t really read like disses, as some have interpreted them. Indeed McDonald himself, who has sorta called Eminem out in the past, went on to imply that his references to Marshall Mathers on this track weren’t meant as a diss.

Summary

In all, Tom is giving zero f**ks, basically calling out the popular masses for being misguided hypocritical people.

Furthermore, it appears Tom wants people to set aside their differences and come to the realization that everyone is being ‘played’ by the powers that be. These so called powers that be don’t want the ordinary people coming together in unity and opposing the system that is messing everyone up!