Continued from part 2 of the death of rap - 3.1.2007.2 ...
The fact is that the ‘thug’ life is a choice relatively few African Americans chose. But it is those few that have been paraded around on the media like a prize winning dog at a kennel show. I’m no fool, being Black in America is no picnic but it is far from a death sentence or a life long prison sentence in a ghetto. The “hip-hop hoodlums” responsible for the anarchy at the NBA All-Star game in Vegas that Mr. Jason Whitlock wrote about chose to be that way. The only Black artists that “shuck and jive”, as rapper David Banner calls it, are in my opinion rappers. Recent Oscar Award winners Ms. Jennifer Hudson, Mr. Forest Whitaker, Mr. Denzel Washington, and Mr. Jamie Foxx can hardly be described in such a manner. Entertainers like Mr. Stevie Wonder, Mr. Quincy Jones, Mr. Chuck D, Ice-T, and the late Mr. Ray Charles don’t fit such a description either. Yet I feel such a label could be applied more easily to 50 cent, than Mr. Spike Lee. Thus in my opinion rappers today that live the ‘thug life’ are merely showcasing a modern version of the minstrel show, for the main audience of White Americans that buy their albums.
So I am glad to hear that more are heeding the call started by Ms. C. Dolores Tucker, and continued by individuals such as Professor Tracy Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Mr. Bryan Hunt, Mr. Rashod D. Ollison, and others (including myself in my own small way). I am happy to learn that sales have dropped 21%, and that no rap album has hit the top 10 for the first time in 12 years. Happy that is if diversity becomes more prevalent. If the realities of what I think is accurate of most Black Americans gets to be heard. I’d love to see fewer music video girls and ‘crunk’ and ‘bling’ [what kind of ebonic idiocy are those words? They rate right up there with that ‘fasizzle’ lunacy. Get a dictionary and learn to speak your native tongue] if it means I can see substance, like that evoked by Public Enemy and KRS-One. Throw in a little mindless fun like Mr. Will Smith’s original alter-ego the Fresh Prince and Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five and I’m a very happy man. I’m sure sales would actually go back up, and probably surge beyond what they have been.
Because I don’t think rap is a temporary medium. I think it’s a powerful form of entertainment, and social outcries. It’s a voice that can express all the aspects of Black American life. Because being African American is not a singular mold, nor a commodity or as Mr. Chuck D states, "...one-dimensionalized and commodified us into being a one-trick image". It was all these positive things once, and it can be again. But until then rap aides and abets the worst attributes of the Black community while giving a show that makes ‘shucking and jiving’ look like a waltz.
This is what I think, what do you think?
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Part 2 of the death of rap - 3.1.2007.2
Continued from part 1 The reported decline of rap music - 3.1.2007.1...
And the issue of what ‘gansta’ rap addresses needs to be addressed. This is supposedly the life of Black Americans, the ‘truth’ of being African American in America today. Perhaps I grew up in the wrong time in the world, or the Bronx is not large enough, or the apartment I grew up in was too rich, but few of the ‘truths’ rap speaks about are what I’ve encountered. While my experiences show that the police are not the most friendly group of individuals (to say the least) they are far from the Klan. While the materials I was taught with were sub-standard, nothing stopped me from seeking more knowledge or furthering my education. While I’ve seen and been in many fights, there was never a need or reason worth killing someone over. And drugs have always been present, though as a child they were beyond the reach of kids; and I’ve seen more childhood friends become addicts, locked up in jail, and dead by the time I graduated high school because of them than I wish to recall.
If the ‘truth’ that ‘gansta’ rap speaks of was true, then my younger siblings should all have very different lives. [I am the oldest, my siblings range from 3 to 14 years my junior] My sisters should all be baby-mamas with 4 kids each from a different father without an education and living off any man that regards their bodies as ‘doable’. I’m happy to say that this is not the case, like many other women my sisters have all attended college (one with a Masters, another with a BS, and a third in school now) and the only one with children is married (with her husband the father). According to rap today, that isn’t the truth yet I see it often. If my brothers were to live by the standards espoused in songs today, I wouldn’t be able to own a company engaged with computers and the internet nor would my brother be able to program computers. None of us would be able to even spell computer, and my other brother would be dead. All of the males in my family would have 6 kids, all from different women, we would sell drugs, kill other Black men to prove we are important, and be addicts. None of this is accurate for my family, nor the vast majority of African Americans I know and have seen across this country.
Continued in the final part 3 ...
And the issue of what ‘gansta’ rap addresses needs to be addressed. This is supposedly the life of Black Americans, the ‘truth’ of being African American in America today. Perhaps I grew up in the wrong time in the world, or the Bronx is not large enough, or the apartment I grew up in was too rich, but few of the ‘truths’ rap speaks about are what I’ve encountered. While my experiences show that the police are not the most friendly group of individuals (to say the least) they are far from the Klan. While the materials I was taught with were sub-standard, nothing stopped me from seeking more knowledge or furthering my education. While I’ve seen and been in many fights, there was never a need or reason worth killing someone over. And drugs have always been present, though as a child they were beyond the reach of kids; and I’ve seen more childhood friends become addicts, locked up in jail, and dead by the time I graduated high school because of them than I wish to recall.
If the ‘truth’ that ‘gansta’ rap speaks of was true, then my younger siblings should all have very different lives. [I am the oldest, my siblings range from 3 to 14 years my junior] My sisters should all be baby-mamas with 4 kids each from a different father without an education and living off any man that regards their bodies as ‘doable’. I’m happy to say that this is not the case, like many other women my sisters have all attended college (one with a Masters, another with a BS, and a third in school now) and the only one with children is married (with her husband the father). According to rap today, that isn’t the truth yet I see it often. If my brothers were to live by the standards espoused in songs today, I wouldn’t be able to own a company engaged with computers and the internet nor would my brother be able to program computers. None of us would be able to even spell computer, and my other brother would be dead. All of the males in my family would have 6 kids, all from different women, we would sell drugs, kill other Black men to prove we are important, and be addicts. None of this is accurate for my family, nor the vast majority of African Americans I know and have seen across this country.
Continued in the final part 3 ...
The reported decline of rap music - 3.1.2007.1
Finally there is an outcry about rap music. I must say that while I am glad this is finally happening there should be an understanding that such an outcry should not be all inclusive. I do not recommend abandoning the music genre en masse. I do not think that it should be censored, or limited. In fact I want it to be widened, more like its original format than the narrow range seen today.
I have long stated that rap today, and hip-hop, is a waste of time. There is far too much copy-catting of the same 3 themes: drugs, sex, and violence. Virtually every rap song, and hip-hop to a large degree, discusses to some extent at least 2 of those 3 themes. Those themes are used to promote the use of drugs, the use of sex as a means of status and degradation, the sale of drugs, and violence to support status, gain income, and further the degradation. For more than a decade this has been the voice of rap.
Yet this was not always the case. Those roughly 35 and older recall that there was more to rap than this. Rap music initially was a statement of fun and enjoyment. It evolved to discuss social ills, individual empowerment and positively being around friends. That’s when it was killed off to be replaced wholesale with what is now the mainstream (formerly the splinter genre ‘gansta’ rap).
Rap is not responsible for someone being so vile as to go out and shoot a cop, or rape a woman, or any other offensive action. I’m sure lawyers wish they could prove that, but it is no more responsible for a thoughtless action than Rock & Roll is for suicides (examples include Marilyn Manson or Metallica). That being said, I do feel it is responsible for praising such actions. Rap today nearly requires its top stars to be convicted felons, drug addicts, and uneducated.
The growth of ‘gansta’ rap is not the fault, or cause of, African Americans. While entertainers emphasize their Black heritage the fact is that sales have been predominantly fueled by White Americans. As the need to ‘express the truth of our lives’ became more violent, sales to White Americans grew. So the claim that, “...the truth is at least us talking about what we're talking about, we can bring certain things to the light,” seems to be reaching a group of people that neither knows what ‘we’ are talking about nor capable of making it change [those changes being a personal responsibility not a societal one].
Continued in part 2...
I have long stated that rap today, and hip-hop, is a waste of time. There is far too much copy-catting of the same 3 themes: drugs, sex, and violence. Virtually every rap song, and hip-hop to a large degree, discusses to some extent at least 2 of those 3 themes. Those themes are used to promote the use of drugs, the use of sex as a means of status and degradation, the sale of drugs, and violence to support status, gain income, and further the degradation. For more than a decade this has been the voice of rap.
Yet this was not always the case. Those roughly 35 and older recall that there was more to rap than this. Rap music initially was a statement of fun and enjoyment. It evolved to discuss social ills, individual empowerment and positively being around friends. That’s when it was killed off to be replaced wholesale with what is now the mainstream (formerly the splinter genre ‘gansta’ rap).
Rap is not responsible for someone being so vile as to go out and shoot a cop, or rape a woman, or any other offensive action. I’m sure lawyers wish they could prove that, but it is no more responsible for a thoughtless action than Rock & Roll is for suicides (examples include Marilyn Manson or Metallica). That being said, I do feel it is responsible for praising such actions. Rap today nearly requires its top stars to be convicted felons, drug addicts, and uneducated.
The growth of ‘gansta’ rap is not the fault, or cause of, African Americans. While entertainers emphasize their Black heritage the fact is that sales have been predominantly fueled by White Americans. As the need to ‘express the truth of our lives’ became more violent, sales to White Americans grew. So the claim that, “...the truth is at least us talking about what we're talking about, we can bring certain things to the light,” seems to be reaching a group of people that neither knows what ‘we’ are talking about nor capable of making it change [those changes being a personal responsibility not a societal one].
Continued in part 2...
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