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Culture, healing, politics and bullshit - Not necessarily in that order

The general, socio-political and very personal rantings and ravings of a hip hop head from the hood hustling for change... Of himself.

You all know me and are aware that I am unable to remain silent. At times to be silent is to lie. For silence can be interpreted as acquiescence.
—Miguel de Unamuno



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Monday, April 16, 2007

Get The Hell Out Of Here With That Nonsense!

Don't ever let em' take you off your square. That's what's up right now, the okee doke is being ran on your ass.

I am the living embodiment of Hip Hop and the terms, phrases, and narrative descriptive used in modern day were not invented in the last thirty five years so act like you know.

Don't act like there wasn't black folk on the defensive because an R&B or rap cat was on the offensive back in the day. We've always made strides to police self, we are not defenseless! C. Delores Tucker is rolling over in her grave over this ish.

Bandwagon jumping, house negroes... You just got your ghetto pass revoked. You know regulation and revolution starts at home. You've had your chance but were too busy getting your escalade detailed. Overtime called that ass in, huh?

How dare you say that Hip Hop is the major influence in what's going down right now. Oh, all of a sudden Music, Turntablism, Graffiti, and Breaking is soooooo destructive. How dare you comapre sexist, racist slander against my beloved to what some kid from the hood penned as his or her own truth! It may not be politiaclly correct, but just as I ask for us to divest from those that damage us in the ENTERTAINMENT industry, think about the divestment made after the close of the slave trade. Think of the lack of funding the school system and the systematic training of self hatred placed in the hood... You get a lot of BITCHES, NIGGAS, HOES AND MUTHAFUCKAS. You get what you pay for.

Now imagine all the folks that rose up from that and graduated high school. College. Grad school. Got their doctorate or PhD. Imagine a bunch of working class, church going, mosque attending, temple filling, tax paying, no jail record having, child raising, PTA meeting brown skinned people that make up 12% of the populous here and have over 900 billion to spend and have the power to make change in Washington DC... So now we're all bitches and hoes? Now because that's 'the primary way of communication' between us makes us all targets for reprogramming?

My momma never purchased a rap album in her life. My little brother has three children and doesn't buy that garbge. What kind of influence do they have on society?

What percentage of Hip Hop Music (it's called Rap Music) is actually vulgar? What ratio of folk in or outside of the hood actually buy these sexually and/or violent themed products? What do they look like? Where do they live? What's the demographic again?



You act like Planet Asia, Bahamadia, Tribe, PE, Lauryn, Del, Black Milk, Heiro, Common, Jurassic 5, Guru, Lupe Fiasco, Madlib, Rakim, Mr. Lif, Talib Kweli, Aseop Rock, dead prez, Little Brother, KJ 52, Blackalicious, Gospel Gangstaz, Brand Nubian, K-Os, Kardinal Offishall, The Coup, I Self Devine, The Roots, Saul Williams, Pharoahe Monch, Madlib, Freedom Of Soul, Baatin, KRS One, De La Soul, Dialated Peoples, Nas, Supernatural, Strange Fruit, The Spooks, Underground Movement, The Cross Movement, Slum Village, Jeru, Arrested Development, Outkast, P.I.D., Goodie Mob, Murs, Nappy Roots, Mos Def, Immortal Technique, Afu Ra, Werewolf, Last Poets, Jessica Care Moore, Rage Against The Machine, Spearhead, Poor Righteous Teachers, Sage Francis, Mr Del and countless others do not exist.

Keep letting the large, faceless corporations tell you what to do. The same conglomerates that own CNN, Fox and MSNBC and the same producers of unnecessary product that's peddled to you fund these bullshit artists and the negative images that's the focus right now. Don't stop at firing a morning drive DJ, cut the head off if you dare.

What good parent does not know what their child is listening to? What about other forms of entertainment have the same vulgar themes and aren't targeted? Movies? Video games? Television?

Uh huh, what I thought.

I ain't defending Tipper Gore, but wasn't she a catalyst for change to add labels to recordings that have explicit language?

Any why were those Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx records hidden back in the day?

What ever happen to home training? Restrictions? Ass whoopings and such? Not that you gotta beat your kid...

I ain't defending Uncle Luke but hasn't Hugh Hefner been doing the same ish for damn near 50 years? You mean to tell me there's no abuse or explotation going on over at the grotto?

I refuse to let the talking heads in the idiot box put words in my mouth to say that some 25 year old kid signed to a recording contract has me disrespecting my mother and sister.

Excuses, excuses...

I've never seen so many that have been wanting to say it, say it. Blog reading and newspaper articles have listed the N-word so many times, and to my knowledge that wasn't said two weeks ago. Is it because you want to say it just to get away with it?

Not all of y'all, just that chosen few. You know.

Imus didn't piss me off, all of the self-serving, closet racist ass individuals that decided to come out. I'm glad you did.

At least back in the day, my daddy and grand daddy knew who the foe was... I'm mad that it took this for you to rear your stankin' asses. Now I know where to aim.

The streets have never stopped watching. If you won't police it, we will.

9 comments:

Luke Cage said...

What's it been man? Two generations after the end of "legal discrimination" and race still ignites political and social debates. We talk about civil war flags and confederate flags, and even more locally racial profiling by law enforcement.

But to me, the wider public discussion of race relations seems muted by a full employment economy and by a sense, among white folks that the time of large social remedies is loong past.

Race relations are being defined less by political action than by daily experience, in schools, in sports arenas, and in pop culture. Lets not even forget at worship and especially in the workplace.

No Hip Hop is not to blame for what's happening in the streets, what's happening on shock radio and is definitely not to blame for Imus' mouth. If he'd learned a long time ago how to curb his tongue on the radio, he wouldn't be fired today.

While I am for anyone having free speech and I am one to say that we live in an ultra-SENSITIVE culture, I don't believe for one minute that this man lost his job because of pressure from us. Which in itself is a shame. It should've been us to bring about his downfall.

But the almighty dollar is powerful indeed. And when those sponsers began pulling out, one after the other, Imus was dead! It needs to start by us, from us and end with us. That's the only way it'll ever be done right. Nuff said.

P.S. Thanks for putting up REAL rap artists on this post. Now that's what you call art.

Gallis said...

Yeah this whole hip hop argument is so lame. It's kind of like saying there's swearing in movies now cause of Lenny Bruce. Puh-leeze.

I think this whole sitch goes to show that context is truly everything.

But then again, I doubt he'd have commented on a white team's appearance. But that's just me.

Anonymous said...

Imus is off the air because the advertisers pulled out. When it became too expensive for CBS and NBC to keep him on the air, (when they lost too much money) they got rid of him. The difference being, as Gwen Ifill pointed out yesterday on Meet the Press, in 2007 some of us are on the boards and in the boardrooms of Proctor and Gamble, Staples, NBC, etc. So when we say 'no more!' we can put the economic teeth behind it.

As far as HipHop/ Rap music, I am 39, I grew up in the South Bronx and I luv HipHop. I have witnessed the music, and the artists, morph and transform over the last almost thirty years. It may have been an artform, but now its a business. We as a community have to actively support the conscious, female and local artists (like the ones you listed in blue) and pull the economic plug on the others. Not censorship, but free trade.

Good Post!

Anonymous said...

PS. Luv your Dredlock South Park Man Avatar!!! ((smile))

Shai said...

NIKI has a point, dollars made them pull DI not ethics. SMH.

T. S. Snowden said...

this is what I'm talking about! Bowing down is not the way to combat issues that affect US. We know what we need to do to police ourselves and reading the N word in every other medium just proves that equality is just a word and not a real American priniciple.
I would hope that we wouldnt let Imus be the catalyst for some sort of shift in our culture when we have plenty of our own representations of what positive culture is independent of his statements and so-called "gangasta rap".

Rose said...

How did we get here again? IT never left. Society has become to lax, people are too comfortable in saying anything but the problem is it's mostly about African Americans. To me whether it is hardcore rap music that degrade women, too sexy videos, etc., for us things will not change unless we make it happen ourselves. It seems and you know what I mean that we have given in or given up.

Blu Jewel said...

this is an incredibly well written post. i came here by way of Terry (Cheap Seats) and am glad I did. I too have raised many a question born into this post. I wonder why we say we dislike something that lends a negative ear to our culture, yet do nothing to remedy it. Where did the head held high black woman go? and who is this video hoe that so many young ladies aspire to be? where is the brother that was raised to respect his momma/sister? and who is the brother is baggy jeans declaring his manhood with jewels, cars, and cash and a harem of women?

Agreed, white society has been pulling off this scam for years; doing the dirty and calling it clean, but we don't have that luxury. And when we do, we tend to take it to an extreme is doesn't need to go.

Hassan, i could go on for days on this topic, but i digress. i thank you for dropping some much needed wisdom and insight and pray that the change Sam Cooke sang of will one day come.

Peace bruh!

soul said...

I'm tired.
I used to love hip hop.
Now I can barely stand it. Not because of some faceless corporation but because of the black men and some women rocking the mic for hiphop.

The fact is this, whether you want to say it or believe it, the fact is as a woman the shit that hiphop is pushing out 'en- mass' is disgusting.
Sure corporations agree it, but who is writing it and who is buying it?.
If you say white boys are buying it and you know this, then all it means is those hip-hoppers are willing to defile their own for a buck, to me that makes hip hop cheap.
Sure we have positive MC's yes I vibe off a few of them on that list.
But the fact is, if black rappers stopped writing and rhyming crap then they would have nobody to sell it to.
Can you imagine if white boys said the crap about black women that rappers do?.

And I'm sorry there are plenty of parents who don't know what their kids listen to, and they are good parents, they just can't be everywhere 24-7, they are also working hard so that their children can go to the best schools.
You can't stop a child from hearing filth if it's walking down the street and some loud shit is playing in someone's car.. or in the park, or online.
children are curious, they will investigate, they think naughty words are funny and because they are taboo they seek them out even more..
How are you going to police that?

Rappers love to talk about where they are from, and to oppress those places, drive through the 'hood' with a beamer or a hummer or whatever.... cos you know you gotta show the hood that you are 'up on it' and at the same time they keep on killing the soul of the people in the hood.

Hip Hop has a heck of a lot to answer for.. we have to admit it.
It is an art form that now seems to deal out self hate, denigration, desecration and degredation on the regular like fuel.. it re-enforces stereotypes and makes hereos of them.
To compare it to films and such is just a distraction.. who cares!

When a rapper says says all his women are bitches and ho's in a digestable easily repeated form with a banging beat tell me it doesn't go straight to the heart of issues.

We can't fight this fight with recording studios if we can't fight it with ourselves.
We don't own hollywood. we own hiphop.