Open Thread: Alicia Keys
by Latoya Peterson
In the May issue of Blender magazine - which hits stores tomorrow (April 15) - the Grammy award winning singer said
that she believes the government created gansta rap as a “ploy to convince black people to kill each other.”Keys also said the government perpetuated the bi-coastal hip-hop feud that snuffed the lives of rap greats Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G., “to stop another great black leader from existing.”
This is a side of the artist fans haven’t really seen. The side that sports a gold AK-47 charm around her neck which she says symbolizes, “strength, power and killing ‘em dead.” SOURCE
On the way to work this morning, I heard Alicia Keys giving a radio interview to clarify her comments. She stood by her basic statements, but says that somehow, her words got a bit twisted. Take, for example, the AK-47 pendant. That was apparently an in-joke as her friends call her AK (for Alicia Keys) and the “strength, power, and killing ‘em dead” was in reference to her performances. She also said she did not blame the government for gangsta rap, but the government did encourage this kind of violence and did not take the steps needed to quell the coming violence in certain communities. And so on.
I’ve heard a lot of people weigh in on this one, but here are my favorites.
Jay Smooth kills it as usual:
Some other thoughts from Average Bro, dnA, and Lauren & Cord from Stereohyped.
Your thoughts on Keys’ comments and the fallout?
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
Courtney Martin wrote:
Jay Smooth, I do love thee.
“Crazy” is torturing people and incarcerating them for months on end without due process.
“Crazy” is letting a public education system that fails poor people continue while using 1984-worthy slogans like “No Child Left Behind.”
“Crazy” is killing people in order to give them democracy.
I’m way “extra suspicious” of that kind of “crazy.”
Sing it Alicia.
Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 8:48 am ¶
Gregory A. Butler wrote:
I’d have to second Jay Smooth here!
Yes, Alicia Keys is probably wrong on the details of an alleged conspiracy to promote the rise of gangsta rap and on the details of the (still unsolved) murders of Biggie and Tupac.
But… I can’t hate on the sista for having a healthy sense of suspicion.
After all, the US government DID bring us the Tuskeegee Experiment….and COINTELPRO… ect ect ect…
And lets look at what happend to hip hop!!!
I’m 39, so I’m old enough to remember conscious hip hop being mainstream - and I was there for the rise of gangsta rap, and the torrent of rap glorifying booty shaking and bling.
There was a tremendous sea change at one point, to a large degree a change for the worse, and I can’t blame AK for having her suspicions about how that change happened.
As for Biggie and Tupac - while there is absolutely no evidence that the government had anything to do with their killings, there is the whole COINTELPRO factor (remember, the campaign to kill the “Black messiah” - and the real world murders of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Fred Hampton, Marc Clark ect that “coincidentally” happened during those same years..) so again, I don’t blame Alicia for having her suspicions.
Predictibally, she’s been pilloried by the mainstream media for having these opinions - but, then again, this year, anytime a Black person (or, in AK’s case, a biracial person) voices a well thought out opinion on American White Supremacy and Negrophobia, the MSM are ready to jump down their throats
Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 9:12 am ¶
cosmicsistren wrote:
I do not take what music artists say seriously. Talk about what you are good at.
which is music. Leave the political comments or the plight of Black America out of your mouth in public.
Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 9:24 am ¶
dnA wrote:
Aside from the “the government invented gangsta rap thing” which was clearly misunderstood, nothing she said was that crazy.
Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 9:29 am ¶
Kmoney wrote:
In response to what she said, I heard a white radio host say on Monday “you would think, with Obama running for president, that she’d be more responsible about what she said!”
zzzzzzzzzzzzzing!
Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 11:43 am ¶
dawn wrote:
I’d never heard of Jay Smooth before but now I think I love him. Thanks for the link!! And for the record? I love Alicia Keys and a little conspiracy theory on her part isn’t going to change that for me.
Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 12:28 pm ¶
Sin Vergüenza wrote:
It seems to me that so much of gangsta rap– was predicated on the drug trade.
It is well documented that the government intoduced heroin into black communities in the ’30s and ’40s and then crack/cocaine into the same neighborhoods in the ’80s. So, in a way, the government created the conditions under which gangsta rap would flourish.
She’s not crazy. She’s just not connecting all of the dots for some folks.
Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 3:04 pm ¶
sfsinger wrote:
I am a musician and I am very political and will continue to use my voice. AK is a very intelligent woman and I’m sure the writer misconstrued some of what she said. Black people are very well-versed on what the gov’t is and isn’t capable of doing. It’s just everyone else that seems surprised. Any person of conscience would be moved to speak out against injustice.
Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 4:34 pm ¶
Angela wrote:
I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist, but I can’t hate on Alicia. Granted, I’m biased because I love she and her music, but regarding hip-hop, I think there is a connection between what it’s done to blacks and who is in charge of it….just sayin…
Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 7:09 pm ¶
AC wrote:
cosign Angela. I think there is a direct link between what is presumed to best sell and what is then correspondingly made. Given that the talent in the music business, in this particular genre, is predominately black and the powers that be - record companies, AR men, etc are white…well you connect the dots. Why is it we have so many non-main stream artists with powerful, positive uplifiting messages who can’t get a deal to this proliferation of gangsta rappers for whom record deals are easily obtained? just sayin…
@ Courtney and Dawn -wrt Jay? Line forms to the left ladies, get in behind me - thank you.
Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 11:50 pm ¶
lunanoire wrote:
Sin, thank you for refrerring to the drug trade, especially imported drugs. One of the few ethnic groups in the US w/o widespread international connections, drug related or otherwise, are descendants of U.S. slaves.
Posted 17 Apr 2008 at 1:34 am ¶
Dee Dee (AK Fan) wrote:
NOT A RACIST
I believe that this is the blenders way of creating a smear campaign against Alicia. I feel she was being targeted because she tends to stay out of trouble while most celebrites stay in trouble. Not only that, she just released an album and this LIE could stop it from selling. I am bi racial and so is Alicia so there is no way you can declare a bi racial person racist for the fact that somewhere along her bloodlines she would be offending herself. Alicia isn’t the type of character to attack people like that and I think the haters that did this have a cold black heart for targeting a woman so pure. I mean, just by what you see and you don’t see, this woman was a philanthropist, and she helps people and everything, it’s sad the The Blender would attempt something like this. If they ruin anything for Alicia, they will get a does of Karma. Like Alicia said in the song Karma “What goes around comes around!” so the blender will get theres in the end.
Posted 17 Apr 2008 at 4:52 am ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:
I understand the mistrust, but some times it becomes a bit too much. I have spent a lot of time traveling in the Middle East and in the Arab community. The conspiracy theory has almost become “gospel” in this community.
It is an excuse to not take responsibility for anything. Everything negative can and is blamed on someone else and so no action is taken to remedy issues.
Why should they? It is someone else’s fault.
Scepticism is fine, but in moderation.
Posted 17 Apr 2008 at 2:04 pm ¶
G. D. wrote:
To Cosmic Sistren:
Why should Keyes have to shut her mouth and not express an opinion just because she’s a musician? She’s also a tax-paying citizen who has the right to say whatever she feels like saying. I don’t take what a lot of enterainers say seriously either, but that actually depends on the person saying it, and whether they have any credibility with me. Since when did being an entertainer meant you automatically gave up your right to express an opinion. I just find so ridiculous and silly.
Posted 17 Apr 2008 at 8:46 pm ¶
G. D. wrote:
To Abu:
Yes, I get tired of hearing conspiracy theories too, but I don’t consider it an assignment of blame or not taking responsibility for one’s actions—it’s just an acknowledgement of the lengths our government/media have gone to to censor and cover up things in the past and persent, which fuels these theories. And given the conduct of the Bush gov. in recent years, I’m not surprised to hear them at all.
Posted 17 Apr 2008 at 8:49 pm ¶
gladman wrote:
Biggie/Tupac great black leaders, Alicia nneds to read up on her black history before making such sweeping statements. Gangsta rap US govt. conspiracy believable, AIDS made in a US lab, believable. Go do some benefits for Obama, it’s about time the US black artists fraternity grew some balls and spoke out. well done Alicia
Posted 18 Apr 2008 at 6:15 pm ¶
Eun-jung wrote:
I definitely have to go with Jay Smooth (like most people are doing)…. I do NOT think that Alicia Keys is “crazy” for her thoughts or beliefs - like everyone says, they may be wrong but she has every right with supporting facts from history to feel as precautious as she feels. Even as I feel as a minority race in the eyes of the US government.
So keep goin’ AK, speak yo mind.
Posted 20 Apr 2008 at 2:30 am ¶
flabbyabby wrote:
First off why the HELL does everybody keep whining about rap as if it set in STONE somewhere that it’s supposed to be socially conscious?!! That’s idiotic and future leaders WTF?!! She does have a right to her opinion no matter how cluless and ridiculous it maybe I agree Abu just more lazy finger pointing.
Posted 20 Apr 2008 at 7:35 pm ¶
Eric Daniels wrote:
Alica’s problem is that she really needs to study the buisness of why ‘gangsta rap’ got so popular and it was because Easy, Dre, Cube, Jerry Heller and Suge Knight saw massive profits in debasing women and glamourizing gang life in the late 80’s. Pac and Biggie were not Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke nor did they write compelling songs, they continued the slow bastardation of commerical rap to the deteriment of people of acts who were really doing great work.
Alica my dear Biggie and Pac were not the next great leaders but self- destructive hacks who got killed hanging and pissing off Bloods and Crips, frankly they are Morrision and Gramm Parsons of their era really creative beginings with self destructive ends and unrealized potential.
Posted 21 Apr 2008 at 7:34 pm ¶