Two Great Quotes on Hip-Hop
by Latoya Peterson
I am in the middle of working on a series about hip-hop, but I came across these two gems and had to share.
From Ta-Nehisi Coates:
dnA chimed in on his site and basically read my mind by making the point that people who make judgments about the moral worth of hip-hop, often aren’t especially schooled in the music. I was literally thinking that this morning, during my jog. I virtually never write about country music, or have any commentary on it. Know why? Because I couldn’t tell a Toby Kieth song from a Tim McGraw cut. Essentially, I’d have no idea what I was talking about.
But hip-hop, evidently, requires no such knowledge and any Tom, Dick and Hank often feels free to weigh in and lambaste the entire genre, or better yet, attempt to do it themselves and lambaste it. [...]
People talk about misoginy and violence-glorifying lyrics as crimes against women and young people. But most of all that stuff has been a crime against hip-hop, as its marred many a great lyrical performances. Now we are heading into a time, when the profane is all hip-hop is apparently all that makes hip-hop notable.
For me, the greatest tragedy of hip-hop is that its literary qualities were never cultivated, were never really celebrated except by the kids who could recite verses in their sleep. I think Ghostface and Raekwon will die without the larger world really getting the beauty of, say, “Motherless Child.” Remember Rae’s wicked intro?
Rich man, poor man, read the headlines
Niggers gettin murdered for spots and bigger dimes
Jobs and drug wars, living by gun-law
Jail-cats come home and wanna take me on
As a young one growing up broke, me and people had to sell coke
I guess we all in the same boatYou gotta hear the beat (play the video above) with it to get the full effect obviously, but this pairing of pounding drums with Rae’s own concise description of late 80s, early 90s Statin Island has a visceral beauty. I swear when I was playing the video for this post, I almost broke the table banging it with my fists when the beat dropped in. But my point is that hip-hop at its best has an incredible beauty to marry words to the natural rhythm of the world. As I’ve written before, the beat itself puts a premium on words–can’t say too much, or you go off beat–and thus you get incredibly beautiful and resonant phrases like “living by gun-law” or complete understatement and modesty like “jail cats come home and wanna take me on.” If you think about it, they probably want to do a lot more than that–but the great MC, like the great artists, knows not to reveal too much. [...]
I tried to fashion my memoir like an M.C. fashions rhymes, with a close attention to langauge and a constant attempt to stay with the beat which I could hear pounding in my head. If my memoir does anything, I want people to get how much I owe, as a writer, to the years I’ve spent rewinding the lyrical performances of Big Daddy Kane (”The Symphony”), Gza (”Liquid Swords”) and Chuck D (”By The Time I Get To Arizona”). These cats (thanks to a bunch of fools who’d sell their souls for a spot on VH-1) are going down in a heap of disgrace. But, for whatever it’s worth, they taught me how to think, and in large measure, how to write.
You can’t understand what I mean by that if you somehow think “Cop Killer” is a representative sample of the genre.
And Nojojojo of the Angry Black Woman blog writes on The Hip-Hop thing:
What I am, though, is a member of the generation that grew up on hip hop. I’m not an across-the-board fan, but I nod my head. I lean back. Sometimes I buy. What I don’t do, unlike Mr. Williams and apparently the majority of black Americans who’ve decided to blame hip hop for “high drop-out rates, record black-on-black murder statistics and a record number of out-of-wedlock births”, is tar and feather a musical form as the root of all evil. Because, quite frankly, that’s silly. Of all the scapegoats they could come up with for the myriad of problems faced by the black community, this is the best they could come up with? Come on, now.
On top of that, they’re not even talking about all hip hop. If all you’re listening to is what’s in constant rotation on the Clear Channel and other “big corporate” radio networks, then you’re hearing only the tip of a massive and diverse iceberg. Most of the hip hop artists on my iPod have never gotten airtime on mainstream radio. Some of them are regional acts, popular only in certain cities or chunks of the country. Some of them are from other countries, because hip hop went global ages ago and sometimes I like my hip hop in Japanese, or Portuguese, or Arabic. It’s easy to find translations online. Some of the older artists in my iPod started out mainstream, then got pushed underground by the surge of gangsta rap in the 90s; most are still going strong. Some are newbies who distribute their work strictly online, or through CDs passed around hand to hand at parties, or through obscure labels not generally known for hip hop. [...]
The next time any of you out there decide, like Mr. Williams, to make some denigrating blanket statement about hip hop and its terrible, epidemic effect on the black community, please make sure it’s actually hip hop you’re talking about — the real stuff, I mean, and not the musical Frankenstein manufactured by rich old white guys in suits. You’ll sound much smarter if you do.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Feminist Punk! wrote:
I’ve always found it hilariously pathetic when people say how much they hate hip-hop/rap, which comes off as racist. I don’t know why, but it’s the tone of their voices and the attitude that comes with it.
You don’t hear them bitching how much they hate country or pop, both generally more “white” labels.
Posted 24 Apr 2008 at 10:10 am ¶
NancyP wrote:
Let me indulge you. The last great “pop” music was 50 years ago. And 99% of country music is badly sung and irritating.
Face it – 99% of music on commercial radio is crap. Rap is only a small portion of the craptastic commercial airwaves.
Thank your local independent or college or internet radio station today.
Posted 24 Apr 2008 at 10:49 am ¶
JustPlainOl'Me wrote:
Slightly off topic, but I hate when mainstream media mislabels a musical artist. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen T-Pain, Akon or Chris Brown defined as rappers. Nooooooooooooooo!
Posted 24 Apr 2008 at 11:02 am ¶
Feminist Punk! wrote:
@NancyP and JustPlainOlMe, yes, that’s very true.
The same can be said for other genres such as punk, heavy metal, goth, and anything that isn’t pop.
Many bands on MTV (ie: posers) are often masquearading (and being labelled by the media) as punk/heavy metal bands, when in fact, they’re not punk or heavy metal, they make awful crappy music and pretend to be punks/metalheads.
I can see a lot of similarity with “posers” in hip hop and in punk rock, heavy metal, and other “alt” genres.
So maybe I was wrong with my comment. I guess a lot of people REALLY do hate mainstream fake hip hop music, because it’s not really hip hop, it’s just mainstream MTV crap, made by posers who haven’t got a clue about what real hip hop is.
Posted 24 Apr 2008 at 12:06 pm ¶
gatamala wrote:
I’ve noticed the same thing too Feminist Punk. There is such a vehemence in their voices when they talk about how much they hate hip hop. I don’t hear any other genre being dismissed on such a visceral level.
Posted 24 Apr 2008 at 1:23 pm ¶
Tony wrote:
I dislike Mainstream Rap, Pop and Country.
Yet I like Metal, Goth, Punk, and some non-mainstream rap. (generally stuff with a message, be it old stuff like Grandmaster Flash or someone more currently active like KRS-One)
I won’t deny there are those who dislike music forms due to the race most associated with them, but alot of us just plain don’t like the music.
I tend to avoid commenting on modern rap specifically because I admit I don’t keep up with it.
But it’s sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t thing.
First of all, Rap is harder to avoid.
I live in a big city, I never really hear Country, if I don’t go to the mall, I don’t hear pop.
But I hear Rap a lot.
Secondly, one is more expected to defend a dislike of Rap.
If you’re white and dislike it, you have to defend yourself from being racist.
If you’re black (or part black) and dislike it, you are assumed to be a sellout.
Third, Rap is now the main popular music form of the youth.
The main popular music form of the youth will always be bashed and hated, sometimes unfairly, by he rest of society.
When it comes to purely biased hatred, I don’t think Rap even comes close to how “heavy metal” was treated in the 80s.
Posted 24 Apr 2008 at 1:40 pm ¶
Arturo wrote:
The last straw for terrestrial radio, for me, was when stations started bragging about their not playing hip-hop. Their spots would use some “white” — at least, white-sounding — voices expressing relief that their station didn’t play “any of that hip-hop stuff.”
Similarly, I’ve noticed that one of the more popular “Eighties’ Nights” clubs here in town has historically refused to play any hip-hop. Instead it seems geared toward the Morrissey/Depeche Mode/early alternative crowd. Which, hey, if you want to call it a New Wave club, that’s one thing. But billing it as ’80s nights carries an undertone that, sadly, many of my friends don’t seem to get.
Posted 24 Apr 2008 at 5:24 pm ¶
Meghan Rose wrote:
Nothing to say but amen. As someone who grew up on hip hop and who will always have a definite love and appreciation for it, despite my changing tastes in music and feelings on music in general, I am often upset as well by the fact that people turn on a mainstream radio station for five minutes and think that that makes them qualified to speak about how hip hop is the root of all evil. These quotes touch deeply on this issue for me. Thank you for posting them.
Posted 24 Apr 2008 at 7:16 pm ¶
*M* wrote:
I hate hip hop, am i racist beacuse i do not want to hear music that dehumanizes women, does not respect human life, does not acknowledge the seriousness of drug uses, glorifies violence and uses the N-word every other word?
Posted 24 Apr 2008 at 10:41 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
M –
I thought I made it pretty clear that there are different parts of hip-hop. In addition, hip-hop is a culture with multiple elements – the most generally accepted (or main four) of these are emceeing, Djing, b-boying, and graffiti. Rap is a smaller subset of the genre. Gangsta rap/mainstream hip-pop that does what you mention and that kind of stuff dominates Clear Channel airwaves, but does not represent accurately what hip-hop is.
If hip-hop doesn’t move you, that’s fine – but let’s at least clarify what we are talking about.
Posted 24 Apr 2008 at 10:47 pm ¶
Korolev wrote:
The Musical style itself can’t be responsible for crime – that’s almost like saying all forms of video games promote crime. Rap is a form of music – what matters is what the artists say and do themselves.
It is a pity, but I feel that Rap is not living up to what it could do. There are few good rap songs these days. And of course, I blame MTV.
Rap could be (and used to be) a powerful medium to talk about suffering, war, hope and history. Unfortunately, it’s now been reduced to talking about sex, meaningless materialism and, of course, rebellion for the sake of rebellion (being lawless for the sake of being “bad”)
Ah well – I never really liked rap that much. Maybe that’s because I’ve only heard the “recent” stuff. I do recognize its potential, though.
Rap is not the root of all evil – I don’t prescribe to the idea that there is a “root” to all evil. However, I will say that perhaps one of the biggest causes of misery in the black community are Gangs. Gangs cause the violence, sell the drugs, abuse the people, commit the crimes. Not rap music. Rap music doesn’t exactly have a corporeal body, right?
But Gangs “speak” through their own rap music. This is the problem. And mainstream rap musicians feel they have to emulate some of the “gang-rap” style in order to be perceived as having credibility.
So it’s obvious – don’t support rap which has these messages. Don’t buy a CD which promotes “gang-values”. And of course, boycott MTV, because MTV is a festering sore on the back of humanity.
If everyone does this, I’m sure Rap will change for the better.
Posted 24 Apr 2008 at 11:21 pm ¶
jen* wrote:
When I come across hip-hop-hate it usually seems to translate to -
“I don’t really care for black people and/or minorities in general (present company possibly excluded) but this was the only socially acceptable way I could say it.”
Why else hate something so much when you have the power to not be exposed to it? And I know that’s true because I know many that are perfectly oblivious to what is currently being labeled hip-hop.
But I have to say, I disagree with you, NancyP, about the country music. I don’t listen to much, but I really enjoy Carrie Underwood.
Music is, above all else, a personal medium. To me, some people are listening to straight up noise…but to them, it speaks to their experience in a way my music doesn’t. I’m not sure who Nas is speaking to right now, or what experience the song ‘Ay Baybay’ speaks to, but there it is. There may be someone.
Posted 24 Apr 2008 at 11:49 pm ¶
gatamala wrote:
jen*, I agree. There is often something more underlying the expression of dislike than pure taste.
I think Ay Baybay speaks to the experience of white folks, gangstas & thugs
Posted 25 Apr 2008 at 8:14 am ¶
Celeste wrote:
I agree taht saying that you hate hip hop is often a bode word but it’s hard to blame people for getting the wrong impression. If you have to go completely out of your way to find non-morally bankrupt representations of hip hop then that’s a big, multifacted problem. I had to take the clearchannel black station off my presets because I could never listen to it, there was always some foolishness on.
I’m more in line with the thinking from whataboutourdaughters.com While I don’t think attacking hip hop as being nothing but booty-shaking devil music, we (the communities that hip-hop often misrepresents) need to express more disgust because a lot of it (also the only part that most people see) is completely and utterly disgusting. I don’t think that you can blame all of the black community’s social ills on it but it does contribute to legitimizing/normalizing certain patterns of behavior. I think if the communities misrepresented by hip-hop had more control of what media images are put out there then people’s preceptions of the art form would change for the better.
Posted 25 Apr 2008 at 9:07 am ¶
*M* wrote:
Latoya-The whole culture is an issue, men cant wear clothes that fit them, showing their underwear. Embracing prison culture. People wasting money on rims and basses, instead of investing it. Then they show no respect for others by playing playing ridiculously loud music from their cars. I saw three guys outside my door, standing out around a are just listing to music. Yes thats great culture. Oh graffiti looks great on on public property .
Even the “progressive” rappers like Little Brother use the N-word, is that really progressive? Does it encourage to speak proper English?
I am clarifying what I am talking about ; the entire culture is destructive.
Posted 25 Apr 2008 at 11:25 pm ¶
DivergentDana wrote:
*M*, if they weren’t listening to hip hop, wasting money on rims and wearing ill-fitting clothing, they’d be doing some other stuff that you probably wouldn’t understand or like very much, either. I wasn’t doing any of that during my teen years, and I greatly disliked hip hop. I’ll tell you what I was doing, though… wasting my money on silver jewelry, playing NIN loudly in the car, and embracing funerary imagery! Hell, my mother wanted to know why I just couldn’t be normal like those hip-hop kids. I know it seems impossible, but some of those hip-hop kids are making stellar grades and staying out of trouble while simultaneously expressing and enjoying themselves, just like I did. People like us resent being solely defined by our entertainment choices, automatically assumed to be “at risk”, in need of behavioral repair, or mindless drones for whom the line between entertainment and reality is nonexistent.
“I saw three guys outside my door, standing out around a are just listing to music.”
Oh, the horror. I mean, srsly, what would you have them do? What subgroup of youth would you say act appropriately, according to your personal measure?
Posted 26 Apr 2008 at 12:05 am ¶
Angela wrote:
I recently spoke out against mainstream hip-hop, the “music” that’s peddled by the record companies, for the harm it’s done to the black community regarding identity. I can’t ever say I have never gotten down in a club to T-Pain or DMX, or knock the pain and determination that has gone into the genre, or the breathtaking lyricism of a lot of songs, but I can no longer support the stuff we do hear on the radio or see on TV.
Posted 26 Apr 2008 at 12:40 am ¶
Anonymous wrote:
Does it encourage to speak proper English?
Dude, think. Where does hip-hop come from? AFAIK, it got going in the 80s. The era of Ronald Reagan. Of course it’s not about self-presenting as acceptably white & middle-class.
But not all of it is about the joys of drugs and misogyny either. Even outside classic hip-hop and indie, Kanye West (for example) is still very critical, talking about blood diamonds, homophobia, and the overemphasis on violence in studio rap.
Posted 26 Apr 2008 at 12:49 am ¶
*M* wrote:
It is a culture of disrespect. Distrespect of women, life, community and education. The music is just not postive. And the creatavity is just poor. Unlike wine, it gets worse with age
and they were not youths, these are college students, how is sitting on a car, distrupting a neighboorhood, vibrating apartments with the bass, acting acordinly? by anyone measure
Posted 27 Apr 2008 at 4:54 pm ¶
Torontonian wrote:
I have difficulty telling if *M* is really that ignorant and thinks all hip hop is gangsta rap, or if he’s purposely trolling.
Posted 27 Apr 2008 at 6:32 pm ¶
Juan wrote:
Torontonian, I would say *M* is both.
And I’d like to point out the fact that at my college “sitting on a car, distrupting a neighboorhood, vibrating apartments with the bass, acting acordinly? by anyone measure” was almost always done by a white kid. But of course I’m sure *M* will find some other way to spin that.
I think it’d be nice in this conversation, and in any for that matter on this subject, if people take note that there is a difference between rap and hip-hop. That and there’s more than just the dichotomy of gangsta and conscious forms. Among other things, it was also something you could dance to.
Actually dance to.
Posted 27 Apr 2008 at 10:34 pm ¶
DivergentDana wrote:
“and they were not youths, these are college students, how is sitting on a car, distrupting a neighboorhood, vibrating apartments with the bass, acting acordinly? by anyone measure”
Ah, *scratches head* if they’re college students, doesn’t that mean that they do value education… that hip hop somehow didn’t manage to ruin their lives and warp their fragile little minds? And you never gave an example of a slice of youth culture that you deem acceptable. *shakes finger*
Posted 28 Apr 2008 at 12:01 am ¶
DivergentDana wrote:
Oh, and college is still a part of youth, a pretty seminal part for many people, as a matter of fact.
Posted 28 Apr 2008 at 12:02 am ¶
*M* wrote:
im sorry if you dont like my views on Hip Hop, but i am not troll. Its just a bad genre and I see nothing productive from the culture. I like some progressive rappers, but its hard to see them as progressive when they are using the N-word
Posted 28 Apr 2008 at 2:50 am ¶
DivergentDana wrote:
How can you simultaneously condemn the entirety of the genre as bad and unproductive, yet claim that you “like some progressive rappers”? You don’t find that the least bit contradictory?
Posted 28 Apr 2008 at 5:08 pm ¶
peg wrote:
So if I don’t like country am I anti-white, too?
I hate country and I hate rap. Sue me.
Posted 29 Apr 2008 at 3:11 pm ¶
Gay dude wrote:
There was a conference this past weekend at my school (UMass Amherst) about Hip Hop, Media, and Social Justice. I wasn’t able to make it, but I would have really liked to see how members of their respective communities understand the impact of hip-hop (both the old and the new, highly-bastardized form). As a young, lower middle-class mixed Caucasian gay male (the labels!) who was brought up in poor household in a rural community and a poor household in an urban community, I experienced a sort of cultural shift as the music I heard in the city became more popular in the rural town I went to school in. My sisters who lived in the city nearly lived their lives by the music (as many of their classmates, black and white, did too). Going to school in a rural town sheltered us from the realities of this phenomenon, so during my school years I watched my classmates glorify hip-hop, including all the worse stereotypes, without really understanding the social impact of this mass-marketed crap (well, most of it) in the communities that it claimed to be representing!
So I have a hidden premise here, I am bitter because I started thinking when I listened to the music I was so in love with and now I can’t listen to half of it! It really gets me going when I walk around my dorm and find white, suburban, middle-class kids listening to music that glorifies poverty, street-life, murder, misogyny, gang warfare, and homophobia. Before I thought maybe it was me being racist in thinking that they were trying to be something that they aren’t; specifically, black. But then I thought about it: is that what being black is really about? I can’t say, I can only infer. As a Japanese major, discussions of racism against Asians and the ethnocentricity of the field of Orientalism really opened my eyes to the idea of people who aren’t a member of a specific community attempting to quantify and classify the experiences of that community (which, in turns, suits their desires to feel superior, etc.). To be sure, the experiences of any community will be vastly different depending on who you ask. But my problem is now more about appropriating the worst stereotypes and the new glorification of all things “ghetto”.
Seriously, last weekend I saw some girl, looked at least 20, light skin and red hair, wearing a printed tee with a picture of an old boombox that said above and below “If you ain’t ghetto, You ain’t shizzle”.
Wait, my experience growing up, as white as I am, was that if you are ghetto, then you are “shizzle”. Paying for groceries with food stamps and wearing stained hand-me-downs is definitely where it’s at, right? For a few years I wore my affair with poverty as a badge of honor. Here I am, 23 years old, still trying to break the cycle.
Then I ask, what about my sisters’ kids? The sisters who grew up worshiping Tupac, Nelly, Luda, 112, K-C and Jo Jo, Dru Hill, LL, and Tyrese. What does it mean for my three nephews and two nieces whom are all biracial (Isaiah, Aniyah, and Junior are all Cape Verdean and Italian/French Canadian, and Reggie and Taliyana are both African and Italian/French Canadian)? All of them have, for the most part, grown up in an all-white (we are some pasty people, but not like corn-fed white, more like pasta and potato white) family, so what will that mean for their future? How will they see themselves? What sort of cultural identity can the stake claim to, or will the seek? How will my sisters’ attitudes about and understandings of race come into play? I don’t think these answers will come easily, but these are just things that have been on my mind.
Posted 29 Apr 2008 at 7:24 pm ¶
david wrote:
I was listenting to an interview with a young rapper on tour with Jay Z. He says that he raps about guns and drigs because “they” i.e. white people don’t let him rap about what he wants to rap about. Once again a fine showing of “I am the victim” i.e. “I’m not responsible for my own actions.” I grew up white and listenting to rap. But there comes a point in life when you have a family and resoponsibilty and you need to drop the lifestyle aspect of hip hop. If your a grown man living the hip hop lifestyle then you have to expect the natural and probable consequences of asociating yourself with that genre of music. I think gansta rap is like a mafia flick. You enjoy it for hats it worse and keep it moving. Look, if an italian walks around acting like he is in the mafia, the gues what, people who do not know the man personally will treat him like he is int he mafia. Is that really that difficult to understand?
Posted 29 Apr 2008 at 8:25 pm ¶
DivergentDana wrote:
“If your a grown man living the hip hop lifestyle then you have to expect the natural and probable consequences of asociating yourself with that genre of music.”
Consequences like what, pray tell? Furthermore, does anything akin to this mandate exist for any other genre of music you’ve ever encountered, and if not, why? Why are there no “natural and probable consequences” for associating oneself with music that say, promotes running people through meat grinders and the like, because there’s guitars and racially “safe-looking” people involved? For instance, I enjoy the Danzig-era Misfits — I enjoyed it more when I was younger, before the blatant misogyny drowned out even Glenn’s powerful vocals. A few of their lyrics go like this:
“I got something to say
I killed your baby today
And it doesnt matter much to me
As long as its dead
Well I got something to say
I raped your mother today
And it doesnt matter much to me
As long as she spread
Sweet lovely death
I am waiting for your breath
Come sweet death, one last caress”
Where’s my consequences as a rock fan… what “lifestyle choices” should I make, now that I’m grown, to distance myself from an entire genre of music and its varied subcultures that only look and seem the same to outsiders. Perhaps I should make a ceremonial bonfire out of my Zeppelin shirts?
“I was listenting to an interview with a young rapper on tour with Jay Z. He says that he raps about guns and drigs because “they” i.e. white people don’t let him rap about what he wants to rap about.”
Name, rank and serial # of this dude, pls. Lol… “you need more people.” Even though I want proof, I’m like McDonald’s, “it could happen.” After all, the infamous Plies quotes were real.
Posted 29 Apr 2008 at 9:58 pm ¶
david wrote:
It was the black album tour video. And yes if you wlak like a duck, dress lie a duck, and tlk like a duck, then donlt be suprised if people think you are a duck. Not that you are a duck, but if you have a full duck suit on then guess what…strangers that have no idea who you are will think well…you are a duck. What is so difficut to understand about that. If I where a yankee hat and a yankee shirt, then how can I be suprised if someone thinks I am a Yankee fan. Our choices matter. Maybe in a perfect world, they don’t matter, but in reality it does. So which reality are you living in?
Posted 30 Apr 2008 at 8:39 pm ¶
DivergentDana wrote:
Dude, you answered absolutely 0 of my questions, you just reiterated what you said at first, which I fully understood the first time around. And I’m asking you the name of the guy… I don’t listen to Jay Z, nor watch DVDs of his tours. *dodges tomatoes*
Posted 01 May 2008 at 1:17 pm ¶
RTF wrote:
I grew up listening to hip hop and rap. Since turning 32 this year, my taste in music has changed because of the fact that hip hop and rap has come off as racists, misogynist, and homophobic.
Some of this music has played a part in why young people are out here getting locked up for stupid things. Also, it tells young people that education is a joke and that is why we are having kids having kids, and other problems in the black community.
I believe that if you are living in the “hood” and want to get out of that environment, then work smart and hard to get out of it and not play the race card. That card is old and played out. Not to say that racism is dead and gone, but as blacks, we let racism stop us dead in our tracks, instead of overcoming it like others that came to this country.
White people did not tell you to have 6 kids out of wedlock, sell drugs, and get locked up. That was the choice that you have made and you have to deal with it.
Last, I am black , and I am not a sellout at all when talking about the nasty effects of this music on young people in general, because it is em brassing to explain to people in other races about why black people act an total ass in public and among other things when they see other blacks people act an ass in public.
Again, I BELIEVE in responsibly for your actions and choices that you made in life and be held accountable when you mess up and not again, blame others when you mess up.
Overall, I would like to see hip hop and rap slowly disappear in the next few years due to the fact that it serves no purpose at all. And I will not support it until it addresses homophobia and many other issues.
Posted 28 Jun 2008 at 10:43 am ¶
Nick B. wrote:
M, you speak on the negative connations that hip-hop invokes. Well how is using the n-word, not being progressive. That makes no sense, somones vernacular is not waht perpetuates their attitudes towards people. Freedom of speech, is something that used to be valued in this country. You are taking they absolute worst in the genre and replicating it to prove a point. Groups like Little Brother, are trully what hip-hop is, the n-word didnt begin with rap i mind you, it began when slave owners, kept slaves at bay, a lot like how the government keeps african-americans at bay today. So the use of the n-word is gratutious to his conversation. Do you think that rockers who use foul language are bad for people….i dont think you would, you are the perrinial all star for lobbying against hip-hop and yet have no real knowledge of what it is.
Posted 15 Oct 2008 at 10:47 am ¶