African-American jazz critic Stanley Crouch, who has long and rightly denounced the degraded music and culture of hip-hop, sees signs of hope in Barack Obama that black America may be turning away from that garbage. In his most recent column, he tells an interesting story:
A friend of mine who lives in California remarked to his grandson that he did not like the way rappers dressed or carried themselves. His grandson told him that he needs to stop living in the past and catch up before the plane leaves.My friend noticed, as usual, that his grandson did not dress or carry himself in the style or manner he was defending. So he decided to ask him some questions. Shoot, said the young man, ready to straighten out his grandfather.
If you were on a plane waiting to take off, my friend asked him, and the pilot and the co-pilot came on with their pants sagging to the ground, covered with tattoos, mouths full of gold teeth and wearing braids, what would you do? His grandson told him he would get off the plane as fast as he could. No doubt.
My friend then asked if his grandson's baby daughter had been hurt and she was taken to the emergency room, how would he feel if the doctors on duty looked like the men about to fly the plane. "I would," said the younger man, "get her the hell out of there."
At that point, my friend wondered what would happen to young black men who showed up looking for work but seemed more ready for a hip-hop performance than for a job?
The answer: They probably would not get hired. Case closed.
As for me, I don't care what color you are, if you're a kid who listens to hip-hop, I don't want my kids playing with you. I want my kids to have consciences that find hip-hop's lyrical content and themes repulsive. Which is to say, I want my kids to have a strong and uncompromising sense of character.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
Rod (and everyone else),
please read Ta-Nehisi Coates response to your editorial. It is better than I can express.
I grew up in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, during the late 70's and early 80's. That's pretty much ground-zero for hip-hop. In my opinion, the genre has seen both moments of greatness and depravity. To label an entire 30 years of music as "garbage" betrays nothing more than your willful ignorance of the topic.
Books aren't garbage simply because Ann Coulter makes the best seller list and Hip-Hop contains various artists and sub-cultures that cater and/or reflect almost every aspect of the world's cultures.
If you lack the tools for understanding hip-hop all you needed to do was ask your audience. In the end you still may may not have liked it but you'll at least will have learned about hip-hop's diversity of both message and method.
Your blanket label is at best a lazy stereotype and at worst an ethnic slur. Please do better!
"The whole foundation of this argument is flawed. If I was waiting on a plane and the pilot and co-pilot came on dressed in evening gowns, with expensive pearls on, reading The New York Times, I’d still be on my way off that plane in a heartbeat. Does that mean there’s something wrong with evening gowns? No. Does that mean we should fine folks who wear evening gowns or toss them in jail? No. If the surgeon in grandpa’s example waltzed out of the emergency room, after performing surgery on my loved one dressed in a tuxedo, I’d be speed dialing my lawyer. Does that mean I support harassing folks who wear tuxedos? No. The argument Couch uses is fundamentally bogus. I don’t want my fireman wearing high heels when she’s kicking in my door to extinguish a fire. That doesn’t mean I want to ban her from wearing high heel shoes when she’s not on duty." --www.TheBlackCritic.com
I'm disappointed. I was really intrigued by your book, it was my staff pick when it came out (I worked in a bookstore). I saw you as a man of principal, many I didn't agree with, and understanding. Part of the schtick (sp?) of Crunchy Con is that you are different.
Now I see this and read the words of a small-minded and uninformed conservative.
As so many have mentioned, there is so much more to hip-hop than what the mainstream media (yes, the same mainstream media conservatives complain about). I hope you will use the suggestions in these comments to explore and accept that as common as those images and ideals might be they are not the only images and ideals. I dare say you will find a more diverse record collection in a hip-hop's house than in most which, I believe, implies compassion and a willingness to move beyond the comfort zone. I also believe when you can move beyond your comfort zone that you have a strong sense of self or possibly a strong sense of character.
Talib Kwali
Immortal Technique
Aesop Rock
Funky DL
Nujabes
Jin
Daedalus
Blockhead
Nomak
Lauryn Hill (yes she raps in some of her songs)
DJ GI Joe
Dan the Automator
Del the Funky Homosapien
Zach De La Rocha
The Roots
X-Clan
Uyama Hiroto
DJ Mitsu
This list above is just a small sampling of hip-hop artists of all kinds (instrumentalists, "traditional" rappers, free stylers, social commentators, etc.) from all over the planet (America, Japan, Britain, Peru, etc.) from all walks of life (Japanese-American, African-American, Chinese-American, Caucasian-American, Japanese, etc.) that have little or nothing to do with the, "bling" culture presented on mainstream television.
Do you know about them? Any of them? Have you heard them? Compared them to MTV stuff?
You talk of hip-hop as if it is one big monolithic block of entertainment perfectly and accurately represented by what MTV decides should be aired. It isn't. No more then all conservatives are the xenophobic wackos who popped up at the Palin rallies, or all liberals are the people burning Bush effigies in the street. Yes those people exist in both camps, but you caricature them and do them injustice if you boil down their complex and diverse manifestations by talking of and examining only those wings as the "prime" wings of the party. I expected better from you.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.