Obama and hip-hop's future

Rod, you do realize that there are hundreds of Hip Hop artists and not all of them sing about the thug life, right? There are a lot of positive and socially conscious artists out there, like Mos Def or Sarah Jones who write music with a much better outlook than, say, the Rolling Stones. I take your point, but you're overgeneralizing.

No, he isn't overgeneralizing. I work in south central Los Angeles. I'm around teens who cannot read past the third grade level, but recite rap lyrics by rote, LOUDLY all day long. And the lyrics are consistently pretty awful. When the students curse out teachers, the standard retort is, "I'm just singing a song!"
All day long it's about sex and killing and who is in what gang and who has a beef with who and who got shot, etc.,etc.,etc., and the IPODS are cranked up loudly and the attitude follows. The pants are down to the knees, butts hanging out.
Oh, sure, we fight it, but it's a losing battle.
If you want your eyes opened, go to PBS and locate Frontline Online, and view "The Merchants of Cool." It's a fascinating expose of how Madison Avenue shapes teens' lives. Teen rebellion is just another product, but the product is pervasive and destructive to everyone.

I agree with you about rap, but I have to say that my most gentle and kind child (of 5), now age 20, loves it. We have had some long talks about the content and I have thrown away one or two CD's. I don't know how old your children are, but I'm afraid parents don't always have complete sayso about what ends up on the ipod.

In the 1980's I was a teacher in a suburban Chicago area high school. At the time I was appalled by the number of kids who spent hours with walkmen pumping heavy metal songs about violence and destruction into their ears. Odd thing is though most of those kids turned out pretty well. I agree that the inner city kids who emulate hip hop artist brigado may not turn out so well, but I suspect that has to do with a whole lot more than the music.

In every decent-sized city, there is usually a serious ballet school that focuses on classical ballet, with other forms of dance added to give the students a rounded experience, but usually avoiding trendy, pop culture forms of dance such as hip-hop. These schools are usually associated with a locally well-known performing company, and very often do put on an annual large-scale performance for the general public (i.e., not just a school recital), most commonly The Nutcracker. Two of my daughters are currently involved in just such a school and are in the midst of rehearsals for this year's The Nutcracker.

However, if you're not close to a city of 100,000 or more, you might have difficulty finding a school like that, since it takes a fairly large community to support an establishment like that, and most other schools tend to be market-driven, which leads to the inclusion of things like hip-hop to pay the bills. But if you are in a larger community, find out who's doing The Nutcracker this year, and check out the school associated with that company.

"i guess this is our last goodbye,
and you don't care, so i won't cry.
and you'll be sorry when i'm dead,
and all this guilt will be on your head."

rod, would you let your kids play with kids who listen to the police? they apparently advocate suicide.

"And I'll be in my basement room,
With a needle and a spoon"

those rolling stones! rod, would you let your kids play with with kids who listen to the stones? they apparently encourage heroin abuse.

"Early one mornin' while makin' the rounds
I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down
I went right home and I went to bed I stuck that lovin' 44 beneath my head
Got up next mornin' and I grabbed that gun took a shot of cocaine and away I run
Made a good run but I run too slow they overtook me down in Juarez Mexico"

oh johnny cash! apparently advocating murdering one's significant other while on a coke binge and then fleeing the country.

hey, rod, what do the police the stones and johnny have in common that is uncommon from rappers? hmmm, maybe it's skin tone.

hmm.....

Don't know about the Stones and Police, but Johnny Cash was singing about the loss and desolation that followed the drug use. You really can't compare Sunday Morning Down with rap "music". Crying racist is way too easy.

Above was me. Why is it that when the CAPTCHA expires, it removes your name and info? Lousy design.

I'll second the suggestion to watch Frontline's "The Merchants of Cool."

Hip Hop is worthless and has not helped the lives of young black women at all but don't think that B.O.'s win will have diddly to do with changing taste.

"Each of these genres is associated with white suburban kids. Each have a corrosive effect on the conscience, but only hip hop is objectionable?"

there's a reason why hip-hop is treated differently by the white parents of white suburban kids (the largest consumers of hip-hop).

and to the guy trying to explain away the violence and drug use of johnny cash - has it occurred to you that a hip-hop song dealing with the same subjects can conceivably be about something else as well?

rod is a white protestant (religion hopping of late nonwithstanding) from louisiana. he is as controlled by the history of his "people" as the rest of us are by our own. and all the writing at conservative welfare rags that are incapable of turning a profit (NY Post, National Review) and all the "urban" chicken farming in the world won't eliminate that. it's part of him.

that's why he won't even let his children associate with those who commit the crime of listening to rap. it has nothing to do with the music itself. our sordid history lives with us, huh, rod?

Rod,
How exactly are your kids ever supposed to be Christian witnesses if you make sure they don't associate with others?

Don Altobello,
There's a difference between going to the strip club, and refusing to ever associate with the strippers. You see the difference don't you? If Rod said he didnt' want his kids to listen to Rap, I wouldn't mind so much. He said he didn't want them to associate with them, at all, even when they're not listening to music. Even to play those kids some great bluegrass gospel so they know what good music is like.

Society was horrified by the waltz (people not married to each other..touching!!!), the tango, jazz music, the jitterbug, Frank Sinatra, bobby soxers, Elvis the pelvis, negroes singing to white children, the Beatles, etc.

I am sure that Rod himself listened to music that would have horrified his elders, back in his salad days. Heck, "rock and roll" is a euphemism for sex.

"Society was horrified by the waltz (people not married to each other..touching!!!), the tango, jazz music, the jitterbug, Frank Sinatra, bobby soxers, Elvis the pelvis, negroes singing to white children, the Beatles, etc."

Just one more step in the progressive realization of...what...ummm? Oh, wait, yeah--nothing of importance.

...hip-hop is a mish-mash of everything stolen from people with real talent.

Yeah, but so is everything else that ever came before it. It just uses more sophisticated technology to do so. The Beatles and the Stones were samplers too-- they just used their guitars instead of turntables and mixers.

Mr. Dreher, you're not drawing the distinction between some commercial rap that glorifies ignorance and the wider world of hip-hop culture, which is a peace-embracing multicultural movement that celebrates intelligence, wit, and thought.

It's offensive and discriminatory to associate "hip-hop" with the limited scope you see on corporate networks. Do the corporate Christian crazies you see dragged-on to cable TV talk shows represent your faith? Hardly.

Does anyone else appreciate the irony of Rod cheering a jazz expert's criticism of hip-hop? Jazz, like hip-hop, once horrified concerned white squares across the country. For its association with marijuana and heroin, with black culture, with sexual deviance, with the underworld, jazz was widely feared and disliked. Musical traditionalists reviled its experiments with polyrhythm and syncopation. It was viewed as deviant, dangerous, and complicit in the loosening of morals, especially among the young and impressionable. It was lambasted as amateurish, easy, cheap, a talent for the talentless. (This is also a regular accusation levelled against hip-hop artists: That their music is simple and effortless, and thus deserving less respect and recognition than, say, the technical wizardry of a Rush or a Radiohead. People who think as much should pop into a hip-hop studio sometime and see how "easy" it is. Or, hey, just pump out a few chart-topping tracks of their own and retire to Turks and Caicos.)

More here: http://culture11.com/diary/33881

If teen girls and teen boys felt more consequences of their 13-14 year old sex, other than the praise of "baby mama" and "baby daddy" and worship by grandparents and whatever parents they have, they might think at least a few minutes before having sex.

Used to be, pregnancy out of wedlock was embarrassing. Now it's rewarded--by parents and society.

The objectionable versions of hip-hop glorifies something that, the outcome of which, society now accepts.

Every time they hand out awards and heap critical praise on hip-hop (no one calls it "rap" anymore, right?), it looks to my world-weary eyes like medal time at the Special Olympics. (I intend no offense to our beloved, genuinely impaired brothers and sisters.) Sure, some of the lyrics are clever. Some of the dance moves are inventive. But come on. This is an aural expression whose "artists" are infantalized crotch-grabbers in diaper-accommodating baggy pants hissing inarticulate, sophomoric brags and threats over karaoke. I know, I know. It's not all sampling any more. Some of the hip-hoppers tell the sound engineers which sounds and effects to include, and when and where. So they are, in some sense, co-composers. But yo. Where are the musicians, brutha?

I understand the charitable impulse to pat little finger-painters on the head as if they've just outdone the Sistine Chapel. It's when the "artists" believe the politically correct hype -- they and their impressionable young gangbangers and pimp wannabes in the inner cities -- that things get sick. And sickening.

Don't you think that many of the violent and explicit lyrics are in fact sending a message that girls ought to say yes?

I do, indeed, and I'm opposed to that. I'm opposed to all forms of degradation for women. I'm very consistent in that respect. The "hostility" as you put it is not to you personally, but to the notion that women are responsible for prostitution, and that prostituted women should be publicly shunned and shamed, while the men who use them can be excused because it's just a "vice." Prostitution exists because men want it to. It's that simple. If men stopped believing they had a right to use women, prostitution would vanish like the morning dew.

I don't care who you introduce your kids to--and you may have introduced them to prostitutes without knowing it, because they don't actually have cloven hooves or a tattoo on their foreheads--but if you think they're safer with prostitutes than with johns, you are making a very big mistake. When children get molested and women get raped, it isn't by prostitutes. It's by men--most of whom are considered normal by their fellow men. You'd "probably" end a relationship, "In some cases," with a man who used prostitutes? Wow. Now there's a firm stand for righteousness, as compared to your unhesitating condemnation of the prostitutes themselves. Why the double standard?

"You'd "probably" end a relationship, "In some cases," with a man who used prostitutes? Wow. Now there's a firm stand for righteousness, as compared to your unhesitating condemnation of the prostitutes themselves. Why the double standard?"

Well, Sig, you're the one who said it was inevitable that I was to be around these folks, so why the flip flop now?? I certainly would not let a known john around my (again, hypothetical) kids. That said, two people are victims in these situations and two people are responsible agents. Both agents represent something, however, that is degrading to humans in general.

When it comes to me as an adult being around the people we are talking about (men or women), a lot of it is situational (as most things in life). If it were a friend who was having marital problems, and he screwed up, I'd try to talk some sense into him. If it's an unabashed jerked whose just an outright animal, well, see ya pal (unless I have to deal with them professionally). I don't have any experience talking to prostitutes, so I don't know what I'd do.

I think you read too much into my original comment. I was responding to a totally different hypothetical in a different context. But your original quip made it seem like there should not be any protective barriers against people who are a bad influence--and came off as "how dare you shield your kids from strippers/prostitutes (or mini caricatures of hip-hoppers) when there are men in your neighborhood who probably frequent strip clubs." It still does, frankly.

Rod, your analogy--"I would no more want my kids hanging out with a death metal crowd than with a hip-hop crowd"--simply doesn't work. Death metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal music, which itself is a sub-genre of rock music. Rock, like hip-hop, is a genre. For your analogy to make sense, you should have said "I would no more want my kids hanging out with a rock crowd than with a hip-hop crowd."

But you never would say that, simply because you recognize that rock is a diverse category that includes wildly different artists, from Christian-lite rockers Creed to satanist sympathizers Marilyn Manson. Painting rock with such a broad stroke would reveal just how little you actually know about it. And we all know that isn't the case.

Sadly, the same can't be said of your knowledge of hip-hop. Hip-hop, I would argue, is as diverse as rock music. Yes, some acts make music that is violently nihilistic. Fifty-Cent comes to mind. But he falls under the sub-genre gangsta-rap. Common, Mos Def, and Taleb Kwali are "conscious" rappers whose self-critical, culturally conservative lyrics should, one would think, find support among cruncy-cons such as yourself.

I'm not arguing that there's all that much redeemable about a lot of mainstream hip hop.
But this is hip hop too (Positive message, but meant for an adult audience):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCZxepRgMlo&feature=related
As is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAkEAS9vKw8

Don't hold your breath.

And check out a recent entry at SWPL, 'Black music that black people don't listen to any more', jazz.

Rod,

You're a really thoughtful blogger, but I think you are shooting from the hip a bit too much on this one. It might be wise to refrain from calling those kids "animals". They may act like animals, but they're human beings and to call them anything less lets them off the hook for their language and behavior. Its not an honorable way to engage the topic. I'd also add that while its smart parenting to avoid having your kids hang out with kids who don't share their/your values, how exactly are you going to filter to avoid them? Are you going to give each kid who approaches yours a survey filled with the names of possible music choices and see which one they pick? The point is that music preference alone won't tell you everything you need to know about who your kids associate with. It also helps to know more about the music your criticizing... do you honestly think 50 cent is the quintessence of quality hiphop? Please! If anything 50 represents the purious, perennial nemesis of thoughtful hiphop.

yea dude. rokk on!!!

HIP HOP

So that's why I keep showing up to job interviews in flannel shirts and ripped jeans, it's that Nirvana I listened to growing up.

Rock, jazz, country--all of that's ok. No questionable themes whatsoever, right?

The only thing I can take away from this post is that you believe black people, or people sympathetic to "black" culture (which hip hop hasn't been exclusively for over a decade) are uniquely unable to enjoy any form of entertainment without aping its worst aspects. Clearly I can handle listening to heavy metal without physically assaulting anyone, I have a creamy white moral center that those "hip hop" fans simply lack

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!

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.