LEONARD PITTS: Blame us for shrugging at rap murders


September 18, 2002
BY LEONARD PITTS JR.
Miami Herald




Rick James couldn't stand Prince.

We're talking a little over 20 years ago, back when Prince was an acclaimed new performer and Rick was one of the biggest names in pop. His sizable ego wounded by the attention accorded this fey wunderkind, James used to vent about how overrated the younger singer was. He hated him.

And yet, somehow, he never shot him. For all the nasty things James said about Prince and other artists, the idea that the antipathy might become lethal was unthinkable.

All you have to do to understand how profoundly the world has changed is to read the recent two-part Los Angeles Times series on the murder of rap icon Tupac Shakur. The Times reports that the killing, which took place in Las Vegas six years ago this month, was carried out by Los Angeles street gang members and commissioned by a rival rap star, Christopher Wallace, known professionally as the Notorious B.I.G. Wallace himself was gunned down six months later in Los Angeles.

Members of Wallace's family have vigorously denied the newspaper report and have produced evidence that he was not even in Vegas that night.

Examining motives

The Times piece has produced fierce debate in hip-hop and black journalism circles, much of it critical of the reporting and offering wild speculation about the newspaper's supposed motivation. In one online editorial, black journalist Kevin Powell hints broadly that the Times had a racial agenda in running the story, warning readers, "We should never allow folks who do not have our best interests at heart to control our thinking."

He calls the L.A. Times' account sensationalized.

And yet, neither he, nor to my knowledge anyone else, has been able to call it unthinkable.

What does that tell you about the world we have made? "We" meaning consumers of American pop culture in general, but blacks in particular. We've created -- or simply countenanced -- a world in which the line between video fantasy and street-corner reality is all but erased, where thug values and gangster mores demand blood for the faintest slights and we -- still talking blacks -- walk around acting as if this were as unremarkable as fluorescent lights and traffic jams.

We do not criticize or hold accountable, particularly in forums where whites may be watching, because some of us regard that as an act of racial betrayal. So nobody says the obvious: "Pop stars don't shoot each other!"

Not about the music

I understand the corrosive effects of drugs and poverty on the black community. I also understand that those effects have been with us for generations. Not to sound dismissive, but that's old news. What's new is these diseased mores and this collective shrug in the face of them.

This isn't about liking or not liking rap. It's about surrendering to a mindset that allows us to contemplate the murder of young men without crying out, shouting, SCREAMING that this is wrong.

I'd never hold up the pop stars of 20 years ago -- Rick James in particular -- as role models. For all that, though, we children of that era had not yet learned to face dysfunction and misconduct with a shrug.

And that's why James and Prince are one thing Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace will never be.

Alive.

w-r-o...


nah, im not gonna say it..

Rick&Prince were about the Music&could bring it Live.The Rappers are Being Pimped moreso behind the scenes.now Rick&Prince were something Cool because they came as Artists not as Puppets being Stringed along.Rick&Prince wouldn't allow Suge&Puffy Run there Career's.Rick&Prince were Classic with there thing 2Pac&Biggie were Important for Rap&Music for there time, but it came with more overall baggage than it should have.Rick&Prince were always alot alike IMHO in so many ways.Pac&Biggie didn't feud about the Music that is the F*** Up part of the matter.

SkletonKee said:

WHY NOT???
WRONG FORUM!!!
if you gonna do the job...DO IT!!!

mistermaxxx said:

Yeah I agree with you. Tupac and Biggie's dispute had nothing to do with music itself, they used their music to focus on the dispute.

Red, did you realise that you are just half of me?

Red said:

Prince and Rick James were never big proponents of violence in their music to begin with, so its unlikely their fued would ever end up the same as Tupac and Biggie's. About the only thing they have in common is the shade of their skin. Different lifestyles, different agendas, different outlook.

REDFEATHERS said:

Can i play with the other half, preferably the bottom...?

but Rick James and Prince didn't make their money by singing about killing people, or how much of a thug they are. Remember when "thug" was an insult? Now we have "Murder Inc." on the air. Go melt your gangsta rap albums and buy some Miles.

tommyalma said:

well they did sing about sex. let's be glad they didn't fuck each other to death out of hate. now THAT would be ugly.