I agree wholeheartedly.

How Hip-Hop Music Lost Its Way and Betrayed Its Fans
By BRENT STAPLES

African-American teenagers are beset on all sides by dangerous myths about race. The most poisonous one defines middle-class normalcy and achievement as "white," while embracing violence, illiteracy and drug dealing as "authentically" black. This fiction rears its head from time to time in films and literature. But it finds its most virulent expression in rap music, which started out with a broad palette of themes but has increasingly evolved into a medium for worshiping misogyny, materialism and murder.

This dangerous narrowing of hip-hop music would be reason for concern in any case. But it is especially troubling against the backdrop of the 1990's, when rappers provoked a real-world gang war by using recordings and music videos to insult and threaten rivals. Two of the music's biggest stars - Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. - were eventually shot to death.

People who pay only minimal attention to the rap world may have thought the killings would sober up the rap community. Not quite. The May cover of the hip-hop magazine Vibe was on the mark when it depicted fallen rappers standing among tombstones under the headline: "Hip-Hop Murders: Why Haven't We Learned Anything?"

The cover may have been prompted in part by a rivalry between two rappers that culminated in a shootout at a New York radio station, Hot 97, earlier this spring. The events that led up to the shooting show how recording labels now exploit violence to make and sell recordings.

At the center of that Hot 97 shootout was none other than 50 Cent, whose given name is Curtis Jackson III. Mr. Jackson is a confessed former drug dealer who seems to revel in the fact that he was shot several times while dealing in Queens. He has also made a career of "beef" recordings, in which he whips up controversy and heightens tension by insulting rival artists.

He was following this pattern in a radio interview in March when a rival showed up at the station. The story's murky, but it appears that the rival's entourage met Mr. Jackson's on the street, resulting in gunfire.

Mr. Jackson's on-air agitation was clearly timed to coincide with the release of "The Massacre," his grotesquely violent and misogynist compact disc. The CD cover depicts the artist standing before a wall adorned with weapons, pointing what appears to be a shotgun at the camera. The photographs in the liner notes depict every ghetto stereotype - the artist selling drugs, the artist in a gunfight - and includes a mock autopsy report that has been seen as a covert threat aimed at some of his critics.

The "Massacre" promotion raises the ante in a most destructive way. New artists, desperate for stardom, will say or do anything to win notice - and buzz - for their next projects. As the trend escalates, inner-city listeners who are already at risk of dying prematurely are being fed a toxic diet of rap cuts that glorify murder and make it seem perfectly normal to spend your life in prison.

Critics who have been angered by this trend have pointed at Jimmy Iovine, the music impresario whose Interscope Records reaped millions on gangster rap in the 90's. Mr. Iovine makes a convenient target as a white man who is lording over an essentially black art form. But also listed on "The Massacre" as an executive producer is the legendary rapper Dr. Dre, a black man who happens to be one of the most powerful people in the business. Dr. Dre has a unique vantage point on rap-related violence. He was co-founder of Death Row Records, an infamous California company that marketed West Coast rap in the 1990's and had a front-row seat for the feud that led to so much bloodshed back then.

The music business hopes to make a financial killing on a recently announced summer concert tour that is set to feature 50 Cent and the mega-selling rap star Eminem. But promoters will need to make heavy use of metal detectors to suppress the kind of gun-related violence that gangster artists celebrate. That this lethal genre of art has grown speaks volumes about the industry's greed and lack of self-control.

But trends like this reach a tipping point, when business as usual becomes unacceptable to the public as a whole. Judging from the rising hue and cry, hip-hop is just about there.

namepeace said:

Let's hope so. You can't get any lower than 50.

NYTimes said:

It sure does. It also speaks volumes about the consumers who eat it up like candy. They deserve equal credit.

namepeace said:

I would say hip hop is overdue for some public outcry and subsequent uprising. Sometimes i dream the black people will wake up and stop supporting those who perpetuate this negativity. Artists like 50 Cent do more to harm the plight of black people than any Klansman could dream of. People like him poison theminds of out young people and reinforce the unfair stereotypes that scores of our forefathers fought and died to tear down. Say what you will in defense of hip hop today but you cnt tell me that you arent not a little afraid when you see more than one young black kid dressed like on of these rap thugs coming toward you on the street.

kidcreole said:

I'm afraid of you for saying this.

small world...

brent staples of the ny times/chicago sun herald happens to be my uncle, and quite an author (imo) to boot...his views (on this subject) are oft echoed...too bad, i thought, at one point, hip hop was to be the new jazz

:peace:to the true hip-hop artist


ipdc4gangstarap

OdysseyMiles said:

Exactly. What I find disturbing about this is the fact that the companies most actively promoting this type of "lifestyle" are the huge megacorporations who use the lowest common denominator to seek out the highest returns on their money. Since they only view music as product, this type of lifestyle is a marketing device to them. The people who consume most of this "product" are young white suburban teenagers who use this as a rebellion tactic against their parents. They see the thug lifestyle with its gun-toting gangstas, fast hustlas, and skanky hoes as something cool to look at. Most likely, they will never come into contact with any of those people in their lives, and in the meantime, these corporations make millions of dollars pushing this image. The ones most hurt by this are those in the ghettoes and barrios who have to witness this behavior every day.

lilgish said:

agreed, thats a poor comment

sermwanderer said:

well, shit. i am. and I'M black.

GlitterStream said:

in some cases you should feel sorry, not scared.

GlitterStream said:[quote]

sermwanderer said:

Good for you for speaking the truth.

kisscamille said:[quote]

GlitterStream said:

I am. Seriously. They don't see me as another black "brutha" so to speak. There's hardly any brotherhood anymore, and that's a damn shame. It's a shame we've turned on each other so much. When i see what i think looks like a gang, i'll cross the street or go up the alley way because i don't even want them to pay any attention to me, and unfortunately, i attract attention. They don't care anymore. Black or not, they'd jump me or whatever, and it's sad i have to feel that way. I mean, i'm not afraid of anybody but the fear's still there. What if they think i look like somebody or something? Instead of it being "oh, he's a nigga. he's aight" it's more like "oh, he's a nigga, let's get his ass."

GlitterStream said:

That's sad

13inchshoe said:

Yes, it is indeed sad. What's sadder, it that this is the truth of the matter.

OF3RF13ND: Your uncle is a fine writer.

Hip-hop is the most revolutionary form of American music since jazz and early rock and roll. It has dominated the landscape for about 20 years. Its language is now used by presidents. It is the music of happiness, rage, rebellion and reality.

But it is lampooning itself to make a buck. Hip-hop now gladly embraces the very stereotypes that it fought. Those of the black man as a gleefully ignorant sexual predator who exploits women, romanticizes a life of crime, threatens everyone who crosses him, and confuses materialism with status. And guess who's been eating this up? The suburban white teens and young adults.

Don't get me wrong, the Ice Cubes, the Tupacs, the Scarfaces, the KRS-ONE's often rapped about crime but also about the consequences. These new cats revel in their own ignorance. The cultural zeitgeist now looks as these guys as exotic creatures, not human beings. These so-called MCs can buy whatever want, society still looks on them as dumb niggers, and the fact that they know that and love to be seen as that is a shame.

But this culture is affecting our kids, more than movies, more than other music, because hip-hop MCs sell themselves as real people, and thus real role models. Why do you think kids take to hip-hop? Problem is, these kids have a hard time with perspective, so they think the purpose of life is to pick up a mic or a MAC, but not a book.

Don't get me wrong. Much of hip-hop today is underappreciated and overlooked. Acts like De La Soul, MF Doom, Common, and yes, Kanye will be around for a while doing their thing. But hip-hop as a whole has lost its diversity and its purpose. Even most of the East Coast rappers are garbage these days.

Hopefully, like disco, the public will turn on hip-hop, the neo-minstrel MCs will vanish, and it will return to the underground.

kisscamille said:

You are too right on that and I know it firsthand because I'm a black man and it happened to me when I was a teen. I got mugged by a group of other black teens cause I wasn't like them, hell I didn't even know who they were. I was just coming home from school doing what I always did but they targeted me and beat me up, in front of my apartment building no less. I didn't have to go to the hospital but I stayed at my Grandparents house for a few weeks (we lived and still live in Harlem). I was paranoid for weeks about being around them but I got over the fear of them.

The fear in the ghetto is real and the shit that is in Hip-Hop today does nothing but help destroy the black community. There was and still is potential for change and growth but everything in the music industry is about $$$$$ and as long as money runs thing, we'll never see Hip Hop go any further than it already has and that's a damn shame.

purplecam said:

Amen. In grammar/junior high school, my so-called brothers would call me "white" & "faggot" because I actually studied and got decent grades. And this was in the 60's & 70s, before hip-hop began. Like Senator Barack Obama said, we need to impress upon our young folks that carrying a book isn't "selling out". Enough with "keeping it real".

namepeace said:

An excerpt from Mos Def's interview in the upcoming issue of The Source:

"Our priorities is gettin' fucked. Lil Jon-I love his music. But why are the East Side Boyz names Big Sam and Lil Bo? What the fuck? What's next, Kunta and Kinte? The South should know better. This is the same country that ran up in Fred Hampton's crib and shot him in bed with his pregnant wife. You think the rules changed cause niggas got No. 1 records? What are we supposed to tell our kids? After Malcolm, Martin and Dubois we got Sam-Bo? I'm supposed to be down with that 'cause it makes me dance?"

JackieBlue said:

Glad to see Mos take this issue on, tho I doubt Big Sam and Lil Bo even thought of this history. I think Mos, Common, Talib, The Roots, De La, Tribe, Digables, and others need to be more vocal about hip-hop's sorry state of affairs today.

JackieBlue said:

uPtoWnNY said:

Amen to that. It's a shame that it seems to be so wrong to be so educated.

JackieBlue said:

Mos Def knows what's up. Hopefully something will come along to change the sorry state of Hip Hop but I won't hold my breath.

The most destructive art form to date that I know of.

JackieBlue said:

I actually read THAT interview just the other day!!! Mos Def is good with his research.

You have to afraid and be on the look out for your own personal safety. The first thing people notice about someone is their appearance. If someone comes towards you dressed like a thug, you have to worry if they really are a thug. I mean an actual, real-life thug is someone that rips people off and robs them. If someone looks like a thug, you can't wait around to see if he really is one or someone that just dresses like one. If you do, you're a damn fool.

What's rediculous is people that aren't thugs at all that are walking around dressed like one. It's getting harder and harder to distinguish between thugs and wannabe thugs. I was at work one day and was outside on a cigarette break. I saw two guys walking up the sidewalk coming towards me dressed like hardcore thugs. I continued smoking my cigarette but I eased my ass up against the door of the building so I could dart in if I needed to. As they walked past me, I could hear their conversation and, as it turned out, they sounded like two very well educated, black "preppy" kids that wouldn't hurt anyone.

This thug look is doing nothing but setting black people back. Black men in suits and ties have had a hard time, for years, getting a taxi cab to stop for them because of a racist white cab driver. Someone that looks like a thug is going to have a hard time getting a black cab driver to stop for them, let alone a white one.

2 questions..

1. When did thugs develop a dress code? who determined that wearing clothes 4 times the size and hanging off ya butt is how a thug dresses?

2. Why is it that people who (by watching rap videos) "dress" like a thug and "act" like a thug and proclaim themselves a thug get mad when people out in society treat them like thugs by watching them in stores, etc?

And i dont care what anyone says, the hip hop explosion is rooted in racism. I dont care what anyone says!
[Edited 5/19/05 10:30am]

LoveAlive said:

So you think all rap artists (of ANY skin color) are racists?

TonyVanDam said:

not at all..what im saying is that its not a coincidence IMO that the rap music full of negative stereotypes is almost ALWAYS the hip hop pushed to the massess ESPECIALLY when white America finances most of it