The Never-Ending Story
I’ve written about it… time and time again… I’ve beaten it into the ground.
Hip Hop and Don Imus… the ruiners of the Black Community…
Yet, EVERYONE is still talking about it… The Hip Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) held a meeting and released what I hate to admit is a meaningless statement… Bleep the words “b***h”, “h*e” and “N****r” on radio edits of songs…
Um, don’t they already bleep those words?
They don’t bleep “Brain”, “Dome”, “Crack”, “Coke”, “Dope”, “Drugs” or “Guns” - all words that, while they are not considered curse words, are indicative of problems in our community. And don’t think that just because you tell these rappers that they can’t say certain words that you are affecting change.
These are rappers we are talking about here. They got a made up phrase, “Bling-Bling”, into the Oxford Dictionary. They will just make up a new word that means the same as the old word. Before you know it, your four year-old will be running around with a new phrase that perplexes you.
MC Lyte says that hip hop owes women an apology. So does my friend Chuck, the Co-Founder of Allhiphop.com. I agree. If someone was always talking bad about me, and people like me, I would start feeling a little bad about myself. In some ways, I guess I do.
And yet, I’m not blameless. I can’t express how many times my best friends and I have called each other “B***h” and “H*e”. I mean, I am pretty sure that I have called someone that I love a “nappy headed ho” because I thought it was funny.
I don’t anymore.
So, now what? Is rap going to change? I don’t know… I’m not sure… I think it’s all the okie-doke. I mean, Imus could be working for Bush. We’re talking about him, and not about the war. Sharpton stopped marching for Sean Bell and started marching against Sean Combs.
I’m tired of arguing. I miss the old hip-hop debates like “Who’s the Greatest Rapper” Jay-Z versus Nas was a good one. And the age old question, “Who would and wouldn’t be hot if Big and Pac were still alive?”
I am a hip hop head who lives in the past. I can’t “Walk It Out” or “Pop, Lock, and Drop It.” But I can do “The Wop” and “The Prep” and don’t get me started on “The Schoolcraft” or the “Kid ‘n Play.”
I don’t watch 106 & Park. I have episodes of Yo! MTV Raps on VHS. I am that kind of head. My CD player contains exactly 4 albums made after 1998. Kingdom Come, Hip Hop is Dead, Popular Demand, LuvandMusiq, and soon to be Carte Blanche.
I am a hip hop head…with my head in the sand.
There isn’t much left to say on the subject. We’ve made our mistakes. Rap Music, Radio, Television, Movies, Video Games, Media in general. We’ve let the kids see too much and hear too much and learn too much. And now, they aren’t really kids anymore. They are mini-grownups, my daughter saw two teenagers having sex in her school gym just yesterday.
We owed them more. Just like the Civil Rights Generation owed us. They opened doors and we walked in and trashed the place, then invited Generation X in for the party. We corrupted the minors. Now they all only want to be basketball players and all the basketball players want to be rappers.
I still believe in us because I believe that humanity is ultimately redeemable. I’m tired of arguing. I want us to love each other again.
Can’t we all just get along?
