Is there a lot of real truth about hip-hop here?...

[splanky]

I have to say I think so...

http://allhiphop.com/2012/06/18/dest...black-culture/

[Jerry Oz]

Well stated. I often lament the fact that so many died to give us the freedom to fall apart culturally. Too many willing to accept government assistance. Too many willing to have five kids by five different mothers or fathers. Too many 32 year old grandmothers. Too many dead and in prison. Too many willing to rob, rape, or debase. Too many willing to stand up and support those who rap or sing about all of the above as if it's okay to want less in life. Where does it end? Bill Cosby was absolutely right. We're doing it to ourselves and the hip-hop mindset is one of the major enablers for people who are willing to accept less.

[soulster]

My experience with hip-hop is limited to music. I've been listening to it since the late 70s, when it exploded on the national scene.

However, as one who grew up in a southwestern small military town with a predominately White population, I have had very little exposure to those who identify with the hip-hop culture. I have only read, seen, and heard about it in the media. I am of the baby-boom generation that identifies with the 60s civil rights struggles, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, Jesse Jackson, and others who were at the forefront of the Black Experience of the late 60s and early 70s. I work with the public, so almost every day I am reminded of, and live the struggles we, as Black people, have had to endure. Then I look at TV shows like "Bait car", where police bait mostly minorities in large cities with ready and willing vehicle begging to get stolen. Entrapment? Sure. And, every time you see a black person, their using one hand to hold up their pants and holing their cell phone in the other, baseball cap on sideways, and speaking inarticulately calling each other "dawg", "fool", and "n****r". That's where a lot of Black people are today. Then, they show the parents, and the father's flashing gang signs and joking about how his son's stupid. And, probably none of them know or care about all it took to get them to the place where they could drive a vehicle and own a cellphone. Sorry about the tangent. I saw a few shows on TV last night and it was on my mind.

Anyway, back to hip-hop. I'm not quite sure just what went wrong, or exactly when. From my knowledge of it, it started out innocently enough as party music that sometimes got a little risque at time, but it was harmless. White people picked up on it right away and even adopted it as a style of music. The music went from party music to positive messages about staying in school and staying away from drugs. Then, somewhere, it became a celebration of all the wrong things. Ice-T? NWA? It got sexual. It got angry and militant. Then it just got stupid. It has swung back to being party music, but with overtly sexual tones. And, the biggest twist of all is that the most successful rapper is a White dude from the suburbs, led by one of the gangsta-rap pioneers, who is Black.

What i'm wondering is: are Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, and their peers, still being "encouraged" or coerced to do the "provocative" and suggestive rap tunes, or are they doing it out of choice? I wonder if it is now becoming all too easy to blame "the man" for what they do today.

I listen to some of their music with a full mind on where we have been and where we are today. Is it being suggested that these rappers wouldn't be recording this type of music if they were more intuned to our history? And, in our increasingly multi-racial culture, how important is it to identify with one race or culture over another? Many times, I see those who tend to identify, and advocate exclusively identifying with your own race, as bigots and racists themselves. And, how about our President? He is bi-racial, but identifies with Blacks. Did he somehow feel some sort of social pressure to do so because of the tone of his skin, despite his mother's lineage?

As wrong as I think it is for anyone to use the "n" word, other than in historical literature, is it ever OK if a non-Black person uses it? Can we really condemn Gwenneth Paltrow for using the word as a term of endearment when we collectively keep giving a pass to rappers and all other Black folk for using it in the same way? We can't have it both ways, people! You either use the word and no one uses it, or everyone uses it, and the spelling and pronunciation of it does not matter! How can I get too angry when a punk-ass White, Mexican, or Asian kid uses it when some punk-ass Black kid uses it?

Hey, i'm just rambling with my thoughts. I'm not trying to make any grand statements on the condition of the world.

[Jerry Oz]

One night at a night club, NWA's "Dope Man" came out of the speakers. All I really remembered was it employed the Ohio Players' "Funky Worm" synth-lead in a sample. Clever enough. I bought the cassette tape and listened to it on the way home from the record store. "8-Ball"? "Boyz In The Hood"? "Dope Man"?! F*** this; f*** that. N***a this; n***a that... I listened to it again and popped it out. My cousin Tony saw it in my car console and asked to borrow it. I told him to keep it. I was shocked by it and never wanted to hear it again.

After nearly 10 years of arguing with my dad about the viability of rap music and hip hop as a culture, I wound up agreeing with him. It's kind of like what happened with comedy: Richard Pryor shocked us with his language, but you could hear the pain behind so much of it and relate to what he said, if not how he said it. Future generations cussed because Richard did it without thought or consideration of the story they were telling. Do we have the responsibility to move forward when we stand on the shoulders of giants or is it okay to live off of their hard work? Or worse, having obtained opportunity through their sweat, blood and tears, are we fine with pissing our lives away because we can?

[ralpht]

I began to realize there was a problem when the East Coast and West Coast Rappers were feuding and killing one another. I came out of the Detroit club music scene where the competition was fierce among the local Detroit bands. But we didn't kill one another. Quite the contrary, we were all friends. Guess I pulled the lucky straw to have been part of that scene.

[Jerry Oz]

Ultimately, it comes down to the question of whether the art imitates life or vice-versa. Is the pride that kids feel for being thugs and b****es because the records tell them that's the lifestyle of "true n***as"? Or are the lyrics indicative of the pride people feel as a result of living that lifestyle? I was born at a great time, 1962. I missed what came before and avoided what came after my generation. I thank God everyday that I had two parents, extended family, and caring neighbors to keep watch over me. I walk a straight and narrow line to avoid letting them down.

[soulster]

I still cringe every time I hear that "n" word. I cringe because I remember the original meaning of it, and that meaning has never gone away just because Black people use it. I cringe because I was called that at school when I was a kid in the fourth grade. I had seriously never heard that word until the age of nine, when a bigoted kid moved to town and enrolled in my school and went to my church. That word was never used in our home by any family, and, almost my friends at that point were White, and I still had never heard the word up till that point. But, I sure remember the first time I heard it. My mother's only reaction was to call them the same. I knew it would't work to call a White kid the word. My father would have had a different answer, but he was in Viet Nam. FF to today. Am I desensitized? No. It still stings no matter who says it and no matter what situation. The same goes for all those other racial epithets. So, it disheartened me in the 80s when my niece and nephew started using it after being around transplanted city-folk and military. The first time I heard a Too Short tape I broke it and threw it in the garbage. Today, my reactions aren't as severe, and I do listen to some of the more colorful rap, but I still hate that word. Why can't we stop using it?

There are people who really hate rap no matter what type it is. They don't care. They are 100% convinced that there is no socially redeeming value to it, and that it's all the same. How wrong can they be? There are as many flavors of rap as there are of the rock genre. [[Rap music is closely associated with stylistically. In a way, rap is closer to rock than R&B.) I hate it when rap is talked about as if it is all evil, and I think a small bit of that may be because it came from Black people.

[soulster]

I began to realize there was a problem when the East Coast and West Coast Rappers were feuding and killing one another. I came out of the Detroit club music scene where the competition was fierce among the local Detroit bands. But we didn't kill one another. Quite the contrary, we were all friends. Guess I pulled the lucky straw to have been part of that scene.

I was always under the impression that the violence and killing came out of the West Coast scene. After all, the first hardcore rappers were Ice-T and NWA, both from California. Ice-T is a real gangsta, claiming to have actually murdered, but NWA, while all from Compton, never killed anyone, and went to school.

[Jerry Oz]

It goes beyond "n***a" for me. So many of our young sisters are being taught that it's okay to get pregnant at 15 and drop out of school. It's okay to have unprotected sex even when rates of HIV and other forms of STDs are ridiculously high for their population. It's okay to raise three kids without a male presence. Culturally, this generation is devolving into a society without morals or a need to have others respect them. It's not just hip hop. It's the culmination of a lot of things, so to blame the music is like blaming the symptoms for the illness they reflect.

[soulster]

It goes beyond "n***a" for me. So many of our young sisters are being taught that it's okay to get pregnant at 15 and drop out of school. It's okay to have unprotected sex even when rates of HIV and other forms of STDs are ridiculously high for their population. It's okay to raise three kids without a male presence. Culturally, this generation is devolving into a society without morals or a need to have others respect them. It's not just hip hop. It's the culmination of a lot of things, so to blame the music is like blaming the symptoms for the illness they reflect.

Actually, the rate of teenage pregnancy for all races and ethnic groups in the U.S. teens have gone down.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_1...l-ethnicities/

[splanky]

Soulster, in a lot of ways you may as well be living on another planet and I'm not trying to insult you...It's just so different watching the impact of hip hop culture on urban and even suburban black youth along the East Coast, from
New York to Florida, even out west in Californa than where you are...
Also, I am not trashing hip hop as a whole. I liked a lot of it at it's beginnings, own a bit of it's second and third generation's out put, even some gangsta rap and non gangsta stuff where the N- word is sprinkled about too. Still,
because I believe words do have power, I feel much of it now negatively affects too many people's thinking, reasoning
and social relations. It often co-opts us, entertaining brickheads at the expense of those who've fought so long for
respect. And as far as the N-word is concerned, what other ethnic group routinely uses a racial slur to refer to themselves in public as well as in private and has taught generations of other groups to use it as if it were a common pronoun, yet will selectively have a fit when a representative of the people who coined the term in the first place spits
it out? WTF??????
Oh and by the way, Ice T can talk all he wants but there's no evidence he ever actually killed anyone and second Schooly D recorded gangsta rap before Tracey ever picked up a mic...
I guess what I'm trying to say is that in 2012, in a rapidly shrinking world with what was local becoming global and people who were minorities making decisions for majorities, when will people look for better ways to express themselves
to the world?...
Thank God I found jazz, classic soul and other musics than a lot of the garbage I hear championed today...

[soulster]

Soulster, in a lot of ways you may as well be living on another planet and I'm not trying to insult you...It's just so different watching the impact of hip hop culture on urban and even suburban black youth along the East Coast, from
New York to Florida, even out west in Californa than where you are...

I can only speak from my experiences and observartions.. Like I hinted to destruction a few days ago, I do come from a different culture. I fully recognize that, and I stated it in my first post on this thread. One must remember that this is a big country that has hundreds of various cultures and sub-cultures. We are all products of our upbringing and experiences. And, if this forum is as open and diverse as the members say they are, they will be able to accept people from all cultures and walks of life. However, I do notice and feel a certain clannish atmosphere here, who react negatively to anyone who presents a different perspective on things.

I frequently visit, and have lived in major cities, but, in the last 30-some years, I have managed to not meet many suburban Black youth, nor have I had any reason to visit those areas. The first gangsta youth I ever knowingly met was a young White guy in his late teens who lamented to me that all of his homies were dying, but was dumbfounded when I did not experience the same thing. My second time was when I had a gun pulled on me by a bunch of gang members at my business. I am acquainted with a skinhead I used to work with, who cleaned up his act after having been in prison, and is still a very cool guy. We always got along. But, my niece got mixed up with some of them who moved here and now they are all in prison or dead.

Also, I am not trashing hip hop as a whole. I liked a lot of it at it's beginnings, own a bit of it's second and third generation's out put, even some gangsta rap and non gangsta stuff where the N- word is sprinkled about too. Still,
because I believe words do have power,

We are both in complete agreement on this one.

I feel much of it now negatively affects too many people's thinking, reasoning
and social relations. It often co-opts us, entertaining brickheads at the expense of those who've fought so long for
respect. And as far as the N-word is concerned, what other ethnic group routinely uses a racial slur to refer to themselves in public as well as in private and has taught generations of other groups to use it as if it were a common pronoun, yet will selectively have a fit when a representative of the people who coined the term in the first place spits
it out? WTF??????

Again, I agree. So, How does my agreeing with you on this make me seem like I come from another planet?

Oh and by the way, Ice T can talk all he wants but there's no evidence he ever actually killed anyone and second Schooly D recorded gangsta rap before Tracey ever picked up a mic...

That is why I said Ice-T claimed he killed once, meaning that his claim has never been confirmed. Was my first statement not accurate?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that in 2012, in a rapidly shrinking world with what was local becoming global and people who were minorities making decisions for majorities, when will people look for better ways to express themselves
to the world?...

I don't think they will. They don't see the bigger picture and they don't care. Look at the republicans: they still act like they are 78% of the nation's population.

Thank God I found jazz, classic soul and other musics than a lot of the garbage I hear championed today...

I'm a baby-boomer, as I suspect you are. I grew up on virtually all kinds of western music, as my parents had very diverse musical tastes. I listen to everything, even today's dance-pop, some of which has hip-hop elements, and contains content your grandmother wouldn't approve of. The difference is that I am older and have the long history to deal with what I hear.

[splanky]

Sorry, soulster, your statement about Ice T being a real gangsta threw me off. I know he did have gang affliations in his
youth, for a while joining the Crips but today he is an entertainer and actor though he might even deny that. I've read
two of his books and though I often disagree with his oppinions and beliefs, he has had an interesting life.
As far as the planet thing, I didn't say you came from another one only that you may as well be living on a different one
as relating to knowing what's been going on in largely black neighborhoods and communities up and down the coasts.
30 years? Geeze...That's like back to when Afrika Bambata's Planet Rock dropped, ain't it? A whole lot has happened
since then...

[splanky]

Another thing I wanted to say in reference to Ralph's remarks about the West Coast- East Coast thing, I
always liked Tupac Shakur and always wished he had lived long enough to realise he had to overcome a lot of that
stupid sh*t that almost all of us do in our youth, especially between 18 and 30, and long enough to get that stupid Thug
Life tattoo removed from his torso and then long enough to come fully into his own as the thespian he had been groomed to be as a young man. He was moving towards that in his last years until some butt wipe shot him dead and I
still a lot of blame for that on Suge Knight....okay, I know most people here won't know who that is but I got it off my chest....

[soulster]

Sorry, soulster, your statement about Ice T being a real gangsta threw me off. I know he did have gang affliations in his
youth, for a while joining the Crips but today he is an entertainer and actor though he might even deny that.

Oh, I was just being sarcastic.

As far as the planet thing, I didn't say you came from another one only that you may as well be living on a different one
as relating to knowing what's been going on in largely black neighborhoods and communities up and down the coasts.

Oh, I know what you meant. I'm not clueless like some people around here think I am. I will cop to having Aspberger's traits.

30 years? Geeze...That's like back to when Afrika Bambata's Planet Rock dropped, ain't it? A whole lot has happened
since then...

Sure has!

[soulster]

Another thing I wanted to say in reference to Ralph's remarks about the West Coast- East Coast thing, I
always liked Tupac Shakur and always wished he had lived long enough to realise he had to overcome a lot of that
stupid sh*t that almost all of us do in our youth, especially between 18 and 30, and long enough to get that stupid Thug
Life tattoo removed from his torso and then long enough to come fully into his own as the thespian he had been groomed to be as a young man. He was moving towards that in his last years until some butt wipe shot him dead and I
still a lot of blame for that on Suge Knight....okay, I know most people here won't know who that is but I got it off my chest....

All I know is that they were all rappers, and today's youth still idolize Tupac. I have at least one of his albums on CD. But, I know nothing of that world except what I saw on TV about it.