Othello here. You there.
I'm kinda new to the whole blog thing, so bear with me. As a rap artist and as a teacher (I teach high school when I'm not rockin' wth my Ant Farm brothers), I'd like to weigh in on the topic of Don Imus and the backlash against hip hop as a result of the now infamous comments that he made in reference to the Rutgers Womens' Basketball team. I'm not the first person to tackle this subject; you should check out Ashton Crawley's article for the Emory Wheel.
Or check out Jason Whitlock's column in the Kansas City Star, where he dismisses Imus and points the finger directly at "the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world (who) have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show." Jason Whitlock reminds me of the black pseudo-intellectuals that used to line up to call Malcolm X a traitor to our nation and a hate-monger. Anyway, you can find his insightful commentary here.
The point is, this is not a new story, and I don't just mean the month old Imus-fest that's been dominating everything from talk radio to Oprah; I'm talking about our media's and our public officials' eagerness to pass the blame to an easily identifiable villian. Today's fall guy is the "gangsta rapper". And who exactly is the Gangsta Rapper? Well, if you look in the mainstream press, the gangsta rapper is virtually anyone who is black, male, and a musical performer. Witness NY Post columnist Michelle Malkin misidentifying R. Kelly as a rapper or the Dallas News calling Usher a rapper, or AOL.COM calling Ne-Yo a rapper... the list goes on.
"So what's the big deal?", you say. R. Kelly is a rapist, calling him a rapper would be an upgrade, right? While that might work for Kells (and, on a side note, can we please stop supporting a statuatory rapist who calls himself the "pied piper of r and b"?), it should be viewed with caution when the mainstream media can't tell the difference between an R&B singer and a rapper because, if that's the case, they will definitely not be able to tell the difference between a GANGSTA rapper and any other kind of rapper. In their eyes, WE'RE ALL GANGSTA RAPPERS, so, WE ARE ALL THE PROBLEM (except for Common, but he wears yarn pants, so he doesn't count).
Secondly, hip hop did not create the term "nappy-headed hoes". If you're looking for origins of that phrase, reach back to the era of reconstruction following the Civil War when popular media was selling the myth that blacks were uncivilized and were better off living under the system of slavery that had been in place. The "nappy hair" that Imus spoke of, often depicted in cartoons and by minstrels who dressed in black face and performed "negro songs", was seen as unkept, unclean and viewed as a sign of being savage. These images persisted in popular culture well into the 20th century. I'm more inclined to believe that Imus drew upon his boyhood influences of seeing Bugs Bunny dressed in blackface or reading "Little Black Sambo" to form his opinions than the influence that Snoop Dogg may have had upon him.
As for "hoes", well, hip hop certainly did not create misogyny within our society and it has not cornered the market on degrading females in contemporary society. With our Puritanical background, female sexuality has traditionally been looked upon as a trap, a trick of Satan to lead good men astray. I mean, the first story in the BIBLE is the story of Adam and Eve where Eve tempts Adam to eat the fruit of knowledge ... THIS IS NOT A NEW CONCEPT. Black females have only had it harder, either being represented in the media as asexual caregivers or as temptresses, creeping on the come-up, exploiting men for either wealth or status. So, Imus merely repeated what he's been saying for years and mimicking the echoes that have been present in our society for generations.
Look, I'm all for more responsibility in hip hop music. I'd love to hear d_Cyphernauts or Quest on the radio and not G-Unit or Lil Scrappy or MIMS or whatever other garbage-ass MC is currently in rotation on your local "hot" or "power" Hip Hop station but I'm not about to sit around and watch the mainstream media sidestep the issue of race and gender by shovelling the blame into the lap of hip hop. When it comes to critiquing hip hop, leave that to us, thank you.
Peace everybody and I welcome your comments.
3 comments:
I've been on this topic of the media's attack on hip-hop since the Paula Zahn special's Art or Poison? which then bled into a series of segments on the O'Reilly Factor.
A few sad facts:
one of the most outspoken of defenders of hip-hop in this topic has been Snoop!!! One of the most foul-mouthed cats in the game has been the one saying the most intelligent things on our behalf.
Russell Simmons and Al Sharpton are helping them bring us down. Russell actually apologized to Bill O'Reilly!!?! That mother fucker doesn't know shit about hip-hop.
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It makes me extremely angry that I can't truly help in the defense of what we do.
Doesn't anyone realize that not every dude that rhymes is talented or truly representative of our artform?
I think that is all I have to say for now. . . i'm done before I start to get angry.
We need more posts from you Othello. This was a grest read!
Snoop's involvement doesn't surprise me; he was one of the 1st cats to step up in the east coast- west coast thing and try to reconcile the two sides.
Russell doesn't surprise me, either. He's all about his money and he doesn't need his reputation and his corporate interests getting tarnished by being associated with profanity and misogyny.
i bet he ain't handing out refunds on the albums he sold as the owner of Def Jam that are riddled with curse words, violence images and degrading representations of women.
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