beans up her nose then I wouldn’t have had to either.

And Susie’s mom didn’t get near as mad at her as you are so it’s your fault too.

(These people really have the reasoning capacity of yer average whiny four year old, don’t they?)

I think it’s about time CBS cancelled 50 Cent’s syndicated radio talk show.

What are rappers known for other than bling? Rhyming.

Oh yeah, rhyming. Sure. Thats what i remember, the fabulous rhyming. Honey, isn’t that some rhyming. I can’t remember the last time I heard rhyming like that!

Obnoxious (gangsta)rap music/video is the urban equivalent of Dukes of Hazzard fare. Thats all. Thats all it is. So stop pretending it is anything else. Its just a reflection of a bunch of ignorant parochial and provincial morons with hard-ons and shiny chrome wheels and girlfriends in hot-pants jiggling their asses in front of a camera and partying all night long and so on. Everyone is always being chased by the po-leece and getting sent off to prison and having their pit bull run over on the access road…all the time and so on … Ok? Got it? Its just the urban equivalent of the Nashville redneck country-road car chase and prison gig and girlfriend screwing with the other guys bling bling and the hound-dog getting run over by the midnight train story. Old cheap formulamatic stuff. All it is. Nashville and Rock and Roll has been pimping the same crap for years. Thats why Don Imus took to it. Hes a conditioned idiot. Reminded him of the same dumb country music tunes he likes to listen too. Where do you think the rappers learned it from? Shakespeare? Oh yeah…. shooooor they did! hahahah… no, they learned it from dumb country/ rock-n-roll/music/video/movies pop-culture too. Thats where we all larn’d it from. Get real.

See, we all got something in commin’. Trash pop-culture. Kitsch Ugly! We are all sucking from the same oversucked straw on this one. Someone needs to change the channel. We need new a new Jazz.

*

Back in the Hood, oh wait, that was the courthouse. Sorry, I grew up with this stuff, and it should have died back in the emergence from caves. Nice, trifecta. If, however, some of the reverberations rock the Coulters, O’Reilly’s and assorted hate peddlers out of the comfort of their ’craft’, I will be very glad.

Ruth

of 25 years ago are two different things, right? i’m not exactly the hip hop expert (gasp! shock! a negress who doesn’t say “bling!”) but i do know that the stuff i bought when i was a tad younger and more interested in that sort of thing is very different than what i hear on the radio today. i’ve complained about it with other black folks who remember the ’good old days’ of hip hop, and we agree that the corporate crap of today mostly sucks.

i was just reading that something like 80% of the modern day consumers of hip hop are white. add to that the fact that the corporate nature of the music industry means no real “protest” or politically aware music is going to come up the corporate ranks. sure, they’ll sell white kids the stuff that white kids think is “revolutionary” and “rebellious,” but i don’t know that many black folks who are glued to BET and getting all their cultural signifiers from what they see there. xeno needs to chime in here, he’s way more in touch with real hip hop than i am. but when speaking of what is on the mainstream radio today, i am happy to agree with the farmer, and i’d take it farther.

it’s as if the dukes of hazzard suddenly decided the drop the country boy act, and moved to the suburbs and bought a bunch of justin timberlake gear and sprewells, and started calling themselves “niggaz.”

But if the dukes keep getting in the car thru the window, all is forgiven.

Ruth

KRS-1 and Public Enemy made some great political rap music.

Some gangsta rap was really good. Straight Outta Compton by NWA in the late 80’s was a great album. Profane, violent, misogynistic, but unforgettable.

White teen aged males are the buying audience for rap, but old white males want to use rap as a blunt instrument to use against African Americans who complain about their racism and sexism.

I wasn’t trying to make a larger point here other than no matter the problems with rap, it is ludicrous to blame rap for the asshole that Don Imus has become. As has been reported, he got fired in the 60’s from a Stockton radio station for holding a Eldridge Cleaver look alike contest with the first prize being a week in jail. Ha ha ha. Rap music didn’t turn him into a racist misogynist. That was my point.

i was just rambling about the misuse of the term ’hip hop’ today. i’m sure there is another, more derisive term for the corporate crap that masquerades as ’hip hop,’ but i’m too old and out of touch to know it.

and yes, none of this excuses or explains how an old white man like imus thinks misogyny and racism are funny.

Back when hiphop was hiphop:

De la Soul and Jungle Brothers and Black Sheep and A Tribe Called Quest (and other Native Tongues members like Queen Latifah) and even RunDMC and older KRS-One, et cetera. Now it’s just crap, and like CD and farmer say here - and AWESOME analysis, farmer - I’m in total agreement with what rap/hiphop has become; it’s no longer about pulling yourself above the circumstances of your life and trying to make it a better place for yourself, your loved ones and anyone and everyone else you may be able to help along the way, it’s about dwelling in the ghettos and talking about money, bitches, shoot-outs and diamond-studded grills, about what you’re doing to make some cash and buy some bling and getting that new set of spinners for your Escalade, and fuck those around you, preferably in a violent way that involves either rape or high-caliber weapons. Today, for the most part, it’s all bullshit pandering to the lowest common denominator.

It’s OLD hiphop that should be crossing any kind of real or imagined racial divide, not this 50cent shite.

Word to your mother(s).

PS: All that being said, I need to give Eminem props for some of his material that talks specifically about rising above his upbringing and/or politically relevant topics. Yeah, he’s pretty white for a rapper and it shows, and yeah, he’s got some songs I really don’t agree with content-wise, but there’s others that, lyrically, remind me very much of the old-school hiphop groups. So, sure, he’s still white trash and probably a bit of a douchebag in person, but he’s also tried somewhat to increase the awareness of his bone-headed followers with some of his tracks, and he deserves credit for that, even if given a bit grudgingly. Oh, and he’s a bad-ass freestyler, too.

PPS: Oh, Mos Def gets even more props than Eminem. He’s an old-school rapper who’s still extremely relevant and, his portrayal of Ford Prefect in the Hitchhiker’s movie aside, he’s someone I’d love to sit down and have a drink with.

PPPS: Oh, and Philly’s own Roots, of course.

Relevant Links:

Eminem:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8OFR4L2tHe4

Mos Def:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=E2FlcRVTuCA

and i also respect his evolution from nasty rapper to political progressive. “mosh” was so cool. so what if he’s white? white people have every right to become hip hop artists, just as do asian and arab hip hop artists, which one can find now all over the globe. sure, most of that stuff is also “gangsta” crap, but some of it isn’t.

i was just reading about a palestinian hip hop artist the other day…

I’m not saying that white guys or girls shouldn’t do hiphop, I’m just saying that sometimes, well, he seems REALLY white. Not like Vanilla Ice white, he’s in a category all of his own, but still, like, pretty damned white.

Maybe it helps being a huge hiphop fan to see what I’m talking about, but gangsta rap in this day and age is pretty terrible.

And there are some AWESOME korean and japanese hiphop artists. I don’t think the chinese guys have it down quite yet, but they’re getting there. If you know of any good arab artists, drop some knowledge on me, I’m always willing to check out new stuff.

interesting arab hip hop artist. too late to link to him now.

As Gibson writes in Idoru:

Laney stared glumly at the screen as the singer was replaced by a close-up of Lo’s playing, his hands on the black-bodied guitar. Earlier, a venerable British guitarist in wonderful tweeds had opined as how they hadn’t really expected the next Hendrix to emerge from Taiwanese Canto-pop, but then again they hadn’t actually been expecting the first one, had they?

Probably the music we want is out there somewhere already…

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.