Is Nelly Right? Rappers and their Problems with Accountability.

Man. Isn't hip good when its good?


I like hip hop.

And I presume that if you are reading this, that you do to.

Because I like hip hop I always keep my eye open for
any intergenerational dialog that music fosters.

Case in point. Two things have arisen in the last few
weeks that I caught my attention.

First it was Nelly's comment about Hip Hop at the Town Hall
Meeting.

The second was David Banners comments at the Congressional
Hearings on Hip Hop.

I have a special interest in Nelly's comments because I am a feminist,
a b-girl. I addition one of VERY FIRST POSTS here ON THIS BLOG was
about Tip Drill. The following is an excerpt from an article from SOHH
about the Town Hall Meeting on Hip Hop

"People wanna say that rap is glorifying the problems from the neighborhood," Nelly continued. "The thing is, even if you gon' glorify it, it's still a problem. People wanna end the glorification and not end the problem. We're attacking hip-hop as a copout and it's an easy way to diverge everybody because older people don't like it. When we first started listening to hip-hop, my granny and them thought Run-DMC and them was straight hoods. She didn't get it. She's from a different era in music and it's the same thing as what's going on right now."

At one point during the discussion, former Essence Magazine editor Diane Weathers, who had previously been "angry with Nelly" because of his controversial "Tip Drill" video, acknowledged that she had misjudged the rapper.

"You know Nelly, it's nice to sit here and see how intelligent you are and that your children are doing well, because I was very angry with you over 'Tip Drill,'" Weathers told Nelly during the telecast.

"That's the whole point. When she said that, that should have been the end of the show," an animated Nelly stressed. "Because that's all you gotta do. Nobody comes to us and talks to us. Nobody gets our perception because they take in our entertainment."

What Nelly avoids is the gray area.

While I agree yes, in many ways the Elders ARE attacking the messengers,
however Nelly is a messenger who is getting crazy cake AS a messenger.

Its like me for instance.
Say I wanted to work at a war profiteerer.
Knowing what I know about
corporate america, the annals of power, and how wealth is
distributed around the world
I would have to sleep at night knowing that SOME of
my 5/6 stacks is directly correlated
to negotiating on the behalf GE, BOEING or god knows who else has a major
DOD contract (that is more than likely related to the Irag/Afghanistan) war.

I would have to sleep at night knowing that part of my cake was war cake.

I call it working for the dark star.

People do it every day. Its the game.

BUT, we ALL owe it to ourselves to be honest w/ the position that WE play
in the grand scheme of things.

Nelly gets off to an ambitious start, but falls short of stating exactly HOW he
contributes.

========
========



Last week I was pollyin' with the folks Gotty about how
folks hate on Chris Brown.

And I responded that I don't have a problem with him.

And for the record, that back packers gonna hate on teenie boppers,
main stream gone hate on bpr's and around 'round we go.

He was listening to Uncle Murder, and was saying how he likes his ignorant
music from time to time.

I was like, Uncle Murder. Dudes name is "family member" murder?
What part of the game is that.

Then I turned around and acknowledged that I am a bigged @ssed Clipse head.

But here is the rub. He was making an argument about how ALL MUSIC doesn't
have to be political.

And while I agree that it doesn't it, the type of images that are allowed
to THRIVE WARRANTS being analyzed.

Think about it. If Ye ye were LESS arrogant would he get the shine that
he does? I belive that he would do respectable numbers in that
SOB's album every 2 years, but mostly cakin' as a producer.

Yeye wins, and for that matter Jay as well BECAUSE so much of
his work is about class mobility and reconciling where he came from
with where he is going.

Gotty retorted that Common sold, Yeye sold, Kweli is selling.

BUT my response was that they are on the margins
in the grand scheme of things.

Therefore when it comes to media representations,
Black men who's momma's have Ph.D's,
will not EVER represent the core of what Hip Hop means
to the masses.

Our culture, American culture, has a major investment
in ensuring that Black men remain perceived as
thugged out-sex crazed n*ggas who can't handle life
stress, anger or money.

Think about it. Why would a culture be SO fascinated by an alleged
OJ robbery or Michael Vicks case?

Why did the Jena 6 case take SO long to gain traction?

Ask your self who's interests are served by seeing
their cases played out incessantly in news papers and cable news
channels?

Surely ain't mine.

========
========



Go Brooklyn.

Yessir.

======
======

Shout out to my girl, the Super Leo, whose baby girl arrived
on my born day. <<<------ Goes to target.com and spends cell phone
bill money on pink booties and onsies. But then again, I was just thinking
of stacking chips and getting the baby a share of google stock. Naah mean!

Do you think Nelly is pointing fingers and refusing to admit
how he contributes to the issue?

Or do you think that emcees get free reign and that it is up to parents
to raise thier kids?

If you think the latter, do you believe that you would be where you are
in life if people OTHER than you parents would not have looked out
for you?

I realize that I totally dropped the ball on David in this post.
I will have something on that later this week.

========
========