LA TIMES SUNDAY HIP-HOP OVERLOAD

jeezy is for the chilldren
Just noticed that this past Sunday's Opinion section of the LA Times was dominated by hip-hop-themed essays and columns. There was Brendan Buhler reporting on the usage of "bling" in mainstream news. Vibe Magzine's Mimi Valdes wrote on hip-hop's corporate aspirations. The centerpiece though were two contrasting essays, Ryan Smith and Swati Pandey's discussion of hip-hop as a political force and John McWhorter's slam of hip-hop's empty rhetoric around consciousness.

Smith and Pandey's essay is meant to be a primer on emergent hip-hop political organizations such as the Hip Hop Summit Action Network and Hip Hop Caucus. It wants to make the point that hip-hop has inspired a political consciousness around the world through artists like Public Enemy, Eminem, even Jill Scott. However, this arguments makes some leaps in judgment. For example, they talk about how Young Jeezy threw a benefit concert for Katrina survivors: that's true, that was good of him, but Jeezy also talks about selling crack like it was going out of style. Likewise, you can't praise Eminem for the few politically charged exhortations he's made but neglect to note all the not-so-progressive comments he's made elsewhere (the ratio is pretty skewed, believe that!). They're using narrow examples to try to justify a wider argument and it just doesn't work here. A better article on the same topic appeared on Alternet a few weeks back.

McWhorter, meanwhile, is arguing in the other direction, suggesting that "conscious rappers" often rhyme about things not-so-conscious and therefore, are not deserving of our admiration or support.

"Why, exactly, must "consciousness" so often sound like a street fight? The "conscious" rappers just relocate 50 Cent's cops-and-robbers battle from the street to the slam contest."

His polemic here is actually quite sophisticated: it's not simply a matter of criticizing rappers for the choice of metaphor, but the larger question he's putting forward is this: why doesn't today's hip-hop speak to actual real world issues rather than vague pronouncements about oppression and racism? McWhorter writes,

"We do not look to raps for detailed procedural prescriptives, like government reports on how to improve school test scores. But there are places raps could easily go, still blazing with poetic fireworks. What about the black men coming out of jail and trying to find their way after long sentences in the wake of the crack culture 15 years ago? There would be a "message" beyond the usual one simply deploring that the men are in jail in the first place."

There's much in his argument we agree with, namely that no one should be turning to hip-hop music for a source of serious civil rights activism but we do have to ask: is anyone making that assumption these days? Really? I think today's organizers may use hip-hop as a common unifying force but not as the basis for their political thinking. At least I'd hope not.

(Thanks to Derek for directing me to these stories).

--O.W.