....Social Media is fast becoming the second but Hip Hop is the first..
...and it all started when Gangster rap invaded the mainstream in 1993.
When Jazz was the "in" thing...Blackmen wore suits, hell you couldnt even get in a Jazz club without a suit. All the way up to 70's R&B we sang about love and Blackmen dressed like grown men, they even had a term for it, "Dressing /looking sharp." When Superfly (which was directed by a Black man) came out it was countered by a soundtrack denouning drug dealing and drug using. Minstrel shows where out of our control...The way the news and Hollywood portrayed us was out of our control.
But Hip Hop was in our control and look at where we took in since the emergence of gangster/drug dealer rap in the early 90's.
- Black men bragging about killing other Blackmen
- Black Men bragging about selling drugs in their community
- Black men refering to Blackwomen as bytches and hoes
- Blackwomen accepting being called a bytch and a ho(Prior to Hip Hop the only time a woman accepted this on an open level was if she was in the nightlife of the underworld)
- Blackmen bragging about sleeping with other Blackmens wives
- Blackmen making light of hurting/killing children
- Blackmen boasting of their financial status to an audience of people who aren't rich as if to shove it in their faces like snobs.
Blackmen condoning illegal activity and boasting after the illegal activity is complete
- Grown Blackmen dressing like teens and acting like teens
- Blackmen proudly speaking ignorant.
All of the above was self inflicted....No one outside of our race created these images...we(Hip Hop) did...Notice how I dont exclude myself because I cant. I am a contributing factor to all of this as well because I supported it for years, as with so many others. In the late 80's the music of NWA and 2 Live Crew were distributed independently...they weren't pushed by a "machine" so all that conspiracy theory nonsense goes right out the window. No one forces rappers to flash guns or speak on camera about beef with other Blackmen.(I remember Kid Capri saying he refused to ever talk about anyone he ever had beef with openly...Different times different era I guess)
My thing is this....Now that we are here and we are in so deep....what do we do to counter it all?? This self inflicted image has been in effect for around 23 years....Thats 23 years of damage that needs to be reversed and replaced with an alternative...But how the hell is that going to happen? In all of Americas history we never experienced this type of self inflicted damage.
...and it all started when Gangster rap invaded the mainstream in 1993.
When Jazz was the "in" thing...Blackmen wore suits, hell you couldnt even get in a Jazz club without a suit. All the way up to 70's R&B we sang about love and Blackmen dressed like grown men, they even had a term for it, "Dressing /looking sharp." When Superfly (which was directed by a Black man) came out it was countered by a soundtrack denouning drug dealing and drug using. Minstrel shows where out of our control...The way the news and Hollywood portrayed us was out of our control.
But Hip Hop was in our control and look at where we took in since the emergence of gangster/drug dealer rap in the early 90's.
- Black men bragging about killing other Blackmen
- Black Men bragging about selling drugs in their community
- Black men refering to Blackwomen as bytches and hoes
- Blackwomen accepting being called a bytch and a ho(Prior to Hip Hop the only time a woman accepted this on an open level was if she was in the nightlife of the underworld)
- Blackmen bragging about sleeping with other Blackmens wives
- Blackmen making light of hurting/killing children
- Blackmen boasting of their financial status to an audience of people who aren't rich as if to shove it in their faces like snobs.
Blackmen condoning illegal activity and boasting after the illegal activity is complete
- Grown Blackmen dressing like teens and acting like teens
- Blackmen proudly speaking ignorant.
All of the above was self inflicted....No one outside of our race created these images...we(Hip Hop) did...Notice how I dont exclude myself because I cant. I am a contributing factor to all of this as well because I supported it for years, as with so many others. In the late 80's the music of NWA and 2 Live Crew were distributed independently...they weren't pushed by a "machine" so all that conspiracy theory nonsense goes right out the window. No one forces rappers to flash guns or speak on camera about beef with other Blackmen.(I remember Kid Capri saying he refused to ever talk about anyone he ever had beef with openly...Different times different era I guess)
My thing is this....Now that we are here and we are in so deep....what do we do to counter it all?? This self inflicted image has been in effect for around 23 years....Thats 23 years of damage that needs to be reversed and replaced with an alternative...But how the hell is that going to happen? In all of Americas history we never experienced this type of self inflicted damage.
...You can slander it if you want to,but hiphop has been one of the most powerful and last line of defense against white supremacy since the civil rights movement went to shambles
. Its the biggest reason blacks are judged as a group instead of individually, like every other race.
