Nas also known as Nasir Jones is considered to be one of the greatest hip hop lyricists of all time but he is also considered one of hip hop’s greatest thinkers. No, he wasn’t educated at a college or university but he is a byproduct of Queensbridge "Houses" or projects in New York City. Nas entered the rap game in 1991 when he appeared on the track Live at the Barbeque with fellow rapper, Main Source. His longevity in an industry that has the attention span of a chihuahua amazes me but if you seriously listen and try to understand his lyrics, you might undertand why he's been in the game for so long.
Since Live, Nas has survived the oversized hoodie wearing, blunt smoking, street corner standing, Jansport backpack wearing early 1990’s, the west coast gangster rap fad of the mid 1990's, and the glitzy shiny suit wearing, obscene bling-bling, hyper-sexualized, post Biggie Smalls period. (Although, Nas fell into the P. Diddybop trap with "Hate Me Now!") Now, Nas is back full circle. He's doing what Nas does best, speaking the truth about what’s going on in the gritty city streets and what’s going on in the rest of the world.
When I look back on the sixties it seems like it took place on another planet. There was so much to be proud of during that period. We didn’t have much in terms of material things, but we had pride, a love of self, and a sense of optimism that sustained us quite well.
If you were solely judging by appearances, you would never assume that I listened to hip-hop. I look more like a hippie from the 60's with my curly Afro, chunky, earthy jewelry, and my social justice nature which I display as often as I may. I listen to various types of music--from Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue" and Flyleaf's "Red Sam" to Bread's "If" and Jay Z's "Roc Boys." What I am attracted to is the emotion of a song--not the words or even the meaning because not all music has those characteristics. What pulls me in is the artist's ability to translate and transfer his or her emotion onto me.
Now, some music is just a guilty pleasure, like a trashy novel I read and throw away before anyone discovers that I even have it. My "relationship" with Lil'Wayne's music fit this category. From "Tha Block is Hot" to "Tha Carter II," it's been one long, trashy (yet enjoyable) novel.
Today, I've animated a special all-Hillary version of Scott Bateman's Sketchbook of Secrets & Shame:
And after the cut: a very special animation about Burma's hip hop scene, whose leading stars have all been imprisoned by the hardline government (makes most of our hip hop stars seem like a bunch of posers in comparison)...
As a teenager who used to groove to the likes of the Notorious B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige, the last thing that you'd expect to get out of a raging concert was political inspiration. Yeah, they'd talk about Malcolm X or Dr. King, but they were hardly current political topics in the 80's.
My nephew called me this morning to tell me that one of the local radio stations was reporting that Jay Z had been flashing GW's picture across with back urging people to declare "F--k Bush" and then waiting, and displaying Obama's picture against the backdrop to a roaring crowd.
I admit I was taking a bit of a break from all things political this week, and not paying much attention to what the increasingly farcical body known as Congress was up to, but I just ran a search and found precious little coverage given here to the fact that Congress summoned rappers to the Hill this week to scold them about their lyrics.
Click the link. Sample some of the video. Then join me below the fold for some good old fashioned incredulity.
The other day I watched the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection Hearing in the House of Representatives entitled “From Imus to Industry: The Business of Stereotypes and Degrading Images.” As you can probably tell by the title, most of the people who testified had no idea what they were talking about.
For one, while almost everyone agreed that that there was some sort of “problem” in America, most of the Representatives didn’t act like they realized art and culture aren’t created in a vacuum. In their opening statements, they claimed that young people in America were being reduced to “automatons” and that violence in music and on television lead to increased crime on the streets. One Congresswoman even went so far as to ask rappers and others who produce controversial content where society had failed them so badly that they were motivated to produce such “filth.”
Hip Hop was, at the time, a voice of angry protest. It was more than just a rhyme on a beat, it was a shout against a complacent society. It spoke of poverty, alienation and disenfranchisement in America's urban youth culture.
Due to its own success and the subsequent over-commercialization, Hip Hop became meaningless. It became a vehicle of violence and misogyny and just another saran wrapped product for the masses produced by the soulless media industry.
State officials have determined that a West Bronx apartment building is eligible to be recognized on the state and national registers of historic places as the birthplace of hip-hop.
Senator Charles E. Schumer and Representative José E. Serrano joined tenants today at the building, at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, to celebrate the determination, which came in the form of a July 5 letter from the State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Normally, buildings less than 50 years old are not eligible for designation, but there is an exception for structures of "exceptional importance."
Crunch, Mmm, the peanut chunks trapped in delicious caramel tastes oh so good. You bite and are rewarded with a mouthful of inticing caramel and nut flavors - all of a sudden that deliciousness is tainted by an odd sourish, crunchy, mushy apple flavor. What? Where did this apple come from, I like the outside best. This is the caramel apple of globalization - the outside is so delicious and appealing, but once you hit the apple and core, the fun has ended. Granted this all matters if you run with the majority and toss aside the age-old wives tale of eating an apple a day to keep the doctor away. Too many of us see this doctor everyday - there is no escaping this doctor because all too often globalization is used for ill, just to get the caramel and nuts, not the healthy fruit of the free market, fair trade, and multi-lateral agreements.
With the United States at war in the Middle East, journalists often tell us what is being said on "the Arab street." Well, on America's black street, debates over immigration reform are percolating.
Surveys say that African Americans overwhelmingly see immigration reform as a moral and civil rights issue. But others, especially low-wage workers, fear that legalizing 12 million undocumented workers will add to their misery.
Such barbershop talk found its way into the mainstream media earlier this month when T. Willard Fair, president and CEO of the Greater Miami Urban League, testified in Washington that newly arrived immigrants are taking jobs that low-wage African Americans otherwise would have.
Though Fair is hardly the only African American who feels this way, his congressional testimony suddenly made him the black face of a largely white anti-immigrant movement that includes as controversial a group as the Minutemen.
An Open Letter to America: "Now is the time for us to stand up and stand together"
By Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr.
July 1, 2007
My Fellow Americans:
The power of our voices against the U.S. occupation of Iraq is reaching the top echelons of the military and the administration. Our government is persecuting Americans who speak out against the U.S. military presence in Iraq. The U.S. military has launched politicized attacks on its own military members and moral leaders who oppose the war to discredit their voices of dissent.
"We've come to a point where every four years this national fever rises up — this hunger for the Saviour, the White Knight, the Man on Horseback — and whoever wins becomes so immensely powerful, like Nixon is now, that when you vote for President today you're talking about giving a man dictatorial power for four years."
"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upward mobile — and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: Not necessarily to Win, but mainly to keep from Losing Completely." - Hunter S. Thompson
Today we will learn whether I. Lewis Libby, convicted felon, will serve jail time immediately. In the past week, we've all heard from Libby apologists why he should not serve jail time: record of public service, financial hardship on his family, no real crime committed, an out of control prosecutor. They even thrown in Sandy Berger's sentence as a red herring to decry how unfair it would be to send Libby to jail. The unspoken part in much of this is that an "innocent" man is being sent to jail (i.e., he's taking one for the Cheney-ster)
Who knew that Scooter's ethos had more in common with da hood and Lil Kim than Harvard Law. <More on the jump</p>
The pundits have been all over the Airwaves lately repeating how everyone in the Beltway is just agast over the DC Madams threat to break the Hooker Code of silence and actually snitch on her fellow Sex Partners in crime. To the ruling classes in D.C. it seems just unimaginable and terrifying that this woman would dare betray her powerful paying clients just to save her own neck. Even the Judge and District Attorney got into the anti snitching act, taking steps to prevent her from turning on her fellow participants in these titilating crimes! Only a technicality let her get away with her outing her illicit customers to ABC! Now for the rub...
This has got to be the greatest endorsement so far in the presidencial campaign and this one, unlike thousands of useless endorsement, will mean something and galvanize Obama's youth movement to the poll and crush all democratic rivals in our path.
A story on hip hop in a major magazine, no big deal, right? Except when the magazine is National Geographic. The article is Hip Hop Planet.
Not since the advent of swing jazz in the 1930s has an American music exploded across the world with such overwhelming force. Not since the Beatles invaded America and Elvis packed up his blue suede shoes has a music crashed against the world with such outrage. This defiant culture of song, graffiti, and dance, collectively known as hip-hop, has ripped popular music from its moorings in every society it has permeated. In Brazil, rap rivals samba in popularity. In China, teens spray-paint graffiti on the Great Wall. In France it has been blamed, unfairly, for the worst civil unrest that country has seen in decades.
This is a hot issue now and many people are chiming in. I would just like to piggy back off of the early post titled :A Response to All Hip Hop Apologists. Hip Hop is a topic that is drawing together as well as dividing people. Imus, Al Sharpton, Anderson Cooper, Oprah Winfrey, Snoop Dogg, Cam'ron, Russell Simmons, you, me, and your neighbor are all caught up in this 'issue.' Hip Hop is something that touches us all no matter what your ethnic background, home situation, or city dwelling. Hip Hop consumes you no matter what to think, no matter what you listen to, no matter where you come from.
