Why I Still Love Hip-Hop

My personal fulfillment of one thing – Hip-Hop – was secret and peddled as the fulfillment of a higher cause.

I shielded my radio-bumping music and my self-proclaimed activist mentality from those close to me. My middle-class background didn’t allow me to see beyond the sentiments echoed by old-schooled blacks and whites. To them, Hip-Hop seems to be a blemish on culturally American music. I disguised my admiration of Hip-Hop for a conservative image.

Now that the strange English, sagging pants, and bling bling associated with today’s gansta rap have become social codes, I might as well confess. I love Hip-Hop -- not the “Real Slim Shaddy Please Stand Up” Eminem-type rap; instead, I prefer the lyrical genius “Power to the People” genre.

Hip-Hop Confessions

I haven’t always been fond of Hip-Hop.

I’m not a product of the Bronx, where Hip-Hop was founded. I didn’t grow up standing on house stoops listening to poetic artists dressed in sweltering leather suits and three-striped Adidas without shoe strings. I don’t have memories of up and coming rappers be-bopping and scatting to undocumented beats and words.

Run DMC, the Cold Crush Brothers, and the Sugar Hill Gang, all Hip-Hop trailblazers, I knew. I’d seen images of record spinning DJing, emceeing, break dancing, and loud graffiti colors spray painted on old brick buildings. I’ll never forget LL Cool J’s urban style of thick gold chains with cotton and leather Kangol hats covering his eyes.

Social despair caused urban rappers to create Hip-Hop, and me to relish it. I bought my first Hip-Hop CD for the same reasons the Hip-Hop culture clings to its artist. I’d fallen in love with Kanye West, Mos Def, and Talib Kweli. I could dig a Tribe Called Qwest and The Roots. The words of West, Common, and the Lost Poets helped me to grasp an understanding of the same street corners my father, uncles, aunts, and cousins turned to for comfort. The song’s words still resonate in my mind:

The corner, where struggle and greed fight…we write songs about wrong cuz its hard to see right…look to the sky, hoping it will bleed light…reality’s a bitch, and I heard that she bites the corner (Common, “The Corner,” 2005).

Listening to West’s Jesus Walks (With Me), I understood why ex-sinners were mystified and shouting to a higher being. As the late James Baldwin wrote, “their pain and their joy were mine, and mine were theirs.”

Love Is…Hip-Hop

Joy, pain, and love are what resonate when I listen to Hip-Hop artist, Common, short for Common Sense. College classmates introduced me to the Chicago native. Common’s charismatic style complements his physique. He is a caramel-colored brother with the style of a local businessman and the mind of a social activist. On the back of his latest CD cover, the artist sits content dressed in a business shirt covered with an orange sweater. He sports a smooth beard, and a Kangol hat covers the complexion of his beautiful eyes. Behind him, is a black and white picture of Malcolm X, the one where he’s posing with his index finger pressed against his face. The former emcee has a sensual melody that is inviting. He is without gangstaness and yields to an obsession of material things. I respect him for his feminist words:

I was rolling around, in my mind it occurred
What if God was a her?
Would I treat her the same?
Would I still be runnin’ game on her?
In what type of ways would I want her?
Would I want her for her mind?
Or, her heavnly body (Common, “Faithful,” 2005).

I credit Hip-Hop for its role in re-establishing love into a community that once said, “Black is Beautiful.” Who would’ve ever thought young souls would once again walk the streets of Harlem with dignity? The ingenuity of soul lives through Hip-Hop. It permeates streets known as South Cottage Grove and Lenox Avenues. For the same reasons Negroes admired a tall man with black trimmed glasses who walked the streets of Harlem as a celebrity, Hip-Hop has become the urban anthem for self-preservation.

I don’t remember the exact moment I discovered Hip-Hop, but I embrace its clasping melodies when I listen. Lyrics of truth telling embedded with unfamiliar beats soothe me when I need a fix of consciousness. Hip-Hop lives, and young minds continue to grasp it for the same reasons I did discreetly – it gives a voice to the voiceless.

Salaam,
E. Tanille

Black Evangelicals To Hold Town Hall Meeting

In the wake of apologies from fired radio personality Don Imus, African American church leaders met last week to plan a town hall meeting. The leaders efforts are part of a community based approach to examine racism and sexism in America.

Two networks, MSNBC and CBS, fired Imus after he referred to the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy headed hoes". Although Imus was released, black evangelicals say racist language and negative depictions of women remain a problem.

Rev. DeForest B. Soaries Jr., senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens (Somerset, New Jersey), said a meeting will be held at Rutgers University within the next month to discuss the social issues, including the portrayal of women in mass media. The meeting will consist of students and community leaders, Soaries said during a press conference.

"No African-American leader, no national leader should consider this a victory," he said. "We have to begin working on a response to the larger problem."

E. Tanille's Thoughts:

I commend Rev. Soaries and other leaders for stepping up to the plate. Their actions prove that there are black men, who have the courage to stand up for women, particularly black women. For too long, black women have been demonized and uncharacterized in society, as well as some Hip-Hop and Gangsta Rap music. So much so, that I'm willing to argue that women's unclothed bodies in music videos have made millions for white and black business owners. BET, a network that was supposedly created to provide positive images of black people, consistently displays dehumanizing images of ethnic women. Thus, Rev. Soaries is right; Imus' comments hurt, but there's definitely a larger discourse that needs to be expressed.

Black leaders have protested against the negativity of Hip-Hop and Gangsta Rap music. For years, C. Deloris Tucker, the late civil rights leader, agitated against Gangsta Rap's demeaning lyrics. Unfortunately, after Mrs. Tucker's death, the music genre continues to be a problem.

Will this Rutgers University town hall meeting leave a lasting impression on rap music? Do you think Soaries and other local evangelicals are on to something that may bring about change?

A change is definitely needed. There are less and less profound images shown on cable television via Hip-Hop. I agree with the rapper Nas. Hip-Hop appears to be dead. But, I have hope. My hope lies with my generation and young people.

My advice to Rev. Soaries and other church leaders is: If you refuse to reach out to the masses of black and brown young people living in America's urban ghettos, your efforts may be meaningless. Young brothers and sisters desperately need leaders to support, defend and stand up for them. They turn to demeaning lyrics (which are said to be artistic expression) because society has ignored them. If leaders don't step up and provide more positive outlets for young people, they will continue to fall through society's cracks of racism, discrimination and white supremacy.

Rutgers University is a leading institution in this country. The school won't suffer if church leaders hold the town hall meeting elsewhere. Why not have it at a local community center in Newark (New Jersey) or the basement of a housing project?

If black evangelicals ignore the voices of society's young people, they will remain victims of racialized and stereotypical media.

Imus is off the airwaves for now, but our young people are still walking around calling each other "nappy headed hoes".

Salaam,
E. Tanille