James Baldwin wrote Go Tell It On A Mountain and mused that the Saxon grant of 1945, the one he received to help him finish that novel, kept him alive. Rightfully so, I can’t imagine what it meant to be alive and black in 1945, but I can glean from it the same smell of despair you find in tattered, moth-eaten clothes. Go Tell It On A Mountain was a worthwhile title. James’s father was a preacher of the fiery kind, and James stood there underneath his shadow with tumult, watching his father do on Sundays the title of that book. America is filled with these stories, and in the art, as in culture, Americans are the far flung extremists of a fractured British empire. Rightfully so, then, that our favorite poets and greatest authors have been practicing spiritualists. You see, in America, you do not need to deal with Christianity, because Christianity will come to deal with you. You just have to exist long enough.
This weekend saw three come-to-Jesus moments in astonishing succession, and I predict there will be many more among the old guard and new guard alike. The reason is money, of course. But for now it will masquerade as culture, as telling truths from the mountain. It can be said that rappers did try the Internet out. They tried to take it seriously, but the divided demagoguery of Internet fandom isn’t enough to make you a star amongst stars. Neither the Beyhive nor the Barbs or the Yeezyites can save you from the Rihanna navy or some other star’s congregation of listeners. There’s hardly any agreement anymore, and so, if you want real traction, you must get up on stage and give it to them straight. That’s what Kanye West and Nicki Minaj did this weekend at the VMA’s. And, that’s what Young Jeezy did in his open letter.
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Never forget there was a time when Kanye believed in the system. From “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” to “Jesus Walks,” Ye´ was, at times, the ultimate believer. He called you out so you could do better. He actually took time out of his day to become unnecessarily furious. And his penchant for irrational outbursts was charming because they dug up the old America with its barnyard preachers and red scares. In short, America is irrational at its core and Kanye fits perfectly into that mold. Call him Father. So he went up there and showed us all what being a superstar is all about. It’s about biting the comically charred hand of the blithe corporation that feeds you and giving your sermon. It’s about showing people you aren’t all bad because you consume fresh juice in Paris with your daughter. It’s about unifying the masses of tribes scattered throughout the vast digital space. And now you must call Young Jeezy “Pastor” after his open letter, which read like a socialist manifesto if I’ve ever heard one.
It’s only natural that this should be the case since the opposing forces of togetherness and individuality collide constantly. This too is a call to arms. And while Kanye’s message is generational, Jeezy’s is national. Is one more important than the other? It’s hard to say, but they both seek to unionize the masses in a way that hasn’t been tried in a while. Good for them. Feel what you feel. Follow your dreams. These are all good messages and completely irrational and that’s fine. America is about doing what you want despite how dire things look. And so rap in its essence is conservative and uniquely American. It embodies the idea of the individual’s ability to change the world. What other genres can really, really say that?
But then there is the individual sacrifice. Telling it on a mountain can be at just one single body, too. And when Nicki Minaj cast out the ghost of propriety and went for the neck of Miley Cyrus she spoke for a lot of people who sees Miley as an interloper in the black experience. I don’t even think it was just the media talk that fueled it, but the dreadlocks and the Harajuku outfit and all the things that make Miley appealing. The orientalism that she inherently takes part in is, of course, the same one Nicki Minaj has taken part in, too. It’s hard to say how much of that is being a child of the web, but I will say that ideas just don’t disappear. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed.
And now the spectacle of the VMA’s is over, and I can’t help but think that this is what an award show is supposed to do. It lights a match to the fabric of your civilization itself, as we trot these creators out so that we can worship them openly. We then cut their throats and it’s over. There’s got to be winners and losers, after all. That too is a mountain. And so we follow the lineage of our art from Walt Whitman to the Beat generation. From Mark Twain to Nicki Minaj. The culture wars are coming, folks. And they will be televised. At least I hope so.
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Andre Grant is an NYC native turned L.A. transplant that has contributed to a few different properties on the web and is now the Features Editor for HipHopDX. He’s also trying to live it to the limit and love it a lot. Follow him on Twitter @drejones.
