It’s been a long time since the last one… mainly because I’m not the angry guy I used to be. But a couple things in the media have re-lit the fire.
Let the name calling begin!
It seems that dancing is back in style in the Hip Hop generation, and I for one, am pleased at this turn of events. Better for these kids to be dancing than talking about selling drugs or shooting each other (even if it is stupid shit like the very coonish Chicken Noodle Soup, we can work on self image after we put the guns down).
However, just like cocaine rap, gangsta rap and (insert your genre of choice here) rap, Hip Hop has once again overdosed on the dance phenomenon. Pump your brakes dear reader, I know you’re going to tell me, “A-Plus, Hip Hop and dance go hand in hand”, to which I will reply, “True.”
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With the dawn of the latest dance crazes, Hip Hop has once again being divided into two sects. On one hand, we have the fans that are anti-EVERYTHING, and will go to war for the preservation of the culture. On the other, we have the fans that don’t want to do ANYTHING other than Walk it Out, Snap or shoot a jump shot (thanks Jim Jones).
If given the choice, I’m rolling with the fans that are always down to fight.
The problem with fans that just want to dance, is just that….most of them JUST want to dance, and therein lies the problem.
Fans of the dance craze will undoubtedly defend the music, saying that the music it’s the great escape from “the ills of society”, “the daily grind of work” and any other stress they should be going through at the time.
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And to that, I say “WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!”
The reason that our “ills” don’t get better, the grind of work doesn’t get easier and stress remains stress is because dancing away our troubles is the Tylenol of our culture instead of the penicillin. It’s a band aid to our problems instead of the operation that makes the problem go away.
STOP ALL THE GOT DAMN DANCING!!!
It’s cool to dance, hell, I have a mean two step, but I don’t dance all the time. You can’t dance all the time; WE can’t dance all the time.
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There’s a time to dance and a time to fight and we seem to have missed the bell to get in the ring and alleviate some of our problems. We want the Tylenol instead of the penicillin.
Let’s give ourselves a good reason to walk it out and snap next week at the club (if that is indeed your Hip Hop cup of tea).
Let’s make sure our kids have a cup of chicken noodle soup to eat.
Let’s walk it out to our friendly neighborhood school and make sure our children are getting a quality education. Let’s make sure they know they have more options than “drugs basketball and the rap, it’s more to us than that” (© Talib Kweli).
Let’s change our work place conditions instead of trying to act like they don’t exist.
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And finally…
Let’s change Hip Hop. DFB and dead prez CAN co-exist if WE demand that they co-exist. We can’t fight all the time… but we damn sure can’t afford to dance away our problems either.
Which brings me to my next point…
Fuck Michael Richards aka Cosmo Kramer. Yes, I said it.
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Black America lost… AGAIN. Leaders from the civil rights generation to the Hip Hop generation blundered an opportunity to address some REAL issues.
To hell with the man’s repeated use of the ‘N’ word (and by N word, I mean N-I-G-G-E-R), so many of us fail to see what’s wrong with the use of “nigger”, or “nigga” (I’m guilty as well) that we all but overlooked a critical part of his diatribe against two African American men.
How about the blatant comment about lynching a Black man?
What’s that you say? What am I talking about? Didn’t catch the lynching comment amongst the media hoopla over the incident, allow to me to take you back…
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“Fifty years ago we’d have you upside down with a f**king fork up your ass.”– Michael Richards
To hell with the repeated use of the ‘N’ word, if Jackson, Sharpton and Co. don’t see more harm with that statement than anything else, it’s definitely time for the Civil Rights generation to pass the torch and sit down somewhere.
But wait, those of us in Hip Hop didn’t seem to be too outraged either.
Maybe we were too busy dancing and club. Too busy getting our groove on to notice that back in 2006, people still think that it’s ok to carelessly discuss the lynching of people.
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Now walk THAT out…
