Goodness
I can only say that the behavior manifested in the last two posts is really execrable, and belongs on a middle school play ground, not here. I do not know where some people come up with the idea that any sort of behavior is ok on the net. Of course one can DO anything, but that does not make it socially appropriate.
It's too bad one cannot phone their mothers, and tell them their little darlings are badly misbehaving.
It's funny that people would want to take away rap music from the minority that started it (and did anyone say ALL rap music was black? I don't think so). Do you suppose they'll say that blacks weren't responsible for jazz next? Will we find that the negro spiritual is primarily a white musical form? Ah, the great and grand humor of it all. By being extra PC we can strip the minority culture of its music AND make it easier to bash it in one fell stroke.
You know this is fascinating:
yale.edu
and this bit is extremely interesting, especially when we think about what it might mean in the context of a really meaningful discussion about racism:
"At this point in my unit I would like to examine the rap music industry today. Even though rap is proportionally more popular among blacks, its primary audience is white and lives in the suburbs according to David Samuels in his article in the November 11, 1991 issue of “The New Republic.” The article was titled “The Rap on Rap: the ‘Black Music’ that Isn’t Either”. Samuels attempts to substantiate this fact by revealing that the number one selling record in 1991 according to Billboard Magazine was Niggaz4life, a celebration of gang rape and other violence by the group N.W.A. (Niggers With Attitude). Billboard Magazine in the summer of 1991 started to use ‘Soundscam’, a much more accurate method of counting record sells by scanning the bar codes of records sold at the cash register instead of relying on big-city record stores to determine the most popular record. Samuels went on to state that the more rappers were packaged as violent black criminals the bigger the white audience became. I do not think any one can account for the popularity of rap to a white audience no more than one could account for the popularity of the black entertainment in the ‘speakeasies’ to the white audiences of the late 1920s and 1930s. Other than the attraction which exists for something that is taboo or forbidden by one’s social group."
"One can not deny that whites were starting to have an effect on the rap music that had originally begun in the black neighborhood. But this is to be expected any time an art form starts to gain popularity with mainstream white America. The same thing can happen with an art form that is popular with mainstream white America that all of a sudden becomes popular in a minority community. Students need to be aware of this fact and come to grips with this. Samuel David seems to be implying that with the influence of whites on the rap music scene that it is only a matter of time before rap starts to lose its popularity in the black community and that rap is on its way out. I strongly disagree with Mr. David on this point. I believe that rap music can withstand the influence of other (ethnic/social) groups and still remain popular and flourish. My following discussion of the role women are playing in the rap industry seems to substantiate my point of view."
You know, Tsigprofit got me interested in Eminem- and after that I paid a lot more attention to rap music. Poetically, it can be really interesting- if you do listen to some of the more intelligent artists. I think many people have been exposed to only gangsta rap, or even to only the idea of gangsta rap (having never listened to any actual rap music at all). I've seen some strange generalizations about rap that make it clear that the people making them have never actually listened to much (or any) rap music. I've no idea how knowledgeable our two guests were on the topic- their posts were devoid of any clues as to their intelligence or knowledge of the subject area, sadly.
And for those few, those misguided, those very very strange folks, who might want to argue that jazz wasn't first and foremost black music:
jass.com
Oh
one of my favorite artists:
redhotjazz.com |
