Actually, I DO have a problem with gansta rap- the kind mentioned in the article. I've given rap music a real try, and come to appreciate some of it, but I hope we can still, at the end of the day, say that singing about "raping bitches" and killing cops is not very healthy for anyone, or for any community- not the gangsta rappers, and their communities (black white or purple) or the little suburban kids who like to listen to it because it is "naughty".
And perhaps, even though the people who brought this issue up were very rude, and one wouldn't want to try to talk to them, perhaps we should, by ourselves, think about the issue. After all, if I said jazz sucks, would I necessarily be racist? I might just have a very poor appreciation of music. I know it's more iffy when it comes to rap, since rap is (despite the rainbow coalition of rappers brought to our attention so kindly by our guests) essentially identified with the black community- and since rap is more recent we KNOW which community it is identified with. Most people don't think about the roots of jazz anymore. Of course at the time of its birth jazz was considered very nasty (my grandmother, born in 1896, always identified it with whores and whorehouses), and very ascociated with blacks, and low culture (as defined by the society at the time, not by me)- but people forget that, and the racist view the society had about jazz. This would be a very interesting issue to discuss and think about, but SI probably isn't the place to have a really good discussion about it. Alas, it really isn't a place for much of anything now, but slinging the old mud ball. Oh well. |
