And classical!!! My goodness, anything but this!!! 
Posted on 06/09/2003 5:14:22 AM PDT by rhema
Run-DMC, whose Jason Mizell — better known as DJ Jam Master Jay — was shot to death in a Jamaica recording studio last fall, was just named the greatest hip-hop act of all time by music channel VH1.
Also ranked among the all-time greats are Tupac Shakur, Nelly, Sean Combs, MC Hammer, Public Enemy, Notorious B.I.G., LL Cool J, Eminem, Dr. Dre, Grandmaster Flash, Salt-N-Pepa, Jay-Z, the Beastie Boys, Afrika Bambaattaa, Lil' Kim and Queen Latifah. To the consternation of Run-DMC's Darryl McDaniels, Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh didn't make the list, which must tell us something about something, but it's hard to imagine what.
Frankly, I'd rather listen to Jerry Butler, the Cadillacs, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Gene McDaniels, Dee Dee Sharp — now Dr. Sharp, with a Ph.D. in early-childhood development — or any number of other R&B stars from the '50s and '60s.
For the most part, they also came out of the ghetto. Early on, their music was condemned as immoral and obscene (and some of the rougher songs did have suggestive lyrics). But rather than looking down — "keepin' it real," as the rappers put it — the early R&B artists frequently sang about love and happy days ahead. Their songs were melodious. You could understand the lyrics.
They were sometimes beautiful. Many consider Butler's "For Your Precious Love" one of the greatest songs ever recorded.
The hip-hop "stars" of today — whose dominant themes are violence, drugs, misogyny and the in-your-face display of money, jewels and expensive cars — think they're getting a bad rap. But they're getting what they deserve.
Artists must realize the words they speak and the actions they take have an impact on young and impressionable kids. And the message they are sending America's teens and preteens — white and black alike — will not help these kids later in life.
Most rap artists refuse to acknowledge their responsibility as potential role models, deflecting criticism as yet another racist attempt by the media elite to squelch black creativity in the arts. Unfortunately, the mainstream media are "guilty" of no such thing, and actually add to the problem by treating hip-hop performers as serious artists.
Rap entered the mainstream in 1992 with the release of Dr. Dre's "gangsta" album, "The Chronic," which featured such memorable rhymes as, "Rat-a-tat and a tat like that/Never hesitate to put a nigga' on his back." The album is littered with similar lyrics throughout.
Rife with the worst of what rap would regurgitate over the next decade, "The Chronic" was gobbled up by white kids and black kids alike, going platinum several times over on its way to becoming one of rap's all-time biggest albums. The album's popularity spawned hundreds of imitators, each one trying to out-gross the other, in record sales as well as attitude and language. Many of these imitators are now on VH1's list of rap greats.
After a decade of rat-a-tat rap violence and crap, the effects on America's youngsters is only now becoming obvious. Ronald Ferguson, a black professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, has found a significant correlation between the rise of rap and the decline of education in the black community. Ferguson found that in 1988, four years before the release of "The Chronic," 35 percent of black children read daily for pleasure. The figure has plummeted to 14 percent. As we know, the effects are now being felt in the white community as well.
America's hip-hop artists have kept it real long enough. We all know about the problems in urban America. It's time for the artists, producers and record company executives who are making big bucks "talkin' trash" to start focusing on solutions. Then, maybe, the VH1 rankings will mean more to America than a list of the best of the worst.
Our young people are watching and listening. It's time for another voice.
Alvin Williams is president and CEO of Black America's Political Action Committee. Readers may write to him at BAMPAC, 2029 P Street NW, Suite 202, Washington, DC 20036; Web site: www.bampac.org.
This article is not bad on the surface but think about it for a minute. One of the traits of liberals is their penchant for being victims. There is always a scapegoat for something bad happening. In this case it is foul mouthed rappers who are causing kids to leap into the chasm of crime, bad manners, drugs, and general lassitude. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and my dad thought rock and roll was spawned by the devil himself. The songs of that era don't even raise a blip on societal mores register today.
I believe, as do others on this thread, that parents have to instill some basic values and let the lives of the young ones unfold. Some of it will stick and some of it will have to be learned again. The parents who didn't bother to try will reap the harvest of what they didn't sow. The parents who tried and failed will be greatly saddened but can take some small comfort in the fact they tried. The parents who succeeded can be proud.
I favor the rap-as-mercenary-accomplice supposition, not the rap-is-the-root-of-all-evil postulate. If the devil spawned Elvis's and Chuck Berry's songs, he's honed his deviltry to a diabolical edge in the current crop of "music" (see mhking's posts, especially). If you and I had emulated Elvis and Berry growing up, how much trouble could we have gotten into? Emulating today's "artists" would get you 20 years to life for cop killing or rape.
I sure hope so, or FreeRepublic's out of business, and I can't wait for hell to freeze over before the mainstream media deigns to publish my opinions.
Don't want to be setting any bad examples for today's youth, who get enough of them from the rappers: ". . .every time him and someone tangled."
This point of view has been the subject of many a theologian's life work. It has also been the work of many a sociologist's life work. I subscribe to the view that a child is not necessarily an empty vessel, although that state predominates. Most kids will have successful and productive lives if they are given the proper data inputs in the first case. Those without appropriate cues cannot be expected to behave in an accepted manner. The popularity of misogynist, violent, and inappropriate music is not a product of the kids themselves but rather reflects the quality of their upbringing. Do you see the difference?
Puhleeeeez.
There's an ERROR in the first sentence! Jamaica? Try Queens, NY.
And classical!!! My goodness, anything but this!!!
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