How Hip-Hop Holds Blacks Back

City-Journal.org ^ | Summer, 2003 | John H. McWhorter

[B-Chan]

< rapspeak >

Yo, G, why you be fruh'in me? I makes dat s--- up on de fly! M.C. B-chan don' need no damn Google ta bus' a rhyme, da's fo' damn sho'! When you a straight-up G-dog homey from da hood likes I is, it jus' come natch'rel!

< /rapspeak >

In other words -- I made it up myself. Glad it gave you a chuckle. LAKEWOOD HEIGHTS IN EFFECT!

[randog]

Then, bit by little bit, they start to act like their parents.

Good God Gertrude, isn't that the truth! The proof's in the puddin'!

I agree with your point--we listened to scary music to scare our elders and appear hip. I recently bought a few CD's of music I listened to in my early twenties--a live Motorhead album and Black Sabbath w/ Ronnie James Dio (Heaven and Hell). It was hilarious! I couldn't believe I listened to this crap, let alone took it so seriously!

[B-Chan]

Glad you liked it, B-Knott.

(We should all have Freeper Gangsta nicknames...)

Peace out,

MC Belvedere Unlimited

[xsmommy]

though their lyrics might be violent, satanic or what have you, those bands from our youth were not killing each other. they might have been OD'ing but the rappers have feuds and murder each other.

[Calpernia]

Wha Wha What?

[I still care]

Whenever I see the old negro comedies of the 30's and 40's, with the characturizations of the blacks, and compare them to rap artists of today, the old ones come off as as much more intelligent and respected.

I always laugh when liberals start screaming about black stereotypes in the old movies. Stymie was more dignified than any of these black rap artists, and 5 minutes of watching BET videos makes you shake your head in wonder, that people would expose themselves to ridicule like that.

[PurVirgo]

Lakewood Heights?? As in Huffman??

[A_perfect_lady]

Ah, McWhorter. He's my favorite! I just love this man....

[A_perfect_lady]

Old Fogie alert! Fearing what is foreign to him.

Dude, he's only 37.

[A_perfect_lady]

Yo, G, why you be fruh'in me? I makes dat s--- up on de fly! M.C. B-chan don' need no damn Google ta bus' a rhyme, da's fo' damn sho'! When you a straight-up G-dog homey from da hood likes I is, it jus' come natch'rel!

Well I never! Word to your mother, young man! ;^)

[Riverman94610]

Oh,they have parents alright,However,just like many white and Mexican kids,those parents are either too busy chasing the good life by buying more toys or else out in the streets"doing their thing"trying to act like teenagers.

[technochick99]

When I was 15, I was a white dope on punk!

My best friend in HS wrote that in some sort of paint in my senior yearbook - it took up the WHOLE page... I posted that about punk to show that there was a lot of 'anger and hate' in music back in our day too.

However, I do believe that the media has helped it become more mainstream and "cool".

[foreverfree]

bump

[B-Chan]

Lakewood Heights -- my old home neighborhood in east Dallas. About as bourgeois a place as you can imagine, with hardwood-floored cottages, quiet bookstores, a country club, etc.

[radiohead]

Yeah, Zeppelin, the Stones, the Beatles, Cream, Pink Floyd. They really sucked. Good thing we had Motown.

Thanks for mentioning this! I'm black, but I'm a rock and roller and these are my peeps! Now you're talkin' music! : )

As for rap, my son (an un-named FReeper) listens to it sometimes. When he was younger, I monitored what he listened to very carefully. Personally, for all the drugged-out, anti-authority lyrics of the 60s and 70s, I have never heard anything as hateful as some of this rap music and I did not want him to listen to it.

As he got older (as in over 18) and bought his own music, I noticed some of it was more hardcore. I still don't like it, but I think I am bound by my own experiences with 'hard' rock. I didn't go out and become antisocial because I listened to Ozzy, I don't think my son will become a gang banger because he listens to some of the harder rap.

I do hold the line at cop-killing lyrics, but he says that that was pretty much a phase that's played out. I don't know. What's more important in the long run is that he likes a variety of music and isn't always filling his head with rap.

BTW - rap is nothing new. blacks were doing these long rhymes for years. When my mother taught the primary grades 40 years ago, it was not unusual for her to have kids who didn't know their colors or even their correct names, but they could spout whatever 'rap' was current at the time. Sad. The parents thought it was cute. I'm sure the same is true today.

Tull rules!

[Clemenza]

I posted that about punk to show that there was a lot of 'anger and hate' in music back in our day too.

Remember that episode of Quincy where Klugman blamed all of society's ills on Punk?

[King Prout]

I believe the author misses one of the more pernicious effects/characteristics of rap: non-stop self aggrandizement. Listen to rap - all of the lyrics scream of "I did this, I did that, I banged dat ho, I capped his ass, I got this, I got that, I'm da bomb, damn yeah I'm PHAT"
Me, me, me... blah blah blah.
Self aggrandizement, nothing else.
Self aggrandizement, built on nothing but ritualized accounts of gluttony, vice, and violence. Defining as the quintessence of the admirable that which should more properly condemned as the most vile of the sins of man.
And people wonder about youth crime.

[King Prout]

"don't get high on your own supply."
No one with any brains ever said the succesful rappers are stupid.

[King Prout]

that's good, worthy of becoming a tagline.
looks a lot like programmer's mantra: GIGO