Opinion
Jermaine Dupri: Obama’s Made People Become Politically Engaged
Jermaine Dupri weighed in on the start of President Barack Obama’s term and what he views as his first big move. “Barack Obama has done what none of the other Presidents has been able to do,” JD writes over at the Huffington Post. “Not Clinton. Not Reagan. Not no one. He instilled caring into the bodies of people like me who used to think it didn’t matter either way who was in charge… People are so politically engaged with this new president we have a nation of backstreet drivers and it’s always gonna be that way. They’ve got something to say every time Obama does something. They still need to let him have his lane, but I guess it’s healthy to make some noise if it comes from a place of caring. I’ve never heard so much conversation about a president in my lifetime.” Read more.
will.i.am Describes His Post Debate Mindset
will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas shared his thoughts about what ran through his mind following the U.S. Presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain on Friday night. The Obama supporter writes:
I may not know everything about Iraq and why we are even fighting…
and most people in America can’t even explain why we even went to Iraq…
and this is why people abroad have mixed feelings about America…They can see the disconnect…
They can see that President Bush misrepresented the American people to the rest of the world…
They can see that George Bush’s definition of homeland security is a joke…
If we invested money in education and new jobs after 9/11, in my opinion we wouldn’t be here…
How can we fight terror when we as Americans are terrified every week with a potential rise in the gas prices…?
How can we fight terror when we as Americans are losing jobs because companies are sending work overseas…?
How can we fight terror when our education in America is poor…?
Check out the full post here.
O’Reilly Blasts Virginia Tech Pres For Allowing Nas To Perform
‘The O’Reilly Factor’ host Bill O’Reilly blasted Virginia Tech during his Talking Points segment on Wendesday (August 15), notably university president Dr. Charles Steger, for choosing Nas to perform at a back to school Memorial Concert in memory of the shooting victims. “After 32 human beings are murdered at Virginia Tech a concert welcoming students back features a guy who traffics in violent lyrics,” O’Reilly moaned. “How disturbing is this?” O’Reilly spoke with Center for Neighborhood Enterprise’s Robert Woodson and hip hop journalist Bakari Kitwana about the controversy.
Video at FoxNews.com has since been removed.
Now my talking points on this issue… Unlike many of Bill’s attacks on hip-hop, given the situation at Virginia Tech, he has a valid point here. But I would say that he probably wouldn’t go after an actor who played in a violent role at some point giving a commencement at the school, unless that’s all the actor is known for. Well in Nas’ case, he’s known for a wide variety of lyrical topics and has a large catalog of songs. If he avoids his songs with violent lyrics at the event, and given this is a lineup of several acts, his set is probably short enough where this could be easily accomplished, then there shouldn’t be a problem. If Nas disrespects the memory of the victims of Seung-Hui Cho and raps about guns and killing, then O’Reilly should have carte blanche to hammer him… He’ll deserve it only then.
The Show Didn’t Benefit By Censors
Robert Hilburn, pop music critic of The Los Angeles Times, weighed in on Kanye West’s controversial remarks on NBC’s ‘A Concert for Hurricane Relief’ and the networks’ decision to censor “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” from the program’s west coast airing. Hilburn writes, “Whether we agree or disagree with West’s impassioned riff on media and government racism, the network’s relentless self-promotion was by far the more offensive part of the broadcast.” With more Katrina musical specials coming up, Hilburn suggests, “In planning these events, the executives should look at tapes of “America: A Tribute to Heroes,” the two-hour special that was carried by all the major television networks and dozens of cable channels shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The focus that night was entirely on the music: no commercials, no audience, not even introductions as the singers, including Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young, took their turns onstage. It was a night totally without showbiz ego.” The story at truthout.org has since been removed.
Felux: Kanye West Is My Hero
Writer and activist Justin Felux came to the defense of Kanye West following the rapper’s remarks on NBC’s Concert For Hurricane Relief on Friday. “‘We’ve never seen anything like this before.’ I have heard this phrase repeated several times by newscasters describing the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina,” Felux writes. “However, as I watched the footage of all those black bodies desperately trudging through dirty flood waters, I realized that I actually had seen something exactly like this before. It was one year ago, when Hurricane Jeanne slammed against the coasts of Haiti, a country which like New Orleans is both poor and black… The United States rendered so little aid as to be insignificant, and before long the entire incident had faded from the minds of most Americans. There were few cries of outrage over the fact that this country couldn’t care less about the deaths of thousands of black people, but devotes countless hours of TV time to the latest Missing Pretty White Girl (I believe at the time it was Dru Sjodin, not Natalee Holloway). But people dying in Haiti is one thing. Americans have always found it easy to dismiss the deaths of those from other countries, especially when those countries are full of dark-skinned people. But who would think our government would allow something equally devastating to happen to people on our own soil — to people who are full-fledged American citizens (in theory, anyway? Enter Kanye West.” Read more.
Kanye West’s Idiotic Comments
Contributed anonymously:
Kanye West was one of my favorite artists but now he disgusts me and I will never listen to him again. Our president did not cause this tragedy nor does he deserve to be accused of not caring about black people. Everyone from the Mayor to the President and even the citizens need to take responsibility for not insuring the safety of there cities. For not securing and holding evacuations at a city level with buses, carpools, airplane, boats or helicopter. Unfortunately, now we must look forward and contribute with money, volunteering and prayer. Our president is doing the best he can, so is FEMA, Red Cross, etc are doing the best they can to help people …. Not just black people. But people. Its bullsh** to try to attack the president with comments of not caring about black people just Bullsh**!!! Kanye, you are out of line and disgust a lot of us. Granted I do agree help was slow but Kanye’s comments about the president are idiotic.
A Hip-Hop Rebirth In 2006-2007
Contributed by AdamBernard:
I don’t want to get all preachy by the current state of music right now is mediocre and that goes for ALL FORMS of music. Pick a genre, any genre, and you’ll find somewhere between three and six artists or groups that you like. That’s horrible, there are no real comercially viable options anymore. Plenty of people blame radio, or blame MTV, and though they are partly to blame, it’s not their fault entirely. Radio and MTV can’t play things that don’t exist and I think what people are craving right now is a kind of music that hasn’t ben created yet. This is why I feel there will be a complete overhaul (again) in 2006-2007.
Contined in the rest of this editorial are thoughts on who’s got next, what will happen to The Source, Hip-Hop, and the young artists that droped albums this year. The full story at reactmag.com has since been removed.
My Personal Journey With This Hip Hop Sh**
Steven Mann of trndsttrs.com writes: “The year was 1988, The Album was PE’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to hold us back, The victim… as usual and always was me. Ya see music was always a big part of my life… an audio backdrop to all my failures and misfortunes if you will…. Regrets, I’ve had a few… cold sores…I’ve had none. The funny thing about music is that what you listened to then and now, is and was in some way related to the type of ‘person’ you are, and perhaps a reflection of the crowd you kept. Music was f-d up in 1988. I just opened a book listing some of the top selling artists that year, peep this.”
Pro-Gay Rap Revealed
Nick Flanagan of Now Toronto writes: “Since I began listening to hiphop, I’ve noticed a certain machismo behind a lot of it, plus an unfortunate tendency for rappers to write homophobic lyrics. It’s a phenomenon that came to a new level of prominence following the suburb-bombing release of Eminem’s Marshall Mathers album. However, not every rapper has bad things to say about gays. Some pioneers – not just Peaches, I mean the biggest names in urban music – drop sexually ambiguous lyrics on the regular, sometimes unwittingly.” Check out his examples here.
Jam Master Jay Is ‘The Master Of Disco Scratch’
Ed Masley of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette weighed in on the tragic murder of Run-DMC DJ Jam Master Jay on Wednesday night. Masley writes, “Jam Master Jay took hip-hop to the suburbs, scratching his fingers right into the history books while Run and DMC extolled his virtues on not one but two cuts from their classic debut album.” He added, “Much like an earlier ‘King of Rock,’ Run-DMC didn’t invent the sound so much as take it to the masses. And Jay was a crucial component of the group’s appeal, providing the musical hooks beneath the raps on an amazing string of early singles.”
The full story at post-gazette.com has since been removed.
