Archive for July 13th, 2004

Devish NAACP gettin’ me all worked up. I almost forgot to run this week’s album.

Today’s album, Masta Ace’s Slaughtahouse, was one of the first hip-hop albums to cast a critical eye on that whole gangsta genre. What’s more, this came out in 1993, when gangsta rap was really emerging as the dominant paradigm. In their year-end review of the albums of the year, The Source (back when it was actually worth reading) called Slaughtahouse “the moral center of hip-hop.”

Ace wastes no time getting at the gangstas, doing a spoken word intro and then a Hardcore Rap 101 skit.

Teacher: Now when you rhyme, you hafta say that you smoke blunts. *underlines on chalkboard* Also you hafta mention that you drink 40’s. You hafta mention that you carry a 9 millimeter, a tec-9, a mac 10, a M16, or an Uzi. *underlines on chalkboard* Does anybody have any questions?

Student: Excuse me, but I don’t have a gun.

Teacher: It’s not IMPORTANT if you have a gun or not. Just ACT LIKE you have a gun.

That’s followed by the title song, which is in two parts. First is a parody of a gangsta act which features two MCs, MC Negro and the Ig’nant MC. Following that comes Ace, literally setting the record straight and mapping out the focus of the album.

One of the strongest element’s of Ace’s skills is his ability to really paint a picture of what’s going on in a neighborhood. Not that ludicrous Ludacris/Nelly/NWA reality where everybody’s either shooting somebody or getting some at every moment of the day, but in the Village Ghetto Land sense of describing what’s there. This, from Late Model Sedan:

Cause my man Shiloh, is out on the prowl
With some East Medina, brothers that’s foul
Lookin to protect, the streets that our mothers
Have to walk on, from black young brothers
It’s bad enough, that if I walk through a white
Neighborhood, that, I gotta be prepared for a fight
Why should I be scared of the dark
Skin on a brother that be lurkin in the park
I oughta be safe in a black neighborhood
But someone’s always up to no good
Niggaz ain’t never gonna make no progress
Killin one another, but you know I guess
I’m feelin thirsty, I’m goin to the store
If anybody calls, I went to the store!

Oh. And somebody should spit this to Kweisi while he’s trying to get at Black conservatives:

As I walk through Brooklyn, Compton or whatever,
I wonder why black folks don’t wanna stick together.
We talk about justice, and how little we get,
yet black men be killin’ black men for talkin’ shit… (right…right…)
(”;Here’s the one, that one that always talkin’ shit…”;) [gun shots]
How the hell we supposed to wage war against the powers that be
when we are still our own worst enemy?

Instead of worrying about the laws going back to 1963, how about trying to get the murder rate and out-of-wedlock birth rate to where they were in 1963?

“Preposterous like an androgynous misogynist” - Talib Kweli

La Shawn, Samantha, and Michael have all written about Kweisi Mfume’s comments regarding Black conservatives. Check them out for some solid rebuttals and logic questioning. Me? I’m just gonna make it plain: he’s out of his wig. This is exactly what I was talking about yesterday. He’s still in the Colored People mindset. Everything I said remains true, only this time I kinda feel like really getting at the N2ACP. Very rarely (and I mean VERY) do I agree with Rush Limbaugh, but when he calls it the NAA(L)CP, I can’t help but admit he’s right. If you’re not liberal, they ain’t speakin’ for you. Which is too bad.

You would think that if there was any place the conservative viewpoint would be respected or at least heard, it would be in the N2ACP. Only thing is, I don’t think the focus is really on Advancement. I think it’s really about maintaining the legal status quo, circa 1968. Like I said, I don’t necessarily think the organization is altogether obsolete, but they are certainly focused too much on the past. We’re not going back to 1963. Black people are not going to lose the right to vote, we’ll still be able to shop, eat, and sleep where we want, and if we just feel like it, we can marry white people. The laws are not going to change. But that’s all you keep hearing because that’s all they’ve got anymore. Like my driving instructor told me, “It’s hard to go forward if you keep looking in the rear view.” Or to quote Satchel Paige, “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” Only in this case, it’s not what’s gaining on us, it’s what we’re losing.

It’s time for some honest dialogue. Jokers need to quit resortin to punk moves like name-calling and step to the plate with some real conversation. Don’t tell me I’m a puppet because your lines ain’t got no pull. I want to see somebody point out to me in practical terms, where the conservative agenda is wrong. I can accept ideological differences. Probably won’t agree with ‘em, but that’s what grown folks are for, to have different opinions. The question is, wha’chu gonna DO? Talking about racism and classism and patriarchy and capitalism and whatever other structural elements are at work in keeping the Black man down is all good, but if that talk doesn’t lead to any action, then as Nino Brown would say, it’s “running the marathon.”

And as for the insinuation of pay for position, it’s easy to lament the plight of the poor when you’re sitting up in hotels, eating good. Pimps up, hoes down, right?