January 30th, 2008Gangsta Rap made me do it
Kid: But wasn’t Compton dangerous before gangster rap?Teacher/Indoctrinator Guy: Wrong! Compton was a nature preserve for bunny rabbits! When gangster rap came along they tore down the country clubs and put up housing projects!”I literally lol-ed at that. It’s an excerpt from a new music video that Ice Cube recently put out, called “Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It.” (For those of you who are confused at this point, Ice Cube was a rapper before he was in “Friday” and those PG movies. For those of you who knew that and are now skeptical of this whole column, hear me out.)The video is his criticism of the recent arguments that rap music and hip-hop are poisoning America (i.e., making white people use the “N-word,” making young black men drop out of school or sell drugs, devaluing women, causing global warming, causing SIDS, etc.). I admit that lately I’ve also been having some serious problems with hip-hop. It hasn’t been because of Soulja Boy or the myriad other rappers that everybody is mad at for being “ignorant,” either. My problem is that as my love for the music has grown, so has my sense that too often it powerfully and effectively perpetuates dangerous and self-destructive behavior in the communities it claims to represent, and which many artists (entertainers?) claim to love.At this point I should say that I have no interest in writing a column to bash rappers or hip-hop. I simply intend to quickly examine a bit of the conflict surrounding the music through the lens of the aforementioned song. In the interest of convenience and word limits, I’ve chosen to talk about two major issues: (1) The dreaded N-word and (2) Misogyny. Disclaimer: This is by no means intended to be comprehensive.1. “If I call you a n-, ain’t nuthin to it, Gangsta Rap made me do it.”Frankly, I don’t care to revisit the list of people who have been publicly lambasted for all manner of inappropriate references to blacks. It’s not that I don’t care, I just find it tedious. However, what I find even more tedious is the allegation that somehow because (black) rappers are permitted to use certain language, everyone should be afforded the same freedom. Mind you, I’d be the last to argue that the N-word in any of its forms is positive (I can’t seriously argue for any word that I don’t use in front of my mother), and I don’t buy the idea that because we as youth use it more freely it is innocuous.
