The Hip Hop Thread

[stratman]

Originally Posted by Bride of a Bull

Sorry stratters, but this is grossly over-generalised bullshit at best, and complete and utter scapegoating of the Left at worst.

Black families still exist and contain plenty of respectable male role models, in spite of totally inadequate welfare programs and LBJ (? - 40 years on and LBJ is still the culprit? Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush had no input since?). Stop hammering on about how left-wingers are totally at fault; people of all shades and flavours in society bear responsibility for themselves and each other.

I come from a family, and neighbourhood, in the main, which exchews reliance on social welfare, too proud to even stoop to accepting charity and, although as dysfunctional as any other nulcear-age, 20th-century family, with a very strong male role model. Most other black families in my community shared such principles, including, and often especially, the single-mother families which were not necessarily doomed for the sewer.

Blaming the poor and poverty won't necessarily wash either since they are often the most conservative, traditional and education-oriented people you could find. Intelligent humans would not want to exist this way forever, and often strive for personal and collective improvement. Of course, if you ARE poor, it is obviously easier to blame one's bad behaviour on such a condition rather than an easy and selfish escape into irresponsibility and crime.

I do get where you're coming from, stratters, but black families are alive and kicking, with the majority probably sharing your values, morals and aspirations: to live a good and prosperous life and to provide as well but preferrably much better for your progeny. And "urban ghettoes" and single mothers should also not be made the demon of the piece. These labels and stereotyping is not healthy for any reasonable discussion.

80%, you say? I reach for my copy of Freakonomics when I hear such statistics now.

Over and out,
Byron

I was talking specifically about the kids WITHOUT a father or good role model.

I didn't say it was about being poor. It's about kids being taught a sense of morality and responsibility.

[stratman]

Originally Posted by GeraldTheMouse

Man, I really wanted to watch my kids grow up and be there to support my family, but I've been replaced by socialist welfare programs! Oh well, I guess I've no choice but to disproportionately fill the prisons.

You're a fucking idiot.

[Sydney]

Originally Posted by stratman

I was talking specifically about the kids WITHOUT a father or good role model.

I didn't say it was about being poor. It's about kids being taught a sense of morality and responsibility.

are you SERIOUS?

Mothers can't do that?

Only men have a sense of morality and responsibility?

[stratman]

Originally Posted by Sydney

are you SERIOUS?

Mothers can't do that?

Only men have a sense of morality and responsibility?

Of course not. But mothers are not good at modelling the role of fathers.

[Sydney]

you are still implying that any kid that's ever grown up without a father has ended up a thug.. I might be putting words in your mouth but I want you to clarify your point.

More beautiful lyrcism from Saul Williams

Whereas, breakbeats have been the missing link connecting the diasporic
community to its drum woven past
Whereas the quantised drum has allowed the whirling mathematicians to
calculate the ever changing distance between rock and stardom.
Whereas the velocity of the spinning vinyl, cross-faded, spun backwards, and
re-released at the same given moment of recorded history , yet at a
different moment in time's continuum has allowed history to catch up with
the present.

We do hereby declare reality unkempt by the changing standards of dialogue.
Statements, such as, "keep it real", especially when punctuating or
anticipating modes of ultra-violence inflicted psychologically or physically
or depicting an unchanging rule of events will hence forth be seen as
retro-active and not representative of the individually determined is.

Furthermore, as determined by the collective consciousness of this state of
being and the lessened distance between thought patterns and their secular
manifestations, the role of men as listening receptacles is to be increased
by a number no less than 70 percent of the current enlisted as vocal
aggressors.

Motherfuckers better realize, now is the time to self-actualize
We have found evidence that hip hops standard 85 rpm when increased by a
number as least half the rate of it's standard or decreased at ¾ of it's
speed may be a determining factor in heightening consciousness.

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the
unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Equate rhyme with reason, Sun with season

Our cyclical relationship to phenomenon has encouraged scholars to erase the
centers of periods, thus symbolizing the non-linear character of cause and
effect
Reject mediocrity!

Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which as been given
for you to understand.
The current standard is the equivalent of an adolescent restricted to the
diet of an infant.
The rapidly changing body would acquire dysfunctional and deformative
symptoms and could not properly mature on a diet of apple sauce and crushed
pears
Light years are interchangeable with years of living in darkness.
The role of darkness is not to be seen as, or equated with, Ignorance, but
with the unknown, and the mysteries of the unseen.

Thus, in the name of:
ROBESON, GOD'S SON, HURSTON, AHKENATON, HATHSHEPUT, BLACKFOOT, HELEN,
LENNON, KHALO, KALI, THE THREE MARIAS, TARA, LILITHE, LOURDE, WHITMAN,
BALDWIN, GINSBERG, KAUFMAN, LUMUMBA, GHANDI, GIBRAN, SHABAZZ,
SIDDHARTHA,
MEDUSA, GUEVARA, GUARDSIEFF, RAND, WRIGHT, BANNEKER, TUBMAN, HAMER,
HOLIDAY,
DAVIS, COLTRANE, MORRISON, JOPLIN, DUBOIS, CLARKE, SHAKESPEARE,
RACHMNINOV,
ELLINGTON, CARTER, GAYE, HATHOWAY, HENDRIX, KUTL, DICKERSON, RIPPERTON,
MARY, ISIS, THERESA, PLATH, RUMI, FELLINI, MICHAUX, NOSTRADAMUS, NEFERTITI,
LA ROCK, SHIVA, GANESHA, YEMAJA, OSHUN, OBATALA, OGUN, KENNEDY, KING,
FOUR
LITTLE GIRLS, HIROSHIMA, NAGASAKI, KELLER, BIKO, PERONE, MARLEY, COSBY,
SHAKUR, THOSE STILL AFLAMED, AND THE COUNTLESS UNNAMED

We claim the present as the pre-sent, as the hereafter.
We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun.
We are not afraid of the darkness, we trust that the moon shall guide us.
We are determining the future at this very moment.
We now know that the heart is the philosophers' stone
Our music is our alchemy
We stand as the manifested equivalent of 3 buckets of water and a hand full
of minerals, thus realizing that those very buckets turned upside down
supply the percussion factor of forever.
If you must count to keep the beat then count.
Find you mantra and awaken your subconscious.
Curve you circles counterclockwise
Use your cipher to decipher, Coded Language, man made laws.
Climb waterfalls and trees, commune with nature, snakes and bees.
Let your children name themselves and claim themselves as the new day for
today we are determined to be the channelers of these changing frequencies
into songs, paintings, writings, dance, drama, photography, carpentry,
crafts, love, and love.
We enlist every instrument: Acoustic, electronic.
Every so-called race, gender, and sexual preference.
Every per-son as beings of sound to acknowledge their responsibility to
uplift the consciousness of the entire fucking World.
Any utterance will be un-aimed, will be disclaimed - two rappers slain
Any utterance will be un-aimed, will be disclaimed - two rappers slain

[GeraldTheMouse]

Originally Posted by stratman

You're a fucking idiot.

All i did was rephrase what you so beautifully said.

[GeraldTheMouse]

Originally Posted by stratman

socialist welfare programs which have replaced the father in black families over the course of the last 40 years, starting with LBJ's "Great Society". Something like 80% of black children born in urban ghettos nowadays are to unmarried women. These children grow up without a good male role model.

This also explains why Sweden is overrun with gangs.

[Sydney]

:laugh:

[DeathTöngue]

Originally Posted by Bride of a Bull

Black families still exist and contain plenty of respectable male role models, in spite of totally inadequate welfare programs and LBJ (? - 40 years on and LBJ is still the culprit? Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush had no input since?). Stop hammering on about how left-wingers are totally at fault; people of all shades and flavours in society bear responsibility for themselves and each other.

Mr. Hunt, when I arrived at Chanute AFB in August of 1978, the first person I met was a 17 year old black man clowning around on a picnic table in front of the barracks who threatened me with 'tornado watch'. I was amused, and thought you were an idiot. (You also lied about your age, which I did not find out until twenty years later, and that's why I call you 'old man' to this day, old man.)

I also learned you were in the Air Force for one reason only - you had a looming disaster - no job & a pregnant girlfriend. I think you made a difficult choice, and I've always respected you for it - in those days, there was no pressure on you but your own conscience, for which you credit your mother, I believe.

I've met your family. I've met the lovely girl involved. I corroborate what you say. And I apologize if I've exposed too much of your privacy to the proletariat - though you may have incurred a debt with your disclosure of a certain story I shan't link.

But I also believe that there's a culture of victimhood, in which too many irresponsible and sometimes dangerous people are too easily forgiven - what Strat says (sorry, strat) is merely the flip side of that coin, as seen from the outside.

This is one reason why I dislike any labels - people are individuals, who make individual choices, for their own damn individual reasons. As I've told you before, we're part of an ecosystem, in which every niche has an occupant - and we compete for those niches. If we don't like what some of us have become, we need to eliminate the niches they occupy, not wring our hands over the injustice or condemn the occupants - because as long as the niches exist, they will be filled.

[stchrissie]

Originally Posted by stratman

Of course not. But mothers are not good at modelling the role of fathers.

Which is?

[Frank Zappa]

Originally Posted by stchrissie

Which is?

To get drunk and beat the sh*t out of the kids.

[rogerwaters1741]

Originally Posted by Sydney

arrrghhhhhhh!!!!!

MOST people who make rap music have a rap sheet!!

THE IGNORANCE astounds me.. it really does.

LAST NITE on CONAN OBRIEN...Thursday,14DEC06

CONAN: 50 Cent has cancelled his appearance for tomorrow nite because he has a cold...

CONAN laughing:he's been shot 8 times and he's cancelling because of cold...

[stchrissie]

Originally Posted by Frank Zappa

To get drunk and beat the sh*t out of the kids.

Pfh just shows how irrational and sexist this attitude is, I am a single Mother and although it is difficult on occasion I manage to do this at least twice a week.

[Two-Headed Boy]

...because you gotta blame SOMETHING for all the idiots in the world.

[Not Now John]

This thread has become amazingly stupid. We have gone from explaining or dismissing the merits of a certain type of pop music to debating the merits of socialism and its place in society.

I happen to agree with some of what stratman said but wiould like to point out that it is not the whole story. Regardless, let's get back to wether or not hip hop is good music, independent of wether or not the performers are criminals.