Glenn Swagmire
04-27-2007, 05:06 PM
Part 1
If you haven't noticed by now, life imitates art -- it's not the other way around. There is no stronger cultural influence on people now than popular media, and hip-hop is at the forefront. Ask almost any child about the lyrics to a popular song or a scene from a video or movie and more often then not they will know the details better than they know their school lessons. Entertainers and the culture of celebrity that we find ourselves living in often hold more weight with kids then parents, educators, preachers politicians or even sports heroes. Can we blame some rappers for selling completely out? Of course. Be we have to look at the entire picture.
The argument is often made by Russell Simmons and others that rappers are poets who simply report on what we feel and our surroundings, and that we shouldn't be censored. On that point we partially agree -- we shouldn't be censored. But balance between the negative and positive needs to be provided, and it currently isn't. Most artistic integrity is questionable at best. My understanding is that artists are supposed to express what they believe in at all costs (if not, there's work at the post office). But most don't, and they mold their approaches to making music based on what they perceive major labels wanting. If Def Jam or Interscope or any of these other large culture-defining companies issued a blanket decree that they would only support material and artists with positive messages then 99% of those making music now would switch up to accommodate. That's real talk. I'm not saying these labels should (or would), but if they did, gangstas would stop being ga! ngstas and misogynists would stop being misogynists at the drop of a DIME. Many artists are like children, and most will say and do what is expected of them in order to benefit financially. And although there is definite self-examination that needs to take place within the artist community, the lion's share of the blame falls on the enablers who only empower voices of negativity. Record labels and commercial radio often use the excuse that they are "responding to the streets" and that they are "giving the people what they want." BULLSHIT. They dictate the taste of the streets, and people can't miss what they never knew. The fact is that there are conscious decisions made by the big business and entertainment elite daily about what to present to the masses -- and it is from those choices that we are allowed to decide what we do and do not like. Who presents the music that callers are invited to "make or break" on the radio? That callers are invited to "! vote on" on T.V.? Who decides on what makes it to the store s! helves o r the airwaves at all? Like I said, life imitates art, and pseudo-black culture is determined by those other than us every day. Walk into any rap label or urban radio station and you can count the number of black employees on one hand.
The argument in response could be made in defense of labels that if they don't respond to the streets then the music will just go underground. Huh? WHAT underground? Do you know how much good material is marginalized because it doesn't fit white cooperate America's ideals of acceptability? Independents can't get radio or video play anymore, at least not through commercial outlets, and most listeners don't acknowledge material that they don't see or hear regularly on the radio or on T.V. Very few of us are willing to actually seek out material and messages to identify with. As with anything in our fast food culture, we want our entertainment choices fast and in our collective face. For most listeners, all the rest need not apply.
What I want to know is, when did the worst in us become normal and accepted? When did it become par for the corporate course that "black man as thug" and "black woman as slut" be business as usual? Major companies now line up to profit from the buffoonery of a few...at the expense of us all. MTV, Viacom, Clear Channel, Boost Mobile, Amp mobile, Chevy, all major record labels and most video games come readily to mind, but there are many others.
I'm not a hater...although I do hate the imbalance in the industry right now and the negativity it fosters. I'm not calling for censorship. You can't lump me in with the Jesse Lee Petersons and the Armstrong Williamses of the world...bourgeois self-hating black men who demean other black people and profit at our expense. And nobody can say that I'm unqualified to speak on it, since I've contributed to the sale of just under 4 million albums independently, still run my own successful counter-establishment label and have been embracing messages of self-esteem and self-sufficiency for years.
Like I said, I'm not calling for censorship, but I am calling for balance. I'm calling for more representation of points of view other than gangsta rap and escapism. More revolutionary voices. More voices of women. Where is the diversity? Music can only be kept artificially young and artificially dumb for so long before an inevitable backlash ensues, and that's what we're seeing take place now. Overall album sales for the January 1-April 2 period are down 16.6% -- with a 20.5% decline in CD album sales since last year -- and an even greater decline in hip-hop. Since LAST YEAR (and it was already raggedy last year, believe me). We're seeing the industry implode before our eyes. I heard somebody say recently that in this current era of style over substance Stevie Wonder, Parliament/Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire, Curtis Mayfield and others would never have been signed. Let tha! t sink in for a second. They would never have been signed. Some of the very architects of black music as we know it would have been sidelined too, just as countless others are now, because they wouldn't have fit into white corporate America's cookie-cutter feel-good box of acceptable black behavior and appearance. Same goes for me, Public Enemy (they'll take the Flav, but not the Chuck), Kam, X-Clan, BDP, Wise Intelligent, dead prez, Zion-I, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, The Roots, Blackalicious, Immortal Technique, The Coup, T-K.A.S.H., Michael Franti and a host of others.
If you haven't noticed by now, life imitates art -- it's not the other way around. There is no stronger cultural influence on people now than popular media, and hip-hop is at the forefront. Ask almost any child about the lyrics to a popular song or a scene from a video or movie and more often then not they will know the details better than they know their school lessons. Entertainers and the culture of celebrity that we find ourselves living in often hold more weight with kids then parents, educators, preachers politicians or even sports heroes. Can we blame some rappers for selling completely out? Of course. Be we have to look at the entire picture.
The argument is often made by Russell Simmons and others that rappers are poets who simply report on what we feel and our surroundings, and that we shouldn't be censored. On that point we partially agree -- we shouldn't be censored. But balance between the negative and positive needs to be provided, and it currently isn't. Most artistic integrity is questionable at best. My understanding is that artists are supposed to express what they believe in at all costs (if not, there's work at the post office). But most don't, and they mold their approaches to making music based on what they perceive major labels wanting. If Def Jam or Interscope or any of these other large culture-defining companies issued a blanket decree that they would only support material and artists with positive messages then 99% of those making music now would switch up to accommodate. That's real talk. I'm not saying these labels should (or would), but if they did, gangstas would stop being ga! ngstas and misogynists would stop being misogynists at the drop of a DIME. Many artists are like children, and most will say and do what is expected of them in order to benefit financially. And although there is definite self-examination that needs to take place within the artist community, the lion's share of the blame falls on the enablers who only empower voices of negativity. Record labels and commercial radio often use the excuse that they are "responding to the streets" and that they are "giving the people what they want." BULLSHIT. They dictate the taste of the streets, and people can't miss what they never knew. The fact is that there are conscious decisions made by the big business and entertainment elite daily about what to present to the masses -- and it is from those choices that we are allowed to decide what we do and do not like. Who presents the music that callers are invited to "make or break" on the radio? That callers are invited to "! vote on" on T.V.? Who decides on what makes it to the store s! helves o r the airwaves at all? Like I said, life imitates art, and pseudo-black culture is determined by those other than us every day. Walk into any rap label or urban radio station and you can count the number of black employees on one hand.
The argument in response could be made in defense of labels that if they don't respond to the streets then the music will just go underground. Huh? WHAT underground? Do you know how much good material is marginalized because it doesn't fit white cooperate America's ideals of acceptability? Independents can't get radio or video play anymore, at least not through commercial outlets, and most listeners don't acknowledge material that they don't see or hear regularly on the radio or on T.V. Very few of us are willing to actually seek out material and messages to identify with. As with anything in our fast food culture, we want our entertainment choices fast and in our collective face. For most listeners, all the rest need not apply.
What I want to know is, when did the worst in us become normal and accepted? When did it become par for the corporate course that "black man as thug" and "black woman as slut" be business as usual? Major companies now line up to profit from the buffoonery of a few...at the expense of us all. MTV, Viacom, Clear Channel, Boost Mobile, Amp mobile, Chevy, all major record labels and most video games come readily to mind, but there are many others.
I'm not a hater...although I do hate the imbalance in the industry right now and the negativity it fosters. I'm not calling for censorship. You can't lump me in with the Jesse Lee Petersons and the Armstrong Williamses of the world...bourgeois self-hating black men who demean other black people and profit at our expense. And nobody can say that I'm unqualified to speak on it, since I've contributed to the sale of just under 4 million albums independently, still run my own successful counter-establishment label and have been embracing messages of self-esteem and self-sufficiency for years.
Like I said, I'm not calling for censorship, but I am calling for balance. I'm calling for more representation of points of view other than gangsta rap and escapism. More revolutionary voices. More voices of women. Where is the diversity? Music can only be kept artificially young and artificially dumb for so long before an inevitable backlash ensues, and that's what we're seeing take place now. Overall album sales for the January 1-April 2 period are down 16.6% -- with a 20.5% decline in CD album sales since last year -- and an even greater decline in hip-hop. Since LAST YEAR (and it was already raggedy last year, believe me). We're seeing the industry implode before our eyes. I heard somebody say recently that in this current era of style over substance Stevie Wonder, Parliament/Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire, Curtis Mayfield and others would never have been signed. Let tha! t sink in for a second. They would never have been signed. Some of the very architects of black music as we know it would have been sidelined too, just as countless others are now, because they wouldn't have fit into white corporate America's cookie-cutter feel-good box of acceptable black behavior and appearance. Same goes for me, Public Enemy (they'll take the Flav, but not the Chuck), Kam, X-Clan, BDP, Wise Intelligent, dead prez, Zion-I, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, The Roots, Blackalicious, Immortal Technique, The Coup, T-K.A.S.H., Michael Franti and a host of others.