When did rap turn pussy?

[Myrealname]

"Please, children and adults alike, excuse my French, but this is my first column back and I am a little perturbed. I look at the average rapper (on the tube or radio) and I feel nothing shy of contempt. Most rappers I see, I want to gorilla slap them to test them. “Test them?,” you may inquire. Yeah, why not, they all seem soft. While many urban lyricists yelp, “I ain’t no rapper, B, I flip birds” in a slow post-Biggie drawl – I still want to slap them.

In the ‘70s, the music and the culture were created in the Bronx amid a Reagan-era Apocalypse. From nothing by people that had nothing. It was the youth that flipped the bird to the establishment. It was a culture that was completely rejected and considered a noisy fad. My, how far we have come, baby. But, of all the cultures to slyly assimilate, while posing as outsiders, why rap?

See, there is nothing wrong with money and ice, acceptance and fame until it turns you pussy and castrates you as a man (sorry, ladies!). Its like the late-great boxer Marvin Hagler once said, “Its hard to be hungry when you are waking up every morning on satin sheets.” Now that’s keeping it real. The problem lies in the lies, when rapper don’t admit what Marvelous Marvin knew to be true as his career declined. Hey, rapper, conclude – just get it over with.

“..All I see is niggas getting harassed and can’t do nothing about it, but get a foot in they ass…/But if every nigga grabbed the nine and started shooting muthafuckas it would put them in line.” – MC Ren of NWA (Niggas With Attitude)

When NWA first hit the scene, I objected to the use of the word nigga and honestly, their overall motif of gangbanging against other Black people. I won’t front, they represented everything that I loathed. Nowadays, I can appreciate the niggas because niggas nowadays have NO attitude to mention. Not any attitude that would shake America up, that is. I mean, I think it all died with Tupac, who I feel was killed by the government or a close agent of the man (wink, wink). Similar to the way Malcolm X was assassinated. Too much attitude. Too scary. And, frankly, too Black…

Here is a distasteful example of what I mean. I love Snoop Dogg as much as a person can, with the utmost respect. BUT, I can’t help but question his gangsta recently with the Bill O’Reilly debacle. While people like myself screamed, “F**l Bill O’Reilly,” Snoop was relatively quiet to the white man. But not only a white me, but a white man who is much more feeble than Suge Knight and doesn’t even pack a burner. Just a television show on Fox. Well, in Snoop’s defense, maybe there is a song, line or lyric dedicated to Mr. O’Reilly coming on his next album, Paid Da Cost To Be Da Boss. Even the Muppets rejected him after he has cleaned up his “smoking and drinking” act. In defense of Snoop, AllHipHop.com posted up a mild and admittedly ineffective petition. Fellow O’Reilly victim Ludacris rolled over and played dead so fast, AHH didn’t even have a chance to put up a petition for him even though one was planned.

I implore that don’t confuse commentary with hate. I bang both rapper’s solo projects like it wasn’t a thing. (But neither the DTP nor the All-Stars CD – gotta keep it real!)

Some rappers are getting so frustrated with rap battles, they got all sensitive and started sipping cosmos with models. Others get ill and get well so fast you wonder if they were ever a sick lyricist. Some measure how successful they are with how deeply they can penetrate into the upper-class white world of the Donald Trumps, Martha Stewarts and the Hamptons. And other s are so obsessed with “keeping it real,” they are really being kept under staunch control by the forces they revel in (money, hoes and clothes).

I liked rap music better when I was a little apprehensive about smacking the sh*t out of one if these rap niggas. I mean really, pick a rapper on the chart, close your eyes and imagine you slapping him. (not a punch or a gunshot, just an open-handed slap) And what do you envision?

I see props. I see shock. I see affidavits. I see lawsuits.

In all reality, I see nothing and that sucks.

Postscript:

For everybody that encouraged me not to stop writing, I say a resounding, “THANK YOU!” I didn’t forget your comments even though they when back to August 2002. Here is a poem that was especially moving.

WORDS OF WISDOM:



it's too soon for you

and writing to feud

better kiss and makeup

don't allow the lip

to stick and twist

your words up

flip the side of the hourglass that's nude

to better the mood

---------- a have a flat-line

i mean a deadline

to meet

composers don't quit

on compositions that they spit

re-egnite the torch

with the brilliant words that you've writ

but don't fuckin' quit!!!

that's like Whitney Houston

giving up the next hit

placing the cap

back on the pen

now how can you stab knowledge

with thoughts of where you've been?

bend down and praise God

for the blessing that feed

while you're down there

plant another ILL SEED"