Spike Lee criticizes rap music.

[mrtonguetwista]

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - Continuing his criticism of rap, Spike Lee told an audience at Brown University that popular music portrays blacks in a negative light.

Speaking to an audience of more than 400 students Monday night, the director of films including ``Do the Right Thing'' and ``Malcolm X'' repeated the complaints he's made at colleges and universities over the past year.

``I've always felt you can feel the progress of African Americans by listening to their music,'' Lee said. ``Some of this 'gangsta rap' stuff, it's not doing anybody any good. This stuff is really dangerous.''

He said some black adults equate education, good grammar and good grades with ``being white,'' but when he was growing up, those things were seen as positive goals.

 
``You were not ridiculed if you spoke correct English,'' he said. Lee urged the audience to make their voices heard by not buying or viewing anything that portrays blacks in a negative way.

 
``We buy all this stuff, not even thinking about what's behind it ... Think about the power that we have,'' the 46-year-old said. ``We can't just sit back and think it doesn't affect us. We have to do something about it. We have to be more choosy about the types of stuff we support.''

 
Lee also urged students to follow their dreams after graduation, ``or you'll be sitting around, fat, divorced and miserable because you took some job, or you took some path that you didn't really want to do.''
 

[Z the laidback Virus]

I hate these do-gooders allways telling other people what to do and how they should live.

He should stick with his own business.

[Darksider]

I hate these do-gooders allways telling other people what to do and how they should live.

He should stick with his own business.

word

[white Boy]

i kinda agree with him, but hes only listening to some comercial songs, like 50 , who try so hard to be gangsta, theres a lot of rap not about violence, take talib kweli for instance

[The Predator]

Spike Lee should stick to making Spike Lee Joints. When he get's it right we get good movies like Do the right thing, Malcolm X, Summer of sam, He Got Game, 25th hour but he also responsible for puttin out real boring movies.

If he wants a certain type of  positive rebel hip hop making an impact he can start by working with them again like he did with Public Enemy in the past.

Make a good movie and give the soundtrack to Dead Prez, Paris....like he did with P.E for He got game.

Ill listen to any type of hip hop as long as it's dope to my ears and i aint chuckin any of my precious gangsta records, shiit.

[Juronimo]

Spike Lee does have a slight point, which he brought to a head in the movie Bamboozled but he makes the same mistake that everyone who likes to criticize rap music makes. If you listen to the commercial realm full of fake gangbangers, fake thugs, and fake pimps (i e Snoop, 50 Cent), you'd get that impression but if you dig deeper, that's obviously not the case. Besides hiphop's biggest gangster rappers did have somewhat of a concious bent to their lyrics (i e early Ice Cube, Ice-T, 2Pac, Scarface, WC, Big Mike) and even Dre and Snoop got down in their early days with songs like When the Niggaz took over and Little Ghetto Boy.

With making sweeping generalized statements about gangster rap that we always hear, he just sounds like a slightly more benevolent version of Bill O'Reilly, C Delores Tucker or William Bennet. I have mad respect for Spike Lee but be a part of the solution instead of just leveling empty criticisms.