The battle lines have been drawn among African-Americans regarding language and content, and it’s quite clear that things aren’t going to be simple (if indeed they ever were). The latest target is comedian D. L. Hughley, whose comments on a recent Tonight Show regarding the Rutgers women’s basketball team didn’t exactly go over well with many people. These included such insightful remarks as “these were some of the ugliest, nappy head women” he had ever seen. The furor over that hasn’t settled down yet, and on June 16 Hughley found himself the target of protesters during a concert at Bass Hall in Fort Worth. Pastor Kyev Tatus of Servant House Baptist Church said that “It’s not only that comment, he has a history of demeaning our community in such a way that it’s not funny anymore,:
Hughley responded by saying “I believe that freedom of speech is a zero-sum proposition. Too many times I have watched clowns like these pretend to speak for the masses. I can only speak for me. Isn’t there a child you can help teach to read, a war to help stop, an unjustly accused man you can help get out of jail? I will not apologize for telling a joke about the world as I see it.” (more…)
At the near midpoint of Black Music month, rap bashing seems to be back in season. Certainly no one has to like everything, and there’s plenty of rap that doesn’t catch my ear, but then there’s also plenty of things in every other genre from jazz to reggae and gospel that also don’t do much for me. But so much ire directed at rap is coming from uninformed, misguided and in some cases elitist types like Washington Post columnist Thomas Chatterton Williams who weighed in with this nonsense. “African-Americans have seen intellectual cultivation, education and self-expression through the arts as the “key to equality.” Hip-hop culture is a denial of that history: it evolved in the streets, as a “cool pose” by young, uneducated black men filled with anger, violent impulses, and misogyny. Over the last two decades, that pose has come to define blackness: for middle-class black teens, “Keeping it real” means imitating thuggish hip-hop stars, while doing well in school and treating people respectfully are “acting white.” It’s crazy, really; of all of America’s ethnic and racial cultures, only Blacks have adopted the values of the lowest rung on their hierarchy.” (more…)
How rap is performed and recieved in other countries is one of my significant interests. I’m particularly interested in the scene in Japan. Though B-boys have been doing it big in Japan since the 80’s, many peeps are still a bit surprised that Japanese cats rap, let alone that the music is best selling and has influenced the pop music landscape there. For reasons I’ll get into in a follow up post, some people have an almost reflexive reaction to non-African Americans performing rap music — that those non-Black, non-poor people are “stealing” the music and culture, that they’re committing “cultural appropriation.”
I disagree. For now, I’ll hook y’all up with some youtube flicks of Japanese MCs and DJs doing their thing.
First up, Shing02, an indie rapper best known to the anime nerds for his contribution to soundtrack for the animated TV series “Samurai Champloo.” Here he is doing his Nujabes produced songs “Luv Sic and Luv Sic (pt.2)
Tha Blue Herb, a crew representing Hokkaido
Dabo, coming more from the pop side, collabin with a R&B singer Pinky
Skip the dorks from the TV show at the beginning and forward to the kids freestyling in the park
