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Thursday, February 8, 2007

Whitey to the Rescue

This is what it was meant to be. Outside the movie premier a hundred or so people talked and waited for the doors to open. They were Black, White, Latino, Philippino, and every other imaginable ethnicity (I of course held it down for the Slovaks). There were teenagers in white t-s and a middle age couple wearing sandals and socks. Everyone was distinctly different but united by love for a culture. We were all there to see Byron Hurt’s new documentary “Hip-Hop; Beyond the Beats.” Hurt spent five years making the documentary examining the link between masculinity and hip-hop. Here are the two basic formulas at work in Hurt’s documentary:
car + gun + video girls + acting hard = rap video.
material wealth + violence + misogyny + acting hard = being a man
It’s the formula that gets played out over and over, and over, and over again on MTV, BET, and whatever HOT/JAMN/POWER radio station is in your area. Jim Jones just came on the radio while I was writing that last sentence. I rest my case. Ballin! If hip-hop is dead, as Nas claims, then the above two formulas killed it, and hip-hop’s resurrection depends on a solution.
A panel featuring Hurt, Talib Kweli, M1 of Dead Prez, Yo-Yo, and the VP of BET stayed after the film to answer questions and try to come a step closer to an answer. They all said some amazing and revealing things, which produced a series of epiphanies in my little brain. More than epiphanies, they were revelations. I figured out the answer, I figured out how to fix hip-hop. Without further ado the answer is…white people. That’s right, we did it again. Hip-hop was cold and we handed it some smallpox blankets. White people are what’s wrong with hip-hop, and we hold the tools to fixing it. I know that my revelation is deeply problematic and simplistic on many levels, but I’m going to someone haphazardly put them aside because that’s what a revelation is, a parting of the clouds in a moment of absolute clarity. It’s time to stop debating and cut to the chase. To borrow a TI phrase, this is real talk. Follow me for a moment:

1) Hip-hop is a business. Capitalism is the most powerful force in the world (sorry love). Money determines what gets on the airwaves, who gets signed, and who gets paid. Artists quickly learn that if they want to follow the money, they better follow the formula. This point was hammered home during Hurt’s documentary. The VP of BET also made this point; his message – if you buy it, we’ll start playing it. If De La Soul sold 10 million albums they’d be on as much as 50. CREAM.
2) As Mos Def said, “Hip-hop is us. It’s going where we’re going.” If we want to see more Mos Def and less Jibbs, we need to start buying copies of Black on Both Sides and stop buying Jibbs Featuring Jibbs, an album that could have been alternately titled Me Like Shiny Things.
3) White people buy more hip-hop than anyone. As Jadakiss pointed out in an interview during the movie, “You’re first 700,000 [albums sold] is black, after that it’s all white folks.” I’m not sure how much sociology Jada knows, but he sure as hell knows his album sales.

In the end it’s simple mathematics. White people are the ones who want to see black men shooting each other, white people are the ones who want to hear about black men dealing drugs, and white people want to see black women shake their “Tipdrill.” There’s no doubt that there’s an element of truth to the hardness of black urban life, the question is why is this hardness is so exaggerated and so disproportionately represented. In 1993 NWA and Kwame were both on the top ten, there was simply more room for different voices. Then white people found hip-hop in droves (I include myself here) and the market changed. White people wanted to hear 50 rap about being shot nine times like they wanted to see Schwarenagger shoot alien predators. For most of us it’s entertainment, plain and simple. But for people who actually live in the environments that get rapped about (AKA non-whites) the repercussions of violent and material imagery are only too real. It’s not only our fault, and not only out solution, but simply as a market perspective if white people started being more responsible about how we consumed hip-hop, we would change the game drasticly.
I’m not saying that hip-hop is solely responsible for the problems of the ghetto, eliminating poverty’s would go a lot further, but I can’t eliminate poverty. I can’t give everyone healthcare; I can’t even give myself healthcare. But I can turn off the radio when Jibbs comes on, and I can pick up the new Lupe Fiasco and leave The Massacre on the shelf. For those of us who listen to hip-hop regularly this will be easier said then done. Lord knows I’m far from perfect. I blasted Rick Ross’s Hustlin as loud as anyone, and I watched The Whisper Song video more times than I should admit. I’m just trying to figure out why I turn up my stereo when a three hundred pound black man (300’s probably a little svelte for Mr. Ross) from Miami raps about selling coke, and why I don’t change the channel when some girls in booty shorts start shakin. Come on white people, it’s the least we can do. We’ve fucked up enough; let’s try to leave hip-hop intact.



Byron Hurt’s HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes will air nationally on the Emmy-award winning PBS series Independent Lens on Tuesday February 20th at 10:00 PM. Check local listings.