Views > May 22, 2007

Blaming Hip-Hop for Imus

Instead of blaming rappers for vulgarity, social resources should be channeled to combat the conditions that create those lyrics

By Salim Muwakkil

Perhaps it was inevitable that discussions provoked by the words “nappy-headed hos” would come around to rap music and the culture of hip-hop. After all, hip-hop has taken the rap for just about every social ill: misogyny, gun violence, rampant materialism, anti-Semitism, gang warfare, even the decline of the NBA. Yes, to some extent, the insulting remarks of radio shock-jock Don Imus (who called the Rutgers University women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos,” for which he’s been fired and subsequently sued) were drawn from a rhetorical subculture influenced by certain strands of rap music. But to focus on hip-hop as the instigator of our coarsening culture is a grievous misdiagnosis.

Hip-hop, at its best, reflects, distills, amplifies, deconstructs and re-contextualizes the social realities that are its raw material. The product of this creation then is reincorporated into that reality. Born in the ghettoes of New York City in the disjuncture between the hopes of the civil rights promise and the harsh realities of economic disinvestment, hip-hop’s founding spirit expresses an insurgent rejection of business as usual.

Nevertheless, big business saw great profits in its growing popularity. Large record companies absorbed the independent labels and accelerated hip-hop’s profit potential. These companies changed the marketing emphasis from creativity to profitability, which shifted the focus to the more sensationalistic aspects of the genre rather than its politically charged or artistically challenging expressions.

Thus, sensationalized tales of drug dealing, sex seeking and gun play (by groups like Oscar winner Three 6 Mafia) find more corporate support than political rappers like Dead Prez or adventurous groups like the Perceptionists. This disproportionate emphasis on pathology has distorted hip-hop’s public face.

Thus, when Imus’ defenders blamed hip-hop for providing their man the vocabulary for his insult, many agreed. Oprah Winfrey’s entire response to the Imus affair was a two-segment “town hall” meeting on the state of hip-hop.

Even the Rev. Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network and leader of the campaign demanding Imus be fired, has linked arms with those protesting demeaning lyrics in hip-hop. On May 3, Sharpton led marches on the corporate offices of Sony-BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group’s to protest their promotion of demeaning rap lyrics.

“This is not about censorship—it is about standards,” Sharpton told the crowd at the march’s conclusion. “There’s a standard that says Ice-T can’t rap against police. There’s a standard that says you can’t rap about gays, and you shouldn’t. They had standards against Michael Jackson saying things anti-Semitic. Where is the standard against ‘nigger,’ ‘ho’ and ‘bitches’?” Sharpton is a long-time critic of what he considers degrading rap lyrics, but the momentum of the Imus controversy obliged him to raise his voice on the issue.

Others also have been forced to take action in the wake of the shock-jock’s fall. The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HHSAN), led by former Def Jam Records CEO Russell Simmons and former NAACP Executive Director Benjamin Chavis, has announced a new campaign urging radio stations and other media not to air the words “bitch,” “ho” and “nigger.”

Chavis noted that the HHSAN directive is not for rappers to stop using the words. “We don’t want to violate the First Amendment Rights to free speech,” Chavis told the National Newspaper Publishers Association. But other crusaders are not that fastidious. They want to force rappers to stop saying things they do not like. Like their fellow citizens, African Americans have to be reminded that the urge to censor is an authoritarian impulse.

One of the most salient aspects of both the Communist Soviets and Nazi Germans was their demand for artistic conformity. Of course, that should not deter the African-American community from agitating for respectful media depictions, for more responsibility from artists, or for holding record companies accountable for violating community standards.

Yet Russell Simmons, who sometimes seems in thrall to corporate interests, was on target when he told Oprah that we have to let rappers reflect what they see. “People who are angry … and come from tremendous struggle; they have poetic license, and when they say things that offend you, you have to talk about the conditions that create those kinds of lyrics.”

In a black America that is largely fatherless, resource-starved mothers may come across as promiscuous gold-diggers to their proud but clueless sons, who may turn into rappers and tell their tales. We might better channel social resources if we listened more attentively to those tales. Granted, too many performers are “false flagging” their woes for profit, but there’s still plenty of wheat amidst the chaff.

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• Reader Comments

  “Even the Rev. Al Sharpton”

  *Even* him? Wasn’t Al Sharpton the man who “stood up” for Tawana Brawly? Isn’t he the man who condemned the Duke Lacrosse players for “raping” the poor misunderstood stripper? Does he really have *any* credibility left at all?

  It is far past the time where “disadvantaged blacks” are worth discussing. Rather we should discuss “disadvantaged people”, regardless of color, to see what we as a society can do to better help those who fall into this *economic* group. (OJ being a great example of how guilty people, black or white, can walk away from their crimes scotfree, provided they are rich. Justice is color blind, but remains acutely dependent on economic status.)

  Posted by wolf on May 22, 2007 at 8:17 AM

  What a cop-out.

  “People who are angry … and come from tremendous struggle; they have poetic license, and when they say things that offend you, you have to talk about the conditions that create those kinds of lyrics.”

  That sounds just as phony as Imus claiming the lyrics give him “license” to talk as he did.

  “We might better channel social resources if we listened more attentively to those tales.”

  Not likely.

  This idea reminds me of the panhandler who came up to me on Boston Commons and said, “Hey Four-eyes, got an extra quarter?” One of the first things to learn if trying to influence anyone: Don’t piss off the audience.

  Posted by whattheheck on May 22, 2007 at 1:49 PM

  whattheheck and wolf (you guys are still here?):

  I don’t think it’s a cop-out at all to give black Americans a unique place in our history.  Furthermore, it’s folly to lump all black Americans into the same level of experience.  Mr. Muwakkil comes from one foreign to those street dwellers who produce the majority of hip-hop, yet holds the interesting perspective of one who has lived through some of the last worst moments of institutionalized US racial policy.

  I think his perspective holds more weight than your own, based on his relevant experience and his informed study.  Is it not easy to pass judgment on cultural expressions which have no effect on you or your life, rather than see hip-hop - and the use of internally offensive language - as a double-standard or playing the race card? 

  Neither of your arguments hold logical water: not wolf’s convenient socioeconomic ‘equality’ nor whattheheck’s random dismal of Russell Simmons’s comment about artistic license.  I think it would be just as ridiculous to consider Joseph Conrad as racist for ‘Heart of Darkness’.  Imus, on the other hand, continued a ‘wink-wink’ culture within white male power structures, which allows them to be seemingly egalitarian, while harboring racist stereotypes. 

  To paraphrase Chris Rock: I ain’t saying he should have been fired, but I understand…

  Posted by rocco on May 22, 2007 at 6:43 PM

  Rocco,

  “Is it not easy to pass judgment on cultural expressions which have no effect on you or your life, rather than see hip-hop - and the use of internally offensive language - as a double-standard or playing the race card?”

  I’m not applying a double standard — quite the opposite — I see no reason to give either a free pass.

  “That sounds just as phony as Imus claiming the lyrics give him “license” to talk as he did.”

  Also, everything in life is interconnected. This kind of cheapening of humanity whether form an overpaid shock-jock pandering to the lowest kind of audience, or a foul-mouthed (also overpaid) performer degrades the overall quality of life for us all.

  This is about individuals and corporations chasing money.

  ----------------

  As for Mr. Muwakkil’s view, “We might better channel social resources if we listened more attentively to those tales.”

  I doubt very many people will be moved to channel their resources based on this kind of call to action. More likely it will only reinforce whatever latent racial prejudices they may have.

  Posted by whattheheck on May 23, 2007 at 6:45 AM

  “Thus, when Imus’ defenders blamed hip-hop for providing their man the vocabulary for his insult, many agreed. Oprah Winfrey’s entire response to the Imus affair was a two-segment “town hall” meeting on the state of hip-hop.”

  The state of hip-hop? Because Don Imus used a near-equivalent of “nigger” on his show? Usually I admire Oprah, but I think she’s mistaken here. Imus is offensively rude all the time; his shot at the Rutgers players was entirely in-character and not at all due to 3 6 Mafia, 50 Cent, Eminem, or any other explicit lyricists’ work.

  Imus’ defenders were also way out of line when they blamed hip-hop for his shock-chatter. For one thing, he had specialized in provocative talk for a long time, almost his whole stock in trade was language that triggered shocked laughter, gasps of indignation, and phone-in responses from outraged listeners to sustain the interest and participation of the radio listeners.

  And just because I hear a rapper say “nigger” or “bitch” on a CD (or see it in a film, or read it in a book, or hear someone say it in a mall...), does that mean I’m impelled to mindlessly parrot it out in public, dishing out offensive speech with nary a thought for what I’m saying or who it pisses off? Please. Imus is a wordsmith (not to mention a grown-up), and talk is his gig. He chose what to say by himself, and we should presume that he and anyone else above the age of about 9 are able to take due consideration and decide how they’ll express themselves verbally. Blaming rap artists for either indiscrete language in others or (even worse) for social ills is not quite as stupid as blaming metallic rock music for, say, drug use or suicide among teens, but it’s in the same absurd direction.

  And as for the movement to pressure rap artists to mute themselves, all that will cause is a rebellion and an intensification of what they’re trying to reduce, and rightly so. You’ll be getting acts that are so explicit and shocking, they’ll make 2 Live Crew look like Donnie & Marie. Radio stations and music stores have a right to decide what they’ll put out into the market, and some artists will refrain from offensive lyrics for reasons of their own (Will Smith’s brand of hip-hop, for example, is comparatively quite benign). But all this pressure to force a broad and multifaceted art movement into some kind of artificially polite (i.e. insipid) shape in order to accomplish some nebulous social goal is entirely misdirected. And, it will fail miserably.

  It’s like that, and that’s the way it is.

  If you don’t like what they’re rapping about, don’t buy or listen to their work. If you’re really serious, you can regulate what your kids hear and exclude certain works from your home. But let’s not overstate their influential effects upon society at large, as though such a move would stop a guy like Don Imus saying rude shit. It’s what he’s always done.

  If it’s the spreading of decent, polite, edifying speech we want, the best place for that to begin is from our own mouths.

  Posted by Kuya on May 24, 2007 at 2:30 AM

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