For me, (commercial) Hip-Hop sold out for product endorsement and the
man a long time ago. If they didn't work for the man they became the
man.
I've still never heard that 50 Cent album but like everyone else in
the world I know he's been shot 9 times - for the life of me I can't
figure out why people/artists would want to be known for the wrong
thing, it only brings more trouble. It's like being the hard kid at
school, everyone wants to have a pop at you.
I also know that it's not as simply as that and I think any hopes of
reversing out of this are lost, I'm not even sure what the dream is
any more, a tacky house in Hollywood like you see on cribs? Like
Shake said in his interview with Tom, these jokers put on their
monkey suits, cause the sh1t and leave everyday people to deal with
the aftermath.
m
On 13 Sep 2007, at 15:22, Stoddard, Kamal wrote:
I bet if someone bought that D video in the end it
just looks really sad how a the people of a city ended
up like that.
I don't know about the city, but the country is what I see ending up
like that. No matter where you go here, there are those that, though
they may not publicly glorify violence, they do think of it as a first
or second option to solve disputes on any scale. I mean, I've seen a
cheerleading coach get at it with a mom over some real simple ish and
they were both intelligent, seemingly peaceful people before the
altercation. That was just this week. In America this has been the way
from the start though (ask the natives, wholesale slaughter gets it
done). The issue I think is not the general acceptance of violence
(heck, all of nature accepts it as a balancing force). I think it's as
martin pointed out, the packaging and commoditization of violence as
something to be sought after (if you want to be cool/hard/real/etc).
"War Stories" are to todays pop culture what "knowledge of self"
was to
the golden era of hip-hop. A mistake? Probably not. Is there any
way to
reverse this from where we are now? I'm not really sure, but I'd
love to
hear some ideas.
k
