Some of the best people I know are involved with hip hop business.
Now the good folks are going to have to bear the brunt of a moral panic that I did not believe was coming. But somewhere between hip hop getting blamed for Imus and then for Michael Vick, I started to feel the avalanche of public opinion headed in our direction and I think that this game is going hardball.
It’s one thing to bury the N-word in an old school media event and it’s quite another for politicians to begin examining $3 billion in "New York State’s investment and pension funds" devoted to the entertainment industry for signs of support of content deemed offensive.
Though Stanley Crouch gleefully describes this investigation as a "spear" that is "being prepared for the hip-hop dragon", the senators from New York are not specifying hip hop. But the Grouch and I both recognize that hip hop will provide the rationale and the focus for much of what will come if Senators are targetting "material that is hostile to a given ethnic group and to women".
[Of course, I'll be able to leverage the situation by expanding the
Harris Publications File and putting it in the right hands cause you know I'd snitch.]
Hip hop business people aren’t the only ones who should be concerned, since the gaming industry will also fit the bill quite nicely but, in times of moral panic, people take action against things they don’t understand and therefore misinterpret, like Swizz Beats’ It’s Me Snitches.
I think we’re going to see a lot of "kill them all and let ___ sort them out" behavior in the days ahead. Given that the Republican party is in disarray and the Democrats are always happy to follow a trend, politicians need a common foe to mobilize support and hip hop is all too easy right now.
If you’re trying to stack dollars from hip hop related businesses, consider diversifying as rapidly as possible unless, of course, you’ve learned to monetize demonization in a hostile environment.
Update:
Here comes Rev. Al and the National Action Network with a new chapter of the organization in Chicago:
The first initiative of the Chicago chapter is slated as The NAN Decency Initiative national "Day of Outrage" against the continuous use in the music recording industry of the words "n*gga," "b*tch" and "ho." Reverend Sharpton, who has persistently challenged the entertainment industry on denigrating lyrics, will lead a protest in 20 cities including Chicago on August 7th to call for the withdrawal of public investments from companies that won’t clean up their act. In many states billions of dollars from state pension funds are invested in the entertainment industry. The overall goal is to establish a single standard that will be adopted by media and entertainment entities that will respect all people regardless of race, gender and sexual orientation.
You know, I was an original supporter of hip-hop during the PE, X-Clan era in the early 90′s. In fact I wrote an editorial to the Detroit News demanding that local R&B stations like the legendary and powerful WJLB play hip-hop by citing the fact that this “new” music was the music of a new generation and should be heard. And as director of a Detroit youth program, we were able to get groups like Public Enemy, BDP, BBD, Big Daddy Kane and others to play basketball in our annual charity/celebrity basketball games against youngsters from three rival gangs. These events and more helped to erase the rival neighborhood boundaries that many Detroit youth had to navigate to try to get home safely. Even today these rival boundaries are non-existent and I credit hip-hop for this.
Then something awful and bad happened. Yes, hip-hop became a part of corporate America and was packaged in a way as to induce the lowest and worse qualities of the human condition. Hip-hop began to focus on sex, drugs, violence and material greed. This new and Madison Avenue-based hip-hop was now marketed around the world, but also became an almost permanent fixture in Black neighborhoods around America. Young Black men most with little money or resources lured by the big cars, houses and other luxuries displayed in hip-hop videos found hope and promise in this phenomena called hip-hop. This resulted in numerous auxiliary businesses (clubs, clothings, design, etc.) that today help support and promote this billion dollar industry. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that music and the whole concept of the entertainment business has taken away too much attention from the more important things that our community needs to deal with like AIDS, crime, crooked politicians, etc. But admittedly, hip-hop has offered millions of disenfranchised Black youngsters around the world a peek into what is possible far away from the depressed ‘hoods that these youngsters try to live in each day.
One of the most impressive results of hip-hop is the righteous and conscious awakening of African communities in Central and South America. Once dormant and complacent, African communities in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Columbia, Cuba, Venezuela are standing proud and demanding that their ethnicity and heritage be respected and not defamed and belittled. And this bold and righteous stance is due to in large part to hip-hop which has grown beyond just being a music soapbox. Today hip-hop has become a political, economic and social movement that is and has changed the entire mental and spiritual landscape of this place we call Planet Earth.
But beware my peoples because the imperialists and the corrupt capitalists who tried to destroy and manipulate hip-hop are not done yet. They did not figure or anticipate that hip-hop would be such a fire rod of inspiration and opportunity to so many people; especially to those in American cities and to those in places like Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and other countries that are still struggling for their true independence. Nope, these raiders of originality did not think that people like Eazy E, Chuck D, Kanye West and the hundreds of well-known and not so well-known hip-hop orators could dare possibly help uplift and motivate depressed and oppressed peoples around the world to stand up and fight against their ugly and vicious machine.
Thus, I have come ’round full circle. I can now appreciate today’s hip-hop artists like Lil Wayne, Jay-Z and maybe even 50 Cent who boldly and strongly express their full wrath and bravado right in the face of entities that have for centuries worked to destroy their lineage. This display of “nerve” be it good or bad shows if anything that Africans are by no means weak, subservient or complacent. (And no, I did not need hip-hop to prove this out, but maybe others did).
Now if we could only create a formula to help restore the basic needs like clean water and agricultural potent lands in Africa, then I maybe could retire a little early. But I am here for the long haul and I hope you are too.
Fige Bornu, Chairman
Positive African Image Institute
Thanks for your story. Without getting into the details, I think you’re touching on a lot of the reasons I’m still in despite what we’ve been through of late.
Unfortunately I think you’ll have to take early retirement off your to do list!