I want to expand on a couple of ideas that are coming up in the comments for 50 Cent Says the South is Hurting Hip Hop. They're worth checking out and there will be more, I'm sure. But I know some people don't read comments and I also want to dig into issues of Northern prejudice against Southerners that apparently also exists in the music industry.
In his negative statements about Southern rap, 50 Cent said:
A lot of the music that comes out of the South is kind of simplified and I think it's kinda 'cause they just wanna have a good time . . . They don't wanna think about what [they] just said.
Once you get beyond the obviously bizarre notion of critiquing dance music for being dance music, which is essentially what he's done, there are numerous other issues to consider. But I want to move the discussion away from 50's issues with anyone that charts with a different style of music with which he can't compete (Kanye, snap music, hyphy's next if it breaks) and his "clear the strip" mentality, because there's the larger issue of Northern (especially New York) prejudice against outsiders (especially Southerners and country people).
A friend of mine related that back when NWA broke, many New Yorkers had a difficult time relating, saying that rappers like Eazy-E sounded "country" because they had kind of a drawl or something. I also recall a hip hop blogger from New York communicating more than once that he was baffled by the current popularity of Southern artists. Of course, the New York market is essential to world media domination, so such parochialism has to be overcome and eventually is, whether early critics can understand or not.
But part of this discussion maps on to urban disdain for country people and New York disdain for Southerners. I believe that if snap music wasn't reasonably fast, 50 would also have slipped something in about how slow Southerners are.
I'm disturbed about the similarity of 50 Cent's comments to those that white racists make about black people. And, for those who are new to this blog, let me make it clear that I am white and could not pass for black under any circumstances other than writing a hip hop blog.
If you look back at Southern white people's depictions of slaves when they were "off the clock" so to speak, it was often of grinning, happy people, dancing together and just having a good time. In fact, some believed that blacks were incapable of higher forms of thought. The perception of shiftlessness and lazyness was also a major image.
Of course, hardcore racists still say all these things, which is why I have and will continue to participate in anti-Klan and anti-Nazi demonstrations that attempt to shut them down and beat them down if possible rather than standing around being silent or heading to another location (but that's another topic).
If we look at 50 Cent's statements they emphasize simplemindedness, a lack of interest in complex thought and an inability to achieve at a high level. Damn, he sounds like a white racist to me. Hey, that also sounds like what Northerners tend to say about Southerners (I know I'm using some broad strokes here but every Southerner who's dealt with very many Northerners knows what I'm saying, whether black or white).
Here's some stuff from Tamara Palmer's discussion with Luther Campbell in Country Fried Soul: Adventures in Dirty South Hip-Hop.
Tamara says (p. 18):
Hard to imagine now that OutKast have been anything but loved by everyone. The jeers at The Source Awards in 1995 weren't directed entirely towards the group. It was also symbolic of how a vocal part of the music industry in New York, the city that claims to be Ground Zero for hip-hop, felt about what they saw as the South's attempts to steal the spotlight.
Luke has numerous tales to tell about touring with Northern artists (p. 18 and 19):
I remember one time we was in St. Louis on a big New York tour, because we were probably one of the first ones to go on tour with New York artists . . . They'd make us go on last, even though we wasn't the headliners. We'd go on last and all the New York artists would leave. . . . All of 'em: Fat Boys, Salt 'N Pepa, Kid 'N Play. They'd get in their cars and leave. Go to the next city, without even looking at us. . .
There was a time in Mississippi where they said, 'You all only got three minutes on stage.' . . All New York groups, Eric B and Rakim, Run-DMC . . . We were like, three minutes on stage? Okay, this is what we're gonna do. We'll cut a Jam Master Jay record for three minutes. f*ck y'all. So we did stuff like that and then had to fight, literally had to fight. I remember beating up Public Enemy's road manager, beating the sh*t out of him in Savannah, Georgia, because of the same sh*t. . .
Going to the New Music Seminar [in New York] and they're, 'Oh that South music, it's just regional. They only sell in Miami.' . . I'm talking about executives in the room. . . The situation is really deep. It's like we came through slavery days all over again. . . I still feel a little angry about the industry because the industry hasn't really accepted it.
Now, there are a lot of New York artists I really dig and no one can take away from what New Yorkers have accomplished. But why is it that 50 Cent and many Northerners sound like white racists?
And where's Stat Quo?
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