Relax, enjoy yourself.I'm told that the City of Santa Rosa will not issue a permit for a hip hop show unless the organizers provide a certain number of armed guards. Unfortunately, someone was shot in a parking garage across the street from a club that sometimes has hip hop acts. How much more proof do you need? There is an antique store across the street too. If non white kids started collecting antiques they'd need armed guards there too.
Look, I'll admit that the combination of young men, alcohol, drugs and guns shares the shit out of me. I used to be a drunk young man with a penchant for firearms. It's a miracle, I mean something involving divine intervention, that I didn't end up shooting someone, or myself.
I still think that the demonization of hip hop is about race. The white fascination with "hahd gangsta" hip hop is about the creation of a virtual Storyville. A blackface space where white kids can live out their dark fantasies by projecting them onto Black kids. Oooh, all of our demons are running loose. We better deny them a permit unless they have armed guards. All right I'm not saying anything new, but it bears repeating. It is downright evil to expect young Black men to bear the burden of white people's inner darkness.
I wish Immortal Technique would stop using the N word so much. I wish he would be a little more respectful of women and I wish he would admit that he is gay, but he certainly deserves props for trying to shake off that burden.
Coming soon: Jon loves English hip hop. Look out for Lady Sovereign and Roots Manuva.
12 comments:
It is probable the insistence of the City of Santa Rosa in refusing to issue a permit is in reaction to adverse publicity relating to Gangsta Rap, in particular the self perpetuated hype of assholes like Marion "Suge" Knight and the whole money spinning spectacle of east versus west coast.
I own a copy of NWA's "Straight Outta Compton". I love Cypress Hill.
This isn't out of any "white fascination with "hahd gangsta" hip hop". Or a Vanilla Ice vicarious thrill.
But I do think the whole fucked up phenomenon of rising gun-crime in the UK, where the purchase of firearms is strictly regulated, can in part be blamed on an economically driven foisting of Hip-Hop paraphernalia on an ill-educated and impressionable youth market. Mainstream business like MTV is as complicit a culprit as Death Row Records.
Marion Knight was not some ghetto deprived black kid. Neither was Biggie Smalls in NYC ; Dr. Dre in LA ; or Tupac Shakur.
Get over it. If Suge Knight steps in shit, some illiterate youth pulled off the street is going to take the rap. That's how it works in Columbian drug cartels ; that's how it works with the Hell's Angels ; that's how it works with corporate America.
A James Brown ethos, it isn't.
As to Suge Knight etc. The most feared and powerful pimp/gangster in Storyville still had to answer to the Mayor and the Chief of Police.
If I understand you correctly here - and i'm not sure honestly - as far as I understand it the Chief of Police was in on Death Row's action. In as much as a corrupt and unfit individual was promoted into that position, partly as a move to appease or court the black community of LA in an absurdly misguided act of political correctness. At the same time public funds were being obviously misappropriated by other individuals in the black community who stood to gain from their status as church hierarchy designated charitable status in order to effect social improvement.
Storyville was the old New Orleans red light district. All manner of vice could be indulged in their and the blame could be laid at the feet of the Black people who lived in the neighborhood. It was common for the wealthy and powerful to debauch themselves in Storyville on Saturday night and then join with the preachers in condemning the place on Sunday morning. There were powerful gangsters and pimps who were the public face of the neighborhood. They were feared by the residents and condemned by the politicians but they were hirelings of the mayor and the chief of police. Nelson Algren wrote a good novel about the place, but I forget the name now.
I get you now. Thanks for bearing with me, there. I've read Nelsen Algren, but as is the case increasingly I can remember little of what I've picked up over the last several years; go back way further, of course, and my memory is crystal clear. Old age probably, and too much substance abuse down the road in getting there...
I think that's what pisses me off so much about the whole hip-hop scene as its come to be redefined through the 90s till now. All the inane rhetoric and machismo all the while some truly bad fucker who had his share of the breaks - eg, Suge Knight - is pulling the strings. I had a "Road to Damascus" moment when I found out that Tupac Shakur had used a five year old kid as a human shield in the old drive-by scenario. Fucking asshole.
Apologies for going off on one but it is genuinely depressing that it's now considered the height of entertainment to snigger about how a desert eagle magnum will disintegrate somebody's head. I've heard enough of that shit, thanks.
Talk about old age. I wrote "Their" when I meant "There" It leaped off the screen when I was reading your comment. I used to laugh at people who made mistakes like that I hope your (sic) not laughing at me.
I just realised I could get email follow-up comments. How dumb is that ?
Regards the spelling. Nope. Not laughing. I do it all the time, but I still detest using these spell-checker things.
Good God man! Is that why you check back here so often? This techo shit is tough on us old guys.
You got me there. I was getting pissed off myself seeing the London visiting shit on the traffic widget, myself! Damn!
I like to come over and eyeball your site pretty often. I have it on my google reader, but it's nice to see who else has been commenting, that sort of thing.
It is good to get "out and about" and get a "manual" handle on developments. I'm still getting to grips with all this newfangled google reader stuff. I've had a blogger account for some time now, but only a g-mail account with all the peripherals for about three weeks or so... The luddite gets himself an education as it were.
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