In all actuality and honesty, we in the Black community have been on a cultural “high” since 2008. See… 2008 was one of those milestones when we as a culture… a threadline of the United States… converged with “mainstream” society in such a major way! As historic as Jackie Robinson breaking into Major League Baseball; As Martin Luther King Jr. and the march on Washington; Hell! As historic the Uhura and Kirk’s kiss on Star Trek!!! For in 2008 we, as a nation, inducted the first African American into the office of President of United States! And if you do not have a black friend who told you the secret… It was HUGE for this country!!! HUGE for us as a people!!! Black, White, Whatever… It was one of the biggest contributions the African American Community could give since MLK… the induction of the 44th president of the United States.
BUT… here’s the Trojan Horse! (Yes Republicans and Obama haters alike… There really WAS a secret mission to this Obama thing!!!) By the USA’s accepting, nominating, and electing the first African American President of the United States, you did probably the coolest thing for this country… the one thing that many a pants sagging, backwards hat wearing, TuPac listening white kid in every city and state in this country has wanted to do for years: Embraced the Black culture whole heartedly… whether you wanted to or not!!! And YES, Rush Limbaugh (if you ever read this…), that includes the hip hop culture!!! That long range target of yours… that social pariah… that bastard child of rap, jazz and poetry if they had an HOT steamy three way…THAT was sneaked into the American culture just under Barack’s Burno Magli’s (I don’t know WHAT shoes Obama wore at his inauguration but MY president wore THE BEST… in my mind): Society blessed and accepted hip hop into the main stream with the FIRST Black president!
Which brings us to 2012. Our president stands at the precipice of a re election. His opponent is a rich former Governor from the great state of Massachusetts repping the Republican party. Words fly… accusations are hurled… Liars are called… and, yes! Debates are lost! All of this makes me wonder… Haven’t I seen this before? Haven’t those of us, who have spent the last 30 plus years growing up in the Hip Hop community lived and breathed this already? And, if so, shouldn’t the Democrats and Republicans of modern times have learned something by now?
Yes, ladies and gentlemen… Your Uncle D.A.’s about to take you on the journey of the 2012 election… as told through the moral of Hip Hop in society today! (Yep… Clutch your lilly white pearls, Bill O’ Reilly!!! It’s politics told through the lens of rap music!!! Catch your women as they faint!! )
So… the mission is simple: Compare the history of the Hip Hop community to that of the political culture and learn what one has to teach the other. Seems easy enough if you go about it the right way. But… being that I’m bias… Imma go about it the WRONG way and take the culture that has been around the LEAST amount of time and see what it has to say! That’s right… Imma see what HIP HOP has to teach politics about where it’s heading and what to look forward to! All credibility should go to Politics to be the teacher… after all… American Politics has been around since the Mayflower. But I put it to you… The most galvanizing piece of black culture since jazz has a LOT more to say to 2012 politics then the other way around!
So… follow me on this journey… and let’s see if we can teach those roughnecks of modern politics what the REAL grimy and gritty is that they are flirting with in this current election.
To do so… we’re gonna need to do a little role reversal with some of the major players in the game. Namely: Obama, Mitt, Karl Rove (and by extension, SuperPACs) and the Democratic National Committee (other names and substitutions will be announced when they come…). For the process of understanding where we are in comparison… I’m going to set this Hip Hopera role reversal in probably the most seminal time in rap culture: The Death of TuPac and Biggie… The moment when East Coast Hip Hop and West Coast Hip Hop collided with the most deadliest of consequences.
Our major players are cast: Obama is TuPac… an artist who has entered a world of poetry and gangsta mentality not to perpetuate it, but with a message all his own. With lyrics and a style that excites his base, challenges his rivals, and, at times, lets down those who rooted for him for not living up to who they expected him to be. A martyr well before his ending… who stands for what he believes and, in many ways, holds the hopes of an entire community in his actions and words. A man who, at times, gets caught up in the politics of his position and forgets his legacy.
Of course, that leaves Mitt Romney to be signified by Biggie: The flashy, larger than life mogul who touts his wealth and extremities with a talent all on his own. Who lives his life by the dollar signs emulated by his record sales and his status. A man who preaches that to his followers… a message measured beyond what he looks like to the general public. He holds a attractive wife by his side and a plethora of questionable dealings in his wake. Who has the ability to do SUCH great good… but leave behind him sadness and tragedy for the millions who deal and have dealt with him.
These two magnets do what magnets do: CLASH!!! Their ideas push and pull against each other, dragging millions who hang onto their every word along for the ride. They hurl insults and accusations at each other in some of the DIRTIEST dealings the rap game has ever and will ever see in it’s lifetime.
(And for all of you who are up in arms about who plays who in my version of this Hip Hopera… get over yourselves!!! It’s music and politics! Recast them in whatever way you want when you write YOUR article! this works for me ;))
Which leaves our co-stars: Karl Rove and Democratic Party which will be played by P.Diddy and Suge Knight, respectively. The puppet masters who pull the strings with money and whisper those sweet nothings into our rivals ears that influence their moves and oratory responses to the masses… regardless of what the listener gets from the message. The outcome is clear: “Buy Into My Side!!!” Forget about the dude who has more credibility… the one who has the smarter, clearer message… MY SIDE speaks to your angst!
And so these “artists” spout their poetry… riling their base to a final conclusion: the ends of both of their lives! Both literally and figuratively. Both Biggie and TuPac lose their lives in a hail of bullets by those who took their rhetoric as the gospel… kinda like the way the extremes of BOTH political parties are treating this election! And if you think I’m being hyperbolic… check out the Extreme political Right (aka… the Tea Party) and the Extreme political Left. Them dudes are already cocking their guns!!!
So… back to the original question:
What, if anything, can the Hip Hop community teach the modern day political culture about the road it’s traveling?
Well…the lesson is simple: that words and rhetoric have effect! Just as those who ended the lives of two Hip Hop laureates like Biggie and TuPac… there are those out there who believe all the hype without understanding and looking through the politics behind it in our current political election. And it’s those who will act upon the emotion of what they believe they’re being told without thought. We saw this with the unfortunate Gabrielle Gifford tragedy, we see this in the current viciousness of the audiences at the presidential rallies and debates. Lies and exaggerations HAVE EFFECT!!!
We have a RESPONSIBILITY to do more than be held captive to the emotion that is drummed up by political speeches when coupled with hard times! And, our politicians… those who embody our political hopes… have the responsibility to pander to more than our lowest common denominator of rage and emotion. THEY have the responsibility to deliver their real stance… WE have the responsibility to act on more than our emotion! It’s a symbiotic relationship, this political game!
We have an obligation to those after us and, frankly, those who came before us… the ones who laid down their lives so that we can have these kinds of debates… to look through the crap and decide for ourselves who has the message that speaks to us individually. And this responsibility does not kick in AFTER tragedies like Biggie and TuPac occur… They should kick in BEFORE they occur. They should kick in when we realize that something smells fake. When something seems over hyped more than it really is. When the Bill o’Reilly’s and Ann Coulters of the world spin words that make us want to strike out… instead of embrace others and their struggles.
(And by the way… the part of Bill O’ Reilly will be played by Vanilla Ice in my Hip Hopera and Ann Coulter will be played by Foxy Brown… or whatever other yapping whiner with marginal talent who is milking her 2 minutes of fame… but i digress…)
In conclusion… I say to all Hip Hop scholars out there, or even those who were alive during the age of rap… those wading through the mire that is our current political tides: View our current 2012 election through your best urban music lenses. We’ve been there already. We’ve seen what happens when hype, lies, and over inflated egos whip us into a frenzy. But WE know better! We’ve seen this! There’s a reason that the rap community is at peace and the presidential landscape looks like a war zone. Politics can learn SO much from what the hip hop community has gone through. And remember this: when you hear something that a politician says that doesn’t make sense, repeat the immortal words of TuPac:
“Cause you’se a down @$$ B$&%, and I ain’t mad at cha!”
-D.A.S.
Published: by | Updated: 03-15-2013 19:03:09
