Hip Hop Hooray: The Good, The Bad, and THE TRUTH

Generation Jones: Hip Hop’s Founding Generation
Since Hip Hop is now, according to some, almost 30 years old (as of 2003), this means that we are seeing a certain graying of the Hip Hop Nation as well. Although most pundits consider Generation X as the one to have influenced (and be influenced by) Hip Hop, its grass roots actually reside with those in so-called Generation Jones (ie, the younger and better half of the Boomer generation). They were the teenagers of my generation who, in the mid ‘70’s, first improvised with the old records, turntables and mics. They were the kids of Generation Jones of all races who, having literally grown up with the multi-racial appeal of the Jackson 5, went through Junior High/Middle School, High School and their early college years to the sounds of groups such as the Ohio Players, Kool and the Gang, Rose Royce (RE: "Carwash") the O'Jays, Rick James, Wild Cherry (RE: "Play that Funky Music, White Boy"), as well as the sound of Funk that would provide a large amount of Hip Hop’s sample and hook material in the decades to come, as provided by the likes of The Gap Band, George Clinton, Yarbrough & Peoples, One Way and Frankie Smit, to name only a few. They were the college students of the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s that saw MTV take the air just as the Sugarhill Gangs, the Grandmaster Flashes, the Afrika Bambaataa's and others started to slowly if not quietly make an impact [I say "quietly," because so much of, for example, the early material by Whodini and Kurtis Blow---and for that matter Sugarhill Gang---melded song with "rap" so well at times that it didn't really register most of the time that it was "rap": As far as most people were concerned---"dumb white people" included----it was all simply "music"----and darned good "music" at that)]

Even if many in Generation Jones were not totally aware of the advent of Rap Music early on in the early to mid eighties, we were most certainly amenable to incorporating it into our repertoire of music tastes as the 1980’s progressed. We had, after all, been "earwitness" to some interesting Pop Music collaborations and cross-mixtures, such as Stevie Wonder and Paul McArtney in 1982 ("Ebony and Ivory"), and Michael Jackson and Paul McArtney ("Say, Say, Say") the following year, not to mention the USA for Africa effort in 1985. By the time we as young adults saw such collaborations as Chaka Kahn’s "Feel For You" in 1984 and finally Run-DMC’s and Aerosmith’s get-together in 1986, it was merely another thing to make those of us in Generation Jones go "Hmmm…that’s interesting/cool." Ditto for our reaction to the Beastie Boys and the Fat Boys in 1987.

New Jack Swing
Throughout the 1980’s but especially toward the end, much of the dance and party music would also frequently incorporate "raps" at various times. In addition, much of R&B, Pop Rock, Latin and Caribbean beats, and the sounds coming out of Miami, seemed to merge in many ways so that, if you didn’t actually see the videos accompanying the songs, it could be difficult at times to distinguish between where one type of music ended and another began. By the time 1989 (in which Tone Loc's "Wild Thing" spent quite a while in the Billboard Hot 100) dovetailed into 1990, the stage was set for the popular acceptance of Hip Hop since, with the works by Paula Abdul (and her 'attractive' opposite "MC Skat Cat"), Bobby Brown, and then BBD and Boyz II Men, we had, with the advent of New Jack Swing in the late 1980's, already been exposed to a healthy infusion of "rapping." This, in addition to whatever bona-fide Hip Hop we would occasionally see briefly on MTV (I actually saw Collin Quin’s 1989 novelty video "Goin’ Back to Brooklyn" BEFORE I saw LL Cool J’s "Goin’ Back to Cali," which gives an idea of the still infrequent insertion, by MTV, of Rap songs into their rotation schedules in 1989; furthermore, it seemed like most of my MTV viewing of Hip Hop in 1989 and 1990 was after Midnight or between 6 and 7 o’clock in the morning as I got ready for work, which meant it would be during channel surfing between there and ESPN, CNN, and re-runs of "Roland and Rattfink" cartoons). It was all pretty good, and, even if many of us were by then approaching or were already in our 30’s, for the young adults of all races, backgrounds and ideologies of Generation Jones, merely one more thing to make us go "Hmm….that’s cool."

1990
Hip Hop really burst into the mainstream in the second half of 1990 with the coming (and going) of Vanilla Ice and Hammer, when their respective hits occupied the top two Top 40 spots the second week in November. Being naïve as I was (and still am, for that matter, which probably explains why I'm even attempting a write-up on this subject), I honestly didn’t think, at least looking at the "Ice Ice Baby" video at the time, that he was trying to be anything other than what I thought he was----a preppy suburban white kid who, as far as I was concerned, may as well have been assigned to the same dorm room at the University of Miami with one of the De La Soul or Black Sheep guys (one of whom, like me, was a military brat). His biggest mistake, I feel, was in his trying to be and speak "ghetto" when obviously he never was or could. Rightly or wrongly, I feel he could have actually succeeded for the long haul as the 1990 version of Vanilla Ice (verses what he subsequently morphed into) had he been honest from the start about his suburban Dallas-area background.

1992: The Wreck That’s Still ‘n Effect
Perhaps as a result of having grown up as a military brat in basically multi-racial working class/middle class housing areas and school districts (both on post and off post), and then being in similar situations in all my jobs I’ve had in the San Antonio area (for whatever its other faults may be, it’s probably one of the more laid-back areas of the country when it comes to so-called "race" relations), I was truly appalled to discover the extent to which a racial and economic alienation that lent itself to militant rhetoric and deeds was festering just below the surface toward the end of the 1980’s and the beginning of the 1990’s, just as NWA and Public Enemy made their emergence and soon caused a modest amount of consternation, at least in the electronic and print media and with various branches of law enforcement, all the while 2 Live Crew was having their own legal problems in Broward County and with the media as a result of the licentious focus of their lyrics. Let’s just say that, as far as I’m concerned, the "police" that beat up Rodney King and the thugs that beat up Reginald Denny on live television should have been made to share the same cell with each other, where they could either tear each other up, or learn to get along. As far as the Los Angeles riot was concerned, it is worth pointing out that a large number of the rioters and looters were Hispanic. It wasn’t merely another Black-White confrontation. The Rodney King and Reginald Denney incidents and cases, and their reactions to them, did, if anything, show how some blacks had lost their soul (if not their mind), and how some whites had ‘crapped the role.’ And, the various players in this drama would in time be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, and some would be found lacking

One thing I have come to appreciate, however, is the resiliency and spirit of people in general, and the fact that, in spite of all the various forms of DEATH in such situations, LIFE still goes on. People cry but they also still laugh; birthdays, baptisms, graduations and marriages are celebrated there as they are elsewhere, and people go to work, come home and tinker around the house, car or yard, just as they do elsewhere, and there’s still the games and laughter of little kids. Like LIFE just about anywhere, it’s filled with hours upon hours of relatively harmonious routine, marked by moments of stark terror, sorrow, and/or confrontation. Like anywhere, the goal is to maximize the former and minimize the latter, and rebound as best as possible when the latter occurs. Survive, in other words. "Today Was a Good Day" for Ice Cube in 1993 for the same reasons Apollo 13 is counted by NASA as a successful flight. Gangsta-rap when done well will probably convey some sense of how, with even a minuscule piece of love and the grace of God, a rose can grow from concrete.

Generation Jones’ Exile and Hip Hop’s Arrested Development
I feel, nevertheless, that the accelerated proliferation of such gangsta-rap and a harder-core image and message in general, and the internal and external reactions to it, in many ways set the creative development of Hip Hop back by as much as a decade, and here’s why. The external reactions in the electronic and print media to it, in many cases, of course tended to portray all Rap music as violent and licentious. Furthermore, coming on the heels of the Los Angeles riot and the "fiascos" involving Vanilla Ice (white suburban guy who allegedly tried to hijack black music the way Elvis and others supposedly did with Rock and Roll) and Hammer (allegedly "sold out" in any number of manners, depending on who you listen to), I think, for many non-blacks of Generation Jones who had in many cases come to enjoy much of the Hip Hop that had begun to grace the airwaves in the late 80’s and 1990, 1991, and much of 1992, but who had nevertheless never actually gone and bought any tapes or CD’s yet, we had, by the end of 1992, in many ways come to feel that Hip Hop was somehow off limits to us, or somehow socially unacceptable in the eyes of both blacks and non-blacks unless you were maybe still in High School or College (and of course by this time most Generation Jones people were well into their very late 20’s and early to mid 30’s; also, consider that there were a respectable handful of white rappers in the very early 90's, but shortly after all this they all kind of vaporized with little or no trace, and it wasn't until Eminem emerged in 1998 that we saw another white rapper, with Bubba Sparxxx possibly being one of the few since then).

This, I feel, caused many people in Generation Jones, me included, to go into the "closet" in many ways w/r listening to Hip Hop or viewing Hip Hop videos, not to mention actually buying any tapes or CD’s (which, only self-consciously I actually did do beginning in 1993). In the 1950’s and 1960’s, it has been said that many people outside the South would self-consciously turn their car radios down at intersections so others wouldn’t know they were listening to Country. I have to wonder how many white thirty-somethings did some similar routines w/r Hip Hop through the larger part of the '90’s, at least after 1992 or so.

The ultimate consequence of the estrangement of Generation Jones (both blacks and non-blacks alike) from Hip Hop, no matter how unintentional it may have actually been, was the quick estrangement of Hip Hop from even its most recent history. It’s true, as St. John of the Cross says, that in order to go where you know not, you must go by a way you know not. It is also true, however, that you can’t know where you’re going or who you’re becoming, nor can you even know where you are or who you are unless you know where you’ve been and who you were.

As a result of Generation Jones having in many ways been driven into a kind of Hip Hop exile by the end of 1992, the ones that were left as the Hip Hop connoisseurs were largely highly impressionable High School kids and very young adults of all races and economic and social backgrounds who were most susceptible to peer pressure, and perceptions. No one wanted to be seen as "soft"; therefore, everyone felt they needed to "out-G" each other. This also perhaps eventually led to a growing crassness in Rock music on the one hand, and a retro-looking, late '60's early '70's effeminization on the other, which left many of the Pop artists and listeners of the 1980’s progressively out in the cold as the 1990’s progressed **

Lost Souls and Crapped Roles
There seemingly are those who, as the Baptist Rev. Conrad Tillard (formerly Conrad Muhammad with the Nation of Islam) contends, insist on "selling Mammy and Sambo culture to white America".....and essentially "a bill of goods—that [black people] are penny-chasing, champagne-drinking, gold-teeth-wearing, modern-day Sambos, pimps, and playas" (cf Peter Noel in the April 25-May 1, 2001, edition of The Village Voice). Undoubtedly, there has also been a most inexplicable mindset within a critical fraction of the black community since at least some time in the 1980's wherein to succeed through the "normal" means of a good education, hard work, and "following/obeying the rules/Law" is looked upon as a "white thang."

This phenomena was described quite well in a December, 1989 Texas Monthly article, by Dana Rubin, about how things essentially went to hell at Dallas' Carter High School (click HERE for some relevent excerpts from the article), all the time many in that upper middle class black community who could have or should have attempted to stop things from spiraling out of control did nothing, either out of fear of somehow being labeled a traitor to their race, or because they were simply willing to somehow condone it or justify it. Reasons for a failure to act or at least speak out in the Dallas Carter situation, I feel, in many ways mirror some of the same reasons that a critical fraction of the African American community and leadership has been divided and in many cases silent w/r the basis and means for "cleaning up" some of the seedier aspects of Hip Hop. It is also important to note that the Texas Monthly article described some attitudes at Carter that pre-figured the crass, bling-bling materialism that progressively came to typify much of Hip Hop by the end of the 1990's.

All About the Benjamins; Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems (cf 1 Timothy 6:9-10; James 4:1-4)
"The music game is a crime and all the money that comes with it is blood money" (cf Revelations: There's A Light After the Lime), according to Pastor Mason Betha [Puffy's "other nigga {who} turned evangelist" (cf "Show Me Your Soul," by Lenny Kravitz, feat. P.Diddy, Pharrell & Loon)]. Since the beginning of time, the discovery of sex and the invention of money, everyone can agree that sex-----and anything that implies, describes, illustrates or consummates it----sells, and sells very fast and very furious. And, if it doesn't lead to actual fornication or adultery, the lust for money by those in the business invariably leads to them compromising whatever values or beliefs they had, or forcing others to do so. Spiritual fornication and adultery, in other words. And, without fail, given the nature of the carnal passions warring within our members and among each other, non-chaste sex, addictions of various kinds (thus opening up a "new frontier" for both spending and making money, especially when narcotics and other controlled substances are involved), and ultimately, violence enters into the equation (just look at the various rackets in Compton----Click HERE for additional info).

With the images portrayed through music videos, comes the "opportunity" for fashion designers to sell female fashions that use the "tried and true" formulas that cause many styles to quickly default to the skimpiest and tightest clothing articles. There are only so many ways to spell the word "slut" when trying to show the most skin on the one hand and the most figure for the areas that are covered on the other. Consequently, it should probably be no surprise that female fashions have regressed back to styles largely reminiscent of the late 1960's and early '70's, when the sexual revolution brought all the negative consequences with it: Fornication, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and venereal diseases, destroyed relationships, fatherless families, and DEATH (can you spell A-I-D-S?). With these came other, spin-off situations, all of which became opportunities for someone to make some money: Lawyers, law enforcement and security providers, insurance companies, contraceptive and prophylactic manufacturers and distributors and finally, of course, abortion providers. Blood money. Blood money that goes to fashion designers that encourage girls and women look like sluts and act like hoes, in an incessant assault on the sensitivities (cf Genesis 39:10) of those princes seeking to go from boys to men-----those princes who would otherwise be kings and treat and adorn their would-be queens with the utmost of dignity and authentic beauty (cf Ezekiel 16:8-14), if only they were shown the way and simply given a chance to do so. Blood money for those in the music industry to sell their sounds and images by essentially selling sex. Blood money for those whose exorbitant lust for money usually is merely a symptom of other, more carnal lusts by those that have long since prostituted and pimped their moral values and hence their souls for dough. An honest-to-God "structure of sin" (cf Reconciliatio et paenitentia, element 16). C.R.E.A.M. (cf same acronym, by Wu-Tang Clan).

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems. Ultimately, what happens, however, is the reverse: Mo' Problem$, Mo' Money (at lea$t for $ome). $in can be enormou$ly expen$ive. But it can al$o be enormou$ly profitable. The common medium of exchange in generating this profit is the blood of the innocents. And, the children (including those who were aborted and thus only known to God) are always the most innocent ones to suffer. This also includes all the children of the Hip Hop Nation who, with free spirits (cf Matthew 18:3) and God-given gifts for rhymes and rhythm from their heart and soul, were instead coerced into surrendering their true and first love (Revelation 2:4-5) for what they were doing. If only people (especially those who hate Hip Hop because they have made no effort to know it or understand it) can find it in their hearts to "see the truth behind the lie," that these children of the Hip Hop Nation are merely "angels in devils' shoes" (cf "Angel of Harlem," by U2).

NOTE: One thing that is also worth noting is that Hip Hop is not the only species of music to have gotten just a little too explicitly sexual, especially w/r the way female artists dress and act on the videos (this includes Country as well), not to mention the lyrics. Some of the late '90's boy bands' lyrics were pretty steamy and saucy as well. And to think that the median age of the girls attending those concerts were probably much lower than for those attending a Hip Hop performance. Consequently, the tiff involving Ludacris, Pepsi and Ozzy Osbourne in 2002 in many ways underscored how Hip Hop has indeed at times become the whipping "boy" for the enforcement of a double standard. True, two wrongs don't make a right. What it basically says, therefore, is that our society in general could use a soap'n suds casserole, and that I should be the first in the serving line (cf John 8:7)

We Can Go With THIS, Or We Can Go With THAT (cf Black Sheep; Joshua 24:15)

Given the widespread, cross-cultural appeal of Hip Hop, a person is probably grossly mistaken to believe that a Hip Hop Nation can be mobilized politically under the banner of a single ideology. Hip Hop tends to be libertarian and free-spirited ** on the one hand, but also socially conservative in ways not always apparent to everyone (click HERE for an article on one aspect of this).

A person trying to coordinate and articulate a single ideology for such a Hip Hop Nation would probably have better luck herding a group of cats. A perfect example is Jay-Z’s response to a question about how he viewed his potential role in any political movements: "I’m just Jay-Z!" (cf Teresa Wiltz, Washington Post June 25, 2002). As I said, like herding a group of cats. Mix in there the culture war going on that has moral, spiritual and ideological undertones and which I feel is about to splinter the African American community as well as the Hip Hop Nation in the same manner that it has with various other demographic groups in CONUS and the western world in general, and I think in the very near future the "citizens," "leaders" and "artisans" of the Hip Hop Nation will align themselves into either one of basically two opposite movements. One movement will begin to recover the civility (ie, a minimum of lewd language and women dressed as sluts and acting like hoes), creativity, positivity, the authentic humanity and free-spiritedness (cf Matthew 18:3) in Hip Hop culture as it existed for a larger part prior to 1992 or so, and the other will continue on an inauthentic, crass, carnalistic, hedonistic, materialistic, nihilistic, and basically non-human way toward "self-destruction."**. The one good thing about the latter, at least, is that those that choose that latter path are always free to choose at any time to sing a new song (cf Joshua 24:15; Revelation 14:3). Oeople may be startled to discover what side the various Hip Hop playas will come down on in this war.

Now, I'm not saying that all MC's will or even should go and suddenly start doing "Gospel Rap." There is, nevertheless, a lot they can do in translating a heavenly calling and God-given gift specific to them into what they in the future will do and NOT DO (cf Ephesians 6:10-20)---as reflected in definitive changes in thought, word, and deed---in earning a buck for themselves or for others associated with the music industry and other enterprises they're involved with. In many cases many of these MC's and the people around them, in singing a new song (cf Revelation 14:3), will initially only be taking some baby steps that may not be immediately obvious or well understood by everyone, since "people judge you based on where their minds are" (cf Pastor Mason Betha, There's a Light After the Lime). And, when and if this happens, they will need our support and prayers, since they (and possibly we) will come under a high level of harassment from the gates of hell itself (cf Revelation 13:11-18; John 8:44-47) by those whose minds (and hence hearts), bank balances, or pocketbooks still prefer (or "require") the gutter on a regular basis.

Once again, I'm not saying that artists need to go and make some squeaky-clean piece that looks and sounds like the Hip Hop equivalent of a "Mickey Mouse Club" or Pat Boone-type production, but I am saying that they will exercise a greater degree of prudence in the future w/r just how far they'll go with certain things---always asking themselves: "What is the point?" Because if the "point" is to simply go as "low" as possible w/r certain scenes, lyrical vulgarisms, or ideas/thoughts, then, we'll always return to same question: What IS the point? Someone could accuse someone of being a prude for saying that certain vulgar works of art aren't funny, but, quite frankly, some vulgar works of art simply aren't funny. Period. Many a pop icon that is well past the point of having "jumped the shark" usually doesn't "get it" w/r this, and they wonder why they continue to lose a large part of of their audience. Because they're no longer funny, they have no point to make, they leave no lasting impression any longer, and they reduce themselves to irrelevance because the people, after while, know that they have nothing but the "same old non-sense" to offer.

Save the Music, Y’all…Save the Music (cf "I Can," by Nas)
Perhaps it is because of Hip Hop's potential, in the end, of humbly articulating our individual and collective weaknesses (2 Corinthians 11:30), our inward cries (cf Romans 8:18-30) for help from above, and in singing praises from below, in addition to teaching, especially through example, the Word of God, that the devil, being the accuser (cf Revelation 12:10) that he is in promulgating, with our help, all the crass negativity in a large part of Hip Hop, is also working overtime in being the liar and the murderer (cf John 8:44) that he is in trying to see to it that Hip Hop is destroyed through all the ways that, through our words and actions (and also through our silence or inaction), we bring discredit to it at times. Perhaps its potential effectiveness as a means of evangelizing the overall culture (cf Ecclesia in America, element 70), and hence positively transforming the overall human ecology (cf Centesimus annus, element 38) is why the devil, with our help, is trying to destroy Hip Hop (cf Revelation Ch 11)----and hence destroy our human ecology and ultimately peoples' salvation (cf Reconciliatio et paenitentia, element 16)-----under the weight of all that can be bad about it when done poorly and for reasons of glorifying lewd language and sexual practices, sexual license in general, violence, hedonism, materialism, and all other blasphemous forms and manifestations of idolatry (cf Revelation 12:17-13:18).

In this context, it is no wonder that Pastor Mason Betha states that "the best rap music is the most arrogant with the most demonic message. How can you mix it with God?" (cf Revelations: There's A Light After the Lime). Within the context in which he was speaking, he's correct, which means that, sooner rather than later (cf Revelation 10:6), MC's need to step up to the mic and make some of the "worst" (Revelation Ch11) Rap Music ever, that's most "arrogant"-----for GOD (cf Jeremiah 9:24; Galatians 6:14; 2 Corinthians 11:30) and with the most saintly/heavenly message, or at least a secular message that's tailored to using their specific gifts in fulfilling a calling specific to them as ambassadors for the Most High God (Ephesians 6:20). This can be done much more easily than perhaps some people realize or appreciate, until they stop and realize how God, in speaking through the prophets in taking such a dim view of people who both literally as well as spiritually act like "hoes," is rather explicit and sarcastic in places (Jeremiah 13:27; Ezekiel 16:15-63). In a different age, culture, and medium, Jeremiah, Hosea, Ezekiel, and the rest of the Prophetic Posse (the name I’ll give them) would make some danged good rappers (cf Jeremiah 1:6-10; 20:7-9) in denouncing the behavior and attitudes of all the "hoes" of the world [aka all of us---sinful and imperfect human beings ("earthen vessels"), in other words].

Father, in Your Infinite Mercy, We Beg You:

Please, save the music. Please, save Hip Hop. Please, save the Nation

that Hip Hop’s latter works will be greater than its first (cf Revelation 2:19

The following links may be of interest:
Phatmass Catholic Hip Hop Site
Fr. Stan Fortuna's Website
Lifesavas (Pro-Life Hip Hop group described here in article by Ta-Nehisi Coates)
CleverMC
Imagiin360 (Seeking to bring TRUTH to Hip Hop music and culture)
Universal Zulu Nation (advocating positivity in Hip Hop)
Native Deen (Islamic Hip Hop group)

The following links are to information on MoJoe, a locally (ie San Antonio)-based Hip hop group
http://www.mojoefamily.com/
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/mojoe
I strongly urge you to order their 2003 CD titled Classic.Ghetto.Soul. You'll truly be left wondering just how in the damned HELL some of the garbage that gets airplay, video time and sales somehow supposedly wins out over material put out by guys such as these.

"....we're gonna' make this thing work out eventually.... we're gonna' make it...."
(cf Faith Evans in "Stressed Out," by A Tribe Called Quest)