Nigger

Years after slavery has been abolished, the word still haunts us. The soil covering both Malcolm’s and Martin’s grave’s have settled, but the word is still a burning fire in so many bellies. We have almost full control of popular culture, but our attitudes and persona’s still display the behavior and mannerism of the word. Our artist sell millions of records every year and impose their opinion on a million more every day, but so many of them seem to not care about their own people, or where they are heading. The blood diamonds with hundreds of murders that rest on their Negro ears seem to be more important. Staying fresh and making that money, seems more important. Like it or not they truly do represent not just themselves but every black man and women, but a lot of times they can barely represent themselves, prancing on video screens degrading women and doing the coon dance that good old uncle sam loves to see back in what many in the south consider the good old days. With a chance to help outlaw the word that has haunted us for so many years we as a people have instead adopted it as our own word, and what do these new leaders do, nothing they embrace it. Once again satisfying the many who want to keep us down.
No longer are we in chains, the whips are nothing but a painful memory, they lost the power to leave the mark of ownership across our backs, the days of Jim Crow laws are long gone and deceased, but yet as recently as the 2000 census it showed that their were more African Americans dying then being born, there were more black males going to the Penitentiary than the university. Everyday at least one African American goes to jail. While 50 Cents raps about how he’ll kill a nigga for some cash, another soldier is taken out of the streets. While Akon and Snoop Rap about how bad they wanna Fuck you; the STD rates in our communities are at an all time high and growing. The leaders that we hear so much about in our history classes are nothing but that, a history lesson, and the ones who attempt to be leaders are looked upon as uppity or overbearing. Icons like Jay-Z, Jim Jones, and Nas have taken over. It seems as if the dream lifestyle to many blacks these days is to have enough money to eat sleep and get fresh. Over achieving is left for those who have no lives, so they are considered nerds and rejects of this oh so cool community. lyrics like ” Cant Pay My Rent everything in my mamma name, but im hood rich lalalala” (cash money millionaire) endorse fashion, beautify bad credit, and complacency. Outside of these three basic things nothing really seems to matter of high importance to us.

Through my young eyes I have to say that we as a whole ( Blacks, African Americans, whatever you want call it) are now more than ever the true epitome of a NIGGER.
“Historically, nigger defined, limited, and mocked African Americans. It was a term of exclusion, a verbal justification for discrimination. Whether used as a noun, verb, or adjective, it reinforced the stereotype of the lazy, stupid, dirty, worthless parasite. No other American ethnocentrisms carried so much purposeful venom, as the following representative.” With the Knowledge of what this word means I will be the first one in this article to try to outlaw this word from my vocabulary, I will lead by example, I will not just write about it I will act on it, so today February 21 2007, I vow to Outlaw the N word From My Vocabulary. If I could effect everyone’s opinion on this Venomous Vile word I truly would but my words are not as strong as I want them to be. The Verbal Hammer that I slam against the pavement with every word that is typed on this once blank computer screen is not enough to influence the mass of impressionable minds that use this word with leisure and justification, I do not have that coveted Icon status, (at least not yet). So my words will mostly fall on deaf ears and selectively blind eyes, but If the true trend setters were to stand by me then something could happen.

We have so many opportunities in our music to speak against the word, and uplift our culture, but rappers seem more concerned with criticizing Oprah and making dis tracks, then sparking a change or even a positive thought. Ludicrous, T.I, Cameron, Jim Jones, Busta Rhymes, 50 Cents, and so many more stars use the word so loosely. Like it or not these stars are the role models of our communities, there are not a lot of kids who want to grow up and be like Bork Obama. However, I can think of at least twenty kids who want to grow up and be just like Jay-Z, men who started to add the color pink to their wardrobe and wear it openly because of Cameron, teenagers who write poetry because they read 2pacs “The Rose That Grew From Concrete”. Their actions and their words affect us more than we could ever realize, and many of them take these titles as role models seriously and strive off of it. But in order to be a leader, and role model, the first thing you need to teach your mass of followers is how to respect themselves. In order to do that you must practice what you preach, which means you cant go to a high school in your community and tell the kids there to stay in school, and then in your next single your singing about selling coke and shooting at people. You cant tell the community how much you love your mother but in your next video you have women prancing around like sexual objects and calling them Hoe’s. You cant tell us how much we need to grow as blacks and uplift and then turn around and rap about how this Niggah aint better than you. If you continue to contradict your words then the ones that follow you may never be able to see the light. Their goals will remain, eating sleeping and staying fresh. Their Vocabulary will continually be Filled With Niggah, Bitch and Hoe, doing nothing but verbally and mentally hanging themselves as well as everything that our forefathers/mothers fought for.

I don’t mean to throw all of the blame on our artist, they are not the ones that made up the word, they are not the ones who beat us, hung us or even chastised us, they didn’t put the jagged and rusty Dagger of Oppression in our backs, but they haven’t tried to pull it out either. I’ll still think Jay-Z is one of the best to ever rap even if he uses the N word. I’ll still scream out Ballin at the top of my lungs when that song goes off in the club, I’ll still love hip hop with all of my heart, at this point its not a choice its just natural for me, but the next time someone out side of the black race calls me a nigger I will not get mad I will not get offended, no matter how it was intended. I have no right, because now matter how it is spelled, Nigger, Niggah, Niggaz, it all still means the same thing. If I am to get mad at Billy Bob for calling me a nigger, then I might as well be mad at everybody who as ever called me nigger, black, white, green, yellow, famous or not. Including DMX, Jay-Z, Nas, 2Pac, Jim Jones, and the whole Roster of Hip Hops Heavyweights.
Maybe Jim Crow was right, Maybe we are Nothing But Niggers. Lazy, Ugly Violent, Simple, Flashy, Self Indulgent, with no long term plan or goals, forgive me for saying but I know a lot of black people who fit that Category, so hey I guess where Just Niggers. Tell me Hip Hop are we?

The Definition For Nigger Was Taken From “Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology, and Dr. Phillip Middletown, Professor of Languages and Literature, Ferris State University. Sept., 2001” http://www.thenewrepublic.com/061101/driver061101.html], September 7, 2001.

Do I still love her

by LYRICAL THOUGHT

I remember the sad day’s when I was a prisoner in my own house, the only escape I had was my music, I lay on my back stare at the ceiling and just let the music flow through me, Too Shorts “back in the day” “2Pacs keep your head up”, and the notorious B.I.G. “suicidal thoughts” were some of the songs that help me through my tough times. When I wanted to hear about the struggle, all I had to do was pop in my N.W.A cassette. Not every story was the same, but I could understand and respect everyone because they all had something unique to say and they all had their own way to say it. Some artist spit fast like Jay-Z (when he first came out) or some spit with a calculating flow, so you would be forced to pay attention (like Rakim), some rhymed with intelligence and Vocabulary, while others kept the profanity and bravado at an excess. I ate slept and breathed hiphop it was all that I ever needed to get through the day’s. For me 94-99 was the golden age, but just like any relationship things began to lag a little bit.

I was in love, I cant lie. I remember the day it became essential to my soul. I was in my boy’s “Kwane” room and as usual he and I were creating our own label and making up play artist to work on them. We would create three to four artist give them name’s Bio’s and then start writing the songs for their albums. I remember on that specific day I was working on a group called 911 and for whatever reason I just couldn’t think of anything to write for there album. I remember sitting on the bed groaning in frustration and tossing my pad to the side, I was ready to just give up on the whole concept of the album.

After letting me sit and be lazy for about five minutes Kwane snapped me out of my procrastination and suggested we listen to this new tape he got earlier today. There was nothing else to do, and as far as I was concerned, writing this album could wait so I agreed. It was some new rapper, a guy that I had heard about on the radio a couple of times but never really listened to, his name was Biggie Smalls, and the album was “ready to die”.
Sixty minutes of Pure Fire by the end of the first side of the cassette I was so inspired amazed that all I could do was just sit with my boy Kwane and wonder aloud why I had never heard him before. Every song from beginning to end was just so much better than anything that I have ever heard, but there was one song above all others on that tape that was able to shoot me with the cupid arrow that would make hiphop and I musical soul mates, forever connected..

 

“It was all a dream I used to read Word Up magazine” for you true hip hop fans and even the casual one’s you know that line can come from only one song Juicy. Kwane and I must of played that song a million times, but it just never got old to me, hearing his lyrics, what he had to say, and what he went through made me feel like I could relate to him, I could hear the emotion in his lyrics and it made me respect his story and want to support him so he could continue to succeed. By the time we went through every song in that album I was hooked, in my young mind I felt that if I could connect with biggie so easily through his music, and hear his story, then I should explore other artist, hear their stories and look for that same connection through their lyrics.

Before you knew it I was engulfed in this thing we call hiphop from 94-99. I must have just engulfed myself in hiphop, Kwane and I would take turns buying the newest albums, if we didn’t have the money to buy the albums we would just record the songs when they played on the radio. Hot 97 and The Source was the end all to be all at the time. Since we couldn’t afford to buy the source all of the time we would go to the library and read whatever issues they had there. It seemed like everyday I learned something new about hiphop, and everyday my connection with it grew stronger. Through some of the hardest times in my life, hip hop was always there for me. There were times when all I really had was hiphop.

I still love her, I always will its not something that I can just turn off. Hiphop is my first and last, the alpha and omega, she has changed in ways that I may never respect and understand, she may have lost her way, just like I did at times, but throughout the changes when things seemed grim she always fount a way to reach me. I almost turned my back on hiphop it just seemed like the love that we had before was gone, and that she had changed to much for me to accept, but like other relationships, the promise of improvement kept me here. So now that the relationship is once again on life support, I sit here and have to ask myself, do I still love her?

I remember the first time I really stepped away from hiphop, it was after I had heard a song which I felt just had no point (sipping on some sizzurp) after all of these years of hearing songs and lyrics that challenged me mentally and made me think about life and the culture that I lived in, hip hop was beginning to play to a whole new beat. Everyone was a killer, or extremely rich. I went from being able to listen to a hole album from intro to conclusion and loving every song, to hearing albums where the only thing I liked was the singles. I guess my love just got obsessed with the money, hiphop went from just trying to get people to hear her voice to shooting for every dollar possible. I felt as if I didn’t know her anymore.

When she first entered my world, her she defined the lives and creativity of so many artist, and now in my eyes at the least she was just a reflection of a good marketing plan and strong singles. There was a time when rappers were judged by their lyrical skill, content, delivery, and flow, but now a rappers skill is based on their record sale’s, you can be a rapper who never wrote your own song, who never spit a hot sixteen, and as long as you could make a catchy hook and sell records you were in there. A love that I once thought was only shared between myself and hiphop was now being whored around for everyone to get a taste of. Lyrical trains of no skill and content were being ran through her and it was ok, my love almost faded.