The demented scribblings of hip-hop

An unpopular truth

[Reprinted from Issues & Views March 24, 2003]

Ah, hip-hop/rap. The deranged musical forms that just won't die. At least not soon enough for a whole lot of people. "It's spirit killing," says a critic of this expressive noise, and in New York City there are many who agree. A report in the city's Amsterdam News, entitled "Turn off the radio!" (3/6/03), describes yet another futile effort by some black New Yorkers who desire to "minimize the increasingly destructive impact" of these popular compositions.

Hoping to form a movement that spreads, these optimists have come together to influence listeners to turn off their radios "until stations open their playlists to more conscious and uplifting music." They are taking their case to managers of radio stations and accuse such stations of being geared towards "romanticizing the thug life." Rev. Calvin Butts, pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church, who, a few years ago, led a similar campaign to denounce vulgar lyrics in music, is now part of this crusade. When criticized for advocating censorship, Rev. Butts responds that it is the stations that are acting as censors, when those who run them censor out more elevating forms of music. He says he would just like to see "more balanced" playlists.

At the press conference held at the church to announce this latest campaign, Brenda Watts, a member of the New York Association of Black Educators, claimed, "Many of our children can't write a decent sentence," and described such youth as "imitating and absorbing" the negative content spilling from radio stations. Her words offer a sad fact to think about: semi-literate young people, whose heads are bombarded with vulgar and sexually visceral verbiage on a daily basis.

Contingents of these youths almost came together in what was to be a super hip-hop event. That was the plan before the city of Atlanta rejected an application from the "Hip-Hop Summit Action Network" to hold a music festival there in April. Festival organizers sought to draw the largest crowd ever to such an event, and billed it as the "Woodstock of Hip-Hop."

In its rejection, the city cited concern over "crowd estimates," effect on traffic, and the financial resources that would be necessary to keep order and control in surrounding regions. (Well, the city fathers didn't say it exactly like that, but any thinking person got the message.) Officials pointed out that the hip-hop event was scheduled on the same weekend as Atlanta's Dogwood Festival and annual arts and crafts fair, which usually draw about 100,000 visitors.

After their application was denied, organizers turned to nearby Conyers, hoping to rent the Georgia International Horse Park. That application, too, was denied. (Were those audible sighs of relief being exhaled all around the environs of Atlanta?)

News that a hip-hop Woodstock will have to wait for another time certainly would not sadden Rosa Parks, of bus-riding fame, who cannot say enough against these musical spinners of what she calls "profanity and racial and sexist slurs." A couple of years ago, Parks sued the duo rappers known as "OutKast" for entitling one of their crude songs with her name. Although she lost in court on First Amendment grounds, she has not ceased expressing her indignation.

And, as if it isn't enough that this low-grade music genre is now steeped in youth culture, thanks to lazy teachers, it has made its way into the classroom. Leave it to the academics to validate the perverse and degenerate. In "Hip-hop hogwash in the schools" (1/15/03), syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin describes some of what's going on:

[U]niversal themes and great books, which have challenged, enriched and inspired generations of students around the world, no longer hold sway in the modern academy. At Crenshaw High School, the major conflict being studied is "Man vs. Ho." The revered bard is dead rapper Tupac Shakur. Los AngelesTimes reporter Erika Hayasaki enthusiastically describes how English teacher Patrick Camangian got his students talking about the "lyrics" by the late Shakur from an uplifting opus titled "Shorty Wanna Be a Thug"/"Blaze up, gettin' with ho's through my pager."

Reports Hayasaki: "A lively discussion ensued about sexism, racism and how degrading terms such as 'ho' -- slang for whore -- can be used to dehumanize and divide people. In hip-hop terms, the students were feelin' it." It's bad enough that the demented scribblings of various hoodlums are being peddled in public high schools as literature. Even worse are the "academic" courses being taught in elite colleges.

Here's a recent syllabus I found on the Internet from Dr. Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar, who teaches at the University of Connecticut's Department of History. The course: "Hip-Hop: Politics and Popular Culture in Late 20th Century United States." Among the educational objectives: "to discuss, at a college-level proficiency, the contributions of various artists on hip-hop and the significance of the art form in the United States and abroad."

One unit on "development and evolution" focuses on "breaking, popping, graffiti, (and) colloquialisms," with an emphasis on the great minds of "Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Kurtis Blow, (and) Afrika Bambaattaa." . . . Students must produce a "creative writing paper" that develops a 200-250 word rhyme. He provides a helpful example and analysis:

MCs think I'm like an artery because I bring the flow,
But I'm really just vain so in case you don't know,
I put out wack MCs like yo momma put out the booty
You think you a big baller, but you the smallest like Rudy . . .

Welcome to the morass of self-absorbed multiculturalism, where urban "relevance" is the be-all and end-all of the intellectual experience. Where teachers are listening partners, rather than imparters of knowledge. Where Fat Albert and Prince Hamlet are equals. Where education has been reduced to the false art of "feelin' it" and "keepin' it real."

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