It is often jarring when the cleanliness of theory meets the messiness of reality. Such was the source of the recent smack in the face I received when I purchased one of my sons a MP3 player for his birthday. All of my neat theories about keeping the evil rap music at bay ran head first into the hard reality that this is the music of young people and my son is, well, young. The very first songs he asked to download onto his music player were from someone calling himself Mims, who like so many of these young men has a penchant for grabbing his crotch and another character calling himself Soulja Boy.
I know. Hip-hop is the great cultural unifier bringing all nations together under one groove. From France to Timbuktu, kids are waving their hands up high and wearing their pants down low; they are keeping it real and speaking the language of Rap, the vernacular of the streets. “Look out whitey! Hip-hop gonna get your momma!” What more proof do you need than the fact that the movement has swept into white middle class homes?
Hurrah for hip-hop!
An associate of mine was visiting American troops in Bosnia. As he walked down the street, a young Yugoslav boy greeted him with a jolly, “what up my N—?”.
As Flip Wilson might have remarked: “So after the fight…”
In all fairness, no cultural movement is perfect. Still one has to wonder if a movement whose greatest claim to fame is baggy pants and teaching the world to use a pejorative term with such nonchalance ought not pause to reconsider the values it is espousing.
But the cleanliness of theory is no match for messy reality. This is the music young people are listening to; it is the language of “what’s happenin’ now.” And as much as I may dislike it, many of the movement’s ambassadors are characters like Mims grabbing his crotch and bragging: “this is why I’m hot. This is why you’re not!” And Soulja Boy imploring us to watch him “superman dat #@.” (What is happening now indeed! As opposed to what was happening then, you know like singing “everybody join hands and start a love train.” Or sporting Afros and declaring, “Say it loud, I’m Black and I’m proud.”) It is of little use to wonder about what should be. The reality is that as a parent, I must face head on the world as it is.
Alas for me. Either his mother or I must now approve all of the music that goes onto his device, which means we must listen to it first. It may be a sign of my old age, (although I think of it as evidence of my good taste in music) but after a few minutes of listening to this stuff, I am ready to pull my hair out one gray strand at a time. Hip-hop has clearly been a boon to a lot of marginally talented people. In the spirit of keeping it real, stardom is no longer reserved for those that can sing, play an instrument, read and write music or those that have something interesting to say. Apparently, a penchant for shucking and jiving is the only requirement.
I remain hopeful, however. I am of the opinion that there is no amount of minstrelsy that cannot be cured by a healthy dose of the Isley Brothers. With that in mind, my wife and I have loaded our son’s player with old school R&B. When he scrolls through his play list, in addition to the Isleys, there is Earth Wind and Fire, the O’Jays, Harold Melvin and a little Carlos Santana for flavor. We slipped in some Jackie Wilson, Marvin Gaye and no collection would be complete without the godfather himself, James Brown, who said, “Open up the window y’all. Let out some. Too funky in he’e!”
Joseph C. Phillips is the author of “He Talk Like A White Boy” available wherever books are sold.
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