In preparation for an upcoming lecture and reflecting upon
the recent Grammy Awards the person who invited me asked me what happen to the
consciousness of hip hop music.
Although, that one particular question was part of a larger dialog it
beckoned me to think what did happen to the consciousness of my beloved music (although we are still divorced) I came
away with this.
First and foremost all of which I shared with my colleague
is that there is a very thin line between rebellion and deviance. I explained it to her in this manner,
while N.W.A’s 1988 ground breaking song F-
- K Tha Police off the Straight Out
of Compton album represented a sentiment about how youth at that time and
probably today felt about police and their occupying force tactics it also represented
a watershed moment when rebellion and deviance collided only to see deviance
prevail. What I mean by this is
prior to that moment very few if any in my generation had the gumption or even
the audacity to play a song with curse words in front of an adult let alone
utter a profane word.
The credence of F - -K
Tha Police set in motion a level of desensitivity around language and the
usage of language to communicate a point that ultimately led to defining images
(i.e. only certain types of people allow people to talk to them in less than
endearing terms). The usage of
less than endearing words gave way to less than endearing images because surely
men and women of standards would not allow themselves to be called or defined
as bitches and hoes. Yet the
language and imagery from that moment is still defining what it means to be
African-American. With an eye
toward the intellectual argument of it all it’s not the song nor its title that
represented the problem it’s the lack of subsequent action on the part of my
generation in particular that represents the issue.
The song in and of itself suggested and warranted an action
around an issue that had been plaguing African-American youth from Compton to
Sherwood. Even today given the
recent indictment of the police officer in Charlotte there may be some merit to
the song. I don’t know, but
somewhere a young person has been empowered by a song that had its origins based
upon an empty action.
What’s even larger for me is the idea that rebellion music
without any follow up action gives way to behavior that often times falls right
into deviancy based upon lack of inaction on the part of those oppressed. The previous generation for example had
an action step attached to rebellion music:
We
Shall Overcome written by Pete Seeger was the action song of the Civil Rights
Movement
Mercy
Mercy Me written by Marvin Gaye was the action song to protest the Vietnam War
However, there was no action attached to F - -K Tha Police just a bunch of angry
words written by frustrated and disenfranchised youth. I would even presuppose that all of
this built up anger around a social wrong and no way to generate a remedy led
to a f- - k it mentality that persist in most urban centers today. To go a step further I would even offer
that this one moment in 1988 gave way to what defines the larger hip hop
culture today.
That’s My Truth and I AM Sticking To It
Dr. Irvin PeDro Cohen…
