selling out for the white devils

actually, why should white people ever be allowed 'black music' ever? clearly they're just trying to get off on this wild alien experience, especially since the lines between the races are so clearly and scientifically drawn that they could never possibly relate to any sentiments within except as a wild negro fantasy. also rich people shouldn't listen to music by anyone poorer than them.

Plus I am sick of Anglophile Americans like N.Raggett presuming they understand our complex home counties culture. They are living vicariously through Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine and I think it's sick - can't he listen to ska-punk like everyone else?

Goddamnit, don't you people sleep?!:-) Anyway, good late morning (orange juice in hand). Ethan et al, my apologies. Should've been clearer. My point was that rap music being marketed towards a predominantly white audience is somewhat linked to the fact that hiphop isn't owned or rather controlled by the people who make it. It never was, apart maybe from Russel Simmons and maybe some other guys (Sugarhill Records back in the day). The only money going back to the community is exclusively for the artist, it seems. So Spike Lee's argument on hiphop being some sort of a minstrel show is harsh, but valid in my book. Major rap artists working the bling and bragging about running the city of New York do it because it's all the situation warrants them to do. They're just gettin a small portion of the real money that's being made and they better be grateful. "Yessa Masta". "Hey mom, did you get that mink coat I sent you?" Ever noticed how Afro-Centrist/ politicised hiphop suddenly took a nosedive in the early nineties? Who drew the killswitch? Nobody seems to want to address black issues anymore. And I'm not even talking about starting some 5%-er revolution or killing whitey or anything. It's all about parties, bling, beef, killing eachother and other "safe" issues. Even indie hiphop isn't doing its part (maybe because particularly that sector is owned by the other guy who'd rather hear about bombing a train over a futuristic beat than to be confronted with issues like oppression, black-on-black crime, etc). Chuck D. (who, ironically enough, now prefers to fight the power of the RIAA instead of that of the foes people like Al Sharpton still rail against) once said hiphop was "the black CNN". Nowadys it seems like people want us to believe that the ghetto's have been torn down and everybody moved on up like George and Weezy. I'm sure many (white) people, also outside the U.S., (I don't mean to speak for any of the regulars on this board, but raise your hand if you're with me on this one) understood that back then too and really dug the music, also for that reason.

The thing is though that explicitly political music in every genre and made by people from every background has been unfashionable since the early 90s: the decline of political hip-hop since 93-94 mirrors (underground) the commercial and momentum failure of political indie in Britain and feminist punk in America and (overground) the decline of big stadium cause-rock of the Simple Minds ilk. Why was this? Dunno, but it happened - the only even vaguely fashionable politics in the mid-late 1990s was identity politics, and the I'm-Real obsessions of current rap at every level places it firmly in that sector.

'The thing is though that explicitly political music in every genre and made by people from every background has been unfashionable since the early 90s: the decline of political hip-hop since 93-94 mirrors (underground) the commercial and momentum failure of political indie in Britain and feminist punk in America and (overground) the decline of big stadium cause-rock of the Simple Minds ilk. Why was this?'

Easy, what passes for (some would say 'straitjackets') 'politics' in music is invariably the soft-left line. So how could anyone work up a head of steam with Clinton in office? Notice how the East Coast buried LA after Giuliani elected in NYC.

Why was this? Dunno, but it happened. Maybe it was the economic optism of the time, with a subsequent action to sanitize the business while popularity was waning. What strikes me as odd is that almost everything else in popular culture seems to be radicalising in the face of the current economic decline, except music.

music = intrinsically radical because ANTI-identity politics (which = not really politics anyway, but bad art)?

radicalism of rap was THAT IT REACHED OUT TO KIDS DIFFT TO THOSE MAKING IT!??!

Not sure how the likes of Master P and Suge fit into Alacran's ownership of the means of production theory...

I think a large amount of current rap's appeal is not so much - or not exclusively - its explicit socioeconomic or cultural associations, but also the wealth of semiotic material that's built into the lexicon and paradigmatic choices. Gangsta rap = not alien world, but alien discourse. Political/Positivity rap is nearly always didactic by its very nature, therefore wants to be intelligible to the broadest possible audience = often quite boring presentation (see also straightforward autiobiographical realism). There's a continuity throught most rap currently from indie to gangsta via Wu-Tang that favours magic realism as a mode of expression, both in terms of the images and their presentation.

"hiphop isn't owned or rather controlled by the people who make it"

how is hiphop different then, from most other forms of music?

I am sick of Anglophile Americans like N.Raggett presuming they understand our complex home counties culture

What's complex about deciding whether you want sugar in your tea or not?

Not sure how the likes of Master P and Suge fit into Alacran's ownership of the means of production theory... *banging head against the wall screaming expletives* Totally overlooked that one.

radicalism of rap was THAT IT REACHED OUT TO KIDS DIFFT TO THOSE MAKING IT!??! No, I was talking about the message it was carrying back then. Aww, fuck it. Nevermind.

Hip Hop is what it is a form of music that is currently Popular nothing more nothing less....and like any form of music if money can be made on it it becomes a viable business. America is now listening to Ghetto Poets and they see it as a form of entertainment not a geo political mat but simply Nigro's with slain expressing themself period one could argue that hip hop is more then that if it is I would call it the cries of the self oppress in other words the lazy mans way to potential riches with out no plan no understanding and no direction... hiphop is simply the blues with no singing in it another way out for Black american who did'nt have any talents playing sports.... I wish our People would be More accomplish in being Doctors, Lawyers, and inventors then we could make a real statement that wont be a another form of entertainment

I'm sorry, but I can't get over your use of the word "Nigro". This is probably more my problem than yours.

And you were crap in 4 weddings Andy.

Oh, trust me, Andy, if we manage to survive as a race long enough, all those inventors will create fun new forms of entertainment like genetic modification and biological transformation. The doctors will implement it, and the lawyers will protect the patents and copyright! Mind you, positive enhancements like increased I.Q. will be most available to those who can afford it. But this will just help them guide the wise allocation of resources in society, as today's doctors and lawyers do. Who will have time for plebeian arts like 'rap' in the coming days??

Chuck D. once said hiphop was "the black CNN".

:-0