If rappers want to spew violent lyrics, that's fine. Just dont expect every black person to like it.
"She’s had rapists, child molesters, and lying authors on her show. And if I’m not a rags-to-riches story for her, who is?" — Ice Cube…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
26 - robert lashley
I'm sorry, I should have said claims they did in my last post.
27 - Jett
This article is bias and very one-sided. Ice Cubes parents did work at UCLA, but they werent teachers or anything, they were janitors(if I remember corectly). Rap music is what you call it, but the proper name is Hip Hop. The music you hear and the music you talk about is the music that the media wants you to hear. But if you dive deeper into Hip Hop, youll find a very intelligent open-minded group of people. When talking about such topics you should be clear about the group you are speaking of. Ice Cube is not an emcee of Hip Hop. He is a Gansgter Rapper. Gangster rap is a whole 'nother genre of Hip Hop, mostly media enduced to make hip hop seem as if its unintleligent blather. To see Rap and Hip Hop at its truest form you should try listening to somebody like Kanye West True Life, Lupe Fiasco, Mos Def, LL Cool J(the older songs), and GLC.
There are many non-gangster rappers with positive messeges that Oprah could have on the show. I think her opinion abotu not having rappers(emcees) on the show is very blind-minded and discriminative.
People(this goes to at least 75% of not only america, but the entire world) now adays need to think for themselves and figure thigns out on there own. We are to quick to judge people and cultures by what the media portrays.(the media as well as the goverment)
28 - Ivan Thomas
First of all...to these people trying to interpret rap music, you have no idea what you are talking about, because if you actually listened half of the songs aren't even about what you think they are. You need to learn how to read between the lines. Ice Cube is a father and a husband, so trust me he isn't supporting fathers abondoning their children. When Ludacris talks about hoes, he isn't referring to Black women...he is referring to hoes. If you aren't a hoe, then he isn't talking about you. Next, the issue with Oprah and the rap artists has absolutely nothing to do with rap music. So where Ice Cube grew up is absolutely irrelevant to the issue. It has to do with giving people fair opportunity. Take Ludacris for example....rap is only a part of his life, it doesn't define him. When he was on the Oprah show, he wasn't there as a rapper, he was there as an actor in the movie Crash. Now if she is going to invite him on the show, and allow the other actors in the movie to speak and share their opinions, then Ludacris should have recieved the same opportunity. I think that Oprah is an excellent woman and role model, and lots of what she has done has contributed greatly to society. However, that doesn't mean that she isn't fallible...she needs to give people a fair opportunity.
29 - Ivan Thomas
Also, this whole bs about how generous she is...yea you are right, she is. But contrary to what you might believe, many rappers contribute alot to their communities as well. Its not that hard to be generous when you are worth half a billion dollars. There is no need to even put race into the equation. If you want to put it that way she is more generous than most White people out there too....yourself included
30 - Fez 2
As a hip-hop artist I find a lot of things said here quite worrying. The majority of black people the world over are poor and lower down the economic scale. Oprah is the only black person in her position and that speaks volumes. Her main 'consumers' are obviously not black therefore who is playing the minstrel show here? The interesting thing about the so called 'black republican' view point is that it is directed mainly at a white middle class audience who cherish and wallow in its Strussian wisdom.
For a lot of black 'successful' people, the only way to be 'decent', 'educated', 'successful' or a 'role model' is to do those same things white people have been doing for years. This is why the phrase 'I am the first black that did this and that' is the overriding yard stick for the black (house negro) or even the ghetto (field negro) bourgeois achiever like Ice Cube and JZ.
I agree with Thomas Sowell that Ebonics and the so called MTV ghetto culture is a relic of the 19th century white redneck culture. But the funny thing is that the alternative for Sowell is to succumb to white middle class culture dating back to the French court society and Victorian protestant England. Both Oprah and her critics’ biggest audience are white middle class people whether youths or ‘middle age white women’. This is a trend pioneered by the minstrel show. So for me, Oprah’s distain for rap disguised in pseudo feminist garb is an attempt to separate herself from her field brother. Those who make the high culture/low culture distinction between gangsta rap and hiphop are basically doing the same thing.
Whether Ice cube was born middle class or not, he is now middle class, so is the so called commercial black culture and ‘entertainment’ which gangsta rap and Oprah’s show is an integral part of. We must not forget that just like the Minstrel show industry, the ‘entertainment’ industry is mainly consumed by white middle class people, who also immensely profit from it. The phrase ‘behind every successful black entrepreneur there is a whiteman’ is not so far from the truth or the whiteman’s yardstick of overrated fairness. Part of the problem with all this naïve analysis of what is high culture and low culture; dumb hiphop and intelligent rap; ghetto culture and suburbia nuanced sensibility; overrated fairness and truth, liberals and conservatives is that it all fits into the model of house negro and field negro. The only person the house negro wants to be better than is his field brother. Malcolm X understood this very well - massa we sick?
31 - Wanderer
So Oprah should invite guests who are of no real interest to her audience because their skin color is the same as hers. Interesting concept. Would you defend some white talk show host who had a KKK leader on his show and say he had no choice but to do it because the Klansman had the same skin color as he did? Or let's take the hate out of it, and simply ask if Michael Savage has to give Michael Moore a podium because they're both white? Obviously that's crazy talk.
Let's flip this around a bit. Shouldn't the offended rappers have just as much obligation to promote Oprah's talk show as she has to promote their music? Shouldn't they be writing about how great her show is, and how everyone should watch it, just because her skin is the same color theirs is? Crazy talk again, of course. And it's just as crazy the other way around.
It's a free country. Ice Cube has the right to sell any kind of music he wants to sell. Oprah has the right to sell any kind of talk show she wants to sell. And neither one of them has any obligation to promote the other one's business for any reason, least of all because of the color of their skin.
32 - Andie
Oprah has yet to have a death metal act on her show. No polka either! What is this world coming to?
33 - Mr Mackey
Gangsta's are bad mm'kaaaaaaay
34 - sp0
ICE Cube is black. Oprah is black. Oprah is playing the woman card on this one. The thing is she seems to be saying that black women should marry white men or something who are also sexist....
Mostly the world is sexist against women. Thus, i do not understand how she could support any males..
For instance, she likes Keyne West, but that dude supports a male looking G-d. Then she likes jay-z as a rapper too, but that guy used to pimp girls lots....
thus, i do not understand how she wants to play this game.... it seems like she is using that women are scared of violence and thus should hide and say they are victimized and try to hide sexism instead of confronting it...
it is all hyprocritical and goes around in a cycle.
35 - sp0
The point is this:
Ice Cube and Ludacris are doing wonderful work at exposing sexism in society. They talk about what is reflection. It is Oprah who wants to hide it and not talk about it like it does not exists...
If Ice Cube and Ludacris talk about sexism in society does that mean they are sexist? I am not sure. If i say that being sexist means that i have hoes in a different area code.... it is about exposing sexism in society.... it is not saying i actually have a girlfriend or anything similar.
36 - hey dd
some of you are missing the point. some one touched on it above but the bigger problem here is capitalism and how we are liveing in a white supremist patriacy. refer to bell hooks' article on this called Sexism and Misogyny: Who Takes the Rap? this is not to say that these rappers are off the hook but we need to look at the bigger picture why this is happening, who owns these business and corporations who distribute this music, who's in power. the white man with white interset they dont care about people of color they just care about what sells, and if they think sexism sells they are going to play it up, and encourage artists to play it up. the problem is a systmeic one. wathing oprah's town forom i couldn't not think about this. untill we think about these things critically they will continue and even oprah is perpetuating this.
and there are good rappers out ther mos def, talib, roots, M.I.A> but they dont get mainstream play b/c thier lyrics do not perputate those things that's way they dont have as large of a market. anyways thats all
37 - Jorge Garcia
Okay, screw Oprah, screw the guy that wrote this article, and screw everybody that doesn't like Gangsta Rap (which isn't very many people).
Maybe Ice Cube did have a good childhood, maybe he didn't, I don't know, what I do know is that someone did, and Ice Cube knows that. Like he said when he was with the N.W.A, they're just speaking the truth of what goes on in the world and on the streets. They rap about what happens on the streets. What's wrong with that!?
People like Oprah and the guy that wrote this article like to think happy thoughts, but the second someone speaks the truth of what goes on in the world, it promotes something like violence, rape, murder, arsen, theft, or war, and it should be stopped. What about when someone reports it on the news, should they be stopped?
I got something to say to the guy that wrote this article and Oprah, bad things are going to happen in the world anyways. The truth hurts, and that's what Ice Cube speaks on his records, the truth. Ice Cube is just like a news reporter, he just raps about what happens in the world, adds music, makes it entertaining, puts it on CD's, and makes a living out of doing it. What's wrong with that? NOTHING!
38 - V8
Its true. Great point of view.
Thats why i listen more to KRS-ONE than to Ludacris.
"KRS-ONE - Black Women" Hip Hop Response to this case.