But what in Puffy that bothers so many people are the actions and the demeanor he's shown in getting that gold mine. 12 dead and countless injured in City College. Biggie, Tupac and several associates killed in the beef between east and west coast. A woman shot in the face in the Shyne incident. And Puffy shows no signs that these incidents, all of which he had a small to great responsibility in, affect him. Combs goes on, spending over a million dollars for single parties, showing no remorse, no pain, no compassion save a tepid tribute single and a tax write-off fund, nothing that would resemble what people in the real world call a soul. A sensibility that only a third world dictator could love. And the fruits of that sensibility? He's amassed a third of a billion dollars, Performed as Walter lee younger in the raisin in the sun (forgive us, Lorraine Hansberry, we know not what we do), cited as a leader for rallying a faux voter drive and given compliments by Peggy Noonan, the conservative columnist who, although god bless her grace and wit, probably wouldn’t want to be caught dead with Jill Scott or Anthony Hamilton. (And why not? He’s of her, and the "appropriate" caste.)
His story is not as egregious as Jadakiss', the gangsta rapper who grew up in the mean streets of the upper west side of Manhattan, with a doctor for a father and a CPA for a mother. Worse than that were Easy E and Ice Cube a suburbanite slacker and an Arizona state student, respectively. But the most egregious claim has to be of Suge Knight, long established as pop music most menacing gangster. Not many people know that he came from a two-parent home and was a graduate of the university of Nevada Los Vegas. Yeah that's right, I said it, Suge knight is a poser. He isn’t the way he is because he came from a broken environment. He's just evil.
My point about Combs is that there is a lot of people like him out there. Black children of privilege, who haven’t been poor, haven’t been in the struggle for civil rights and haven’t really felt all that much the lashes of racism, using America’s racial past for their own personal gain. To them the black poor are capital, a thing that is to be bartered and used as a club against whites and black people who don’t think like them. They have taken the race bating of Black nationalism and thought of it as their birthright, and they along with the parents that spawned them are a great deal of what's wrong about race in America.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
what an outstanding essay Robert! You are very thoughtful, knowledgable and articulate. Art is both representative and influential - this dichotomy/conflict has been argued since at least Aristotle
2 - Geek's Girl
Hip hip's influence spreads far and wide, right down to the bottom of Africa. There are a lot of people who need to read this, I am glad I have.
3 - Temple Stark
Indeed I'm a person, maybe about five years older (use to live in Gig Harbor and Kent) and - as a musical trip - my experience of and journey through hip-hop is very similar to yours (though Tupac was my thing and my appreciation for Biggie (who I'd barely heard of) grew after he died.
Both extremely sad as I still think Tupac was gifted far behind music and would have grown to be a very positive influence. And was to a certain extent already as he proved you could comercially portray yourself as a sensitive / smart black man without repercussions and still be successful. The Wu did that as well to a certain extent.
Mos Def is an inspiration and luckily a lot of people are tuned into that - just not "mainstream."
A lot of mainstream from Jay-Z to 50 Cent to Big Boi to the entire "G Unit" is one dimensional. That doesn't mean they can't occasionally pop out the great sounding tracks, but the SOP behind them is sadly the same.
With Jay-Z, I had a special affinity for Annie (don't ask) so I was drawn in there. But the rest of that album was posturing, as if people really wanted to kill him 9or cared one way or the other) and he was setting himself up as a martyr.
Anyway - fantastic write up.
4 - Bennett
Thanks for this Robert. Though not my style of music, your essay was well worth reading, and I learned quite a bit.
Cheers!
5 - Miss Hipstah
Your comments on Hip Hop and the current state it is in are though provoking. I am a great fan of Mos Def and Talib Kweli, but sadly even their music has lost a bit of its edge in recent years.
Being in college and "academia", it made me think of the various classes which I have attended where a discussion of race was always paired with a discussion of Hip Hop. The constant need by mostly White students to talk about 50 Cent as a current figure of Black culture was, to a degree, sickening.
I wish some of the students in those classes could read what you wrote. Maybe then they'd actually learn something.
6 - Connie Phillips
Robert,
This was very thought provoking. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this subject.
7 - Vern Halen
Thank you. You've articulated a lot of things that have always been unstated, and therefore unknown. Unfortunately, the people who need to read this article the most are most likely the people who'll never see it.