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 Now online (2)big recycle ...and 653 guests Last 5 registered Oplandisks nothingstar N_loop yipe foxtrotromeo Browse members... |
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i dunno how many will take the time to READ this rather lengthy message Saul left a few months ago on his site, but for those who do, you'll find it REALLY eye opening and quite an honest opinion from the eyes of a black entertainer on hip hop, and SO MANY other things.....i just found this to be excellent, i hope a few of you do as well!! ok, finally. well, i would definitely agree that much of hip hop has served as great works of fiction. but that is hardly the case with contemporary main stream hip hop. although rappers may not own the cars they drive in their videos, they definitely aim to and most would be quite hesitant to let you know that there is any gap between their rap persona and their real life. most do not seem to set out to write works of fiction nowadays and thus i would question whether they would qualify in the fiction category. when a rapper brags about his ice he brags about his ice. contemporary hip hop reflects our fixation with the materialistic idea of success. in 1982 when run dmc boasted about "champaigne, caviar, and bubble bath", that was fiction. but there desire to become rich was not. nowadays the "real" element is much more closely linked to the truth. i personally have no problem with that. i love the real element of hip hop. i like 50 cent. I liked it when jay z counted "10 million, 20 million, 30 million more", because it wasn't fiction when he said it, so it resonated beautifully. we love it when someone like dr. dre or jay z boasts because it's real. we hardly prefer fiction in hip hop nowadays. |
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cont. so the difficulty arises when these same rappers express some view of reality that we disagree with. whether it be exploitive, abusive, or just uninformed we have to decide the level of importance they are putting into what they are saying and the level of importance we place upon it. for myself, i am incapable to listening to hip hop as background music. when a song is on i'm listening to the lyrics. if the lyrics are totally connected to a mentality that i don't want to ingest, i turn it off, for the same reasons, i don't eat meat, i don't want that shit in my system. ingestion is ingestion and is not only a factor when consuming food. that is not to say that i don't listen to contemporary hip hop. i find much of jay z's cockiness undeniable. 50 cent resonates with me because it feels real and because his wit is proof of some gained understanding through his travails. ja rule always felt like fiction to me, on the other hand, and so i never liked him. fiction is no longer a factor in mainstream hip hop. the philip k dick heads (no pun intended), although they have great sales, are still underground, and if that is what you're referring to then i agree 100%. but if you're talking about the power stations or the beat stations then...nah. perhaps you could compare posdonus to a camus and nas to a genet, but for the most part these radio emcees are far from fiction writers. modern day hip hop aims more to be autobiographical than fictitious. we'll stop supporting an emcee if we find out they're fake. |
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still cont... what if the autobiography of malcolm x was a lie? r kelly is not nabokov, rather he's become a main character in lolita or a work of fiction as have many hip hop artists. the aim seems to be to live in the video. thus they would not be writers of fiction, rather portrayers of it. or worse yet, they are unsuspecting characters in a snuff film, being directed by the unseen hand of capitalism and big business. but once again don't get me wrong, lil' kims, "the jump off" had a great beat and i liked it. alot of this shit is undeniable and the quest is to be free of judgement and open to all perspectives. but that does not imply that we must surrender our ability to discern. there is a time and place for everything. and the strict vegetarian diet is not for everyone. which is to say, that you, alone, must discern what your tolerance level is. can you still think creatively and originally after a day of listening to the radio? can you function imaginitavely and not as a reactionary if you spend 4 hours watching cnn? it may not benifit me to listen to violent or donald trump loving hip hop, because i may have a slow auditory metabolism, where for you, it may go in one ear and out the other, and so not effect you greatly. only you know. and how often and for how long should you fast, from the radio, the television, just to get an idea of what thoughts are your own and what you've ingested into your belief system unsuspectingly? these are the questions that are of importance to me. my dissatisfaction with much of contemporary hip hop is the same as my disatisfaction with much of contemporary america. not enough people seem to be thinking for themselves. and that is not true of great fiction writers. great fiction writers have always prided themselves on originality. the american rag to riches story can no longer be said to be an original story which disqualifies many of our contestants. |
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keep READING!!! i promise it's worth it!! but then there are so many sides to the story. because much of this is still an african-american phenomenon. and history has been turned against us for so long that why should we hesitate to revel in earthly glory that's been denied us for so long? well, the reason why is because, we can see how it's a dead end street to invest in exploitation (literally) and it seems to me to be an even greater crime for those who have been exploited to invest in the exploitation of others. we should be well aware of the sweat shops connected to nike, gap, and all the companies we support because they exploit people of color just as we were decades ago. we should be well aware of the violence surrounding diamonds in africa, because countless africans are murdered daily as a result of the malevolence of the power/money hungry tyrants and corporations that own the mines. so then when the song is about ice, and the beat is hot, and the rapper is obviously uninformed (uniformed), or just doesn't give a fuck, where is the fiction? in order to write fiction you must first be aware of the facts. and the fact is that most of us, emcees or not, have succumb to believing in the dog eat dog reality that america presents as God. The powers that be, know the facts. they feed us fiction. main stream emcees sound like republicans for the most part. they've bought into the fiction they've been told and are perpetuating the myth of happiness as connected to wealth, devoid of spirit... but i digress fiction in hip hop was beautiful while it claimed airtime up 'til the early 90's. but the whole keep it real phenomenon, which was really a reaction to hammer, will smith, and vanila ice, limited hip hops growth tremendously and hampered many imaginative aspects of it. because then it claimed that it wasn't hip hop if it wasn't raw, street, projects, ghetto. but LL, run dmc, rakim, de la, tribe, chuck d, epmd, and many more all came from houses with basements and lawns. queens or long island. and |
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wee bit more!! queens or long island. and these were the people responsible for making it global.... (draw your own conclusions here) i just re-listened to jeru's "can't the stop the prophet...". i loved that album, but i always had to fast forward past that "da bitches" track. the point is that the contemporary songs that we would point to as mysogynistice are not works of fiction, they are pure uncut excerpts of peoples minds. for instance, think of the love affair that black americans, in particular, have with image of the pimp. now think of every emcee that has likened themself to a pimp in a song. now think of the number of them caught in a sex scandal at one time or another. unfortunately, it all adds up. there would be no problem if most cats didn't aim at making less of a gap between there rap personans and there real lives. what if prodigy of mobb deep boasted of growing up middle class and of having supportive enough parents to put him in a ballet class? what if guru boasted of having a judge for a father and graduating from morehouse college? hip hop is powerful. it effects you internally. you automatically nod your head "yes" when the beat drops. |
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this is IT! =0) thus in my perspective it cannot benefit us all as an "anything goes" artform. i am not for any type of imposed censorship. i'm just into cats that ain't trying to be the next "dawg" eat "dawg" in black face, cause i'm not trying to sit through a repetition of history, just with more cameras. i'm trying to use the cameras to expose the bullshit and share our findings as we enter the realest cypher imaginable. i'm trying to love more and more. i'm trying to spend more time creating and less time analyzing (and less time on-line). i'm trying to spend more time making love and less time worrying or doubting. and if, in the meanwhile, some fucked up hook comes on the radio, with a nice beat, i'll be trying to jack that beat and render my example of what i would do with it to add to the ongoing societal dialogue (ie. dead prez, "turn off the radio"). and if i find out that danzy senna or tom robbins is writing rhymes instead of novels, i'll be sure to pick it up. and who's the james baldwin of hip hop? |
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saul williams speaks in lieu of myself.. by proxy.. I do and always have (said this) completely where did he say this? |
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i'm SO glad you took the time to read this.....i was like nodding to myself throughout ..... i was stunned that he admitted to this -------> "i am incapable to listening to hip hop as background music. when a song is on i'm listening to the lyrics. if the lyrics are totally connected to a mentality that i don't want to ingest, i turn it off, for the same reasons, i don't eat meat, i don't want that shit in my system." BRAVO!!! Saul =0) you can find this and other great things he's written |
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oh nice! does he frequently engage with/respond to the posters on that site? |
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why are you surprised he admitted that? btw I think his "PE#1" scene in slam is probably one of the greatest film moments of all time |
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apparently so, he went on after that initial post after someone responded. i wish i coulda linked you directly to the post but i wasn't working for some reason! =/ i loved SLAM.....i was lucky enough to see him in DC last year.....he opened for Andrew W.K. if you can believe it. hehehehe i dunno i have yet to see a major artist say that some hip hop lyrics are not all that.....i have a love/hate relationship with hip hop....only because i really dislike what are IMO the mysogynistic attitude of some rappers. and sometimes i can't take the language. i dunno, i just gets to me after a while. i was just glad to not be the only one that felt like what Saul described as "not wanting that shit in my system." i couldn't agree more. some things no matter how acclaimed just will remain off my playlist because i can't ignore the lyrics for the arresting beat! |
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oh believe me .. there are plenty of people that come out against the content of most mainstream rap songs/albums.. the most critical are those within the hiphop community that are disappointed with their fellow members and want to see better things from the people that give them a bad name.. or they want the spotlight that the media puts on negative stereotype to be placed rather on the uplifting and more enlightened music hiphop has to offer.. |
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well i'm VERY glad to read it from someone who i think has some very thoughtful and interesting things to say! this is the direct link to the comments, and you can read what else he said. for SOME reason it's not working for me, but i hope it works for you! (for me it said something about illegal characters or somesuch) http://www.saulwilliams.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi ?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=000011;p=2#000016 |
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nice .. thanks! |
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*true dat* |
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yippee thanks for taking the time to read this VERY important message! this is just BRILL IMO! "it may not benifit me to listen to violent or donald trump loving hip hop, because i may have a slow auditory metabolism, where for you, it may go in one ear and out the other, and so not effect you greatly. only you know. and how often and for how long should you fast, from the radio, the television, just to get an idea of what thoughts are your own and what you've ingested into your belief system unsuspectingly? these are the questions that are of importance to me. my dissatisfaction with much of contemporary hip hop is the same as my disatisfaction with much of contemporary america. not enough people seem to be thinking for themselves." |
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That's a very perceptive analysis... "Mainstream emcees sound like republicans for the most part. They've bought into the fiction they've been told and are perpetuating the myth of happiness as connected to wealth, devoid of spirit..." Absolutely bang on. I often wonder if mainstream hip hop could reject consumerist obsessions or whether people would simply stop listening if it did. Is mainstream "realness" ignoring the facts of how the capitalist model operates to pursue its own populist agenda, or does it indicate a true belief that life SHOULD operate in this way, ie "dawg eat dawg" no matter who it fucks along the way? It's an interesting point anyway. |
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I promise to read this tommorow... I'm in a hurry now, but this is in my favs. I like Saul Williams. |
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o God! i just can't brring myself to do it. |
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great point. i wondered how many up and coming emcee's yearn to make it to the big time to take in all the bling bling or if they are in it for the love of the music. sadly i fear that most are in the former catagory with just a minority in the other. for me hip hop is about the thought provoking lyrics just as much as the beat. if they start going on and on about bitches and ho's and pimping.....i just turn it off.......not my cup O tea! |
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