Russell Simmons on HipHop in 2007
Very interesting...
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Comments
Post your commentI read and heard about this. It appears after the Imus Fracas [Imus was a radio announcer at MSNBC and CBS removed after making racist remarks. MSNBC and CBS should have known better] people want to clean up music. Hip Hop for me is an art form that tells a story and truth. Many people in the Hip Hop Industry have gone ahead and made a name for themselves such as Queen Latifah.
This is interesting, to say the least. Artists defend their right to free speech, claiming to uphold a clean mirror in front of the societies they come from, bearing the torch as messengers of "truth". Well, its simple for me. We all have a right to express how we feel. Having a right entails responsibility, and it is usually those who take the time to reflect (on this responsibility
) that have the decency to accept the responsibility of how to portray whatever "truths" they feel is necessary to portray. All I have to say to all these rappers or "Emcees" is this: If Malcolm X could turn his life around, if Stanley Tookie Williams (co-founder of the Crips Gang) could make something with positive potentiality, out of all the misery he experienced...then what's up with y'all (even with the "money" y'all make)?
As far as snitching, it ultimately balls down to what you believe in and what you trust in. I don't trust humans...
The american media is corny yo, they let the dude behind all this shit off the hook (yea he lost his job bt he probably workin agin), and they turn to their favourite scapegoat HIP-HOP.
On the stop SNITCHING ting rappers kinda took it too far, but at the same time you got to understand that inner city BLACK youths are always targeted by law enforcement authorities which in itself creates a tense relationship. Young black man just dont trust the police, and that needs to be looked at first before trying to pin everyting on HIP-HOP. Im not trying to defend the rappers cause they just as f'd up as everyone else, fans need to realise that this is jus entertainment, if you do everyting they be sayin then you are an IDIOT.
Whats worse rappers lyrics or scenes from your favourite action/ horror movies??? Rappers need to come out defend themselves like SNOOP said its the players who need to be doing the talkin (all due respect to Russell, anyway no rapper has stepped up).
HIP-HOP WILL NEVER DIE, DON IMUS IS A FOOL....
Rappers who promote the idea of 'Stop Snitching' are leading the youth in totally the wrong direction - as Russell S said in the interview, if he sees or knows something, he will speak up.
More importantly what i liked about this interview is that clearly the host had been given an A4 page beforehand of all the things perceived to be negtive in Hiphop, and he actually had no awareness of the music and diversity itself. Russell S made him out to look a fool when he replied to accusations of rappers like 50 cent being crude and negative by commenting on the good work that the likes of Jay Z, Ludacris, and Alicia Keys are doing.
Also as has already been commented, yes there are images of guns and violence in hiphop, but why is this so bad compared to popular family movies such as the like of James Bond - why is it ok for such films to advertise showing a man holding a gun?