Posts Tagged ‘Music’
L
et’s get the formalities out the way early on. Jay-Z is the greatest rapper of all time. He resembles Jordan and Ali because talent wise he wasn’t the best, but looking at his entire body of work he’s the greatest. Jay-Z became the greatest not because of skill, but like Jordan because of the business of the business. And moreover, Jay-Z was in the right place at the right time to receive the benefits. Anyone who doubts that the globalization of hip hop and the Internet did not contribute to Jay-Z’s success is just not paying attention.
J
ay-Z has become much more than a businessman. Jay-Z is a business, man. Jay-Z has gotten to the point where his name, as ridiculous as Jay-Z sounds to a self-respecting individual garners a certain level of respect and reaction. “These are the new shoes Jay-Z had on in his new music video.” Now all of a sudden it’s okay to wear those Gucci flip flops. So I’d have to say that Jay-Z is about his business.
Buppie or Not?
H
ere’s my issue, there’s a big difference between being a hustler and being a professional. A hustler and a professional are both businessmen, and they both are about their business. However, a hustler takes something that people never thought was a commodity or worth anything, packages it in a way to make you want it, regardless of whether it has any real worth, and people buy it… A LOT. A professional choose more traditional paths of using goods and services to gain wealth, even if it be a creative twist. To be perfectly honest, from my perspective, Jay-Z packaged stories about selling drugs and being a “gangster” to become wealthy.
F
urthermore, is Jay-Z’s largest fan base Black or White? Ask 50 Cent this question and he’ll break it down for you. Do you honestly think that “urban” America makes Jay-Z the type of money that puts him near the top of the Forbes list as one of the richest Americans? No, it’s suburban America, white suburban America, that took Jay-Z from being mainstream Hip Hop, to being mainstream, period. Jay-Z could have 25 straight #1 hits on the Rap/Hip-Hop 100, but if he never made the Billboard 100, it wouldn’t mean a thing. So we can easily conclude that it wasn’t anything “urban” about Jay-Z’s wealth.
I
don’t think that Jay-Z is a Black Urban Professional because 1) his money isn’t coming from an urban fan base, it’s coming from suburban people, and 2) he’s not a professional, he’s a hustler. I consider Russell Simmons a Black Urban Professional, but not Rev. Run. I think L.A. Reid is a Buppie, but not Jermaine Dupri. Sooner or later, will Jay-Z become a buppie? He can, but it will be once he fully distances himself from all of the drugs and viole-
nce and people see him as a businessman who provides a good or services. Take for example, Will Smith and to some extent Ice Cube. People in college today, don’t have a clue that Will Smith used to be a rapper. And if they would stop playing that “Put Your Back Into It” song by Ice Cube, no one would have a clue that Ice Cube isn’t just a filmmaker.
Le Sigh…
Call me a hater, but who gave her permission to speak on this??
It’s ok Beyonce, just stick to dancing and singing..
The penultimate paragraph of this piece confirmed my suspicion that “Americans” is a euphemism for “White Americans”. Otherwise, why would Obama’s “exotic background and multicultural looks” require that he prove to Americans that he “shares or at least respects their values”? The clear implication is that “Americans” equal White Americans. Are there not many non-white Americans with similar looks and backgrounds similar to Obama’s?
- A Close Confidant
Brush It Off
by Maureen Dowd
Op-ed ColumnistIt had to be the first time in history that a presidential candidate had a hip-hop moment.
Barack Obama, who says he listens to Jay-Z along with his “old school guy” favorites like Earth, Wind & Fire and the Temptations, alluded to the rapper’s 2003 hit “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” on Thursday to sweep away concerns about his pugnacity.
After conceding that the Philly debate was tough, he brushed the imaginary lint of Hillary, George and Charlie from his shoulders, in a wordless reference to Jay-Z’s lyrics in his anthem about not letting anyone crimp your ride as you cruise from the bottom to the top: “Got some, dirt on my shoulder, could you brush it off for me.”
There’s no doubt the cat is cool. It’s easy to imagine the wild reception many parts of the world would give a President Obama as he loped down the stairs of Air Force One in his aviator glasses, the chic and chiseled Michelle on his arm.
The imagery of the 2008 race is all about cool and hot.
Obama is cool in a good way. He continues to look to the stars as the Clintons drag him down to the gutter, even when Hillary suggests he should scamper out of the kitchen since he’s so obviously sensitive to heat.
The Clintons are still scalded over the cool new kid in school precociously usurping the dream of Hillary, granddaughter of a Scranton lace mill worker and wife of a man who thinks he owes her the presidency.
This spurred the delicious spectacle of Bill Clinton, king of self-pity, suggesting that Obama was whining too much about the tone of the debate.
Like Bill, John McCain has his hot-headed flashes and struggles to stay cool.
But before it’s signed, sealed and delivered, as his campaign song goes, Obama will have to balance his cool with some heat, as J.F.K. did. He seems too imperious about the power of hot-button values issues that have proved so potent for most of his lifetime.
Sometimes when he answered questions at the ABC debate, you could see white letters on a black background scrawling across the screen of a Republican attack ad.
He can create an uplifting new kind of politics if he becomes president, but first he’s going to have to get past the shallow and vicious old politics he says he disdains (even if his campaign knows how to dip into the Clinton toolbox).
The thorny questions Obama got in the debate were absolutely predictable, yet he seemed utterly unprepared and annoyed by them. He did not do well for the same reason he failed to outmaneuver Hillary in a year’s worth of debates: he disdains the convention, the need for sound bites and witty flick-offs and game-changing jabs.
He needs to be less philosophical and abstract, and more visceral and personal. Some of the topics he acted dismissive about are real things on the minds of many Americans.
Obama does not need to wear a flag pin. By the time NBC colored its peacock logo with the Stars and Stripes after 9/11, it was clear that patriotism had been co-opted by commercialism. And he’s right that W. and Cheney used patriotism in a corrosive way to goad Americans into going along with their trumped-up war.
But when a voter from Latrobe asked in the debate why he doesn’t wear a flag pin, he high-hatted it as a “manufactured issue,” then, backing in tepidly, added, “I could not help but love this country for all that it’s given me.”
Asked about his friendly relationship with the former Weather Underground anarchist William Ayers — an association that The Wall Street Journal suggests could turn into the Swift Boat of 2008 given Ayers’s statement that “I don’t regret setting bombs; I feel we didn’t do enough” — Obama defended him with a line that only the eggheads orbiting his campaign could appreciate. Ayers, he said, is “a professor of English in Chicago.”
Obama has to prove to Americans that, despite his exotic background and multicultural looks, he shares or at least respects their values and understands why they would be upset about his associations with the Rev. Wright and an ex-Weatherman.
Even though his supporters raised Cain about ABC, Obama is smart enough to know he will need a better game against a canny war hero. Campaigning in Pennsylvania on Friday, he seemed eager to show he was not highfalutin. He said he and Michelle weren’t born with silver spoons; he shared how “burned up” he was when his sick mother could not get health insurance; he hugged a disabled veteran who thanked him for getting into the race, and he left a rally with a lusty “God Bless America.”
He’s trying, as Jay-Z says, to get flow.
I am sure that many of the readers of this blog have to be familiar with the reality TV Show “Run’s House” featuring the black family lives of Reverend Run of Run DMC.– A rapper.–
I watched it here and there. Never an entire season through, however many of my friends and associates comment and call this show is the new “Cosby show”.
I caught a repeat episode two days ago. I could not help but to also draw a parallel of this show vs. the Cosby’s.
The Cosby show featured a large family living in a Row home/ Brownstone in Brooklyn NY. The father was a Doctor, the mother a lawyer. All the children were educated to some degree and
disciplined. They were not poor, but the Cosby’s were not balling out of control. They appeared apart of the middle class and their tastes were of that caliber of a seasoned buppie couple.
Flash Forward: 2 decades.
Run’s House, features a Rapper turned Reverend without a church and his 6 children. The mother is a house wife. His first 3 children have another mother. His children are purchased cars for graduating from high school. His kids are asking for “nice things” i.e. cars, video games, clothes. They almost always get it. The children are well connected because of their father and uncle’s presence, and thus get opportunities dropped into their hands.
So…
Is it just a coincidence that the majority of the youth displays high interest in entertainment type of careers? Everywhere they look, it’s the thing to do? Look at Soulja Boy?? [IfI see him in the streets, IMMA SUPAMAN his A$$] Where are the shows on TV that showcase needed careers like doctors, lawyers, hell any professional degree? When did that go out of style? At this point, 20 years from now we are going to have a hella a lot of rappers and singers, but we all are going to be dying of the damn flu and diabetes, and/or be in jail. (Sounds alot like what is going on today?!..)
I hate to say it, but these shows are a reflection of our society. Shows like Run House’s influence the youth the same way the Cosby show influenced me as a child. I mean, if I was talented in singing and dancing, I would do a jig. BUT, I bet I would be studying music in COLLEGE, because the Cosby show influenced me to want to be educated.
While, I do watch these shows for their entertainment value, I worry for those who cannot differentiate that this is entertainment and not an online career fair because it appears fly, flashy and easy!
What happened? What happened is this: My conjecture is as the black excelled in the late 70s and 80s their children were afforded much more opportunity. Some Parents slipped. You spoiled your children, and I continue to see spoiled lazy ass black folks seeking to do what they believe is easy with big payoffs.i.e rapping, acting, being on you tube doing a jig…
Regrettably, in drawing similarity to what was going on in each generation, examining current issues of the black family, and raising children… I have to admit.
Run’s House is the new Cosby show.
What are we bups left to do?
My Boo Raheem Devaughn is back looking sexy as ever! I don’t even know what it is about about him. His music is such a turn-on. Beyond all that, uber sexiness, Raheem’s music is good! Lyrically intense, he knows his voice and uses it well. I can not wait till the album drops!
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