Hero Day: Jay Z (repost from Dzigasounds)

I rap.

No no-, it surprises me too that this housedj/black-soul-hipster-lookin- chick actually drops some verses and I will publicly announce now that the rapper who has been most influential to me is Jay-Z.

Idk what that does to my street cred or my music snobbery cred, but I'm going to explain. I grew up in the 90s....that use to make me young and my memory of pop culture and pop history insignificant but I don't think that's the case anymore. Furthermore, I grew up in the hood/ a predominantly working class-middle class Black neighborhood of a super segregated New York State city with two very older siblings who were driving by the time was I was walking. Likely, with a single-parent working mother, when I wasn't with my grandma I was with my siblings-- in their cars, with their friends, in the house; being exposed to whatever radio, cassettes (90s!), or music videos they played and watched. It was all hip-hop and R&B, so as I child, before I grew a musical identity of my own, I continued to listen to what they listened to and watched the videos they watched. The artists behind these songs, at least the hip-hop ones, that I remember were Big Pun, Foxy, Missy, and Jay Z.

*(I missed tupac and biggie, and I ain't gonna front like I ever tried to catch up. I didn't. It's just the way it was for me)*

Jay stuck out the most. I'll try and regain some cred by saying that the prime of J's musical careers were the albums he came out with during my childhood (Reasonable Doubt to the Black Album). These are the albums people think of when we call him one of the best rappers of all time. When I was 11 and 13 I ordered the Blueprint, Jay-Z: MTV Unplugged and The Black Album from a CD catalog that was the way to order CDs before Apple was more than a fruit and Amazon existed. Can't tell you how many times I listened to them, how much I heard bits of myself in songs like Dec. 4th, can't tell you how much I appreciated, learned from, and absorbed J's flow on the tracks, how much I escaped to or understood the stories painted in these albums.

Many communities don't get voices...sometimes its problematic to have rappers, rap, hip-hop, and pop-hop as it's become to be the voice of urban, black, or youth communities. But during that time period, Jay was the voice of my community. And he did it with class.

Yes, class, though hip-hop can be seen as a sort of classless art form. What's expected from an artistic tool used to discuss a dirty, grimy, dark lifestyle and existence? It's a heavy burden to do that and do it well and many rappers fail and many rappers get lost and many rappers don't even try and abandon that tradition, one that was started when the first boats arrived from Africa so when a rapper does do it well-- you can feel it.

But enough philosophy. J painted my childhood until I got to the point where I abandoned hip-hop for music that made more sense to me at the time. And although there were a few more rappers that also grabbed my attention before I left (Luda, Nelly, Missy, Busta...), whenever I sat down to tell a story, to release something--it came out in rhyme and in the form of a rap verse and I always had Jay- Z in the back of my mind.

And that's just my story, but I don't know a whole lot of other music lovers who don't have a solid Jay-Z track in their catalog of 50 best songs of their memory. But more than just the far-reaching potency of his music, what must also be respected is Jay-Z's business sense. This dude has done some serious, serious, entreneurship. He's built an empire of record labels, basketball teams, clothing lines, restaurants, clubs, real-estate, beer...everything. He's retired, married a superstar, made albums, went on tour, launched some of the most famous rappers and producers into the game, come back, released an album, went on tour, produced a broadway musical, and returned to claim his throne. But in all fame, glitz, glamour, and general hallabaloo, we sorta lost sight of the J we use to know and couldn't quite remember if he deserves the respect he seems to be demanding.

Enter J's new book (yeah homie's an *author* now) "Decoded", and more importantly his recent conversation with Dr. Cornel West (moderated by some crazy European dude) at the New York Public library. These two media releases brings Jigga back to the level of leader, poet, and important community (Black community, music industry community, hip-hop community) voice. Not gonna give a full synopsis, but you need to watch this ish. They talk about anything and everything that is relevant to these two cultural figures. Without a doubt, whether we like it or not, Jay is going down in pop-culture history, but before we dismiss it I think it's important to understand what he's saying as he continues to make his mark. Take for example this: "The internet was a way of the music industry purging itself". Dude believes the same thing I do, that the internet is the way to escape the banality, shallowness, and "thinness", as Dr. West calls it, of radio-driven commercial music (see the success of J Cole's new mixtape). Jay even admits that he left the system for two years to build with other artists because he's disgusted with the fact that "people don't even believe in artist development anymore."

As I've made my return back to hip-hop, I've come to know a lot of young MCs and musicians who see the hip-hop game and music industry as a way to make it. As a way to escape. They wanna be "BIG" big. They wanna have the money, the lights, the glam. They wanna be the next Jays, Lupes, Drakes, whatevers. Without leaving you my own opinion on all that, or even what I want from music myself ( who wouldn't mind a Jay-Z story of their own?), I'll leave you with a beautiful quote from "Decoded" about what the men and women we grew up with used this music thing for.

The 70s were a strange time, especially in Black America.The music was beautiful in part because it was keeping a type of torch lit in dark times...I feel like we as rappers, djs, producers were able to smuggle some of the magic of that dying civilization out of the music and use it to build a new world. We were kids without fathers so we found our fathers on wax, and on streets, and in history, and in a way that was a gift. We got to pick and choose the ancestors who would inspire the world we were going to make for ourselves...rap took the remnants of a dying society and created something new. Our fathers were gone, usually because they just bounced, but we took the records to build something fresh.

Popculture eaters/historians/cultural students--watch or listen to this conversation.

My fellow musicians and aritists--what new world are you building, and what ancestors are you bringing with you?

Black Males in a Perpetual Crisis

I just stumbled across this article on the Buffalo News website. More accurately, I stumbled upon the adorable face of this little guy

and couldn't help but read on.

"The nation's young black males are in a state of crisis,"

Well...that's not new information. The Nation's young black males have been in a state of crisis since 1863 when they became part of the nation, since 1954, sine 1992, since 2008. Year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation, a combination of legal and de facto external and internal policy has put the young black male on the chopping block. Even today. Don't tell me about Obama, his election may have well been one of the most detrimental things to happen to YBMs. Wars on Communism, Wars on Drugs, Wars on Terror--Fights for our right at the sake of their rights, Protect our communities, Secure our families--We want our country back...

Whatever banner waved above them, people have been seeking policies and change that more or less not only disenfranchise the young Black male, but the poor, the old, the disabled--the other of all colors. The Civil Rights Movement fractured, small groups of fighters formed their own coalitions, demanded their own things, and failed to support each other, thereby failing to acknowledge their common enemy, and failing to defeat Him. Disgust of immigrants, of Muslims, of terrorism, of Gays, of Obamacare has fueled the support of the most non-helpful, racist, classist, elitist candidates, who have risen to power in this past election, or eagerly seek it.

Of course not everyone recognizes this. No one is out to overtly systematically destroy the Black male. But that's exactly what's been happening for centuries. Mentors within the community and White House Meetings on the current "crisis" are nice....but those are not the solutions. The problems are not coming from the YBM community. Those are just the results. The problems are coming....have been coming....from us. From our own hate, fear, and ignorance. From politicians selling themselves on the fear ticket, from voters too ignorant to truly research their platforms. From "scholars" and "professionals" and "historians" failing to demand the external change that is required for the internal change to occur. From self-centered activists, too narrow in their scope. From artists, who have been stolen from the community. From the everyday individual: uneducated, unchallenged, and complacent.

WE will kill the black male. We will kill him like we killed the red male. We will kill them all, all the browns, slaughtering them with ignorance, silence, and hate until there are no more left. They will cease to exist. They will face erasure.

That little boy's eyes will fail to matter.

Where is our report? Where is our coalition, our White House Committee.....Where are we?