Thursday, April 26, 2007
Bashing Hip Hop Post-Imus: the other side...
Image courtesy: NYT
Cos its starting to get a little crazy out there....
Kelefa Sanneh:
"[T]he anti-hip-hop fervor of the last few weeks has been extraordinary, if not quite unprecedented. Somehow Don Imus’s ill-considered characterization of the Rutgers women’s basketball team — “some nappy-headed hos” — led not only to his firing but also to a discussion of the crude language some rappers use.(click here for more from The New York Times)
Unlike previous hip-hop controversies [though], this one doesn’t have a villain, or even a villainous song.* The current state of hip-hop seems almost irrelevant to the current discussion."
Jim Farber:
"The way the protectors of the public good currently carry on about their favorite bogeyman - hip hop - you'd think popular music just reached some heady new peak of depravity in which the airwaves are awash in a non-stop bitch-ho spew.(click here for more from The Daily News)
Pardon me if all this strikes the music fan as more than a tad behind the curve. As someone who actually listens to all forms of popular music - as opposed to those who spend their hours just attacking it - I have to deliver some disappointing news:
Not only are we not submerged in some new Sodom, we're actually suffering through the most squeaky-clean phase in popular music since Pat Boone came in to shoo away all the sex and cool from the likes of Little Richard in the '50s."
Davey D: "Cheney, Rowe, Cohen, The Police - They Don’t Believe in Snitching so Why Should Hip Hop?" (click here for more)
* Other than, of all the rappers out there, MIMS and (not even a rapper) R. Kelly of course!
Labels: Davey D, Don Imus, Jim Farber, Kelefa Sanneh, MIMS, R. Kelly
