September 06, 2005 :: I never thought I would

...post a link to a hip-hop song on my blog. A lot of people have forgotten that, once upon a time, hip-hop was the voice of a dispossessed people. Just yesterday, I was watching BET (a rare moment for me), and I saw three videos that all looked pretty much exactly the same to me. I had heard of the artists, but not the songs. All three featured scraggly looking unkempt black men waxing obnoxious about ... whatever. Bitches and bling aesthetic, as datfuule calls it. Same vaguely cinnamon looking women gyrating around in a disinterested fashion. It would be disgusting if it weren't boring. And yet, if I was one of the younger generation, and had grown up on nothing but songs and videos like these, I would not even know that I should expect better.

And then I came across this. It's a near 14 minute mix with sound bites from Mayor Nagin and others, over beats, and it crystallizes how a lot of my friends in the black community are feeling right now. It ought to be required listening for a lot of people.

posted by Rainmayun at 11:20 PM -