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Reprinted from
THE FINAL CALL (June 22, 1994) page 37
We've all heard it before. This rapper sold out. He did this. He did
that. And now he is soft." "White people like him so now he is
no-good." or the classic: "That record is too
commercial!" Hold up. Let's take a breather for just a second.
Everybody knows that Hip Hop started among Black people musically and
culturally. To this very day, it is Black people who are moving the art
form to new levels of creativity and consciousness. But every-body also
knows that Black people did not finance the first albums, videos, and
major hip hop publications. Major white-owned record labels put their
monies where our mouths were, and at that point our dilemmas started:
"How do we control a creative force and make it available for
profit and cultural expression to the masses of the people, when we do
not control the channels of distribution, nor have we pooled our
resources to maintain the artistic integrity of our creation?"
It's our fault. To blame a particular artist for making a record that is
artistically "inferior" or "commercial" is
ridiculous. Everybody with a record deal is a commercial artist.
Commercial comes from the word commerce which means "dealings
between individuals in society." We need commerce just to function
as human beings, but what we don't like is that we do not control our
"dealings between individuals in our society.”
Hip-Hop suffers from colonialism. We are a population that is
productive, but we have ties to corporate America that prohibit us from
becoming self-sufficient. So we fight, blame, and attack each other for
our own condition. Don't blame Hammer because he makes music that
millions of white people like and support. Don't blame Snoop because
he's on MTV more than he is on BET: blame yourself for not making your
own record company, where you control your own distribution, and blame
yourself for not coming up with MTV in the first place. (M-TV is nothing
more than a by-product of the incredible success of Michael Jackson, in
the first place! By the way, Mr. Jackson is another Black man we attack
out of self-hatred.)
The immature, unsophisticated blaming the victim must stop. Let’s be
honest with ourselves. Most of “Black” radio is white-owned. Black
record labels are white distributed. Black movies are put out by white
movie companies with that Black-produced (white distributed) soundtrack.
So we end up ruining the career of a “commercial” artist who was
taking his “white” dollars and using them for the benefit of the
Black community! Just so we can say that we “live and die for real
hardcore, street, hip-hop!” We die because we allow our blood to be
sucked by other communities. We should live for our community, not the
art our community produces. We do not die because a bass line is too
soft (although it does hurt); or there's more singing than rapping on
the record (although it does hurt) or because that hardcore baggy-pants,
hat to the back rapper of yesterday, has on a velour, sequined,
butterfly-collar outfit today.
We would all like to see the artistic integrity protected. But we
shouldn't worship art. We make art. Let's take care of the “We” and
the art will take care of itself.
Let 1994 be the year of Black Hip-Hop ownership. Peace!
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