Hip-Hop: Art or Poison?
On Feb. 21st CNN presented an hour long special Hip-Hop: Art or Poison (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0702/21/pzn.01.html)? The special hosted by Paula Zahn particularly looked at the influence Hip-Hop has had on crime, the degradation of women, and the perpetuation of homophobia. Rappers, artists, academics, lawyers, and civil right activist peppered the segment adding a series of different perspectives.
It became evident instantly that Zahn was neither a Hip-Hop fan nor what so ever knowledgeable. Her bias made the answer as presented by CNN quite evident yet the particularly telling aspect of the segment was Zahn’s conversation with guests academically and musically involved in Hip-Hop. While all the guests generally agreed with Zahn that indeed Hip-Hop is violent, misogynistic and homophobic they always delved deeper into the problems pointing out that music doesn’t cause societies perils. Furthermore the guests focused on the executive and economical decisions that helped certain types of Hip-Hop flourish, pointing out that often times white male record label executives make final decisions in terms of releasing material and that a major consumer group of violent Hip-Hop is young white males.
Instead of focusing on the role record label executives play even though all the guests kept returning to the topic, Zahn kept her focus on the role of the artist. At one point Ronald Martin an editor for The Chicago Defender commented, “I'm going to hold that CEO accountable. But we don't do that.� Zahn then replied, “Aren't black record executives equally culpable?� Martin then points out that most of the executives and shareholders are white. Zahn essentially ignored Martin’s point and skipped past the topic to talk about the message that Hip-Hop delivers.
While it’s impossible to say whether Hip-Hop is socially constructive or destructive at the very least CNN could have presented a well-balanced opinion instead a biased and unknowledgeable white female railed against Hip-Hop for an hour often ignoring the insightful comments made by guests. Finally there are many forms of Hip-Hop; it’s an incredibly wide genre yet socially conscious Hip-Hop got a total of two comments. It’s ridiculous to present a piece on Hip-Hop without taking into account such artists as Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Kanye West, and Common to name a few of the successful socially conscious artists. In the end Paula Zahn made her opinion obvious.
Comments
It sucks that Ms. Zahn did not respect the insight of her guests. It is a very big problem to blame only the black artists for what is produced when the predominantly white CEO's etc. are also to blame for what their companies release.
At the same time, I believe that there is a problem with how rap tends to treat women and gay people. A lot of mainstream rap does encourage violence and the mistreatment of women and homosexuals. I definitely do prefer the poetry of talib or common to the often violent and derogatory lyrics of so much mainstream rap. I am troubled however when even these so called socially conscious rappers spew homophobic lyrics. Mos and talib's Blackstar collaboration contains homophobic language. On his Like Water For Chocolate album, Common states "In a circle of faggots, your name is mentioned."
I really like common's music a lot. His lyrics are really poetic and beautiful, and he often calls into question some other rappers' negative lyrics about women. I do however have mixed feelings about his and other rappers' music because of their apparent homophobia.
Posted by: Stephen Anderson | February 28, 2007 6:36 PM