Oh man. It's one thing to boycott gas stations when you don't have a car, but what about your favorite music? Adolfo made an excellent point on Facebook today:
Why is it that Lil Wayne, Kanye West and other rappers who coined the phrase, "No Homo" get support from their record companies and fans when if ANYBODY made a song saying, "NO blacks, NO handicaps, NO women, etc" the media would come down on them like white on rice.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how bullshit it is when people who are not of a group don't actively support doing the right thing, as if it doesn't affect them. I am crazy about gay rights even though I'm not gay because I am, however, a woman and black, and so I understand how vital it was for legal changes to happen before my time, and I think it was just as much men's/white people's responsibility to put those changes in motion. These things bleed over too, and you never know when injustices that seemed far away might affect you directly. We're all responsible for an equal, just world. Kumba-f'ing-ya.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
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I'm going to stick up for hip-hop on this one. I actually never found this trend too offensive (especially based on all of the other potentially explosive topics covered in hip-hop). I don't think it was ever meant to be insulting- it was IMO kind of funny and clever. When Dipset, commonly considered the group that started the "No Homo" trend began using it- they were often saying it after lines offering that they'd be "getting all up in your ass"- meaning to try and fight you, stomp you- but- taken out of context- could also imply a desire to have anal sex with their enemy. Hence, No Homo.
ReplyDeleteIts use was never used to convey a closed door policy towards gays (although African American culture as a whole has been less than forgiving with that) The line was never "No F@gs" it was more of a punchline, something funny to say (Dipset is notorious for being a little left of center with their rhymes, so it totally made sense that they'd be self-aware enough to realize their words sounded more than a little, ahem, gay)
As for "No Blacks, No Whites" etc causing a bigger stir- I doubt it. Groups like XClan, P.E., and Dead Prez have been espousing an anti-"white devil" content for decades. And while every now and then a Sista Souljah will be a media scapegoat... no one is boycotting an entire musical genre based on "By The Time I Get To Arizona".
I guess what I'm saying is Hip-Hop and rap has always been an artform that infuriates someone somehow, yet carries on. People as a whole need to take it less seriously.
Better yet- don't condemn hip hop as a whole, but instead boycott Dip Set or Wayne... Hip Hop is bigger than a silly phrase.
AB