Stop singing about Death

a reply to: enlightenedservant

So you agree that it's a problem of what people choose to listen to and not a problem of what's available?

In part. A little push and a little accept aside I suppose.

Wrong, bro. First, "white" Americans are by far the largest group of rap music consumers in America. And second, I'm guessing you've already forgotten about jazz music, blues music, soul music, rhythm & blues, and gospel music? We even have branches of Christian & Muslim rappers who rap about religious things.

That would surprise me. Is there a metric to that?

I've not forgotten about any other music. I was speaking on generalities. Main stream stuff. If you can find before I do the metric that shows white people out consume black folk in regards to rap/hip hop then of course, my whole argument is null. (Which I certainly left open the opportunity for.)

If you admit that you don't know, then why make assumptions anyway? A quick google search showed the following

Well, allow me to demonstrate from where I made my assumption then.
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org... (There is some redundancy with the above)
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...op_music_genres

On role models. Of course there are many many that could and should be looked up to as role models, my point is that they aren't in the same way hip hop artists are.

You just seemingly look at tv and focus on black entertainers and black criminals, then act like their words & actions define all of us.

Really man? You're going to have to quote me. Sounds like BS.

a reply to: JinMI

You literally just said the following:

I'm of the opinion that black folks, either by design or choice, simply don't have enough, let alone glorify enough proper role models. More specifically in music but it certainly applies in many other areas.

How else am I supposed to interpret that? You think we don't have enough "proper" role models and also think we don't glorify them, whatever that means. Every black-majority community has black professionals and role models like the categories that I listed. My community and extended family knows this, but judging from some of the posts in this thread (including the part from your post that I quoted), it seems like we're the only ones who know this. Yet if you checked "black" media, publications, organizations, then you'd see that your assumption is simply wrong about those role models existing and/or being "glorified".

For example, have you ever heard about "Black Enterprise" magazine? Here's a section from its website that has a video series that focuses strictly on black women professionals (HERE). And here's a separate site that links to a lot of black business magazines (HERE). Do those count?

And those are just the tip of the iceberg. There are media and publications that focus on black engineers, HBCU's, religious stuff, and virtually anything else that you can imagine. And then there's a subculture that focus on our historical figures and civil rights icons, including an entire branch of civil rights tourism that's centered around the major and minor sites from the slave trade, the Civil Rights movement, and much much more (the sites in Georgia and Alabama are notably famous).

But if the things that I just posted are new to you, then clearly the media that you're paying attention to doesn't promote any of these groups/organizations or "glorify" their corresponding role models. That's the point I'm making. This stuff isn't new to most black Americans, which is why it's so ridiculous when people act like violent rappers somehow represent us as a whole. They're only one subsection of our communities, just like how violent rockers are only one section of "white" communities.

To put it into perspective, I stopped watching slave movies and civil rights movies long ago because I had to learn so much of that stuff as a child that I'm sick of seeing it. We had to learn about people like Frederick Douglass and Ida B Wells to Crispus Attucks, the Tuskegee Airmen, and George Washington Carver. We had to learn about Harriet Tubman and the "Underground Railroad", the "Black Codes", Dr MLK, the SCLC, the SNCC, Malcolm X & the Nation of Islam, and a crapton more. We learned about the first black astronauts, first black mayors of random places, etc, and a lot more.

In other words, the idea that we don't have enough "proper" role models nor "glorify" them is absolutely wrong and crazy. If anything, I would argue that a lot of African American communities have too much reverence to the role models and institutions of the past, and instead need to focus more on building, shaping, and controlling the future. Either way, there are more than enough "proper" role models out here. But don't assume they don't exist just because you don't know about them and/or have no interest in learning about them. Otherwise, it sounds like you're complaining because corporate owned media doesn't promote them.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

You are very wise, when i started to learn about how things worked in the U.S. i didn't fully get it, i knew from history lota of things but nothing like seeing it in real life

in that aspect you have way eyes open guy, i envie you, no meant to offend could I send you a private message?

a reply to: enlightenedservant

How else am I supposed to interpret that? You think we don't have enough "proper" role models and also think we don't glorify them, whatever that means.

You can take it as my perspective. It certainly doesn't apply to all nor did I ever make that implication.

It's what I see from the media that I see. Music and sports and if that's not obtainable, then what? Again, my perception.

Happy to have that conversation without the whole cascading brush tactic used on something I never said.

a reply to: MrBlaq

Art is not simply a tool to put one at ease and provide something beautiful to admire.

Art is meant to be an expression for the artist, but also an exercise in managing the emotional response of the consumer, in the case of music, the listener. An artist can choose whether they want the listener to feel joyful, sorrowful, anxious, or to amplify the unspoken rage that lay at the heart of all human beings, by using their talent to draw out those responses, to activate those emotional centres in the brain.

Art is meant to make us ask questions of ourselves. Whether it is brush strokes on canvas, or the choice of lighting that a photographer uses, or the way a beat or a melody grabs the mind and draws it in certain directions, the task of the artist is not merely to make us feel warm and secure. Art is supposed to be capable of making us confront mortality, confront the concept of death, to examine the illness within the species we are all a part of, and contemplate it, to understand the fact that there are grey spaces in ourselves, or in our societies, within which shadows, questions which do not have answers which fit neatly into the boxes we imagine things must all fit inside, tend to grow unbidden. Right and wrong, good or bad, dead or alive, bright or dark. Accepting that there is, in all things and people, lightness and darkness, requires honesty about the nature of darkness, and since darkness is harder to confront, and for some people, harder to even come across, it is necessary for artists to deal with these themes, so that those who find it hard to deal with the illness of society, have an outlet and a place to examine these topics intellectually.

I think of music with dark themes this way:

My life had darknesses in it when I was younger. It still does, but when I was younger, those things affected me quite a lot. Because we were always being told by our kids TV, and our teachers, that everything was a cotton wool dreamscape, where nothing bad would happen as long as we listened to our elders and followed all the rules, whenever I felt a shadow pass over my life, this presented a concept that no one other than my mother was willing to even discuss with me, leave alone describe the origins of, and for reasons that matter little to the nature of this thread, asking mother, while likely to be informative, would not have necessarily helped.

Understanding ones inner darknesses, helps a person know the nature of the light within them also. When you are honest with a person about the nature of reality, that NOT all is sugar and giggles and smokey bacon, that there is, in fact, an awful lot of Brussels sprout involved with life, it is HEALTHY for them, because they do not have to keep up the pretence, plaster on a smile to paper over the roiling shadows within. They know in that moment that they can express themselves in fearless admission of their darkness, not with shame, not with guilt, but with a cleansing honesty that brings relief from years of pent up fear about what the things they have suffered, and the feelings they have about them, mean for them as a person.

When you fight for your life every day of your childhood, because your peers are, to a man, incredibly violent, but all the media you can access as a youngster tells you that these are the best days of your life, let me tell you, it can create a very dangerous mixture of signals that do nothing to make reality any easier to understand. But when you come across some angry as hell music, you are reminded "Oh thank God... I am not alone!" and you can let that dirt out of you. Thats one of the many reasons I love metal music. It has a dynamism to it which allows a person to interact with the darker half of their psyche, without giving into it. Its just a temporary escape from pretence, a method of regaining some measure of comfort with being in ones own skin.

It is deeply unhealthy to remain always in a land of sugar and lies.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: MrBlaq
So why do you listen to this music and support the Artist that sing this filth?

Because I harbor deep and profound white guilt.

Or, I just like to hear about playas making it rain in the Champagne Room while sipping on the Kris.

HAHAHA I am dying AM. It is 8am and i just got to work with a ton of mistakes to fix from another agent and THIS comment had me rolling!

Just remember this one thing

All kidding aside I agree with the OP. I had my spotify on a random "dance" playlist and the lyrics to some of the songs. OMG I couldn't believe that crap made it to an album and someone is paid to talk like that. I don't find any art in most rap music that is out there. It is highly degrading and vulgar. What is so positive about that?

originally posted by: mblahnikluver
HAHAHA I am dying AM. It is 8am and i just got to work with a ton of mistakes to fix from another agent and THIS comment had me rolling!

Someone's gotta make you laugh, might as well be me. Now shake ya booty, mamma.

a reply to: JinMI

You said:

I'm of the opinion that black folks, either by design or choice, simply don't have enough, let alone glorify enough proper role models. More specifically in music but it certainly applies in many other areas.

I replied:

You just seemingly look at tv and focus on black entertainers and black criminals, then act like their words & actions define all of us.

You now say:

It's what I see from the media that I see. Music and sports and if that's not obtainable, then what? Again, my perception.

How am I misinterpreting your words? If you don't see enough "proper" black role models, then the problem is where you're looking, not that the role models don't exist. "Proper" role models have existed in our communities this entire time, yet you don't see nor perceive them because the media you look at doesn't show them, which is exactly what I said. How am I wrong w/that logic?

Also, I still don't get the whole "let alone glorify enough proper role models. More specifically in music" part. In music alone, we have:

James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul"
Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop"
Mary J Blige, the "Queen of Hip Hop Soul"
Aretha Franklin, the "Queen of Soul"
BB King, the "King of the Blues"
Ella Fitzgerald, the "Queen of Jazz"
Little Richard, the "King of Rock & Roll"
Janet Jackson, the "Queen of Pop"
Aaliyah, the "Princess of R&B"
Erykah Badu, the "First Lady of Neo-Soul"

These were literally their de-facto titles/nicknames in black communities during their careers. How much more "glorifying" do you want? lol You expecting us to call them "gods" or to start churches for them? And that's not even a complete list.

Oh, and if you notice, not a single one of them was a rapper. Yet somehow people here act as if rappers define our music. Preposterous. That's why I used an earlier hypothetical example of me watching only horror movies, then complaining about the violence in movies, all while intentionally ignoring the other movie genres.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

It shouldn't even be a conversation and nobody should need to justify the standing of black people. What a shame that it still seems to need pointing out in 2018. I just searched for 'black inventors' and was going to post some examples and realised how redundant it is. It's playing the same old racial stereotypes game and almost a waste of time. I say 'almost' because there's an alternative whereby the entirety of racial stereotyping falls into the hands of those who project negativity.

The middle classes of America aren't all white people. This in itself disproves the contention of violent natures, 'welfare culture' and so-called genetic criminality. Quality of education and economic opportunity are more important factors than the colour of someone's skin.

I guess part of it all is we're social animals with ingrained tendencies towards hierarchies. If someone is being looked up to, someone else must be looked down upon. In crowd/out crowd. Good guys/bad guys.

a reply to: Edumakated

Great, thanks, now i want apples or oranges, and the shop is closed.


Wait a minute.. i have one apple in the fridge, but i am more in a mood for an orange.

-A glimpse in the life of solve-

a reply to: Kandinsky

It shouldn't even be a conversation and nobody should need to justify the standing of black people. What a shame that it still seems to need pointing out in 2018. I just searched for 'black inventors' and was going to post some examples and realised how redundant it is. It's playing the same old racial stereotypes game and almost a waste of time.

Exactly. The way I see it, there have been better looking, more articulate, more accomplished, and far more successful people than myself who have said this same stuff for decades. There are books on it, documentaries on it, movies on it, and much more. Yet here we are in 2018, still having the same lame conversation and still trying to convince people to overcome their own biases.

The simple truth is there will always be a large amount of people who don't want to change their opinions on this stuff. They have just as much access to the internet as you & I do, yet they refuse to look up this stuff to find out the truth for themselves. That's willful ignorance on their part and people like that won't change until they choose to change.