Blessed Love
My opinion on the rappers you speak of is a shifty one with its own problems too because of my feelings on gender discrimination. Although mainly I'm opposed to what they say, at same they also do some other positive things - so yes Empress Yaa, I'm still drawing unclear boundaries (but from the cultural studies perspective you know things are never cut n dry Gilroy, Hall et al. no fire I speak in jest - we should reason on some of these dead white theorists Heidegger, Deleuze sometime : ) very relevant and irrelevant to Rastafari way of tings)
Anyway back to the issue ok so rappers like Akon, Nelly, Fiddy disrespect women, but Rook Fari Selah if you're going to paste their lyrics all over are you not indirectly participating in this denigration of women? And what about all the things that happen in Rastafari too to women to deny them of expression of their sexuality or their individuality? I'm not the shifting subject but showing how women are oppressed in very different worlds but similar ways.
Regarding the rappers well I think they suffer from a bi-polar disorder on one level I respect Kanye West, I like High School Dropout and thought it was a positive album apart from the Workout song and it was great someone could rap about his faith in God and make it on billboard. Kanye is talented in what he does and he is open abt the racism and fakeness around him. For example he was honest in his statement about Bush in response to Hurricane Katrina and the racism. And then last week he burned out MTV for making him perform at the VMA after party and Britney Spears got centre stage yet truly Kanye is selling records right now while Britney's having her celeb issues, bingeing, partying and dosing herself up.
With Snoop right, I give credit to him as because he's a talented artist, but his lyrics are really problematic. He's the biggest sufferer from bi-polar disorder there ever was, one minute he's screaming obscenities, valorizing violence but then he turns around and hosts a kids camp for football to encourage Black kids to go to school. Last week he gave $45000 to a Black charity - can't remember what, but he's up on criminal charges. Jay Z well he's another talented producer, rapper and very very shrewd businessman. He can easily spit a perfect verse, freestyle and its recorded in a minute, but then you can't forget songs like Big Pimping. They really objectify women in the most negative way and I couldn't listen to that song without feeling upset and that's why I couldn't understand why Kanye did Golddigger after High Schl Grad. I couldn't figure why Akon did Smack That but he sings something like Mama Africa. And just recently he released a song about the under-age girl he was caught with and he sounds regretful. I don't know what to make of these rappers, I think they have a responsiblity to the youth because so many of them think they'll be the next TI or Fiddy (I just have nothing good to say about these two esp coz TI fights with everyone who crosses him and Fiddy just disrespected Oprah in the worst way). Its not just in Amerikkka but all over the world the bling phenonmenon has caught on and you'll see 50cent idolized as much in Zim as he is in England, youths popping their caps and dreaming of the bling. Anyway the question is slavery really over? We're chained again, Black rappers performing for a white buying public which determines what's hip and what's not and they're idolized by a Black community for all the wrong reasons.
So what about Sizzla, his lyrics arent exactly clean and now that he's signed to Jay Z's label his image has changed alot. I'm not saying we're not susceptible to change as people but I'm just wondering what the feeling is.
Jah Love
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