Hip-Hop vs. America: Who Are YOU?

So I just discovered this afternoon that it’s possible to watch the whole of BET’s recent Hip-Hop vs. America over the web. With BET not available in Europe, I was happy to catch the debate. It’s all fresh in my mind right now, so I’ll just empty my head.

Firstly, I know a lot of the participants from the show personally: Nelson George, Kim Osorio, Russell Simmons, Jeff Chang, Touré, Farai Chideya, Diane Weathers, Kevin Powell. I’ve debated at Harvard and other hiphop panel discussions with Conrad Muhammad, Peter Noel, Rah Digga and hiphop industry heads about the exact same issues being discussed in Hip-Hop vs. America. The last time I was invited to speak on the ills of hiphop at Sony by the Temple of Hiphop during Hiphop Appreciation Week, I declined. (I attended, but declined to speak.) I was frankly tired of talking. Talk turns to action eventually, or you’re just getting off on beating the dead horse of conversation. So to speak.

Kudos to all involved; Hip-Hop vs. America addressed every possible angle of the debate on hiphop’s ills and it will end up standing as a shining moment for the network. I’m also aware that BET (where I once worked as an editor of their online site) is being picketed against lately for airing its often crazy depictions of black folk.

Most music journalists who focus on rap music and hiphop culture embrace the title of “cultural critic,” myself included, and yet lately I’ve been thinking of myself as much more of a “witness.” Critical analysis is necessary, of course, and those of us who have lived hiphop and grown up with the culture since its beginnings have an angle to dissect it critically that opponents like Stanley Crouch just can’t have. But personally, I’ve always been more prone in my writing to pose questions rather than preach answers. The program definitely raised questions, and to me, the debate is the thing.

What is the solution? What can be done to prevent having to talk about these same issues all over again in 10 years? I guarantee that the state of hiphop will remain the same despite this hotbed moment of controversy. Kim Osorio said the most shocking thing in the whole show to me when she admitted that violence is entertaining to her, that The Sopranos is her favorite show and she likes to watch extreme violence. That’s American culture. That’s partially why I bounced, because of the lack of self-examination that prevents people from looking at why they enjoy stuff like that, or even viewing it as something a bit strange.

I don’t believe in right and wrong, I’m a much firmer believer in the power of intention: what statement are you making to the world with your choices about who you are? Are you someone who enjoys to watch violence and doesn’t feel the need to examine that pleasure? This is no dis to Kim. What I’m saying is, are the ills of hiphop really ills? Is it all intellectual masturbation to continue to go back and forth, back and forth debating what the ills are and what we should do? So-called ills will always exist, in communities, in art, in reportage, in life. Who are we in response to those ills? That is ultimately what we have complete responsibility for and control over.

I could only suggest that we all continue to profess who we are by the life choices we make, which we’re all doing anyway whether we’re conscious of it or not. Are you someone who protests violence and misogyny, or someone entertained by it? Someone who profits from it with a guiltless conscious? Are you someone who exiles yourself from a society whose values you too often fundamentally disagree with? Who are you? That’s the only question we can all answer without endless debate.