Both my blog partner and I are big fans of the beautiful music called "hip hop." We agree that Old Dirty Bastard was a singular American stylist, and that "Fuck the Police" by NWA is an appropriate soundtrack for any occasion. We have diverging opinions about some things, like whether Notorious B.I.G. was the best rapper ever (I'm for, Will's against) and other topics.
This morning, a new division arose, with the question of whether Nas, of Ill-matic fame, is a gangsta rapper. I told Will about Nas's new song, "Sly Fox," which in addition to being a thumping jam, is a broadswipe at the Rupert Murdoch owned Fox Broadcasting Company. (Nas's beef stems from a Fox News broadcast critizing the inclusion of Nas, who Fox claims glorifies violence, at a free concert at Virginia Tech following last year's shooting).
Message-wise, the song is a little muddled. Nas calls Fox hypocritical for criticizing his so-called violent lyrics, and suggests that Fox is hypocritical because they create their own lurid and violent entertainment. That's all true, but he fucks up his argument by citing examples that have nothing to do with Fox, namely Kill Bill and Grindhouse. Those films were produced, respectively, through Miramax and the Weinstein company, neither of which were ever affiliated with Fox or Rupert Murdoch, as far as I can tell. And while Nas is long on specifics about how Fox has done him wrong personally, he's frustratingly vague about what Fox is doing wrong in general. Yesterday, Nas took part in a protest of Fox where people accused the 24-hour news channel of race-baiting and Obama-smearing. I don't think those gripes are mentioned in the song.
But I guess I shouldn't expect Noam Chomsky-like astuteness of media criticism from a rapper, no matter how astute of a wordsmith.
As I told Will this morning, I think Fox inaccurately portrays Nas as a Gangsta rapper when he's really just rapping about honest observations about his urban experience. Will contends that he is a gangsta rapper, saying that because Nas is not a rapper in the mode of Common, Mos Def or Talib Kweli, and uses violent imagery, he is therefore a gangsta rapper.
This afternoon, I asked Nas if he could answer this question, and he got into a time machine, and appeared on the Colbert Report last night (looking more than a little stoned, I think) he weighed in at about the 3:06 mark here.
1 comment:
heeyyy, i didn't say he was a gangsta rapper, but he aint't conscious either...but more so i guess. he's just hiphop.
and ohh yeah...
fuck the police!
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