openentrance – What's Really Going OnWhat's Really Going On

 

 In defense of themselves and fellow artist, hiphoppers are speaking out against Al Sharpton’s latest antics reported in the post, Al Sharpton Leads Another Lame Protest Against Rap music,  and his crusade against negative hiphop lyrics. Over at www.sohh.com they interviewed artist Talib Kweli and David “I got the greatest hiphop album in history period” Banner. This is what Talib had to say: “First, I’m an artist and I’m gonna say what I want to say… “Nobody’s gonna tell me what I can or can’t say.”

“[While] I do think that people like Al Sharpton and Oprah and Russell Simmons are our vanguards and our elders and that we should respect them,” the Brooklyn emcee continued. “They have been here representing for us since before even hip-hop was here. What they say is important and it’s relevant but I think we need our own leadership so that we can respectfully disagree and say ‘I hear you uncle Russell, I hear you Al Sharpton’ and be respectful about it. But we can’t cow tow to them either.”

A less diplomatic and more vocal David Banner also weighed in on the subject, saying that he is not and has never been a fan of Sharpton and that he is doing more to hurt the situation than to help.

“The next time you see Al Sharpton, tell him I said @#*$ him and he can suck my d@#*,” an animated David Banner exclaimed. “I might change the name of my album from The Greatest Story Never Told to @#*$ Al Sharpton. I hate Al Sharpton. This is the kind of @#!* that I’m talking about. They’re killing kids in New Jersey and all across the country and all a @#*$% got to talk about is rap lyrics? @#*$ that about they’re our elders and we gotta respect them. I’m tired of this. They’re like the parents, but the parents are crucifying the kids.

“@#$&#* talk a good game about we need to clean up the hood and the lyrics and all that. But I’m out here doing it. Who can say that?”

I must admit they both have very valid points. Although I do feel that as artist we have a responsibility as to what we say. We speak ignorance and death way too much on some songs that kids are eating up. Let’s face it parents aren’t always doing their job so don’t put it all on them as the ones that should be teaching. Everyone should be teaching, it’s going to take a concerted effort to raise these babies right. Having said that it is also disturbing that there are more pressing matters affecting our communities like the murders in Jersey Banner mentioned that we should be outraged about and I agree. 

Does hiphop need to clean up the lyrics? Yeah some artist I feel should think really hard about it but it’s their constitutional right to speak what they do. When you constantly say and see things over and over again some people start to believe that’s what they are.