American Cuisine

Does anyone have a link to the full transcript of that show?

I agree.

Beautiful.

Bill O’Reilly’s comments didn’t surprise me one bit. Neither did the miscarriages of justice that were perpetrated on those young, black men down in Jena, LA. I am even less surprised that, given the opportunity, the Bush controlled media would have gladly let these stories, and others like them, be swept under the rug. However, I am pleasantly surprised that, given all of the reports of how apathetic the hip-hop generation has become, we quickly rallied together to get the truth out to those who would care to hear it. It is encouraging to know that the ideals of the original hip-hop generation are being passed on to people who will continue to fight for it’s legacy of truth, knowledge, justice and humanity for all races and not just a select group.

Danny, you spoke about the influence growing up in Columbia, MD had on you. Having moved from a predominately black city as a child to an all white, small, country town and then to Columbia, MD as a teenager, my experience of the multicultural haven that is Columbia was a little different.

As a child growing up in Washington, DC in the early 70’s, I absolutely LOVED my environment. There was always something to do and see, black people were running things for the first time and the music and spirit of the 70’s was in full effect. Moving to all white, Fairport, NY I thought I had been consigned to Hell. This is a place where there is snow on the ground 8 months out of the year, a good time for the kids was playing hide-and-seek in the cornfields and culture consisted of hunting pheasant and listening to REO Speedwagon. When my parents told us we were moving to Columbia, MD and how diverse it was I thought to myself “YES, I will be around black people again! I won’t have to deal with these lame, trifling, white people who look at me as sub-human anymore.” Well, I was right…partially.

Moving to Columbia, MD was a HUGE wake-up call. It’s true; I was immediately accepted as a complete human being without any question of my inalienable rights to be treated like any other person. What surprised me was that this acceptance came from my white classmates and not the black classmates whose camaraderie and shared ethnic identity I had longed for the past nine years. From my own people, I was treated with derision and disdain for…once again…simply the way I looked. I was frequently subjected to scowls of disapproval and occasionally given “the look”, where I am inspected from head to toe and dismissed (sometimes verbally) with “She’s light skinned with long hair, I bet she thinks she’s cute.” Unfortunately, friendships with my own people were not to be found until I went away to college.

It was those early years living in Columbia, MD, that I came to terms with my own prejudices; to realize that black people were not the end-all-be-all to a rich, culturally infused existence and that they could be just as lame and trifling as anybody else. I came to look at each person as an individual and I worked on getting to know that person as a human being not just a member of a particular race or religion. It was a lesson well learned and one that I drilled (with great success) into my daughter.

In many ways, I think hip-hop has been trying to accomplish the same goals globally as Columbia, MD did with me locally. It strives for all of us to come together as members of the human race first and foremost and to put any other classification as a distant second. Once we get to know each other on a human level, the rest of little significance.

The problem with the Mr. O’Reilly’s of the world is they don’t care to know anyone outside their inner circle on a human level. They have been and will continue to look at anyone different than themselves as “others”. The beauty of this scenario is that the hip-hop generation has the two great advantages of numbers and time. The number of people in this world who are embracing the ideals of the hip-hop generation are increasing exponentially while the number of close-minded bigots is dwindling as the baby boomers and their preceding generation get older and start dying off. We have the luxury of waiting them out while we instill our ideals upon our children who can pass on our blessed legacy on to future generations.

Of course, according to your opening statement concerning the framers of arguments being in ultimate control, isn't Bill O'Reilly just by being discussed, framing a world where we allow him and his makers credibility. Isn't he just another framed creation that is supposed to represent some thing, but really is just another punk saying some thing to get paid, until the next one comes along.
Can that then be indicitivae of a whole generation that has 'failed,' while another generation has succeeded, by what measure? Consuming properly. In record sales? In mtv accessiblity? In people deciding to be accepting? Who exactly isn't fearful? And If they aren't, they probably ougtha be because the sage also said 'They're walking with their heads down...'

Hip hop has taken lost thugs, and aimless suburbians and given them a culture and probably saved a lot of us some trouble. But compare it to music of the 60’s and 70’s generation and problems arise that hip hop fans are reticent to talk about. To begin with, things like Motown, Stax, Blue Note, Funkadelic James Brown and Sly, and the family stone, the civil right movements, black comedy, and even black films and sports of the 70’s all brought similar connections that you think of with hip hop. Hip Hop did not land on a sharecroppers farm in 1867. It’s hard to differentiate genuine history and the reality of life in the 60’s and 70’s, versus watching movies and tv shows and magazines about that era and calling that truth, in lieu of experience. A further truth is that the mix of music was not nearly as racially striated as it is today. A cursory look at a singles chart in the 60’s and 70’s will be racially diverse, lyrically more diverse, and may actually have songs that break 4 minute running time, and most astoundingly, without vocals. A song like Evil Ways, or Pick Up The Pieces would find no play anywhere, underground or above today. A generation grown on rap may have less appreciation for more ineffable forms, like jazz.

25 years ago, it was impossible to only listen to rap records, there weren’t enough.. Rappers had to grow up on other forms and could not simply define themselves as hip-hop. Now that the industry has performed a 180, the sales pitch revolves around hip hop being the only type of black music. Concurrently the industry has reformed the rap paradigm to fit its needs, the concept of rapper and dj together forever as some kind of isomer bond, was quickly dismantled. Individuals are always much easier to work.. Now we have rapper as venture capitalist seeking riches with the help of other venture capitalists (producers). In turn songs become less an expression of Power Man and Iron Fist and more a considered approach to product in marketplace. This conservative approach leaves less tolerance for abstraction, for musical explorations, and for blues. So, the glory of hip hop has also brought things like record executives and dj’s listening to the first 6 seconds of a beat and making a decision. And in 10 years it’ll probably be the first 3 seconds.

A Hip Hop song is less similar to a pop song and more equivalent to a movie. And thank God, because anyone who has been stuck out on A train platform in February with nothing but his walkman, loves and treasures the audio movies beyond words. Hip Hop songs combine instrumentation, narration, and sound effects into some kind of Bruce Lee Lee Perry Raid on Antibe that you could dance to. However, it should not be bread alone. Because, in its incorporation of everything it leaves less for the listener to create. In turn, listeners growing up on rap, often have little real musical taste beyond it. There only reference coming from other rap songs. So, the unique samples become less and less, and the sampling of previous rap songs becomes profligate. Premier himself has used more and more samples in his chorus’ from rap songs, less from other sources. So, where is the abstraction? Where is the release from the steady drum or someone constantly running their mouth. The resistance to forms beyond talking (and often selling) leaves a generation more and more grounded in ‘reality’ and more apt to consume and be trapped in a world of ‘I, me, my.’
Bullshit or not?

Slightly bullshit, DivisiveJones. Hip hop was on sharecropper's farms in 1867, of course, and it's never left. Hip hop was Stephen Foster and Sidney Bechet, it was Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly, it was Eddie Cochran and Little Richard and the MC5 and Millie Small singing My Boy Lollipop and the New York Dolls dropping Bo Diddley and the Shangri-Las like Galileo dropped a orange. It was also Josephine Baker and Kerouac and Moms Mabley and Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks. Free your ass and your mind will follow, right?

Every once in a while, hip hop moves to the center, changes the way we all speak and act and think. That's its glory and ultimate reason for existing, and it's calling the beat right now. But it can't stay there forever, and usually whoever started a wave of the stuff is long gone by the time it breaks on the shore anyway. I know boomers that really get and dig the current brands of the stuff and the doors it's opening all over the world, but that understanding doesn't come naturally, and if you're not the open-mind type (and who's the poster child for that more than O'Reilly), then the change that has come and is still arriving is going to break at a point about ten feet over your head and leave you bone dry.

Nice piece, Dan.

Whoa, do your research. There are some serious scientific flaws in the evolution theory. You seem like the type that overall will respect truth and logic. Creationism is religious, but do your research before you write, check for the theory of "Intelegent Design", which many scientist believe. Evolution is a theory which has been shoved down our throats by the education system, but has no real factual basis. The same censorship that the evolution theory used to face is now imposed by the scientific community on inteligent design. Find out about the argument of the "irreducibly complex system" and holla back at me. When intelligent people speak too quickly about something it can make them look stupid. Don't fall victim to this again.

Blessings,
Yahlove

A Real good read bro