Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is dead. King is dead, and I fear he's being forgotten.It aint easy being A King, or even BEING King...not even for King himself.
Although he's been dead since 1968, his name continues to live on. There are statues and buildings that have been erected in his honor. There are also scholarships, plaques and awards presented in his name, and of course, who could forget what Chris Rock calls the most dangerous place in any city, any street named MLK.
Dr. King lives on in name and spirit in the hearts and minds of many people, myself included. As a black/negro/african-american/afro-american/brother/homey I fear that his legacy may be fading in the wake of the rise of the bad elements of the hip-hop generation, and it's eroding effect on Black America as a whole.
I mean hip hop in general no ill will, but the lowest lifeforms of bull** that continue to permeate the airwaves and earwaves of so many, are doing nothing to further the cause of a dying people.
Art itself, and the art of expression, has served mankind in so many ways since he first tread the land of this fragile planet. As someone with some musical aspirations myself, I fully understand the creative process and I realize that said process can differ from artist to artist...stick several different musicians in a studio with the same equipment, and obviously you'll get different sounds derived from that same equipment. The art lies within the artist himself and not necessarily within the genre or the tools used as a means of creation. Having said that I DO feel that there is room for all who dare to express themselves musically, but as a proud liberal, I must take a somewhat conservative stance on how we choose to express our 1st amendment rights.
If a group of 'Deadbeat Dads' got together and released a CD of songs that glorified the lifestyle of fathering kids out of wedlock, and then refused their parental duties which may include paying child support, how would the public respond?
How about a posse of 'Homeeees', who's sole mission in life is to undo all advances made in the area of Woman's Rights, and who've not only named themselves after the sleeveless T-shirts, 'Wifebeaters', that they clad themselves in, but also choose to engage in wife beating as a sport, and then depicted said sport in audio and video form ...wanna camp out for tickets?
If a group of 'Pedophiles' and or 'Child Predators' banded together to spit at a mic and release their efforts on CD, how many peeps out there would adopt their lifestyle?
Then why have so many people, LARGELY black and some whites as well as hispanics, adopted the negative and criminal elements of hip hop as a lifestyle?
It has been said that art imitates life, and this is true a lot of the time. I would agree that while life is hard, it can be, and a lot of the time IS harder for some than others. Turning our heads away from this fact is NOT the solution to this problem. For those who live the struggle, telling their story via rap is a legitimate means of expressing their views and communicating the message to an outside world which might not hear their tales otherwise.
What frustrates me, is the endless glorification of the ghetto standby professions of Drug dealing, Armed Robbery, Pimping and Prostituting as well as the startup industries of Drive By Shooting, Auto Detailing, Clubbing and, Getting Crunk. ( In the interest of full disclosure, there's nothing I love more than a good booze buzz, crunk, dancing to music, clubbing, seeing a live band, or performing in a live band setting, all of which I'm prepared to do as a living on a moment's notice...so I don't want to come off as someone who's riding a high horse here). The subject matter has done nothing to advance the cause of a people. Instead of being an escape, Modern Hip Hop has become a blueprint of sorts, causing a lot fans of the genre to bring into real life what they've seen and heard as fantasy in music format.
High unemployment, high dropout rates and low test scores aren't the fault of hip hop, but high incarceration and murder rates due to drug dealing are. Some argue that high teen pregnancy rates and unwed single mothers are too. The point is all the Thug Life sh*t is getting us nowhere but dead and or in jail or both.
Assassin James Earl Ray's bullet may or may not have killed Dr. King in Memphis on that morning in April, (even the King family think the govt. had a hand in the plot), but it's the Ni*ga of the hip hop generation that's killing his legacy.
