Hear Hip Hop's not-so-hidden message

Houston Chronicle ^ | 09/16/03 | CLARENCE PAGE

[bedolido]

AS marketing schemes go, the hip-hop music star Nelly risks sending a lot of mixed signals with the name of the new energy drink he's marketing.

It's called "Pimp Juice."

I could be wrong, but "Pimp Juice" does not sound to me like something that you want to put in your mouth.

Either way, you won't get a chance to find out, if certain leaders of black community organizations have their way.

In Los Angeles, three organizations called Project Islamic HOPE, the National Alliance for Positive Action, and the National Black Anti-Defamation League staged a press conference last Tuesday (Sept. 9) to urge the removal of the rapper's energy drink from store shelves.

In Chicago, the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of mostly black St. Sabina Catholic Church, threatened to boycott any store that carried the drink.

In Durham, N.C., the Rev. Paul Scott, founder of the Messianic Afrikan Nation, said in news reports, "As black men we should be building a nation of strong black leaders, not a nation of super energized, drunk pimps."

The complaint: Pimp Juice glorifies the world's second oldest profession, the employment of women in the first oldest profession.

Nelly and his spokesmen beg to differ. In launching the drink on Sept. 1, he said it was named after his hit song Pimp Juice from his 2002 multi-platinum album, Nellyville. "Pimp juice is anything that attracts the opposite sex," he said. "Whatever you (are) using to win with right now, that's your juice -- that's your pimp juice, so keep pimping."

Well, maybe.

Back in the prehistoric age before there was rap music or, for that matter, laptops or cell phones, my generation had such terms as "pimp walk," "pimp style" or simply "pimpin"' some sucker who didn't know any better. But we never had any confusion as to where the word came from.

Nor, it appears, does the mainstream of hip-hop culture, which too often refers to women by the disrespectful term "ho," as in Ludacris' lyric, "I've got ho's/ In different area codes..."?)

Queen Latifah, among other hip-hop icons, tried to nip such creeping misogyny (it means disrespect for women, children, look it up) in the bud. In her uplifting tune U.N.I.T.Y., she beseeches her sisters, "You gotta let him know.../ You ain't a bitch or a ho."

Now pimp glorification has come to center stage in rapperland. The video for popular rapper 50 Cent's mega-hit PIMP portrays him as a novice pimp before the grand pimp council, presided over by rapper Snoop Dogg with his sequined "spiritual advisor," Bishop Don "Magic" Juan at his side.

I remember the colorful bishop (who also appeared onstage with Snoop and faux ho's at the MTV Video Music Awards) from my days as a police reporter in Chicago back in the 1970s. He used to be the West Side's pimp supreme until he found another of the world's oldest professions: preaching.

Juan's playful pimp-style is amusing these days but hardly the sort of role modeling that self-respecting parents want for their kids or their community. Nelly's Pimp Juice seems like the last straw to those who are upset about out-of-wedlock birth rates in black communities since the mid-1960s, rates that leveled off in the late 1990s at close to 70 percent of live black births.

Worse, soaring child abandonment rates have left millions of kids to grow up without the benefit of having both parents.

And while out-of-wedlock births have leveled off among blacks, they have begun to soar since the 1980s among whites to more than 25 percent, the level that first caused alarm in the mid-1960s when it appeared among blacks.

It is too easy in my view to blame the rise in irresponsible sex and breakdown in parenthood entirely on rap music or other media. There are many reasons why something as complex as out-of-wedlock birth rates rises.

But, it also would be too easy to say that the media don't have any impact at all.

With pop culture pumping out the message that pimpin' and other irresponsible sex is cool, it is increasingly important that parents and others offer young people some healthier messages, too.

Just as my generation respected heroes like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman, Medgar Evers and Mary McCloud Bethune, we should help today's youngsters find role models who can help them lift their eyes out of the gutter and aim them toward the stars.

The chief youth consultant in our house, also known as my 14-year-old son, once told me that "Kids can tell the difference between satire and seriousness, Dad."

In other words, youngsters don't necessarily follow rap stars as role models. That's true. Still, someone needs to let them know that they have other choices.

Page is a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist specializing in urban issues. He is based in Washington, D.C. (cpage@tribune.com)

[cyborg]

I don't know... is listening to Lynard Skynard anymore racist than listening to Nappy Roots? You have never listened to rap or hip hop I gather. I listen to both... BUT here's my favorite LS song as yet.

Lynyrd Skynyrd
> Red, White, and Blue
>
> We don't have no plastic L.A. Frynds,
> ain't on the edge of no popular trend.
> Ain't never seen the inside of that magazine GQ.
> We don't care if you 're a lawyer, or a texas oil
> man,
> or some waitress busting ass in some liquor stand.
> If you got Soul
> We hang out with people just like you
>
> My hair's turning white,
> my neck's always been red,
> my collar's still blue,
> we've always been here
> just trying to sing the truth to you.
> Yes you could say
> we've always been,
> Red, White, and Blue
>
> Ride our own bikes To Sturgis
> we pay our own dues,
> smoking camels, drinking domestic blues
> You want to know where I have been
> just look at my hands
> Yeah, I've driven by the White House,
> Spent some time in jail.
> Momma cried but she still wouldn't pay my bail.
> I ain't been no angel,
> But even God, he understands.
>
> My hair's turning white,
> my neck's always been red,
> my collar's still blue,
> we've always been here
> just trying to sing the truth to you.
> Yes you could say
> we've always been,
> Red, White, and Blue
>
> Yeah that's right!
>
> My Daddy worked hard, and so have I,
> paid our taxes and gave our lives
> to serve this great country
> so what are they complaining about
>
> Yeah we love our families, we love our kids
> you know it is love that makes us all so rich
> That's where were at,
> If they don't like it they can just
> get the HELL out!
>
> Yeah!
>
> My hair's turning white,
> my neck's always been red,
> my collar's still blue,
> we've always been here
> just trying to sing the truth to you.
> Yes you could say
> we've always been,
> Red, White, and Blue
>
> oh..oh..Red, White, and Blue....
>
> Red, White, and Blue
>
> oh..oh....Red, White, and Blue

[Smogger]

The obvious question is what makes you fit to judge an entire genre of music that you don't even listen too.

I suppose I could ask you to elaborate on how listening music, reading a book, or watching a television program constitutes becoming a member in a paticular organization, swearing to uphold their bylaws and all of that.

But instead I think I will just say your handle is fitting and leave it at that.

[wardaddy]

I think the only popular music that comes to mind that would rival some gangsta rap for cultural destructiveness would have been some of the late 60s to early 70s revolutionary music like Jefferson Airplane's "Volunteers" for example. Ironically, Gil Scot Heron (a father of modern rap) was also borne of that from the black nationalist perspective.

Country music which does suck to many (in fact a lot of it sux to me even) does not glorify the dark side generally so much as laments it. That is a big difference.

[freedumb2003]

I can also produce an intelligent Democrat (although the search will be hard).

A single "song" doesn't mean a thing. I stand by y contention. Hip Hop=Rap=Kill Whitey.

[truenospinzone]

Any non-white person who listens to rap is a racist.

Good to see you living up to your FReeper name.

Found another one for my homepage, guys...

[The Grammarian]

All music sux. Except hymnody, classical, and some "contemporary Christian music." ;-P

[ServesURight]

All Rap Music Suxs...IMO

You've probably never even heard most of it...just making a biased opinion based on what you hear in the lamestream media and negative FReeper hearsay.

It's a lot better than candy-ass bubble gum pop music and today's retread rock music.

[Khepera]

I am a bluegrass promotor and musician. I only know of a couple of songs out of thousands which refer to moonshine and or cheating. Country music maybe but not bluegrass. 75% of bluegrass is Gospel music BTW.

You need to stick to something you really know about.

http://bluegrasspro.com/

[jmc813]

I know. Country music is still 1000% more conservative than rap ever will be...even in its sexed-up, star-crazed state.

Just ask the Dixie Chicks.

[wardaddy]

Lynyrd Skynyrd apologized for George Wallace in Sweet Home Alabama.

"In Birmingham they love the governor.....we all did what we could do"

My distaste for hip-hop is cultural mainly although I do not like much of the projection of it nor quite a bit of the lyrics.

I own Kid Rock's Cowboy CD but...lol...I know that does not count.

I was quite instrumental in supplying sound gear for the mammouth Jamaican Dance Hall "posses" in the mid 80s. That is really one of the forerunners to American Rap by way of Jamaicans in Brooklyn etc. I remember sitting there at competitions with these huge wall of sounds in MoBay or Kingston and my guys (African Symbol) would line up all their DJs....General Tree, Brigadier John, Yellowman etc and blast off against the Kingston topdog folks....called "Black ???" and these sound wars would go on all night to see who could be the loudest or the strongest bass and attended by 1000s of folks. I'd usually be the only whitey there sitting backstage and would always...and I mean always....wonder "whatever happened to Bob Marley?"......the gulf between reggae and ska to dancehall always baffled me. My buddies would always cajole me that I needed to start smoking spliffs again and try to grasp the feel of it all. It was something very strong and tribal and they loved it but I was always from the outside looking in.

Some of these sound systems pushed in excess of 100,000 watts....very very powerful for the times.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

I love the golden age of rap in the 80s and early 90s. Public Enemy, Eric B. and Rakim, Boogie Down Productions...those artists focused on conscience rhymes with scathing lyrics and head-nodding beats.

Today's rap is in the toilet, however. Nowadays they wanna rap about how many Cadillac Esclades they own or how many women they screwed.

[jmc813]

and some "contemporary Christian music." ;-P

Robert Randolph is amazing.

[cyborg]

Whatever... go ahead and feel secure in your musical ignorance. Hip hop and rap is not about 'kill whitey'. No more than southern rock and country is about killing blacks and being racist.

[cyborg]

I can't get into the reggae as much as I can soca and pan music. I just heard that LS song on a rock station recently. My dad listened to only country music. If he listened to anything else, maybe soca and pan thanks to my mom. There is no more country music station in NY. It went over to rock and pop a while ago. I happen to watch movies like Forrest Gump and if I hear something I like, that's how I find it. Incidentally, country is like NASCAR up here in the yankee north... no where to be found.

[truenospinzone]

Ouch! I am cut to the quick! You are the VERY FIRST FREEPER to ever use that oh-so-clever line! I must now go and commit suicide since I am in such pain from the force of your lingustic riposte! I must leave FR forever since I have been soooo put in my place!

It's called decaf. Look into it. Unless, of course, you own stock in an exclamation point distributor, in which case, carry on!! Really! It's fun! To blindingly overreact!! In lieu of an actual argument!!

From your support of this drivel, I gather you are a racist?

No, just an opponent of embarassingly uninformed blanket statements, particularly when the maker of such statements has absolutely no argument short of "It's true. I'm right. Even if you show me evidence to the contrary.".

[AppyPappy]

You need to stick to something you really know about.

You're right. Moonshine is never mentioned in bluegrass and pimping is always mentioned in rap. Sorry, your majesty for daring to speak in your royal presence.

[AppyPappy]

I believe this article is about "pimping" in rap. I see little difference between "pimping" in rap and cheating in country music.

[=Intervention=]

That said, I think you can find an undercurrent of racism in hip hop...Look at the problems that Public Enemy had, for one. Not to say that they're the be-all and end-all, no, but to say that there is racism in the music and it's proclaimed by some rather large bands. The black identity stuff borders on afrocentricism, which is always a near neighbor to racism (when was the last time you heard "white identity" lyrics and they weren't racist?). I think of DMX's "Who We Be" as just another example...holding up images long past of racism just to drive blacks closer together and to unite against Whitey.

[=Intervention=]

I want to stress that rap isn't the only genre with these problems. It's virulent in the black metal community, for instance, and it does show up occasionally in the hardcore scene, too.