Rap’s noxious effects
by Steve Blake
Content advisory: This article contains words and phrases which some readers might consider to be offensive. Content is not suitable for those under the age of 18.
It could be a typical scene just about anywhere in urban Britain, a graffiti covered wall provides the backdrop; gang tags have been sprayed on what used to be the park’s lavatories but now survives as a boarded up wreck, more graffiti has been sprayed on the concrete BMX slope close to where a teenage lad is hanging out with his pals on a park bench, baggy track suit bottoms half way down the buttocks, a grey hooded top concealing the thin wires which connects the MP3 player in his pocket to the earpieces. Although physically amongst friends each one is in psychological isolation as the dull repetitive beat lulls the listener into a state of semi-consciousness. A bottle of cheap wine is passed around the group and the lyrics while at first mesmerizing start to anger the listener; the guns, the violence, the glory of shooting dead a rival and little by little the group play act an unchoreographed scene of killing, revenge and escape from the law.
The horrific spate of stabbings, shootings and gang related violence has the pernicious disease of liberalism at its core and while liberal-leftists bleat endlessly about so-called hate crimes allegedly carried out by vicious white homophobic racists against minorities, whether ethnic, sexual or faith based, one aspect of real hate which they never mention, let alone challenge, is the depraved, pornographic and violent world of rap music. A few years ago gang violence was largely confined to teenage males of Afro-Caribbean origin but as we have witnessed in the recent horrific incidents in recent months it is no longer race specific or even confined to males. White on white gang attacks are now commonplace from Glasgow to Gravesend. Gang “culture”, as the establishment media euphemistically call it, is part of daily life for millions in predominantly urban areas, but even rural locations and small market towns are not immune to outbreaks of gang warfare which often involve girls as well as teenage lads.Few parents have any idea or interest in what their teenage offspring are listening to and what effect it might be having on their children’s mind and subsequent behaviour.
Origins
Gangsta rap emerged in the late 1980s from the broader rap movement. It is symbolized by lyrics which promote anti-white hatred, racism towards Jews and Orientals, is deeply misogynistic and advocates extreme violence.
This is the kind of hate filled message that passes as entertainment:
“Niggas in the church say: kill whitey all night long. . . . the white man is the devil. . . . the CRIPS and Bloods are soldiers I’m recruiting with no dispute; drive-by shooting on this white genetic mutant. . . . let’s go and kill some rednecks. . . . Menace Clan ain’t afraid. . . . I got the .380; the homies think I’m crazy because I shot a white baby; I said; I said; I said: kill whitey all night long. . . . a nigga dumping on your white ass; **** this rap shit, nigga, I’m gonna blast. . . . I beat a white boy to the **** ground”;
“Kill Whitey”; Menace Clan, Da Hood, 1995, Rap-A-Lot Records, Noo Trybe Records, subsidiaries of what was called Thorn EMI and now is called The EMI Group, United Kingdom.
White people (“whiteys”) are always referred to as called “devils” or “cracks”, the latter being an abbreviated form of “crackers”, the thin biscuits which are both pale coloured and easy to break in half.
Some rap stars don’t just glorify violence, they commit it. Rappers often have a background in violent crime that they carry into the music industry with them. So there are multi-millionaire entertainers committing violent crimes that are more typical of the hard-core unemployed in urban ghettoes. Rap music critics have been beaten and threatened. Frank Alexander, Tupac Shakur’s bodyguard, wrote a called Got Your Back: Protecting Tupac in the World of Gangsta Rap, which talks about a gratuitously hedonistic and extremely violent lifestyle.
Rappers in America have started whole riots. The Koreans were victims in the Los Angeles Rodney King riots of 1992; Jews were victims in the Crown Heights pogrom in New York in 1991, Whites have been victimised by multiple riots for several years in various US towns.
In 2002 an outburst of violence that police said involved rap artists brought the second annual Source Hip-Hop Music Awards in Miami to an abrupt end only an hour into the show’s taping.
Obscenities
Gangsta rap lyrics are laden with the most extreme sexual vulgarity which just 20 years ago would have attracted the attentions of the Vice Squad and its creators, importers and peddlers banged up on obscenity charges. Today this filth can be purchased on line from Amazon and Virgin or from one the major high street outlets for £10 per CD and even those supermarkets which like to portray a family friendly ethos peddle this pornography such as Tesco and ASDA where you can buy 2 Live Crew’s album “Banned in the USA” for under £13.00.
That album includes a track with the following lyrics:
When schoolin’ others, I kick the knowledge
For those who hate me, I pray you’ll miss me
If you find out you had dissed me
I’ll treat you like a child and smack ya head
Feed you ****, put you to bed
Look you in the eye and know you’re fessin’
Make you take notes of the lesson
And the same band’s album “Sports Weekend (As Nasty As They Wanna Be Part 2)”
Yeah!
I’m **** you and you’re **** me
Fuck relationships; **** love
Ha ha!
‘Cause makin’ money is all I’m thinkin’ of
True!
And when the bitches see me they start to holler,
“Marquis want some head and $500?”
Ha ha …
‘Cause I’m a three-piece nigga, bitch, I don’t play
I want the ****, the pay and a place to stay!
Fool!
And the ****, **** and ****, well, that’s mandantory
It goes on and on, laden with the most depraved filth from drug disturbed minds, denigrating women, white people and what the performers view as “authority” especially police officers. Even traditional nursery rhymes get the gangsta rap treatmen, again from 2 Live Crew:
There’s an old lady who lives in a shoe
Got a house full of kids don’t know what to do
She **** and **** all the niggas around
When it’s time to pay rent couldn’t none be found
Little miss Muffet sat on a tuffet
With her legs gapped open wide
Up came a spider, looked up inside her
And said ‘that **** wide’
Another group, NWA, has this to say about its own work:
“Efil4zaggin (Niggaz4life spelt backwards) which made US number 1, also surpassed the outrage factor of its predecessor by addressing gang rape and paedophilia, in addition to the established agenda of oral sex, cop killing and prostitution. Musically, it contained furious blasts of raggamuffin and 70s funk, but that was somehow secondary.”
Treatment of women
Gangsta rap lyrics contain a common thread where women, (or “hoes” as they are derogatorily called) both black and white are considered to be nothing more then sexual playthings.
This from 50 Cent “My best friend”
First we get the talkin, then we get the touchin
If we get pass the phone games we’ll be ****
I kiss like the french therefore my tongue in your ear
Do it like the dogs do it girl and pull on your hair
For me a different scenery just mean a different position
In the tub or on the sink I improvise now listen
50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson has been shot at on 9 times different occasions and continues to wear a bullet proof vest in public.
Real villains
So how did a handful of drug crazed black rappers from the ghettos of Los Angeles and New York get to influence the minds of millions of kids; black, white, Hispanic and Asian across the world?
Some people assume that gangsta rappers control the distribution and air play of their music and videos, but that is not true. Major media corporations are responsible for the shoving down our throats those images that promote sex, drugs, crime, and have deliberately blocked some of the other forms of rap such as Christian, political, educational, rock, gospel and the 100 other forms of rap from getting equal air play. It’s the men in suits who run broadcasters like MTV and VH-1 which beam this hate-music into children’s bedrooms 24hrs a day who see a great way of not just making big money but degrading society in the process.
No politician in the UK is coming forward condemning gangsta rap because those same politicians now have a vested interest in the corporate distribution of this worldwide musical phenomenon. Pension funds that keep former ministers and leading civil servants in comfortable retirement invest in the big retailers and media corporations which make small fortunes from promoting this violent form of entertainment. Even those investment funds which claim to be ethical by avoiding defence companies and manufacturers of security equipment would not drop Tesco or Vivendi from their portfolios but the damage done to society through the promotion of gang violence doesn’t just cost pounds and pence, it also costs lives.
Just as they outsource millions of British jobs to Chinese sweatshops and Indian call centres they also make a fortune bombarding us and glorifying gangsta rap, drugs and sex until our youth, regardless of their race, become influenced by the thug and drug culture.
A way forward
So what do we want to happen?
1. Corporate awareness – When small businesses are taken over, bought out and swallowed up by bigger enterprises it is perfectly understandable in the scheme of such endeavours that the predatory men in suits do not know who maintains the vending machines in the prey’s staff canteen or sweep the car parks or in the case of the music/entertainment industry just what archives and music libraries have been acquired.
The men who make big money peddling gangsta rap to our children include the artists themselves but also the bosses of the record labels, men like American millionaire Doug Morris, the boss of the Universal Music Group which publishes gangsta rap artists on its Aftermath Entertainment label.
It also includes the men who allow, albeit perhaps unknowingly, the sale of this filth in their record stores, men like the billionaire Sir Richard Branson, one of the entrepreneurial heroes of 21st century Britain and Robert Walker, Chairman of WH Smith PLC since 1st February 2005. It also includes the bosses of telecoms companies whose cables and networks convey the message of hate perpetrated by gangsta rap, again we have Sir Richard, the boss of Virgin Media which has recently taken over NTL cable and Charles Dunstone, head of mobile phone chain Carphone Warehouse which last year bought the UK operation of Internet giant AOL.
These important decision makers need to be told what they are peddling and the consequences for our youth and our society.
2. Parental awareness – Parents need to know that MTV is a channel poisoning the minds of its viewers and that the CDs their sons and daughters buy from Virgin megastores or download from web sites owned by AOL contain graphical references to sexual perversions and gratuitous violence. Parents need to be reminded of the link between glorification of violence on a music channel or on a MP3 track and real life violence which kills and maims real youngsters. Parents need to be reminded of the link between promotion of hard core drugs on a music channel or on a MP3 track and real life drug addiction which kills and maims real youngsters. Parents need to be reminded of the link between promotion of hatred for women, minorities and white people on a music channel or on a MP3 track and real life racist and misogynist violence which kills and maims real youngsters and rapes young women.
3. Giving our children a choice – Black kids need their own healthy role models from their own community and there is no shortage of good musicians from a wide range of genres as well as record breaking sportsmen and women who can be heroes to Afro-Caribbean youngsters. That’s something the community leaders themselves need to address but black on black violence is a scourge that has ramifications beyond the Afro-Caribbean community and a BNP run council or just a single BNP councillor would do whatever was within their ability to help save black mothers from seeing their boys mown down in a gang fight.
Within our own community white lads especially need positive role models. An increasingly number of white lads now grow up without having a permanent dad or knowing their real father, and the absence of fathers is a huge topic in itself exacerbating the need for positive role models of men who are strong without being aggressive, wise without being nerdy and caring without being effeminate. Contemporary sports stars and some entertainers fit the bill as do male teachers and historic heroes, the latter criminally lying in unread books in unvisited libraries or deliberately left out of the school curriculum.
4. Legal action – As there is a strong link between the proliferation of gang culture, anti white racism, street violence and gangsta rap, the parents of murdered youngsters whose attackers have grown up in the gang culture of lawlessness and where there is evidence that the murderer was influenced by gangsta rap, the parents should take legal action against the record labels, publishers, artists and retailers for producing and selling material which is an incitement to murder. Certainly in the States there are precedents for class action against individuals and organisations which publish material likely to incite murder. Even a threat of a class action against Wal-mart, owners of ASDA by bereaved British parents might make the Walton family, the worlds’ wealthiest family and devout Christians decide to pull this filth from the shelves of their family-friendly stores.
It’s going to be an uphill battle – the stakes are high; gangsta rap is a multibillion dollar industry with links into sales of sportswear, (Reebok used 50 cent to promote their brand of trainers made with child labour in Third World sweatshops), jewellery and sports cars.
The life of an innocent child taken away by a stabbing or a shooting must be worth more than any amount of profit made from music which incites hatred, violence and murder.
http://www.bnp.org.uk/articles/content_advisory.htm