Hip-hop, gangsta rap 21st-century scourge

THIS may seem blasphemous, but we must do it anyway --strictly to illustrate a point.
Seven years after his death, most readers probably never would expect to see Frank Sinatra's name in the same sentence with black gangsta rappers. This topic is about language (actually perceived racial slurs) and rules of engagement.

Let's start with the black valet. George Jacobs, who served as Sinatra's valet from 1953 to 1968, wrote a book, with author William Stadiem, titled, "Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra."

The book, as much introspective as impudent, explores, in several instances, Sinatra's views on race, interspersed among a multitude of other subjects.

Turn to the bottom of Page 55. The passage from Jacobs reads: "... Being black was never discussed, nor did it seem to be considered. He (Sinatra) never used the ‘N' word, except to complain that someone like (movie producer) Sam Spiegel was ‘treating him like a n-----' ..."

The link to the gangsta rappers: The N-word is part of their everyday vernacular, an integral element of their depraved lyrics.

If Sinatra were alive in 2005 in his prime, and his private conversations on race with members of the "Rat Pack" were leaked to the media today, he would be publicly vilified. In fact, The Revs. Jesse and Big Al probably would call for a national boycott of the old Sands casino, where Mr. S often performed in Las Vegas. But the revolving reverends don't do the same for today's gangsta rappers, who essentially are vile voyeurs promoting irresponsible behavior.

Wonder why the Dynamic Duo doesn't take action?

In Sinatra's case, there is a mitigating factor -- at least according to his valet -- in the use of the N-word. Jacobs' wrote: "He (Sinatra) would use it (the N-word) as an adjective of oppression, but never as an oppressive label. He wouldn't stand for that. He saw himself as a member of an oppressed minority and had total empathy for anyone who was similarly situated. ..."

Many bewildered observers would ask how can the lofty Sinatra view himself through that prism of oppression -- at least privately? Remember, black folk historically haven't been the only racial or ethnic group that has faced discrimination or intolerance in the United States. For example, baseball great Joe DiMaggio, who like Mr. S was an Italian-American, initially faced an ethnic backlash of name-calling and insensitivity when he joined the major leagues in 1936.

Still, you can bet, despite Jacobs' context, that many in today's society would accuse Sinatra of being a racist. Flat out.

Some are probably spouting the same blather about Larry Cochell, the etched-in-stone University of Oklahoma baseball coach who resigned recently because he used the "N-word" when discussing one of his black players during an off-camera -- supposedly off-the-record -- chat with two broadcasters from ESPN.

From all appearances, it didn't seem Cochell, who is white, was malicious in his intent, when he reportedly said, in part, of the black player, "There's no (N-word) in him." But Cochell undoubtedly was careless and negligent, especially with the media.

Which brings us back to the gratuitous gangstas, who use the N-word more often than Ku Klux Klan members, and in a more cavalier fashion than Cochell.

How often have many of us jostled down crowded, urban sidewalks against the backdrop of blaring rap lyrics emanating from a snazzy vehicle with midnight-dark tinted windows? Busy city streets and public rap music -- and the N-word --all day long.

However, on a daily basis, the rappers -- and music listeners -- proceed unchallenged on their choice of language, most of all by black people.

As Jacobs says of Mr. S, "Where race was concerned, the man was colorblind, even if today he'd be viewed as criminally insensitive."

But the gangstas keep rapping their lousy lyrics essentially without fear of recrimination. Why aren't they viewed as "criminally insensitive" as Mr. S would be?

Why don't they resign, as Cochell did.

To the gangsta rappers, the N-word is One Big Joke -- a perverse form of Comedy Central in gangsta-rap form. The bottom line in this destructive genre of music is simply this: Hip-hop and gangsta rap are the scourge of the 21st century for black folk, especially our impressionable youth. It's the New Slavery of 2005.

This slavery is more mental than physical, which makes it more insidious because it destroys the mind. This music is akin to slavery because it is hell-bent on keeping black folk enslaved in racial stereotypes.

We see the gangsta videos on shameful display on Black Entertainment Television, a travesty of a corporation. The videos, plain and simple, are infomercials, steeped in stereotypes, that glorify violence-mongering, alcohol-drinking, hedonism-loving, gold-teeth-and-bandanna-wearing, illiterate-talking, sexual predator-imitating, bling-bling-buying black males, replete with half-naked, oversized-rump-shaking black women.

Yet the rappers proceed with impunity from their choices of images and language. Some misguided souls, such as political comedian Bill Maher, have intimated that rappers use the N-word as a way of de-stigmatizing the racial epithet, sort of like taking the sting out of a killer bee. The argument goes something like this: By using the N-word, the speaker is negating the power of the oppressor (i.e. slave master) who uses it to promote his/her superiority over racially inferior black people.

First of all, do you really think these gangstas are thinking that deeply in a historical and sociological context about institutional slavery 400 years ago when it comes to their lyrics and music? One seriously doubts they have delved into the messages provided by noted black socio-cultural thinkers such as Drs. John Hope Franklin and Henry Louis Gates.

No way. To them, it's simply that Comedy Central-like Big Joke designed to further their own lexicon of gibberish.

Some have argued black people should be granted a pass when using the N-word because some of them, i.e. rappers and their young and misguided following, view the epithet as a term of endearment or empowerment.

How ridiculous is that.

People have been killed, lynched and murdered over that word. Remember the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1950s and 1960s?

Others, such as Cochell, have lost their jobs over this word.

And still, the rappers get a free pass when they utter vicious epithets publicly -- with immunity.

The question remains: Who's making the rules of engagement here?

Gregory Clay is assistant sports editor at Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service. He can be

Hip Hop- Gangsta Rap

Hip-hop music (also referred to as rap or rap music) is a style of popular music. It is made up of two main components: rapping (MCing) and DJing (audio mixing and scratching). Along with break dancing and graffiti (tagging), these compose the four elements of hip-hop, a cultural movement that was initiated by inner-city youth, mostly African Americans in New York City, in the early 1970s.

Typically, hip hop music consists of one or more rappers who tell semi-autobiographic tales, often relating to a fictionalized counterpart, in an intensely rhythmic lyrical form making abundant use of techniques like assonance, alliteration, and rhyme. The rapper is accompanied by an instrumental track, usually referred to as a "beat", performed by a DJ, created by a producer, or one or more instrumentalists. This beat is often created using a sample of the percussion break of another song, usually a funk, rock, or soul recording. In addition to the beat other sounds are often sampled, synthesized, or performed. Sometimes a track can be instrumental, as a showcase of the skills of the DJ or producer.

Hip-hop began in New York City when DJs began isolating the percussion break from funk and disco songs. The early role of the MC was to introduce the DJ and the music and to keep the audience excited. MCs began by speaking between songs, giving exhortations to dance, greetings to audience members, jokes and anecdotes. Eventually this practice became more stylized and became known as rapping. By 1979 hip-hop had become a commercially popular music genre and began to enter the American mainstream. In the 1990s, a form of hip hop called gangsta rap became a major part of American music, causing significant controversy over lyrics which were perceived as promoting violence, promiscuity, drug use and misogyny.

Nevertheless, by the beginning of the 2000s, hip-hop was a staple of popular music charts and was being performed in many styles across the world. This may involve removing the words and replacing them with Indian ones, mixing the original track's chorus and replacing it with local words. Sometimes the tracks are mixed so much that it is hard to tell if it is the original or not.

Although hip-hop music originated in the United States, it has spread throughout the world. Hip-hop was almost entirely unknown outside of the United States prior to the 1980s. During that decade, it began its spread to every inhabited continent and became a part of the music scene in dozens of countries. The spread of the music was intertwined with that of hip hop culture - as elements such as break dancing gained popularity, so did rappers and hip hop groups.

Gangsta (“gangster”) rap first came to prominence on the East Coast. Schoolly D, of Philadelphia, presented graphic tales of gangs and violence such as “PSK—What Does It Mean?” (1985); and Boogie Down Productions, formed in New York City by DJ Scott LaRock (Scott Sterling) and KRS-One (Lawrence Krisna Parker), offered hard-hitting depictions of crack-cocaine-related crime on Criminal Minded (1987). In Houston, Texas, the Geto Boys’ sex- and violence-dominated music was the subject of outrage in some corners. But gangsta rap became a national phenomenon in California, where a distinct school of West Coast hip-hop began with Eazy E’s Los Angeles group N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitude).

In Oakland, Too $hort had become a major regional force, and his profane and sexually explicit style influenced N.W.A. member Ice Cube’s early writing. It was N.W.A.’s controversial album Straight Outta Compton, however, that shifted hip-hop’s geographic centre. The most distinguishing characteristic of N.W.A.’s approach was the very plain way that violence was essayed: as plainly as it occurred in the streets of south-central Los Angeles and neighbouring Compton, argued the group. Hyperrealism was often conflated with myth and declarations of immortality; exaggeration became a kind of self-protective delusional device for listeners who were actually involved in the dangerous lifestyle N.W.A. was chronicling.

In the mainstream press and among African Americans nationwide, N.W.A., by virtue of their name, single-handedly reignited a debate about the word nigger. Its appropriation by black youth transformed it into a positive appellation, argued Ice Cube. For many, the persistent misogyny in N.W.A.’s work, which was alternately cartoonish and savage in its offensiveness, was less defensible.

As N.W.A. splintered, the group’s importance multiplied with each solo album. Ice Cube’s AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted (1990) employed Public Enemy’s production team, the Bomb Squad, and introduced New York City listeners to the West Coast sound, known by this point as gangsta rap. In 1992 N.W.A. producer and sometime rapper Dr. Dre released the California rap scene’s most influential and definitive record, The Chronic; its marriage of languid beats and murderous gangsta mentality resulted in phenomenal sales. Most significantly, it launched Death Row Records and the career of Snoop Doggy Dogg.

As early as 1988, other important artists from California began making an impression. Like Too $hort, Ice-T relied on his self-styled image as a pimp to propel sales; though his lyrics were well-respected, his single “Cop Killer" (1992), like gangsta rap in general, raised controversy. N.W.A.’s influence could be heard in groups like Compton’s Most Wanted, DJ Quik, Above the Law, and countless other gangsta groups, but by the early 1990s groups had surfaced whose approach was the antithesis of N.W.A.’s violence and misogyny. The jazzily virtuosic improvisers Freestyle Fellowship and the Pharcyde, of Los Angeles, and Souls of Mischief, of Oakland, owed more to East Coast abstractionists De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest than to gangs. Nevertheless, by the mid-1990s Death Row Records and Bad Boy Records were engaged in a “coastal battle.” Life imitated art imitating life; the violence that had been confined to songs began to spill over into the world, culminating in the tragic murders of the Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace), a rapper from New York City, and Tupac Shakur (2pac), a California rapper.

Breakdance

Breakdance, breaking, b-boying or b-girling is a street dance style that emerged as part of the hip hop movement among African American children and youth of Puerto Rico is in the southern part of New York City is brutal in the year 1970. Generally these dances on the accompanied songs hip hop, rap, or remix a song (the song in the back aransemen).

A breakdancer, breaker, b-boy or b-girl is a person who plays breakdance movement.

At Origin: From Street Dance To become

One of the major breakdance street culture pushes was Michael Jackson's Robot dance, first performed on television in 1974. The performance received a large following with many later breakdance pioneers further popularizing breakdance in the late 1970s.

Breakdance show geliatnya start when Koll DJ Herc began to produce music with a slightly different music at the time of it. A Hip Hop music with a beat that broken-broken or usually called the break beat. Is meritorious in that the music can create the Conference of the breaker styles are attractive and unique. Apart from being a DJ who creates music that is very fitting to breakdance, Koll Herc also including one senior on the Hip Hop world music. Is that at that time was willing to make the stay as the headquarters for this community.

Michael Jackson is a person that encourages the growth of Breakdance. Jacko start introducing robot dance or movement of the robot-like songs that dibawakannya in 1974 in perdananya appearance on television. In addition, in each appearance Jacko also always carries a wide range of movement melegenda enough, one of which is the moon-walk. Jacko can always find a new dance-dance that makes those who see it directly and do try to follow the movement dibawakannya. At the time that it is true enough that only Jacko melegenda dance-dance with the direct spread like a virus and make people try to follow the movements of dibawakanya.

If you see more, this type of dance was born long before Michael Jackson appears in the show with a robot dance scandalize it is. The Funk music legend James Brown has indicated a dance that also has a degree of movement similar to breakdance.

The development of one type of dance that is also very rapid, even a few communities in the United States began to form. In the year 1980'an, breakdance has become like fashion in the United States. Almost every night in some parts of the city there are some communities that showed mutual kebolehannya in doing this type of dance, even if it does not culminate in a bit of a commotion. The way they compete is very similar to freestyle with the usual found in the Hip Hop music. Not only in the streets of this dance are found, because the club and the party was a soft land for the breaker to indicate kebolehannya.

After the opportunity to be a "waste" in some public place, and finally start showing breakdance class. At the end of the tahun1980, many start kompetis breakdance pop and the official Battle Of The Year competition is one of the very class. The presence of this direct competition, followed by a variety of other competitions that seara class does not directly raise this type of dance.

history Hip-Hop

Year 1520 in Sedwick Avenue, an area in New York claimed to be the beginning of the birth of hiphop community. "We come is the" cetus Clive Campbell, one of the merelakan one floor in a house used as headquarters for the assembly. "Hip Hop Culture and was born here, which will be spread throughout the world, it's here we barasal because we do not really have a place to meet, not in other places" sahutnya. Besides the name, there is also the name of DJ Kool Herc introduced the Turntable at that time was at a party in 1973. At the beginning of the appearance, DJ Kool Herc brings songs from James Brown, Jimmy Castor, Babe and Rooth. Kool Herc also the ones who eventually scratch and create sounds that cause a strange sensation that extraordinary at the time.

Hiphop feel incomplete without MC. This is the rift that was viewed by Melle Mel, MC first on the Hip Hop world. Melle Mel was initially feel confused what akan diucapkannya on the first, but because it was filled with the tedium of the rules that rein in the government, Melle Mel finally issued a taste aversion to the government and his view of life through the lyrics-liriknya. Thence hiphop music is more narrative about the life of black people around and shouting and protests to voice their hearts that the government does not just apply. Lyrics Hip-Hop music lyrics tend to be hard and firm. That's Hip Hop.

Hip Hop culture as Diperjelas again in 1983 by Black Spades which is a member of Afrika Bambaataa and The Soulsonic Force through the track, entitled "Planet Rock". This song is a Hip Hop music because it has an interesting blend between rap and the simple rhythm of disco music created through the electronic drum and synthesizer. In 1985 berulah with stereo technology, Run DMC, LL Cool J, The Fat Boys, Herbie Hancock, Soulsonic Force, Jazzy Jaz, and the issue Stetsasonic albums andalannya become so legendary Hip Hop music to this day.