For some reason, the "respected" jazz critic Stanley Crouch felt compelled to write the following words last week in the NY Daily News:
Hip Hop Strikes A Sour Note
by Stanley Crouch
Some months ago, I was in the Village Vanguard and got into a conversation with a guy who had been working in black popular music since the days of Michael Jackson's "Thriller." [...] The guy had done quite well for himself. He was beautifully dressed, all in dark colors. But he had no dreadlocks, no cap turned sideways, no vulgar gold chains.
Review:
Vulgar? Asphincter say what? Since WHEN are gold chains vulgar?
Even if we're talking about the power cable thick ropes that Run-D.M.C.
used to wear, I don't find that VULGAR - maybe excessive but not any of
the feelings that VULGAR would imply; feelings like gross & disgusting.
I am assuming Mr. Grouch must feel the same way about dreadlocks -- I'm sure the rastafarians would be glad to hear he thinks they are vulgar. So would leagues of average Joe and Jane, black or white, who wear their hat to the side/back/tilted everyday rather than some white AmeriKan "norm" of the way a hat is SUPPOSED to be worn.
[--- and his UNNAMED source said ---] "But when rap took off, they had themselves a gold mine because they didn't have to find much talent. They didn't have to have what Barry Gordy found to establish Motown. They didn't need killer groups, they didn't need great solo singers, they didn't need hellacious drummers, bass players and keyboard players. They convinced the white people who ran the big labels that this was the way to go, and they were right." [--- end UNNAMED Stanley source ---]
Who the f*ck are you kidding Stanley? You think it requires that little "talent" let's see you write your own lyrics, create your own beats, do your own DJing and scratching, and record your own records -- then let's see if anybody actually BUYS THE SH*T. You probably think that you could be clever and toss some cursewords around like f*ck and sh*t and make a rap song.
SURE, you could make a rap song way... but it wouldn't be GOOD. It wouldn't be HIP-HOP. It would be a mockery with no heart and no soul in it. There is soul in scratching, there is heart in beatboxing, and there is intelligence in writing lyrics like "I got a letter from the government the other day; I opened, and read it -- it said they was suckers!" That's Carleton Ridenhour, a RESPECTED hip-hop author and commentator for the Fox News Network. Oh wait, that's also Chuck D from the rap group Public Enemy. I guess because he's a rapper he's an unintelligent man without much talent...
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