Confessions of a Hip-Hop Fan

I never really felt a need to explain to anyone why I listen to gangsta rap until about two days ago. My cousin and I were at our aunt's house, waxing his truck and listening to a locally remixed version of Tupac's "Hit 'Em Up," when a black Cadillac pulled into the driveway. We recognized the car. It belonged to Reverend Taylor, a wiry old man with a booming Barry White voice.

Reverend Taylor got out of his car and spoke to us as he headed towards the house to visit our aunt. We nodded a polite response and continued waxing. Then, almost as an afterthought, he turned around and made a beeline over to where we were working. I glanced at my cousin and shook my head. Trouble was about to close in on us.

"What you fellows listening to?" Reverend Taylor shifted his weight onto his left foot and cocked his head to the side. My cousin offered a quick answer but we both realized it was useless. The reverend had an axe to grind. A sermon was brewing.

"Why so much cursing? You call that music? Listen to him. All that MF this and MF that. Sounds like he talking about shooting people too. You boys are too smart to be filling your head with all that trash."

For the next twenty minutes we listened respectfully as the reverend explained to us the flaws of rap music. He illustrated, sometimes from a biblical point of view, how rap music was destroying Black people. He found a host of issues to criticize: Every video you see portrays black women as sluts. The music has kids walking around with their pants sagging because they think it's cool. They glorify drug dealers and murderers and have no respect for authority or God.

"These kids today are lost. They walk around looking like thugs and hoodlums and then wonder why no one will hire them. It's devil music. You boys should be listening to Jazz music. Clean your minds. I was listening to a little Al Green on my way over here. I'm going to get you both a CD of real music." Reverend Taylor shook his at us and frowned. "Tell you what. I'm going to let you guys borrow my music for a while. Just promise me you'll listen to it?"

"Yes sir." My cousin responded, hoping to end the sermon.

The reverend turned to me, waiting for a response. I could see my cousin staring at me, his eyes pleading with me to just agree with the man so we could move on with our lives.

I believe everyone has a right to an opinion but that doesn't mean I have to agree with it. I listen to gangster music because it oftentimes represents a lifestyle that I suffered through for many years. When the rapper Beanie Sigel screams out State Property, it resonates with my homeboys and me. We know, from bitter experience, how it feels to be incarcerated in a system that strangles away your youth. Gangsta music isn't a blueprint for us; it's a testimony. It's an art form that articulates the harsh realities of what used to be our everyday lives.

I'm beginning to understand why so many in the older generation point accusatory fingers at Hip-Hop-it allows them to ignore the social conditions that breed the music. As long as they can blame Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg, they don't have to do volunteer work in the projects where these rappers come from. The advantage of being a modern day Hip-Hop critic is that you get to sit on the sidelines and offer up hypothetical solutions on how to make life in the slums a better place. There was a time, not so long ago, when you had to be a part of the struggle before you could criticize it. Those times are gone. Nowadays, any uppity Negro with a pocketful of the American Dream can toss around two cent theories about what poor Black folks are doing wrong. Marching has been replaced with talking.

Bill Cosby, a man I have the utmost respect and admiration for, has spent the past year hammering home issues that drive deep into the heart of many Black communities. And while I agree with most of the controversial statements he has made thus far, I believe he is a bit misguided with his critique of the Hip-Hop dress code. He seems to think, along with a host of other Hip-Hop critics, that rap music has produced a nation filled with slouchy youth who walk around with their pants sagging. From my vantage point, things are a bit more complicated than that. But if clothing is his issue, Mr. Cosby is more lost than all of us.

In an exclusive interview with "Nightline's" Michel Martin, Bill Cosby wore a conservative blue and white seersucker suit. Wealthy white plantation owners originally made the American seersucker suit-a cotton version of the silk seersucker worn in the nineteenth century by the British in India-popular in the South during the late 1920's and early 1930's. On national television, the beloved Bill Cosby offered a critique of poor Black folks in America while wearing the same attire as former slave owners. Given a choice, I'd much rather see young Black males wearing sagging Hip-Hop clothes designed by Black owned companies than seersucker suits once donned by slave masters and colonizers.

I'm not sure if Bill Cosby even realized the impression that had on a lot of us. Our leaders exhaust so much energy attempting to remove confederate flags from courthouses that they forget to remove the confederate thinking from our minds. This is a problem much bigger than Hip-Hop.

A lot of Black folks are suffering in America. In my old neighborhood, I know people who still live without lights or electricity. School becomes a luxury kids sometimes can't afford when their stomachs are empty. I understand how it feels when a kid opens his front door and the only path he can see in front of him that offers the promise of escape is the life of crime. I used to be that kid. I remember telling my uncle when I was eleven-years-old that I wanted to be a writer one day. His response: "You better learn how to sing or play ball boy. You can't make no money writing." His words still haunt my subconscious today. These were the male role models my homeboys and I grew up around. The Huxtables didn't live on our block; nor did Reverend Taylor-he was too busy preaching to the converted to cruise through our old neighborhood and show the kids a better way out. I suspect we were too young to add to his collection plate.

The music my homeboys and I listen to explains these things in graphic details. When Tupac talks about being shot or homeboys who have died or females who set dealers up, I can relate to him. His music articulates a past reality for me that I'm unable to forget. Hip-Hop is merely the symptom of a more serious problem in the Black community.

When Reverend Taylor went into his car and handed us a few of his jazz CDs to listen to, a dozen things surfaced to the top of my mind to spew out at him. I wanted to point out how ironic it was that he was offering us jazz music to listen to-especially since the history of jazz music is very similar to Hip-Hop music in respect to its intellectual critics. The most brilliant Black minds of the times crucified jazz music during its inception. W. E. B DuBois, the famed author of Souls of Black Folk, wrote countless essays describing jazz music as the ultimate corruptor of Black folk's morality. Even Booker T. Washington, never one to willingly agree with W. E. B. DuBois on anything social, led a popular assault against jazz music. The older generation rallied against jazz music unmercifully. Still, jazz music forged ahead into respectability despite the complaints of pseudo intellectuals out of touch with their culture. Hip-Hop will do the same.

"You boys need God in your lives. That Hip-Hop music got you out of touch with Jesus." Reverend Taylor began shifting his weight from side to side. He wanted to preach some more.

A part of me wanted to grab Reverend Taylor by the collar and snatch him through time so that he could remember the outcry many Black religious leaders made when Kirk Franklin was reaching out to the youth with a Hip-Hop sound. No cursing, no violence-just spiritual music with a Hip-Hop inspired rhythm. Still, many within the religious Black community were outraged.

I wanted to take him back in time so he could see that a lot of the musical geniuses he loves today were once the focus of Black critics. From Al Greene to Ray Charles, leagues of religious and intellectual Black critics abhorred the music. It would seem, after a close examination of our musical history, that too many Black folks in America turn into miserable and unhappy human beings once they reach a certain age. They seem determined to find an excuse to criticize the young, no matter what we do.

Hip-Hop is not perfect. A lot Black people have died, both directly and indirectly, as a result of this art form. Changes certainly need to be made. But, the problem with criticizing Hip-Hop is that, once your colleagues are finished patting you on the back and giving you kudos for being so insightful, the conditions in the ghetto still remain. Poverty won't disappear once 50 Cent retires. I wanted to say these things and more to Reverend Taylor. Instead, I just smiled across at him and sorted through the CDs.

"I'll listen to them." I promised. "But you have to promise me something also. The next time you see an eleven-year-old standing on the street corner on a school day, I want you to stop and spend a few minutes explaining to him another way out the hood."

It didn't matter to me if the kid listened to him or not. At least the kid would know that that there's another, more positive way out the ghetto. When I was eleven, I didn't know any.