Cosby, Part Two
Some folks, mostly middle class folks who've built their identity in the hip-hop milieu,have taken Dr. Cosby's speech personally. I wanted to hold off for a while until I could read what he said for myself. The closest I got was an interview on The Tavis Smiley Show. Mike let me know it was coming but it's on at midnight around these parts. PBS has posted the interview in text and RealSomething. Coming from Dr. Cosby's own mouth, it's close enough to the speech for me. NPR has commentary from Cornel West and Eric Michael Dyson.
My own reaction is that he did a piss poor job of selling his idea. And I think he thinks he delineated the problem.
Let me explain really briefly, a really high level overview, of how a section of hip-hop metastasized into commercial rap.
Step 1: MCs keeping the party jumping
Step 2: Rapper's Delight made money
Step 3: Things like P.E. and The Message drew a genuine folk-music type following
Step 4: Corporation Sound started backing production in order to get their standard cut
Step 5: Marketing types applied the standard American attention grabbers: money, sex and violence
Step 6: Americans liked that shit
Seriously, the difference between commercial rap and old school hip-hop is they be flossing all the time now.
Our kids see these guys with all the symbols everyone respects and it really looks like the shortest path to success to many. And it will continue to look that way as long as mainstream folks keep buying it up the way they do. It's almost like those superhero comics where a guy is imprisoned in a machine powered by his own strength.
Keep in mind, this is what Mainstream America likes to see, as predicted by the demographic dudes and verified by unit sales. And the result of that-which-sells and that-which-is-sold is bonded to a genuine Black creation and fired back at us…at our kids. Black culture is marketed, comes at you like water from the business end of a fire hose, but it ain't Black people's hands controlling the nozzle and directing the flow.
And this can be overcome, if you know that's what you're fighting. But you can't convince people of it by blaming them for not putting forth a superhuman effort. You can ask that effort of us, but you can't pretend it's the norm to be strong enough to withstand that fire hose force. It not only takes a lot of personal power it takes courage to stand in front of the stream.
