COMMUNITY Let’s Build (Vol4): Real N!gga = Street N!gga

[Duwop]

I don't think there's anything wrong with music. I think the issue is not enough people pointing out how fast that lifestyle burns out. Or how to legally maintain it.

50 cent was gangster as shit when he came out, but we all know his best move was vitamin water. I'm pretty sure that influenced people more than any of his music.

Jay Z bragged a lot about street shit in the beginning. But I feel like he made a bigger influence when everybody was pocket watching him at he kept making investments and attaching himself to brands


I joke about a lotta ghetto shit I see out there like the bet awards... But I don't really give a fuck. As long as those people are happy and figure out a good way to grown and maintain what they got.... Go off... Have fun.

 

[BlackRain]

See this can't be accredited to just music though.

It's lazy. There has to be a significant effort to counter these things other than just listening to jazz.

You should still be able to listen to rap, and uplift the community at the same time

Exactly. Boiling it down to "rap music and movies is why" misses so much that the problem will never actually be solved because it's not being addressed. Music and movies are a medium for those things but when the Isley Brothers was dominating radio there was still drugs and violence.

I mean hell just look at the 80s and 90s. A time on TV where positive images of Black folks exploded in mass...and there was also coke and crack being sold by the tons long before somebody picked up a mic and bragged about being a drug dealer and made that a standard image in rap music.

 

[konceptjones]

Our music and cinema has portrayed the bad guy as the good guy. Take Snowfall, All or Power universe, The Wire, Boyz N The Hood, Menace to Society and others. Our music made the drug dealer and gangsta top sellers.

For example use 2pac as case study. When he was rapping like Chuck D he couldn't see gold with 2pacalpys Now album, buddy got into controversy after playing the role as Bishop, shot at some plain clothes cop, got himself shot up . Now he's the best thing going when he was rapping about upliftment and empowering our people no fan fare. Soon as he goes "gangsta" you got some of you weirdos yappin about he's speaking that real shit.

Our people have been strategically been molded to be accustomed to violence and destruction of our community's. I'm guilty of it just like all of us because I would rather see Franklin murk someone than Madea pray for her family to see a brighter day.

The radio won't play a J.Cole or Rapsody but will play the new up and coming fuck nigga trying to shoot his opps or the new rap chick using her pussy for the finer things in life instead of her mind.

It's endless cycle at this point thats why I listen to jazz nowadays and old school RnB

I've been saying this for the longest: Pac got stuck playing Bishop in real life; that character became his personality. You can see the change by comparing interviews pre-Juice and post-Juice. Same for his music. I've never been a fan of his music 'cause "2Pacalypse Now" was like a completely watered down "The Devil Made Me Do It" and I was one of them cats bangin' "Break The Grip of Shame" and "The Devil Made Me Do It" out the ride all day long. After the movie came "Strictly for my Niggas" and that Thug Life album, and his antics on camera just started looking like Bishop in the flesh.

 

[SeaSnake]

We honestly need conversations like this. We may have different ways to help our communities, but at least we are starting to talk about what can be done.

I hear you but I feel like black community been having this conversation for 35 years or more. Individual vs collective. Somebody says rap is the issue then we bring up crime in the community before hip hop culture and we still had issues.


Then it becomes a debate between us over niggas not wanting more and being negative Vs systemic racial issues that put us in a box leading to the negativity.


I feel like we need to work from a system way cuz this individual tough love thing ain’t working. How are we supposed to help people build their self esteem? When we live in a society that places individual over group

 

[Old Man Cain]

See this can't be accredited to just music though.

It's lazy. There has to be a significant effort to counter these things other than just listening to jazz.

You should still be able to listen to rap, and uplift the community at the same time

Well you're an example because you're a husband and a father who's been blessed to raise a son and a daughter. So those two can see what a home supposed to look like so that's one generational curse they don't have to worry about.

Now they have to navigate and make choices when they get older god willing what you and the wife instilled in them they can do both things. Listen to gangsta shit and still uplift their community and the people around them.

It takes a lot of work stay on the right path. We did it because we didn't have social media molding us like the youth have today. All we had was Bet and MTV then nightly news that's all. Hell most of us didn't have a computer in our homes till last two decades ago lol

 

[Duwop]

I get niggaz got irritated cuz we were talking about white people. But I think they really missing the reasons.

Ok, I brought up trump and stone Cold.... As black man I really ain't gotta explain to my kids why they can't go around acting like that. Cuz they can give a fuck less. Now it is my responsibility as a black man to explain to my kids why they can't be out there fighting like blue face n them... I gotta make sure they understand it's way more to life than what youngnba talking.... I do have to have conversations with them about the music they listen to... And I do have to point them to other sources as well to balance themselves out.

But I don't think it's the music itself that's fucking up the community. It's the lack of balance

 

[Duwop]

But ultimately the worst of it is it's still in kids nature to rebel and was do things their own way they the way you provide for them

 

[mookieBlazelock]

Not in mainstream white culture but if you’ve spent anytime around some country ass white folk you’ll come across enough folks with that attitude.

I will say they still associate the low class behavior with our communities more than there’s. Had a crazy white roommate in college who wanted me to call him ‘Black Mark’ cause he sold weed .

 

[Judy Winslow]

It’s the music!

 

[Bobjones]

It's one thing to glorify street culture but see it strictly as entertainment. It's another to fully engage with it as something to aspire to.

growing up in poverty makes youth exposed to and way more susceptible to the bad shit. And there happens to be a lot more black people shackled in poverty, relatively speaking. That's a rut that needs breaking out of.

And it's not just hip hop that promotes it. There's dance hall in Jamaica. There's funk in Brazil. All performed and listened to heavily by poorer black communities in their respective countries.

I don't think street music is the major problem, and I often view it as a symptom of an issue rather than the cause, but any degree of negative glorification can be poison for the mind when the grounds we stand on are already so fractured.

There's such thing as too many bad influences coming from all directions.. the home, the school, the neighbourhood, the internet, TV/Movies and what's coming out a persons headphones on a daily basis. When it's all u hear and all u know these things will supersede the things we should really be looking up to.

 

[Ghost313]

the music is a reflection of environment. It don’t matter where the artist is from, the messages are the same. I do feel that artists have some responsibility with their message, however you need to look deeper into cause and effect.

 

[DOS_patos]

We honestly need conversations like this. We may have different ways to help our communities, but at least we are starting to talk about what can be done.

These convos been had. Since the IC days.
The problem is, is enough people doing the work to change things.

 

[DOS_patos]

Is there enough of us trying to change the image others give us?
Are we making us cool or are we told to like what’s considered cool?

 

[DOS_patos]

the music is a reflection of environment. It don’t matter where the artist is from, the messages are the same. I do feel that artists have some responsibility with their message, however you need to look deeper into cause and effect.

Or …..we can look at the djs and who influences them to play certain music.

And why are we accepting certain lyrics because the beat is nice?
It’s a slow programming of the mind.

 

[DOS_patos]

And can we please stop bringing up white people and what they do or don’t do.

At the end of the day, they can clean up their image and fall right back into the dominant society.
We don’t have that option.

 

[Big_Ev]

These convos been had. Since the IC days.
The problem is, is enough people doing the work to change things.

No doubt. The conversations has always be in a thread where something happened first. Not a stand alone thread.

 

[The Lonious Monk]

I think the problem with a lot of us long time rap fans is that we remember what rap was before. We remember the 80s when rap wasn't really violent at all. We remember the 90s when the violence crept in, but there was still so much more. We even remember the 00s when drug talk and violence were at the forefront, but there were still enough alternatives that it felt unfair to say rap was just violence. Now, it really does seem like rap is just sex, drugs, and violence, and you can't really blame that all on modern artists. It's kinda been an evolution.

Things are a little different now though. I always use OB4CL as my example. That was the album that's credited with really kicking of the Mafioso/Cocaine rap movement. So people who don't really listen to rap to truly take something away from it might dismiss it as just promoting drugs and violence. The reality is, if you actually listen to the album, you should come away believing the drug life is fucked up and that violence isn't something street niggas want, it's something they can't seem to escape. That's basically the moral of the album. To some extent, that's the case for all the violent 90s rap. On Ready to Die, Biggie seemed to glorify a lot of bad shit. Then he ended the album making it clear that all that shit fucked him up to the point that he was ready to die.

A lot of rap really doesn't glorify violence as much as people say. It's just that people listen to beats and choruses and witty lines, but don't pay nearly as much attention to the messages a lot of artists try to deliver. I've always liked the artistry of Hip Hop, and I've never once heard a street album and came away from it thinking that's what I wanted to do.

 

[Ghost313]

Or …..we can look at the djs and who influences them to play certain music.

And why are we accepting certain lyrics because the beat is nice?
It’s a slow programming of the mind.

That still does not address what the artist is talking about. If the artist from St Louis is telling you his city/ county extremely racist , has drained their education and resources and put niggas against each other for survival in the form of what we consider a diss record, we should want to investigate that area and pull up the root of the issue versus censoring the artist cause his truth may be too hard to handle

Let’s look into why shit is the way it is , and what’s causing shit to be like that, cause homie ain’t the first nor will he be the last to make some music off what he going through in his area

 

[SeaSnake]

And can we please stop bringing up white people and what they do or don’t do.

At the end of the day, they can clean up their image and fall right back into the dominant society.
We don’t have that option.

That still does not address what the artist is talking about. If the artist from St Louis is telling you his city/ county extremely racist , has drained their education and resources and put niggas against each other for survival in the form of what we consider a diss record, we should want to investigate that area and pull up the root of the issue versus censoring the artist cause his truth may be too hard to handle

Facts

 

[DOS_patos]

And this real nigga shit irritated the fuck outta me. It’s disrespectful and limits our people.

Like, who was the original real nigga that has this blueprint?

Like someone said in another thread, it’s accountability. We need to shame and isolate certain people and behaviors or at least have the self awareness to be shamed.

Case in point, Casanova and his chick. Nigga got 15 yrs being a real nigga and she talking that be loyal shit. That nigga wasn’t loyal to her when he was doing loyal nigga shit. But she posed’ to hold him down? Why not free that woman?why we celebrate her staying? He wasn’t doing some honorable shit.