The Curse of Ham

Rap sales plummeted 21% in 2006. In a slow year for music overall, no Rap album sold enough to make the Top 10 list for the year. This was a first in a very, very long time.

"the game's [effed] up. nigga's beats is banging, nigga ur hooks did it. ur lyrics didn't, ya gangsta look did it. so i would write it, if yall could get it. being intricate, will get u wood, critic. on the internet, they like 'u should spit it.' i'm like 'u should buy it'--nigga that's good business."

Sorry Hov, I can't go with u on this one. During a routine bit of procrastination, I watched a 4-part video online: "Confessions of a BET Producer." Without going into an analysis of everything said, I'll just say that black music has successfully been pimped again. They did it to every other secular form of black music, and now we have sold ourselves back into bondage.

"I dumbed down for my audience and doubled my dollars. They criticize me for it, but they all yell 'Holla!'"

Thus is the double edged sword. Jay is currently an executive. The big wig. The swinging "appendage" at the world's most storied Hip-Hop label. What has he done to reestablish integrity into the music? Nothing more than a sub-par "comeback" album. There's something to be said about the oppressed who find their ways through an oppressive system only to become themselves reincarnations of those same oppressors. For all the disgust I have for Jim Jones, there was some truth in his indictment of Jay for selling out to the "Doug Morrises" and "Jimmy Iovines" of big business (and don't be fooled, that's really what it is).

Yes, stupidity sells, but it doesn't get u the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy's (though it may earn you an Oscar). Nas's "Can't Forget About You" is an infinitely better song than Jeezy's "Go Getta" for a number of reasons: better production, better hook, and umm... better lyrics. But the few times I turn on the TV, I keep on seeing that child molester and Jeezy dancing with a room full of women. There was a time when it was hot, but that was 10 years ago. Booty in videos peaked around the time "Dolly" and "No Panties On the Dance Floor" were BET Uncut hits.

My love for rap has not wavered, but my frustration with it has come to a point where I must bid it adieu by and large. I can't watch BET or MTV without throwing up in my mouth at how stupid we look. There was a time when I used to sit and read lyrics for songs. There was a time when a hot line could give me chills. It doesn't happen anymore.

Who's to blame? We are. We sold our music (and therefore our souls--music has always been the core of our ethnic identity) to white suburbia. Jay was right, we "brought the suburbs to the hood" and they cleaned us out of everything worth anything. They took the fun out our music. And no, I don't mean the leaning and rocking. There was a time--there has always been a time--where black music was fun, not too serious, but still said something. All I can think about is Justin Timberlake's latest album. Futuresex/Lovesound was a fun album, but it wasn't frothy like D4L or even Jim Jones. It broke ground without taking itself too seriously. It was music. Good music. It was art. Remember when Hip Hop was art? Today it's more "paint by numbers." Insert cocaine reference here. Insert sex reference here. Insert money reference here. Insert alcohol reference here. Promote new clothing line here. I mean cot durn!

And since I fiend for good music even more so than I fiend for exclusive Nikes, the past 5 years have sent me more and more to white artists for what black artists used to be renowned. You know, above, I said "they" took the fun out our music. I'm unfairly passing the buck. "We" took the fun out our music. We allowed for it to become okay to pass off laziness as mediocrity and labelled mediocrity genius. When white America bought into us, we bought into their conception of us, as an ignorant monolith of gun-toting, drug-slinging, whore-mongering buffoons.

And why not? I mean, it was profitable. We saw Jay and Diddy make money and thought that we were making money too. Problem was, we weren't. They were. But still, we followed like sheep. We burned our throwbacks. We bought shirts with collars. We started calling ourselves "grown and sexy." We didn't have a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of.

Meanwhile, we forgot what it was like to be vulnerable. Our music became the moat and brick walls for an empty city. We dug deeper ditches, filled it with more unsavory creatures, gilded our gates, blinged out the bricks, tricked out the drawbridge, and for what? A city with nothing in it. (Was that a lil too abstract for u?) Basically, we created an image of invincibility. The super-thug. The super-thug got his coke straight off the boat from the Columbians. The super-thug took 41 shots and sodomy-by-plunger and lived to record a platinum-plus album about it. The super-thug always won.

I mean dang, even R&B couldn't escape it. I think Robin Thicke's "Lost Without You" is the first song in a VERY long time to get play and be popular that showcased a man's emotional vulnerability unapologetically. (And he's white. Point proven.) The Child Molester keeps thuggin even tho he got ran off stage in Madison Square Garden. Outside of Thicke, the biggest R&B hit that exhibited a bit of emotional vulnerability was prolly T-Pain's ode to the STD-laden working women in "I'm In Love With a Stripper."

I know what you're thinking. My point exactly.

So I'm sure ur like, "dang, jonathan. where is all this coming from?" Well, it's coming from the fact that I've been listening to Amy Winehouse for the past 2 weeks non-stop and my frustration with the fact that 1) Back to Black is, as ?uestlove stated, the album Lauryn Hill wanted to make, and 2) that nobody black makes good music worth listening to anymore. I got a lotta ethnic pride and it really irks me to hear a white british girl do soul (Aretha/Ella Fitzgerald soul, not elevator-soul like Corinne) better than anybody else in the game right now. It bothers me when I'm looking up lyrics to Citizen Cope, The Fray, Jamie Cullum, and all these other white folks cuz they're actually saying something and nobody black says anything worth repeating outside of meaningless, catchy phrases (BALLIN, and all other DipSet ad libs apply).

Now that's not to say I hate white ppl. Some of my closest friends are white :-). And it's not to say I don't like the fact that they are making good music by peicing together remnants of the black musical heritage with HipHop sensibilities. I love it and I respect it. I just wish black people would do it (and respect it). Part of the problem is that if anyone outside of Prince would have made Futuresex/Lovesound, no DJ would've ever played it. Negroes woulda passed on it like it was the bird flu. The same with Amy Winehouse. I mean really, if Lupe was white, he wouldn'ta went platinum, he woulda went friggin diamond. We as a people have become so enamored of the image created for us (by us) that it's like we're standing "in the mirror pointing at [our] reflection, killing [ourselves]" unconsciously.

I still have hope for hip hop though. The game is lacking in bonafide talent, but those who have it, have it. Wayne is a monster. He needs to go through some stuff and use that raw ability to get some points across or at least tell us a good story like Biggie. He has the potential. Lupe's Food and Liquor was, in my eyes, the best Rap album of 2006. He scares me though. I could see him falling off like Nas did after It Was Written. The Clipse and Ghostface are the only ppl I feel that are worthy to do cocaine rap. If you ain't them, leave it alone. (That includes u, Weezy.) If it wasn't for The Clipse's Lord Willin' cocaine rap wouldn't even exist in its present level of mainstream popularity. I hope Jeezy pays royalties to Pusha and Malice. I think Andre 3000 is the best in the game right now as far as breadth goes. He's one of the very few rappers that makes me rewind a song to catch a line. Jay gets an Honorable Mention cuz he's Jay. I mean Kingdom Come was lazy, but there's something to be said for a lazy album being better lyrically than 90% of everything else. And I think he's in the process of rediscovering himself. I expect him to be the first real Republican rapper. I'm not joking. He's slowly but surely moving in that direction. Unless the Democrats cryogenically infuse themselves with a sturdy backbone, I see the Jiggaman playing the coon at a Republican National Convention within the next 10 years.

And as far as up and coming, I'd be remissed if I didn't shine the spotlight on Wale. All I've listened to for the past two weeks has been Wale and Amy Winehouse. I put all their music in the media player and just shuffle that jawn.

Now, in case u missed it, what I spent the last umpteen hours lamenting was the shallow state of black music and its narrow scope of artistry and message. Really, I don't mind the leaning and rocking. I even don't mind the cocaine rap. I'm not a HipHop Fascist. I just think black music has narrowed itself to the point that is become a black hole, a house fallen in on itself as the walls came closer together. Cocaine rap, when done right (and by "right," I mean by The Clipse and Ghostface--not Rich Boy), is hot. It speaks not only to an experience, to a voice often silenced and villainized, but gives that voice flesh, bones, and spirit through its multiplicity. (I'm not pulling ur chain. Lord Willin' and Hell Hath No Fury are unabashedly drug-ridden, but equally conscious and intelligent.) It humanizes the drug dealer without allowing him to become a caricature. Think "Nightmares." Good party music makes u wanna dance without making u look ridiculous on Kidz Bop. Consumerism has always been a part of HipHop. I won't bash it. Shoot, Wale's lyrics are steeped in consumerism. But there was a time when it was okay to say "I Need Love."

The fact of the matter is, contrary to what Jay-Z says, "being intricate" will not get u "wood." I have a feeling that, if Wayne doesn't get lazy on us, The Carter 3 will be his best selling album ever. Why? Because people want to hear what he has to say. And even more than that, they want to hear how he's gonna say it. There's a reason rap sales plummeted, and it's not cuz of the internet. It's cuz nobody pays for the "image." If we like the beat, we'll download a ringtone, no need to buy a crappy album. We've always wanted to hear what ppl have to say. Why else do u think DipSet is so popular? They always have something to say.

Field of Dreams is famous for the line "If you build it, they will come." The inverse is also true. Niggas leave if u don't take care of ish. So while the House of HipHop has decayed into dilapidation, I and an alarming number of others of the African-American persuasion have jumped ship and bought the Amy Winehouse album, paid to go to a Robin Thicke concert, and brought "SexyBack" while staving off a "Maneater" or two.

Ask them. If you spit it, we will buy it. Cuz that's good business.

Call Me... sleep deprived in the morning.