the articulate hip hop male

dear hip hop, stop!
this shit is going too far, stop!
please see that mixers and turntables are returned to kool herc, stop!
the ghettos are dancing off beat, stop!
the masters of ceremonies have forgotten they were once slaves
and have neglected the occasion of this ceremony, stop!
perhaps we shouldn't have encouraged them to use cordless microphones
they have walked too far from the source and are emitting a lesser frequency, stop! - saul williams (from "telegram")

Think of the most threatening black man you know. The darkest one. The grimiest one. The one with scars, tattoos, guns. We all know what he looks like. Every night at ten o'clock the media tells us he's on the run...or he's been captured. We've been fed this image for years. People of all colors, yes, even black people, fear ME, and guys who look like me. And those who don't fear us, discredit us. Timbs and tee-shirts cause people to assume guys like me are uneducated, ignorant, and uninterested in anything worldly. So imagine how those people feel, when a black man, with nothing to signify his level of knowledge, walks out on stage and articulates himself and his struggle cleverly, clearly, and passionately. After picking their jaws up off the ground, those people walk away as if they've just been rocked by that first hit of crack. Mind blown, fien'n for another hit.

For all the criticism hip hop takes, people overlook the fact that hip hop has given birth to more young writers than any known program in our educational system. It's not a public school curriculum that has young kids all over the world thinking hard in their spare time, trying to express themselves creatively with words. It's hip hop! Walk into any 3rd grade classroom in the inner city, and chances are, at least half the class has some kind of self written rhyme in their notebook. Walk into any 9th grade class in the same area and chances are half the class has a self written rhyme that's memorized and ready to be performed at the drop of a hat. That's what people overlook. Poor, black, male and uneducated, does not equate to inarticulate the way most think it would. Hip hop as an art form stresses the importance of lyricism (unfortunately, it doesn't stress enough the importance of content, but that's another subject altogether). The best emcees are the ones who sound, get this, educated. They are the guys with the most expansive vernacular, who are knowledgeable about an array of topics. From the streets, to religion, to politics, to global issues. Hip hop has given young black men an opportunity to embrace intelligence, to spend all of their free time writing and thinking, receiving praise rather than ridicule. It's a weird paradigm actually. The same black males who sit at the back of the class, trying to fit in, pretending to "not know" in a school setting, are the same guys who suddenly want to display how much they "know" in an effort to stand out, in a non-school setting. Right or wrong, something is happening. The black male voice is evolving, despite the black male's reluctance to embrace academia.



"Scientists still say AIDS started cause somebody had sex with a monkey. Word? After all this research this is the best explanation you came up with? Nobody f*cks monkeys and people you idiot! You either f*ck monkeys....or people, that's it, there's no in between. You not gonna get some monkey p*ssy on Tuesday, then be like, I'm gonna call Charlene on Thursday. Once you f*ck a monkey that's a firm decision, you are out of the human pussy game" - dave chapelle

My performances with my 3rd Eye Open family takes me to a lot of college campuses. Each and every time, I see the same startling thing--the staggering level at which minority women outnumber minority men. Not seeing black males on college campuses only feeds into the "black men aren't articulate" notion people have. No one assumes black women aren't smart and articulate. Why? Black female educators outnumber black male educators on an astronomical level. Black women write books. Black women read books. And black women are all over university campuses. You take all this into account and your overall image of a black female is not inarticulate. Now look at black males. You see them on game day at universities, but outside of those who play sports, you don't see many on campus. You also see them on the nightly news, getting locked up. The images in the movies are rarely about articulate black men. And the hip hop stuff MTV and BET shows us, are negative images of the most dumbed-down stuff that's out there. Take all this into account and, it's easy to assume black males are dumb.

The saving grace for black males outside of academia is hip hop. Not rap, hip hop. And no, I'm not saying hip hop is perfect. For every Nas and Lauryn HIll, there's some gun busting emcee trying to do nothing more than live up to and perpetuate all the stereotypes thrown on young black males. With that said, you still can't deny that hip hop has given black men a reason to step their education game up, even if it's just independent study. Even if it's just analyzing the world and writing poetry. Even if it's just taking those same jokes you tell to make your friends laugh, to a higher level. Something is definitely happening. Many of our best and brightest are coming from a place other than academia. Why? How? When will it end? I don't know. I do know this. I was an English major in college, and I studied all the old European greats. But that is not why I write. I write because, nothing in life has been more inspiring, than seeing men my age, who look just like me, open their mouths and articulate themselves with words. That's why I write. That's why tons of little boys in the hood write. And that's why people the whole world over, are fascinated, when the articulate hip hop male opens his mouth.