Loading ...Following yesterday’s hip-hop congressional hearings, Chamillionaire has posted a long, heartfelt, and excessively convoluted stream-of-consciousness blog post for BET about the state of America/hip-hop, which I found myself occasionally nodding along with in agreement (despite also occasionally losing the thread of his argument[s]). Until I got to the following:
The B word, the N word, the F word, it’s all a moral thing inside of each person. If you look at TV, everything is messed up about TV. Gay people kissing each other on shows. The us is in general. Movies, they’ll have guns everywhere, nobody pays attention to that.
Emphasis mine, obviously. Now it’s one thing when this sort of “well, now they’re showing queers on TV, so how dare they point the finger at us?” pretzel logic is coming from Ja Rule, who’s always been a braindead turd, but for some reason, perhaps because he’s attempted to paint himself as (an admittedly halfassed) political conscience in an ever-more-apolitical genre, I find myself a little disappointed (if not surprised) in Cham. (’Course even Public Enemy weren’t going to win any Act Up accolades.) Hip-hop! The homosexual is not your enemy!
Chamillionaire Blogs [BET via ProHipHop]
You know the saddest thing about this is that this is far too common in any minority group, including gay men: trashing every other marginalized group in an attempt to refocus the majority’s displeasure on them. It’s like high school, but now it matters.
And Jess, I disagree with you. Homos are the problem. I mean, apparently Iran doesn’t have a single one, and that country is a paradise on Earth, isn’t it?
do you think a kid like that is gonna know what the queers are doing to the soil?
Call me a “rockist” again, but tell me how many rock bands out there would say something like that. This is one of the things that has distanced me from hip-hop: I can’t sit idly by and listen to music that often celebrates social positions I find reprehensible. Of course, not EVERY hip-hop artist is like that (anticipating that argument), but it’s a lot of ‘em.
I’m hoping that rappers are the next Republicans and something like half of them are gay (a la Larry Craig) and waiting to be outed.
@rrnate: Hey. That’s nonsense.
Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson just has a wide stance, ’sall.
After I heard his new album, I pegged him as the new Ice Cube. And lo and behold…
@Charlie Kerfelds Jetsons Tee: 50 Cent’s hyper-masculinity is possibly the greatest drag act I’ve ever seen.
@Lucas Jensen: Um, have you ever heard of a man named “Axl Rose”?
@Lucas Jensen: i honestly think one of the main differences is subtlety. in the same way that if you or i ended up at a frat party we’d be bound to hear some shit that we considered morally reprehensible. rappers may say some crazy stupid shit more often than rockers but i’m scared as fuck to learn the political/social views of a lot of my favorite artists. and i certainly don’t want to know how many barely legal groupies rockers/indie-rockers have used their celebrity status to get with.
basically my point, while chamillionaire is saying some fucked up shit, brandon flowers or whoever is probably out there doing some fucked up shit. i mean, david crosby wrote a song about checking out high school girls. our hands aren’t that clean.
@oovy: Are you talking about “One in a Million”? I’ve always taken that song for satire, and I stand by that…he played in a band with a black dude, for Pete’s sake. He also performed at a Freddie Mercury tribute. So I’m just saying probably at least somewhat pro-gay. Not exactly parroting Jerry Falwell like Ol’ Chamillionaire.
@iantenna: Those are pretty good points. But I bet Chamillionaire is saying AND doing bad stuff.
@iantenna: Oh, and I live in the South and worked in construction rental. I heard some pretty reprehensible stuff in my day, most of it racial, though.
@Iantenna: Agreed. Back in 1990 (before I figured out I was gay) I was dating a guy who just LOVED the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He gave me a Spin profile of them and was so impressed that they had walked out of a restaurant in the South where they noticed that some black folks weren’t being served. In the same article, the journalist wrote about the Peppers yelling at some preteen girls out the window of the tour bus, “I’m so painfully huge I’m going to bust all of your hymens.” Hardly the social progressives this idiot I was dating thought they were. That’s not rock-n-roll, that’s just plain old misogyny.
I’ve often wondered if the almighty Chuck D has weighed in on this topic in recent years. PE had a tremendous impact on my development, so it disappointed me when I learned years later (decades later? fuck, i’m old) what he meant by “Meet the G that killed me.” Sign of the times, for sure. Maybe he’s changed his tune by now.
Anyone know?
@girlhappy: And also just really cheesy.
@extracrispy: And with PE, if it wasn’t the gays, it was the Jews. Sigh.
@WhineyPTW: Seriously, are we done yet?
@Lucas Jensen: i certainly can’t argue with that. oh, and i grew up in marin county (northern california “bastion of liberal thought”) and i heard plenty of reprehensible shit there. it’s more offensive to me to hear racist/sexist/classist/homophobic shit from people (often my own relatives) who will argue vehemently that they are not any of those things. at least in the south they’re probably not deluded about who they are.
@The Mozfather: Without a doubt. Anybody who puts forth THAT much of an effort is hiding something…
@iantenna: Agreed on “One in a Million.” I don’t take the “immigrants and faggots” stuff at face value.
@iantenna: which actually kinda ties in to my initial point. for better or worse you often expect major label rappers to be asshats and are pleasantly surprised when they’re not. vice versa for your average middlin’ indie-rock band. you expect them to have good politics, not be misogynists, etc. and are pissed if you find out otherwise. these preconceptions are often problematic.
@Lucas Jensen: No. Axl in his own words from the August 10, 1989 issue of Rolling Stone (I got in a fight in the Student Lounge with GnR fan over it.)
“How about the use of the word “faggots”?
I’ve had some very bad experiences with homosexuals. When I was first coming to Los Angeles, I was about eighteen or nineteen. On my first hitch-hiking ride, this guy told me I could crash at his hotel. I went to sleep and woke up while this guy was trying to rape me. I threw him down on the floor. He came at me again. I went running for the door. He came at me. I pinned him between the door and the wall. I had a straight razor, and I pulled the razor and said, “Don’t ever touch me! Don’t ever think about touching me! Don’t touch yourself and think about me! Nothing!” Then I grabbed my stuff and split with no place to go, no sleep, in the middle of nowhere outside of St. Louis. That’s why I have the attitude I have.
Are you anti-homosexual then?
I’m proheterosexual. I can’t get enough of women, and I don’t see the same thing that other men can see in men. I’m not into gay or bisexual experiences. But that’s hypocritical of me, because I’d rather see two women together than just about anything else. That happens to be my personal, favorite thing.
How about gay-bashing? Have you ever beaten up somebody simply because of their sexual preference?
No! I never have. The most I do is, like, on the way to the Troubador in “Boystown,” on Santa Monica Boulevard, I’ll yell out the car window, “Why don’t you guys like pussy?” ‘Cause I’m confused. I don’t understand it. Anti-homosexual? I’m not against them doing what they want to do as long as it’s not hurting anybody else and they’re not forcing it upon me. I don’t need them in my face or, pardon the pun, up my ass about it.”
@janine: Yes, thanks Janine for digging that up for me. :)
I’m sure that when Chamillionaire says “Gay people kissing each other on shows.” he meant dudes kissing. Now if the question had been about lesbians, I’m sure he (just as with many homophobes) would be all for it. If people would get over their male insecurities we’d be in a much better place.
@The Van Buren Boys: Yeah, a place where i get to watch dudes make out!
If anyone has a link to the “Gangstalicious” episode of The Boondocks cartoon from Season 1, post it here. It covers all of the above issues and then some brilliantly.
Lucas,
1. You’re one of the most politically astute and passionate people I know, and I’m not going to lay the “separate the art from the artist” speech on you. But I think a lot of gratuitous hip hop is “satire,” too, or can be construed as such. Claims of “realness” aside, most rappers are about as literal and authentic as Bob Dylan. And that’s what makes it interesting. “Meaning,” to me, is in the listener’s reaction, not the communicator’s intent.
2. Assuming that lyrics mean what they say, wasn’t rock BUILT on short-cocked misogyny?
3. Cham and Rule are on some straight bullshit, of course. I hear it as, “Is my art gratuitous and hard to justify? Well… LOOK! Over there! It’s some homosexuals! Doing something offensive!” I’d consider it… well, snitching. That’s why I don’t look to Cham for strong punditry.
4. When it comes to “outing” and rolling around in the idea of homosexuality, hip hop blogs are as bad as any gay activists. So, yeah, I think there are some $3 bills in our midst, with Sen. Craig’s face on them. It’s not gross if you don’t get caught.
@Emerson Dameron: See, Emerson, I fundamentally disagree with #1, though. They may be full of shit, but I think it’s pretty representative of a lot of opinions in the African-American community in regards to homosexuals.
2. Not denying that necessarily, except that Little Richard was one of the founders. I’d call out misogynists when I see them, too. Except the Stones because I’m a hypocrite. And it’s the year 2007, man. I mean, Sebastian Bach has embraced musical theater for over a decade. A lot of hip-hop artists need to grow up (and, yes, the whole country needs to grow up!).
3 and 4. Agreed.
@janine: I forgot about that! All I’m saying is he played at a Freddie Mercury tribute (a feeble defense, I know).
@Charlie Kerfelds Jetsons Tee: I’m not really even thinking he’s actually gay. But he’s gay like 300 is gay.
@janine: I’d be more than happy to make out with your attractive male friends. Purely for your appreciation, of course.
It’s about time we all called out modern r&b and hip hop for being dull, idiotic, tasteless, and insincere. Kind of like Johanna Newsom.
Seriously though, despite P.E.’s own homofear, A/Bing them against practically ANY hop hop act out there currently is embarassing, not only for said acts, but for many of us (Sasha Frere Jones I’m looking at you) for making excuses for it.
I think it also speaks to a certain amount of racism among music aesthetes that we allow and expect such fuckheadedness out of hip hop, as if it’s part of what’s authentic about it, and hold indie rock, which of course is 99 percent white, to a different standard.
I’m not sure if I made a point or not.
@The Mozfather: It’s all fun and games until I show up at the next Idolator party with Granite and Steele, my male versions of Diamond and Pearl.