by Damian Garde
Daily Lobo
As the rest of us mere mortals go about our daily lives, Oprah Winfrey is ruining hip-hop.
In case you missed it, on April 23, Oprah and her militia of frowning soccer moms played host to Russell Simmons and a cadre of heavyweights in the rap business, including Common and former Def Jam President Kevin Liles. In the wake of Don Imus and his Nappy-Headed Ho-gate, Oprah took them to task for violence and misogyny in rap music.
Unprepared for Oprah's minions' barrage of jiggling arms pointing fingers and quivering jowls spewing bile, Liles got overly defensive, Simmons used a bunch of big words that didn't make sense, and Common tapped into the suffocating estrogen in the room by going on about how much he respects women and how he tells his daughter that she's a queen. Apparently, Oprah's audience doesn't remember back in 1994, when Common claimed to "house more hos than Spelman," referring to the historically African-American women's college in Atlanta.
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Which is precisely the problem with this whole issue: People who know nothing of rap music have no place berating it. The nation's Oprahs, Anderson Coopers and Bill O'Reillys are traversing the same road plotted by C. Delores Tucker and the Rev. Calvin Butts, a road that leads to only embarrassment.
Rappers are not elected officials. At best, they're entrepreneurs with shaky business ethics. If Ludacris can sell 3 million CDs by saying, "You can't turn a ho into a housewife," expect that sentiment to be echoed.
Aren't we at war, or something? Do hip-hop lyrics really warrant a "60 Minutes" episode and continuing CNN coverage? In the '90s, N.W.A. called out the police, Ice-T threatened to kill them, Snoop didn't love them hos and Raekwon had crack vials at two-for-five. Oddly enough, American society didn't crumble.
Our friends in punditry argue that hip-hop will turn children into bitch-slapping gun clappers. Of course, they can't be talking about inner-city youth, because prostitution, violence and drug trafficking have been rampant in American ghettos since long before the days of hip-hop. Thus, I assume the concern is for middle-class kids from middle-America. I mean, hell, if Marilyn Manson made them want to shoot up their schools, imagine what an M.O.P. album could do.
But there's a simple way to rectify this problem: Don't listen to rap. Don't let your kids listen to rap. Just to be safe, don't buy Reynolds Wrap and don't wrap gifts. Leave us misogynistic, drug-dealing, murderous degenerates to wallow in our own foolishness. Me and my 2 Live Crew cassettes will be just fine.
