Fakin da Funk!

This comes from the March 2009, "Think Green" Issue of the Fahari-Libertad Magazine
written by... me
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Aright, I’m half embarrassed to write this because I’m about to put myself out there in a way that I’m not sure I’m ready to do… but here I go…

I like Degrassi! …There I said it! I don’t know how it happened. All I remember is my friend Colete would watch it and talk about how good it was. And every time I would clown on her for it. You know, like a straight G (*laughin like Crazy Legs in Don’t Be a Menace*)! I didn’t have to see it to know it was to be clowned on…

But then, one day back when I had cable, there wasn’t really anything on and I stopped there… and something happened… Man it was good, aright! I’m not proud of it… it just happened. Okay, so now you know, let’s move past that.

I’m sure many of you out there probably don’t know the show. It’s set in Canada (strike 1) and it’s a mostly white cast (strike 2) and of course the Black kid not only played ball, but he ends up getting shot up, paralyzed, and in a wheel chair for the remainder of the show (at the fault of his white best friend!)! I know that should be a strike out but I was already wrapped up in it by the time all that happened.

So this Black kid, his name on the show was Jimmy. I liked Jimmy. I mean maybe that was heavily related to him being the Black kid, but still he was cool. He wasn’t your typical Black character strung out on some shit, or shooting people up, or anything of the sort. He was the other side of the spectrum that they like to show us – the Black man to aspire to be. Jimmy was the good guy, came from money but was still down to earth. Who couldn’t love Jimmy?

So I’m facebook livin one day and I come across some lyrics that I don’t know. They sound pretty horrid, so I google them to get to the bottom of this. I see that they come from a song called “Ransom” by Lil Wayne and some dude called Drake. I have no idea who this “Drake” guy is. So I youtube him. I see this face that I recognize so I wikipedia the dude...

Low and behold, it’s mo-effin Jimmy!! I’m like you gots to be kidding me!! Nice little Jimmy in the wheelchair is now Drake the gangsta! He starts the song talking about him being high. (Whatever, do you wodie, I ain’t mad at you for that. That’s probably bout the lowest type shit the celebs be dippin in anyways.) But then he goes on saying things about “a nigga spit crack, bag it tight” and “I could son you, see a little me in yo dad” and don’t forget “she might have to pay me but I dick her down free.”

For me, this is one of those things that make you go “hmmm”… Now I understand that Aubrey (oh, ps, his real name is Aubrey) was “acting” while on Degrassi and there’s no way you can say that’s how he would be in real life. That I can grasp; no prob. But, he’s comin OD gangsta in this song and I just feel like, how gangsta of an upbringing could you have experienced when in your teen years you were playing good ol Jimmy from down the street on Degrassi.

Now following that same logic, it makes me believe that Aubrey was, in fact, not gangsta and that this is an image that he is utilizing on which to capitalize off of. And unfortunately, for the sake of music, young Aubrey is far from the only poser out there!

Rap music for years has been based upon falsehoods. How the average rapper comes up talking about how much they struggled then soon as they get money that's all they can talk about and of course what they're spending that money on. Everybody is saying the same shit!

It's like damn, your life is really that damn boring that this is all you can talk about. And we are so mindless that we'll sit there and eat it up so that they can make more money off it and talk even more about how much more money they got! If it ain't money then they're boastin and braggin about broads, Benzs, bottles, bullets, bling, beatin busters, and other bullshit!

What's the damn purpose?! If ya are so damn hood, then ya must know what's good in the hood, well really, what ain't good in the hood! You say you came up from it... what are you doing for it? Talkin about this bullshit isn't doin a damn thing for those comin up in places like the ones ya left!

People of color styck in those places are disproportionately poor, unemployed, they're arrested more, and have higher rates of unwed pregnancies. They also have much lower marriage, graduation, and home ownership rates. Why don't our artists talk about this stuff? ...Why do we call them artists??

Art is meant to have a purpose. Look at the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and '70s. We had our people bringing light to our condition-people like Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, and Askia Touré. These women and men realized that Black art, by necessity, has to have a function or it isn't art. The same is true with the emergence of Hip Hop culture.

Why do we even have Hip Hop and rap? This culture emerged out of the Black Power era, when we were letting white folks know that we're proud of who we are and we don't deserve this unfair treatment. You had people like Kurtis Blow talkin about "The Breaks" and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5 giving us "The Message", Slick Rick's "Children's Story" and Brother D with Collective Effort was askin us "How We Gonna Make the Black Nation Rise?" The founders reminded us that we are a people of kings and queens and gave us a beat to rock wit!

I won't front like there weren't more fun, less political tracks out there too but that can't be all we're willing to get down with! We got some real shit goin on today, just like they did way back when... let us not forget "they" is "us"... Black folks. We been at the bottom of the barrel for centuries. Since they started snatchin our ancestors from our motherland (humanity's motherland! Can I get a Amen!) for their economic gains! Now, bout 400 years have past and everybody wanna get gassed cuz we got one Black man in office so things must be gettin better... get real!

We still got the most of the worst and the least of the best! Let's talk about that shit! Right now rappers just feed into the same garbage ass system that keeps us where we at. Maybe ya are cool with being used as the exceptions to the poor Black rule but because there's so few of us with your kind of scrilla ya got these kids out here tryin to emulate your ignorant ass ways to get where ur at and keep the bullshit alive and kickin!

Why we all can't eat? Why can't music be made for the art, with a purpose? Today, most times I hear the average rapper try to make a political statement or write a song that says some "real shit" I'm usually laughing at them right with white America! (Although when Kanye said Bush hates Black people it was kind of a mix. I don't really like dude and he looked mad lost when he said it so I was laughing at that... but it was real talk so I was with him on it too. You get 1 kudo for the attempt!) But when I hear that Young Jeezy put out an album about the economy, man say I'm hatin if you want, but there can be nothing good about that!

We need to expect more from our so called artists. We know what's going on in our communities and they know too. We can't continue to accept nonsense! It's definitely cool to enjoy ourselves and have music to help us do that, but why do we put up with shit that degrades us-our women particularly-and encourages the actions that keep us down as a people? It doesn't get us anywhere and it just puts these pussies up on a pedestal!