Readings

I thought that the readings we were assigned for class today were very interesting. The first one that I read was the purple one. I found it very interesting how the different professors had different opinions on the topic of the death of the civil rights. From one perspective one man by the name of Chuck Stone talked about how he thought it actually is dead, but it did do its part. He said that it helped keep all of the police brutality away from some of the blacks. It also helped the white suburban kids to embrace the black brothers in an attempt to help make everyone equal. A man by the name of Todd Boyd also talked about his new work called The New H.N.I.C: the Death of Civil Rights and the Reign of Hip Hop. H.N.I.C sands for the Head Nigga in charge, he was talking about how now there are lots of black people in the world that are black and hip hop that are making a name for themselves in this world. They are having high profile jobs and are very successful. Then in the pink packet I found it interesting that they were talking about the different approches that white rappers had when trying to make a name for themselves in the black rapping world. How they said that Vanilla Ice tried to act too black and stage a hard life like other blacks and that in turn killed his career and then you had Slim Shady who just kept it real and in the end was more accepted by the blacks than Ice. Then they discussed that the Bestie Boys were actually one group who didn't try to act black they were white as could be knew it and stuck with it. So I think it is really interesting how the ways in which you appoach a situation in terms of color in a specific genre of music can have such a huge impact on your overall success. I will say it again it all goes back to one thing. If you want to make it in hip hop just 'Keep it Real.'

Links:

http://www.beastieboys.com/
http://www.eminem.com/
http://www.usdoj.gov/kidspage/crt/crtmenu.htm