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Editorials Hip-Hop Hurricane Kanye Hits America
Hip-Hop Hurricane Kanye Hits America PDF Print E-mail
Written by Min. Paul Scott ID1866   
Sunday, 04 September 2005 06:13

As I woke up early this morning, I went through my usual Saturday morning ritual, a quick trip to the fridge to get some juice then a quick flip through the channels to see if Gil Scott Heron was wrong and the revolution was really televised or if Chuck D's threat to hijack the airwaves had finally come to fruition. It's always the same story, same stuff different day. After yawning my way through an early morning rant about the failure of Black leadership, the hostile take over of Hip-Hop by the mega corporations and the conspiracy to put dummy juice in the Kool Aid in the ''hood before going back to grab another hour of sleep before I have to officially get up and face the world. But a funny thing happened on my way between BET and CNN. There was a news flash that sometime during the night Hurricane Kanye had hit America....

I recognized that look. I had seen it before, not recently but before. I saw it in the eyes of the Brothers at the 1968 Olympics when they threw up the Black Power Fist before the world. I saw it in the eyes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr before he made his speech against the  Vietnam War. I saw the same nervous look of self sacrifice and defiance the eyes of Kanye West when he stood before the world and said that the way that America treats poor Black folks is wack!

I can imagine the shock of the folks in the control room at NBC when Kanye flipped the script on them and went into a funky freestyle about the way that the media portray Black folks and that G Dub and the rest of them really don''t care about us.

"Bill! We have an emergency! He was supposed to just throw up the diamond and say "Rockafella ya''ll" and leave. Hit the switch!!!!"

The bias of the media became evident when the white lady reporter prefaced the story by reminding the audience that Kanye was the same guy who hosted a party last week were Suge Knight was shot and how she hoped that the statement did not cause a drop in donations. I noticed the Brotha next to her shoot her a look like, "Don''t make me pimp slap you up in here!"

The media coverage reminded me of the first time that Hip Hop was attacked. Contrary to popular belief, the first campaign against Hip Hop was not against lyrics that threatened to bust a cap in another Brotha or disrespected Sista's but PE, Griff, Souljah and them were attacked for doing what Kanye did, not sticking to the script.

Historically, it has been an act of revolutionary career suicide for Black athletes and entertainers to speak out on the behalf of Black people. From the Civil Rights Era to the Hip Hop Era it has been taboo for them to deviate from the usual "It ain''t about race/we are all Americans/let's all pull together/ script that they are given to read after something ticks Black folks off and the natives start to get a little restless. It has been a rare occurrence, in deed, when one of them breaks the mold and speaks from the heart. The reason is that Black folks are fickle and a month after MC Supreme Truth provokes the wrath of white America, he is quickly forgotten by most of us. While most of us go back to business as usual , MC TRUTH goes from a platnum Hip Hop artist with a mansion and a Bentley to Tyrone Johnson, clerk # 5 at Save-a Lot Convenience store.

Kanye told the TRUTH and it needed to be said. Anytime white conservative talk show hosts like Neal Boortz (http://boortz.com We need to start an email and phone campaign to holla at him this Tuesday, for real) can  get on the radio and make racist statements against Black people who are suffering from a natural disaster and urge the good ole boys to arm themselves and shoot first and ask questions later, somebody has to say something! We all know that "martial law" is a code word for white folks to shoot Brotha's on sight.

We must support Brothers and Sisters who stand up for the people like Kanye West. As the right wing gather their forces to attack this Brother, we must attack back! Everytime one of them disses Kanye on the radio, TV or newspaper we must make an immediate organized response. We must show them the real meaning of "Bring tha Noise!"

Maybe there was more to Kanye's song "Jesus Walks" then we thought. Maybe it was about more than the same ole Eurocentric theology warmed over and put to a Hip Hop beat. Maybe it was touching on a deeper Revolutionary message of Yeshua, the Black Revolutionary Messiah. Someone who was willing to sacrifice his life to bring TRUTH to the people.

A few years ago white folks were walking around asking, "What would Jesus do." He would have done just what you did Kanye..just what you did....

*Minister Paul Scott is founder of the Messianic Afrikan Nation in Durham NC. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it   (919) 451-8283  

“Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm. Look for me all around you. For with God's grace, I shall come and bring with me countless millions of Black slaves who have died in America and the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in the fight for Liberty, Freedom and Life.”      The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey

 

 
Editorials Hip-Hop Hurricane Kanye Hits America

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