Open Letter to Bow Wow

Dear Mr. Moss aka Bow Wow

Recently, you made a comment on a clip for the new BET series "Music Moguls" that premiers June 28th, dissin' my city of Durham, North Carolina.  In the promo clip with Jermaine Dupri (So So Def Records) you said, "ain't nothin' crackin' in Durham." I am so tired of people disrespecting my city and for you to do it on a national platform is outrageous.

http://www.bet.com/video/music-moguls/season-1/exclusives/music-moguls-coming-in-june.html

Granted, like many cities, Durham has its share of problems. But kickin' dirt in the face of town already known as "Dirty Durham" ain't helping. Now, it is true that in some hoods you can hear gun shots ringing through the air almost every night. And the self hatred that some of our young people feel does result in teenage kids being shot down in the street. However, Durham has a rich historical legacy and since you seem to be ig'nant of that history, allow me to hit you with some #FACTS.

Durham NC was once known as "Black Wall Street,"  the Mecca of Black economic empowerment.  Although many people believe that Tulsa Oklahoma was America's only Black Wall Street, history teaches us that Durham also held that prestigious title.  Durham is also the home of North Carolina Central University and Duke University. Not to mention, Research Triangle Park, one of the largest high tech development centers in the country, lies with the boundaries of Durham County.  Furthermore, many famous people have roots here, including Ernie Barnes, the artist who created the paintings featured on the 70's sitcom Good Times and Loretta Lynch, the Attorney General of the United States.

Most importantly, there are many people in Durham who are working, tirelessly, to make this city one of which our children and our children's children will be proud. Recently, we launched the Black Durham Is Beautiful Campaign to show the world that Durham is more than  just murder and mayhem and is one of the greatest places to live on the planet.

Instead of of making negative statements about this city, why don't you use your platform to make things better for the youth?

So, "Mr. 106 and Park,"  you owe each of the 250,000 residents of Durham an apology. (Or at least a heartfelt "my bad.") And until we receive an apology we will not support Music Moguls or any other project even loosely associated with the name "Bow Wow" nor "Shad Moss."

To borrow from the infamous words of  Birdman, who is also featured on Music Moguls, "you are gonna learn to RESPECK my city!"

                      Peace,

                      Min. Paul Scott

                      Messianic Afrikan Nation

                      Durham NC

Min. Paul Scott aka "TRUTH Minista" can be reached at (919) 972-8305 email info@nowarningshotsfired.com Follow on Twitter @truthminista

Breakin' 2 Chainz: Why Do Smart Rappers Make Dumb Raps ?

Breakin’ 2 Chainz:
Why Do Smart Rappers Make Dumb Raps?

TRUTH Minista Paul Scott


“Sophisticated ignorance/write my curses in cursive”
Otis-Kanye West and Jay Z

When the controversial rap superstar , “2 Shackles” granted an interview to an investigative journalist at the New Jersey Times he agreed that it would be no holds barred. When the reporter grilled him on everything from his recent baby mama drama to his beefs with rival rappers he addressed each question without flinching. Even when she pulled out a copy of the mugshot from his most recent arrest, he just smiled and autographed it for her. But when she asked him about the allegations that he had an extremely high IQ and graduated from college ,magna cum laude, he stormed out of the office knockin’ over chairs and mumblin’ something about “birthdays and big booty guhs.....”

If you go strictly by what you hear on the radio ,nowadays, you would swear that Hip Hop was made up of people with low IQ’s and short attention spans. The music that once prided itself on being the “Black CNN” now sounds more like a pornographic version of Sesame Street. Sad thing is that some of today’s rappers are ,actually ,intelligent. Now, I’m not claimin’ that they are rocket scientists but they aren’t the bumblin’ buffoons, that you here on the radio, either.

So the question becomes, why do the smartest rappers make the dumbest raps?

Malcolm X once said the difference between a clown and a wise man is “the clown never imitates the wise man but the wise man can imitate the clown.” However, on a three minute song on the radio, it’s kinda hard to tell. the difference.

Case in point is the hottest rapper in the game right now, 2 Chainz. Some may find it hard to believe that the rapper who gave us such songs as “Birthday Song” and “No Lie” is actually Tauheed Epps , a gifted high school student who , in 1996, got an athletic scholarship to play basketball at Alabama State University . Thus , putting him in the company of such , athletic ,scholar entertainers as Paul Robeson. However, it would be easier to find your favorite rapper's Illuminati membership card than it would be to find an actual record of 2 Chainz’s academic prowess. So the story goes that he was either an academic genius who graduated in three years with honors or a college dropout who only attended a couple of semesters at an institution of higher learning. However, the fact remains that he is far more intelligent than the music that he makes. If you ever listen to a n interview when 2 Chainz briefly breaks out of character and reverts back to Tauheed Epps , you can tell that you're not dealing with a dummy.

So why the charade?

One can make the argument that the rappers of today were not the first to make dumb music. Back in Hip Hop’s early years , there were songs by The Rappin’ Duke and Bobby Jimmy and the Critters. But raps by artists like Biz Markie were seen for what they were ; commedy. The songs were just an occasional break from the more lyrically complex Hip Hop of the time. No no one in his right mind wanted to hear “Pickin’ Boogers” all day, everyday on the radio. But today the airwaves are flooded with mentally challenged music that has dumbed down the culture.

The defenders of commercial rap are always quick to point out how Hip Hop is the most influential art form to ever grace the planet and how it has impacted countries around the world ,socially and economically. However, when you hit them with a socio-economic analysis of the music, they accuse you of “thinking too deep” and all of a sudden the great culture of Hip Hop becomes merely “entertainment for kids”, like some Saturday morning cartoon. But the critique must be done.

If we break down the meaning of “2 Chainz, “ we will see that in order to enslave a people it takes two chains; one physical and one mental. Of the two, the most powerful is the mental chain as taught by scholars such as Dr. Na’im Akbar, author of the book, Breaking the Chains of Psychological Slavery.  Because even when the physical chain around the wrist is broken, the mental chain around the brain remains.

The emancipation from mental slavery has always been the hardest task for those trying to free a people. who have been, as the scripture teaches, “destroyed for a lack of knowledge.” This is made more difficult when those who “reject knowledge” and dumb themselves down are portrayed to the youth as models of success.

However, all youth are not going for the okie doke. Recently, the group , Watoto from the Nile ,released a video called , “Letter to Nicki Minaj” which features a powerful scene where “Harriet Tubman” removes the chains from Minaj’s wrists,symbolically meaning that the chains will eventually drop from her brain. (Good luck with that one.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD8JrLFTPSM


It is no accident that the deeper we entered into the information age, the dumber the music became. It was once said that if you want to hide something from a Black man, put it in a book. But today, you don’t even have to take the bus to the library as the information is literally at the tip of your fingers. So, the mental chains had to become reinforced. The music industry has been involved in a “brain drain” where they take our best and brightest artists and turn them into ratchet rappers.

While it may be argued that teenage rappers like Chief Keef are too young to know any better that's no excuse for rappers like 2 Chainz who are old enough to be their fathers. They have made a mockery out of the saying “with age comes wisdom.”

It’s time for us to break the chains. Hip Hop artists must be pressured to stop the musical mumbo jumbo.

Like KRS said on Still # 1
“Many of you are educated/open your mouths and speak...”


TRUTH Minista Paul Scott’s weekly column is “This Ain’t Hip Hop,” a column for intelligent Hip Hop headz. For more information on the No Warning Shots Fired lecture series contact info@nowarningshotsfired.com or visit
NoWarningShotsFired.com Follow Twitter @truthminista

Waka Flocka Flame: Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader ?

Waka Flocka Flame: Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?

Min. Paul Scott



"All my brothers eatin' chicken and watermelon, talk broken English and drug sellin'"

My Philosophy-Boogie Down Productions




Last night, during the premier of the Hip Hop version of "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader," 24 year old Waka Flocka Flame, went up against nine year old up and coming rapper, Willow Smith. However, the show ended, abruptly when during the introductions, the host asked Flaka how many years he had been rappin'. After counting on his fingers for several seconds, a puzzled Flame stormed off stage, cussin' at the audience and accusing the host of asking him a trick question...

Waka Flocka Flame is, undoubtedly, one of the hottest artists in Hip Hop, right now. You cannot turn on any Hip Hop radio station in the world and not hear one of his songs blastin' through the speakers. However, what is making Waka most famous these days is not his music but his interviews. Grandma used to tell me that it is better to keep silent and be thought a dummy, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Apparently, Flocka didn't get the memo.

On a recent episode of BET's 106 and Park, the host, Terrence J asked him about education and Flame responded by saying that he was going back to school to study "geometry." Later when the other host, Roxie asked him about politics, the boy genius said in classic Captain Caveman fashion "oonga boonga...votin' cool."

What is most disturbing, however, is the follow up interview that he gave on a radio station where he suggested that " Waka Flocka Flame" was just a character that he created in order to relate to the boys in tha hood. So my issue is not really with Juaquin Malphurs, the product of the American mis-educational system, but with his alter ego, Waka Flocka Flame that is being used by the industry to make being dumb, cool. A classic case of "I'm not really an idiot, I just play one on TV..."

The popularity of black folks actin' the fool has its roots in the mid 1800's with the black face minstrel performances. In the book, "Split Image: African Americans in the Mass Media," (Janet Davis and William Barlow) historian William Van Deburg is quoted as saying that in a time when many whites feared slave insurrections "the early slave image offered white audiences a comforting , psychological reassurance." He writes that "such intellectually inferior clowns posed little threat to white hegemony."

Such as it is today with black rappers in black face like Waka Flocka , who, despite all the hood talk are only a threat to the residents of the hood and not the socio-economic well being of those in the suburbs.

What is most disturbing about Waka is that he plays into the hands of those who still believe that black folks are more "Straight Out the Jungle" than "Straight Out of Compton." It must be remembered that barely a hundred years ago, African people were being locked up in monkey cages at zoos and forced to perform for white folks. According to Dr. Harriet Washington in her book, "Medical Apartheid," around 1903, a missionary explorer, Samuel Phillips Lerner, captured Ota Benga, an African "pygmy" and gave him to William Hornaday to put on exhibit in the Bronx Zoo. However, in 2010 they have stopped putting black men in cages but place them on stages.

To hear Malphurs tell it, the Flaka Flame character just represents the collective mentality of young urban males who have been victimized by society and he is only using rap music to express their collective point of view. Anyone who knows anything thing about Hip Hop history will tell you that that is a bunch of bull.

Back in the early 80's during the Reagan Era ,when times were ,arguably, socio-economically worst for black folks, rappers like the Treacherous Three and Funky Four Plus One More , expressed themselves very articulately, despite coming from conditions that were worst than those faced by the multi-millionaire rappers of today. We must ask ourselves why do the rappers of the 80's who were teenagers in the Reagan- Bush Era sound more intelligent than grown men in their 20's and 30's in the age of Obama? Just compare the lyrics of a young Kool Moe D or Grandmaster Caz with the ramblings of Waka Flocka or Gucci Mane. So the "product of my environment" excuse just doesn't fly in the face of facts.

What we have is the mass marketing of ignorance, a classic case of supply and demand. There are people who want to see black buffoonery and an industry more than happy to give it to them in large doses.

As we enter into an era where some people are trying to "turn back the clock" on African American progress, the actions of Waka Flocka Flame cannot be viewed in a political vacuum. In a time when many people want to put us back on the plantation we don't need rappers to supply the lyrical whips to beat us into submission.

So, what should we do? In truth, legitimate illiteracy is a major problem in poor communities. However, these folks should be helped and not exploited on TV. Perhaps there should be some "United Negro College Fund" for rappers to encourage artists like Wacka Flaka to obtain a higher education or develop a Hip Hop Rites of a Passage where more socio- politically conscious rappers take artists such as Flame and mentor them.

If that doesn't work, then it is time for some tough love. Like the old "scared straight" program, stupid rappers need to be "sacred smart" or risk being pulled off stage like KRS One did PM Dawn back in the day by crowds of disgusted black folks who are tired of seeing us portrayed as buffoons.

Either way it goes down, a change must come.

These are critical times for African Americans and we are in the fight of our lives against ignorance. We are at the bottom of the ninth inning; the end of the fourth quarter; down by three points with two seconds on the shot clock. There is a time for subtle diplomacy, but as Waka Flocka Flame said himself, there is also a time to "go hard in the paint."



TRUTH Minista Paul Scott writes for No Warning Shots Fired.com can be reached at info@nowarningshotsfired.com. For more information on Intelligence Over Ignorance lecture series contact info@nowarningshotsfired.com or (919) 451-8283

Viacom Needs to Get Schooled

When I first heard that Bill Gates was teaming with Viacom for an initiative to boost graduation rates, I thought, "Good for Bill." But there was just one problem.

Viacom.

For those who aren't hip to Sumner Redstone's Empire, Viacom is the media conglomerate that owns just about every video channel on cable, that includes VHI, MTV and yes, Black Entertainment Television.

http://www.viacom.com/OURBRANDS/Pages/default.aspx

This is the corporation responsible for bringing America such intellectually stimulating shows like "Flavor of Love," "I Love New York," "For the Love of Ray J" and "Rock of Love."

(I would list all of BET's contributions but blogs have limited space.) Let's just say that a couple of years ago some exec at BET thought that playing a carton rap video called "read a book..read a m****f**** book was going to be the catalyst that would increase enrollment at historically black college's 100%.

How can someone promote education but at the same time be the chief culprit dumbing our children down?

Let's look at it.

Who taught Lil Tyrone how to wear his pants saggin' down to his ankles?

Viacom!

Who taught Lil Tanesha how to do the stripper dance.

Viacom!

Viacom doing a a show to promote staying in school is like the tobacco industry doing a stop smoking campaign. It's like a drug dealer doing a "Just Say No" commercial. It's like a condom company doing a ....

Well, you get the picture.

I guess BET will come out with a new ghetto version of "School House Rock "with the "Conjunction Junction Dude" getting high with the "I'm Just a Bill" kid, while the "Skate a Figure 8" chick gives them a lap dance.

Paul Scott writes for No Warning Shots Fired.com

Reppin' for "Rap" arations

Reppin' for "Rap"arations:
Survivin' tha Hip Hop Holocaust

Paul Scott



"But then again I got a story that's harder than the hardcore cost of the holocaust. I'm talking about the one still goin' on. "

Can't Trust it-Public Enemy



I turned on the TV one evening just in time to catch the middle of a rant by an irate reporter fussin' about how something or another was the worst atrocity to happen to mankind. I thought that baby girl was about to have a total mental meltdown as she passionately argued about people in tha hood dying because of years of being abused and how that it was time for decent Americans to stand up and demand amends...I was just beginning to think that white America finally got it and they were about to apologize for the horrors of the 400 year treatment of African people in this country. But naw, she wasn't talking about the Transatlantic Slave Trade, she was just sharing her gripes about Hip Hop...

Every since the media found out that Hip Hop CD sales were down a few years back and their cash cow was finally running out of milk, there have been numerous shows about the "evil empire" of Hip Hop and how it is destroying the moral fabric of this country (as if a country built on slavery and cotton picking had any moral fabric to start with) . Talking heads from Paula Zahn to Anderson Cooper transformed themselves into hip Hip Hop historians, like they were really walking around in 1982 with boom boxes and Kangols.

The Don Imus comments of 2007 only added fuel to the fire of anti-hiphopism, as the culture was now the reason for racism. But if Hip Hop is really the scourge of society that white America claims that it is, then shouldn't somebody, somewhere be breaking a brotha off a lil somethin'?

It is time that we hit the entertainment industry up for some "Rap"arations.

While some folks who have dedicated their lives to securing compensation for the descendants of our enslaved ancestors may consider this statement almost sacrilegious, there is a strong connection between the two struggles. Just as our ancestors were stolen from Africa and exploited by slave traders, Hip Hop was stolen from Africans in America and exploited by CEO's of major corporations. Our failure to teach our young people about this correlation has been one of the major drawbacks in our addressing the Hip Hop dilemma. Our children have no knowledge of the complexity of the Black liberation struggle, so when we use words like "mentacide", "colonialization" and Maafa, we might as well be talking Greek instead of Swahili.

Our people, in general, also lack a thorough knowledge of history so it is impossible for many to conceptualize the scope and severity of the Maafa and that impedes their ability to connect the dots between the past and the present. However, with a knowledge of our history one would be hard pressed to ignore the relationship between the atrocities of 1619 and the condition in which we find ourselves in 2009.

Either the Hip Hop Holocaust is part of the legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Maafa) or just another phase of a holocaust that never really ended. Even the most hard core Hip Hop head cannot deny the fact that the corporate exploitation of Hip Hop has had a devastating on African people world wide. From the gun shots flying through hoods across the country courtesy of impressionable young Brotha's who think that killing a Black man is a rites of passage in St. Louis to the five year old Sista in South Philly who thinks that all she will ever be is someone's bitch to Brotha's and Sista's in Sierra Leone who think that "nigger" is a universal term of endearment based on the bootleg CD's that took the round (middle passage) trip back across the Atlantic, our people are suffering while white men in business suits get rich.

We demand "Rap"arations!

While the major focus of the demand for "Rap"arations will be, of course, focused on the entertainment industry, in reality, there are many people "eatin" off not only the exploitation of Hip Hop but also the death and destruction in the Black community. From the malt liquor companies who used rappers to push their "genocide in a bottle" (40 oz Malt Liquor) in the 90's to the blood diamond merchants on the African continent making millions from tha bling, they all owe us "Rap"arations.

Even the clothing companies who have made young Black children think that in order to be hip, they have to wear $200 sneakers that cost $12.50 to make are liable. How many young Brotha's and Sista's are in the grave right now because they refused to give up the $400 jacket to a stick up kid who just had to have it?

Time to pay the piper!

The argument that many white folks keep parroting for not paying reparations is that "no one alive now has suffered from slavery." This is not true in the case for "Rap"arations, as there are victims of the Hip Hop Holocaust in 'hoods across the planet, from the mother of three trying to make it on her own while her man does a 20 year bid to the father who saw his son take his last breath courtesy of a drive by from a Brotha who was acting out a rap video. We have all been touched.

Give it up or turn it loose!

The black community should demand "Rap" arations from the Fortune 500 companies that have made their fortunes from the suffering of African people. The victims of the Hip Hop Holocaust should contact the mega corporations like Viacom, Universal, EMI, Time Warner etc to demand that they issue former apologies (admissions of guilt) for the role that they have played in the destruction of the black family. These corporations should give substantial reparations to health, education and other social programs to help remedy the damage that they have created.

This is 2009 and we ain't talkin' about 40 acres and mules, we're talking youth programs and schools.


Paul Scott writes for No Warning Shots Fired.com. http://www.nowarningshotsfired.com/ He can be reached at (919) 451-8283 info@nowarningshotsfired.com

NWSF Bullet: Props to BET

Now, I won't say that I have been Black Entertainment Television's worst critic. I'll leave that title to Aaron McGruder (Boondocks), Rev, Delmon Coates (Enough is Enough Campaign) and my homie Kwabena out of Gary IN. However, I have gotten in a couple of licks, myself over the years.

I remember back in the 90's when the network used to have call in talk shows, sneaking past the screeners and using their airwaves to attack the malt liquor ads that they used to air every 15 minutes.

But as they say, one good program "can cover a multitude of sins."

Let's face it, for the last 15 years, BET has been an embarrassment to most black folks over 18 with a job and a GED.

But I have to admit that the American Gangster series is pretty good as the first minutes of every program usually deal with the socio-political climate of the time.

They recently did a program on J. Edgar Hoover, former head of the FBI and father of COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program).

The show was important because that is a period of time that America would like to forget. A period when the government turned on her own citizens for merely fighting for equal rights.

Maybe the program will inspire BET's "106 and Park" crowd to pick up books by Kenneth O' Reilly (Racial Matters and Black Americans:The FBI Files) and read about a piece of history that they will not get in school.

I just wish that BET would connect the dots and reveal that the damage caused by COINTELPRO is the reason for the "gangsta-isms" promoted in their videos...

Iz Blak Peeple Stoopid?

Is Blak Peeple Stoopid?

Min. Paul Scott

When I first heard Nobel Prize winner, Dr. James Watson's comments about African people being intellectually inferior to other folks I was outraged! I immediately jumped up, ran to my lap top and got ready to organize a boycott, uprising or a million man march through dude's living room. But then I thought about BET's game show "Take the Cake" and went back to playing Madden 2007...

For those who no longer watch BET, let's put it this way, while white folk's game shows are asking questions like "which continent has the largest amount of natural resources just waiting for us to finish exploiting."

"Take the Cake" trivia goes somethin' like this:

"Hello caller:

For $1,000 what Civil Rights leader whose initials are MLK once said "I Have a Dream?"

"Was it Dr. Dre, T.I. or Dr. Martin Luther the King?"

The question of black inferiority has been an issue since before the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Many a white enslaver posed the question "if Black folks weren't intellectually challenged, how did we so easily trick them into getting on those slave ships?"

Now this would be fine and dandy if it wasn't for names from African history like Imhotep, cities like Timbuktu and those big triangle-like things in the middle of the desert known as pyramids.

So were our enslaved ancestors a little slow or were they victims of a foreign imperialist culture to which they were not accustomed?

Although, some folks point to the fact that lacking the resources of warmer climates the European had to develop devious ways to obtain resources, does that make white folks inherently evil or just products of their environment doing what they had to do to survive ?

While it is easy to look at our present media portrayals and want to give Ol' James a high five for his excellent analysis of the obvious, it just shows a lack of historical research backed by a system of institutionalized and globally accepted white supremacy.

During the early 90's, this statement would have been met with an onslaught from our top Afrocentric scholars challenging this theory in bookstores and in college lecture halls across the country. Unfortunately, Drs John Henrik Clarke, Amos Wilson and Asa Hilliard have gone on to the ancestors leaving behind a black intelligentsia more skilled at deciphering rap lyrics and arguing the social ramifications of saggin' pants than historical scholarship.

Plus, this ain't 1992 and the lectures that used to pack student union rooms are now attended by four or five brothers and sisters with dashikis and afro picks quoting Curtis Mayfield and eating bean pies.

While one may be quick to point the finger at Hip Hop.....

(Wait a minute, I forgot my point)

Oh yeah....but Hip Hop can not be totally to blame. Just think back to the late 80's when many of us picked up The Autobiography of Malcolm X for the first time courtesy of a Public Enemy song.

What is most frustrating is the failure of the younger Hip Hop Generation to maximize their opportunities to effect change given technological advances.

As many people question how much more effective the Garvey Movement would have been with the internet and Kinkos, one can also ask how much more effective the "edutainement" of the Stop the Violence and Blackwatch Movements would have been in the late 80's with youtube and myspace. I mean, if a whole nation can learn to "crank dat soldier boy" off of youtube...We'll you get the point.

Back in tha day we use to have sayings like "Knowledge is Power" but today's anti-illiteracy anthem is called "Read a ******* book." Now I understand the concept but if we don't tell our youth which books to read they are still left in the dark.

I can imagine my 12 year old daughter trying to justify reading Superhead's new book by sayin'

"Daddy, the man on BET did tell me to read a ***** book, so technically..."

Also, our T-Shirts used to have slogans that said "Warning: Educated Black Man." Today the most popular shirts have a gold toothed Pillsbury dough boy shootin' dice.

So while the rest of the world is moving forward many of us seem stuck on stupid.

Contrary to what you see on the Maury Povich Show, when those scientists talk about DNA they are referring to stuff like genetic engineering and evolutionary theory not who Shaquana's baby's daddy is.

So what do we do to make knowledge fashionable, again?

I am starting a new "Books or Bullets:The Choice is Yours" movement: http://www.booksorbullets.com/

This is an aggressive attempt to prove once again that knowledge does really reign supreme. We will use every venue from barbershops to bus stops to raise the consciousness of our people.

Although some may believe that Black folks have achieved Freedom in this country, as Dr. Amos Wilson would say

"the oppressed feel that they are the most free when they are the most oppressed."

So we must not equate the ability to act ig'nant on TV with economic, social and political equality.

Or to borrow from Chuck D "Freedom does not mean "free to be dumb."

TRUTH Minista Paul Scott's blog is http://www.nowarningshotsfired.com/. He can be reached at (919) 451-8283 or info@nowarningshotsfired.com

NWSF Bullet: Books Not Bullets

By now, I'm sure that you have heard about rapper TI getting arrested before the BET Hip Hop Awards, last Saturday. Seems TI or TIP was busted trying to buy some machine guns via his bodyguard.

Not sure why TI needed the extra ammo...

Maybe he was going to avenge the torture of Megan Williams, the sister from W.VA.

Or...Maybe he was going to go down to Jena, Louisiana to bust Mychal Bell out of the slammer...

Naw, in all likelihood, he was just stocking up to prove how gangsta he is just incase Ludacris decides to diss him on his next CD...

While the Black Panther Party "blackenized" Mao Tse Tung's "Politics grows out of the barrel of a gun" ideology, and Malcom X talked about the "Ballot or the Bullet" Hip Hop artists have at least gotten the gun and bullets parts right...

One of America's biggest fears has been that the thugz on the streets would one day become politically minded. What would happen if Snoop Dog woke up one morning and started telling his young homies that CRIP stands for "Community Revolution In Progress" or if The Game started quoting Marcus Garvey and said that the red that the Bloods wear stands for the blood of their African ancestors that was spilled for their FREEDOM?

Would they still have the same access that they do, now to go on TV and promote the genocide of a young black generation?

Probably not. They would probably be reduced to cameo appearences on "Dancing With the Stars."

What is more feared TI with a gun or TI with Robert William's book, "Negroes With Guns?"

Back in the late 80's Public Enemy used to rap aboout "Fightin' the Power", but today's youth have no idea what "the power" is much lest how to fight it....

I can see the "powers that be" sitting back in their war rooms smokin' big cigars and sayin'

"Yeah, let's take the books out tha hood and replace them with guns!"

It is said that a fool and his money are soon parted. So, I guess a similiar saying would be "a fool and a gun will shoot innocent bystanders."

No wonder the school system doesn't teach black children about their history...

Maybe we need to start a "Books not Bullets" Campaign ?

Hip Hop vs America or America vs Hip Hop

Hip Hop vs America or America vs Hip Hop:

Tale of Two Trials

Min. Paul Scott

Hip Hop was on trial twice last night. One was Hip Hop vs America Pt. 1, a prerecorded attempt by Black Entertainment Television to appease its viewers after years of complaints which came to a broil after last Summer's ill advised "Hot Ghetto Mess" Reality Show. The other was "America vs Hip Hop," sponsored by the Subcommittee of Commerce Trade and Consumer Protection of the Committee on Energy and Commerce . The first one was catered towards a predominately young, black teeny bopper audience who had just finished watching videos on "106 and Park" and wanted to to see if Nelly had gotten any new gold teeth since his last CD. The other was for the rest of mainstream America who have grown sick and tired of a bunch of young black "thugs" ruining "their" country.

The BET special was pretty much what you would expect from the company, a weak attempt at self criticism with bumpin' videos and applause signs. Perhaps Part 2 will get "deep" but Part 1 did little to elevate the "rap" beyond the realm of where it has been since C. Delores Tucker dissed Pac back in the early 90's.

"You don't understand Hip Hop!"

"And you, young man, need to pull your pants up!"

You still have the same panelists from the older generation trying to to be a parent/buddy friend to 30 somethin' year old millionaire Hip Hop artists. Dr. Michael Eric Dyson did the Biggie rap thing that he has been showcasing since the mid 90's and rappers, Nelly and T.I. proved once again that loud "don't" make it right.

T.I. kinda lost me with the whole "I have to trick my fans into learning" logic. (or lack thereof)

Not to mention his brilliant theory that the problem with Hip Hop is "you got fake thugs rappin' about being real thugs who never were thugs instead of real rappers rappin' about being real...."

Oh, never mind.

And then Nelly came with the "it's not fair to judge me based on a four minute rap video with credit cards being slid through a black woman's booty" defense.

What else can we judge you by Nelly? Your PH.D dissertation on "The Juxtaposition of Capitalism and Marxist Leninism?"

Down the way in DC, "From Imus to Industry: The Business of Stereotypes and Degrading Images," hearing called together by Senator Bobby Rush featured Master P and David Banner along with activists and industry big wigs such as Edgar Broffman and Doug Morris.

Needless to say, the theme of the hearing was problematic in itself.

Although Hip Hop activists have raised this issue over the last five months, it cannot be overstated that this current national discussion on the state of Hip Hop is a diversionary tactic in the aftermath of the Michael Richards/Don Imus controversies to take the focus off of institutionalized racism and white male bigotry and replace it with a focus on dirty dancin' and baggy pants.

While the efforts of former Black Panther Bobby Rush may be commended, would his time not have been better served making sure that a thorough congressional hearing on Reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans takes place. Or hearings on COINTELPRO, for which groups like the Jericho Project have been advocating that could result in the exoneration of his former Panther comrades and other political prisoners still locked in jail and in exile ?

Also, it must be also noted that if we look at the emphasis that America has put on Hip Hop compared with the coverage of stories like the Jena 6 and the black woman that was tortured in West VA, the comparison is troubling.

What is unfortunate is that many of us do not see this current Hip Hop controversy in socio-political terms. While the kiddie converation on BET may have had a better looking stage, the meeting in DC could set public policy for generations to come.

Did anybody think to ask where the Hip Hop discussion fit in the agenda of the Subcommittee of Commerce Trade and Consumer Protection on a highly compartmentalized Capitol Hill?

Did anyone notice that the committee is in charge of dealing with some Homeland Security related matters? So which part of Hip Hop are the feds really concerned about; the "misogynist" lyrics of a Nelly or the inflammatory political rap of a M1 of Dead Prez?

http://energycommerce.house.gov/

At the end of the day , were we any closer to improving Hip Hop than were were before the BET program and congressional hearing?

BET promised another earth shakin' sequel to Tuesday night's show (So what are they gonna do for a grand finale, have TI punch Rev. Al in the mouth?) and the people in DC came to the consensus that censorship ain't cool, def, or funky fresh.

Is there really a difference between gangsta rapper, "Killa T" grabbin' his crotch and yellin' "I'm just keepin' it real for the homies in tha hood" and Viacom head honcho Phillipe Dauman sitting before Congress and saying with a straight face, "We have a responsibility to speak authentically to our viewers ?"

What we need is a clear analysis of the Hip Hop problem based on facts and not prejudiced by political bamboozlin' and hero worshippin' of rappers.

With a clear analysis we could raise the level of consciousness of the Hip Hop connosiers so high that neither Hip Hop hearings nor censorship would even be necessary.

Min. Paul Scott is a writer and activist in Durham NC. For more info visit http://www.hiphopstrikesback.com

(919) 451-8283 info@nowarningshotsfired.com

The World Is a Ghetto

The World Is A Ghetto:
Is Hot Ghetto Really Messin' It Up For Black Folks?
TRUTH Minista Paul Scott



Don't you know that it's true/ That for me and for you
The world is a ghetto
War




Meet Bob Roberts. He lives in a gated community with manicured lawns, talks "good" English and was the first "black" admitted to the Glen Haven Country Club. He thinks that he is a living example of the American Dream until a case of mistaken identity lands him in the same cell with Tyrone "T-Boogie" Johnson...


For those who aren't down with Black Entertainment Television, the network's latest attempt to provide wholesome family entertainment is a reality show called Hot Ghetto Mess, which (so far) is scheduled to debut on July 25th. The show is a spinoff of the website of the same name started by Jam Donaldson a few years back which bought attention to the "ghettorization" of Black culture by exposing the perpetrators to public ridicule.


Initially, it was a good idea as it was able to shine the spotlight on an issue in the Black community that had not really been addressed. And, believe it or not , a lot of really smart people visit the site on a regular basis. Also, to Donaldson's credit, she didn't duck the controversy surrounding the site but answered the critics, head on. So I ain't mad at Jam. I just question HGM under the auspices of Sumner Redstone's BET/Viacom empire.


Based on its line up over the last decade, one could make a convincing argument that BET wouldn't know good programing if it smacked it in the face...(And no, showing the movie Baby Boy twice a week with the introduction borrowed from Dr. Frances Cress Welsing doesn't count as uplifting the race.) But the main question is can Viacom, which brought us such "positive" shows like BET's sister company’s VH1's "Flavor of Love" and "I Love New York," really be able to separate "ghetto" as an unfortunate economic condition from "ghetto" as a comedy skit?


When I hear the term, "ghetto", my mind flashes back to the 70's sitcom, "Good Times" and the Evan family’s endless attempts to escape tha hood. However, the term "ghetto" wasn't originally a black thang. The term originally referred to the places where European Jews were forced to live and then where European immigrants resided when they came to America. It wasn't until decades later that the term became used to describe tha hood. The difference is that if Viacom was poking fun at the ghettos of Warsaw instead of the ghetto's of Chi-Town, nobody would be laughing.


So how did the ghetto become Chocolate City?


According to the 1965 Moynihan Report:


"the Negro family in the urban ghettos is crumbling. A middle-class group has managed to save itself, but for vast numbers of the unskilled, poorly educated city working class the fabric of conventional social relationships has all but disintegrated....So long as this situation persists, the cycle of poverty and disadvantage will continue to repeat itself."


And who is to blame for this?


According to the Kerner Commission Report published in 1968:


"..white America society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain and white society condones it."


The people of the ghetto have always been a source of embarrassment for the black bourgeois. Kinda like the light "skinned-ed" sista that was ashamed of her dark skinned mama in "An Imitation of Life."


It must be noted that the gains of the Civil Rights Era were mostly because of the "ghetto people" who were busy fighting in the streets while the "bougies" were busy trying to get "gov’ment" jobs. Instead of reaching back and hooking the Brotha’s and Sista’s up with a gig, those ingrates got their first paychecks and kept on truckin’.


What has changed since the 70's and 80's is that "ghetto" is no longer a place from where you try to elevate yourself but a place that you carry around for life, like old luggage. Also, the authentic "ghetto" look is expensive these days. Have you checked the price of gold grills, lately?

So, ghetto has moved from being a class to a caste from which one cannot escape.


Thanks largely to the entertainment industry a group of "untouchables" has been created that is not characterized by red dots on the forehead but gold teeth and jheri curls.


Since HGM is supposed to be an accurate portrayal of how "we" act I can't see Lakesha going out of her way to make sure that she watches the program every Wednesday night. However, I can see Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity loungin' around their living rooms, popping popcorn and laughing themselves silly at our expense.


The bright side of the controversy is that people like Latrice Janine, who started an online petition to remove the show months before everybody started jumpin on the post Imus Hip Hop bashin’ bandwagon and groups like Turn Off Channel Zero, that have been ragin’ against the machine by pushin’ anti -Viacom DVD’s in hood's across the country are proving that everyday folks can stick it to the man without the help of the Civil Rights leaders. Instead of burying the "N" word wouldn’t it have been more effective if the NAACP would have burned a wax figure of Sumner Redstone in effigy?


Already, sponsors are dropping their ads like hot ghetto hot cakes.


Surely, some will ask what good will boycotting Hot Ghetto Mess do and the critics will say that we are only fighting against it because we are too concerned about how white folks perceive us. In reality, it’s all about how we see ourselves...Because, to keep it real, white folks make an initial judgement based on skin color not what's in your wallet nor the degree hanging on your living room wall.


As the original theme of the Hot Ghetto Mess website proclaimed "We’ve got to do better." And that goes far beyond cancelling a television program.


I applaud the efforts to prevent another "diss" to black culture but removing a TV show still won't change the root causes that created the ghetto in the first place.


At the end of the day, will cancelling Hot Ghetto mess change the economic condition of the inner cities?


No.


Will it force those Black folks who have "made it" to come back and help "tha hood?"


No.


And lastly, will it change the perception of Black people by white society ?


As Malcolm X once asked in a debate.


"You know what white racists call black PH.Ds?"


Nigger...



TRUTH Minista Paul Scott is a writer and activist based in Durham NC. His blog is http://www.nowarningshotsfired.com
He can be reached at (919) 451-8283 info@nowarningshotsfired.com