Is Hip Hop Hooked on Crack?

 

From Black Music to Crack Music:

What Happened to Hip Hop?

TRUTH Minista Paul Scott

“I blame my mama for turning my brother into a crack baby."

Keep Ya Head Up- Tupac Shakur

This is Black Music Month and just like clockwork people will ask the age old question, what happened to Black music, especially Hip Hop? However, like previous Black Music Months, June 30th will find many scratching their heads, filled with more questions than answers. However, the real answer is quite simple.

Black music got hooked on crack.

Following the death of college B-ball superstar Len Bias, in 1986, a great fear struck America . There was a new drug on the street that was gonna turn the hood into a kingdom of the walking dead. As Public Enemy put it , an eternal “Night of the Living Baseheads. “Worst than that they would spawn a horde of crack babies who would be destined to become career chain snatchers and riders on the prison revolving door. And since mainstream America was just getting turned on to Hip Hop, the destinies became intertwined.

Well , a recent study has proven what many already knew. Don’t believe the hype.

In an article published in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The idea of the “crack baby” has been exposed as myth. Although, the authors concede , that like with any drug, crack is not the best thing to put in your body, especially, while you're pregnant., social factors such as poverty really play a greater role in determining the future of children.

But what about the music that was supposed to represent the mentality of the “crack babies”. If the crack baby syndrome was a myth, the music must be fictitious, as well.

Let’s be clear. There is no denying the devastating effect that the drug trade has had on the ‘hood, from the heroin explosion of the 70’s to the crack epidemic of the Hip Hop era. And the music of the periods served as soundtracks to the misery, from Curtis Mayfield’s “Pusherman” to Biggie Smalls’ “Ten Crack Commandments”

According to Seeka tha Teacha, captain of the Hip Hop Liberation Army ,” Crack cocaine was introduced to Hip Hop for the purpose of destroying families and the well being of urban communities. It made drug dealers look rich in the eyes of the youth who were exposed to poverty.”

However, in this case ,we are not talking about the glorification of slangin’ rocks.that has permeated rap music since the late 80’s. That issue has been the subject of too many articles , books and documentaries to mention. Nor are we talking about the real life drug issues that have destroyed the careers of artists from Billie Holiday to DMX. Thus, murdering the message and the music.

The point here is how the whole idea of "crack music" is based on the media perpetuation of the crack baby (prenatal cocaine exposure) myth and the pathological behaviors associated with it have effected Black culture. And more importantly, how the stereotypical images associated with crack have affected our youth.

Some believe that the media hype around selling and using crack was really a self fulfilling prophesy. And if you pump crack pipe dreams in the heads of children, they will gravitate towards that even if they ain’t bout that life.

According to a recent Time magazine article , Dr. Maureen Black , professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine says that “once you label a child that way...there's no hope for the child. “

Durham NC substance abuse activist, Shareef Hameed , agrees saying that “crack baby became part of the American vernacular.. It was like labeling someone before they even got started.”

Hameed says that the signs of crack addiction are nervousness , paranoia and aggressiveness, which, ironically, are the same attributes reflected in today’s rap music. It was also rumored to cause ADHD (attention deficit disorder. ) Which explains why the music seems to be attractive to those with low IQ’s and short attention spans.

Crack rap can be distinguished from Hip Hop by its lack of subject matter and overly simplistic, pickaninny choruses And the music industry has sold the idea across the planet that this is the type of music to which kids are addicted.

Unfortunately, many Hip Hop fans have bought into this false reality, as well.

The idea of crack babies has its roots in the negative stereotypes of Black people stretching back hundreds of years with the “small brain theory” which claimed that Black people had small skulls which limited their capacity to absorb information. Not much different than the racist stereotypes connected with Hip Hop.

So, the crack baby myth is really a socio-political construct , a euphemism for the pathological behavior of some young Black males. The term is not really about a specific drug. In theory it's about a cocaine derivative but in practice it includes weed, malt liquor, molly or any mind altering drug that is promoted in Hip Hop.

What should be of major concern is how the crack baby hoax has served to demonize Black men. This is especially important with the upcoming George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin murder trial as the media has already tried to portray Martin as a crack baby only hooked on weed, in preparation for what will become the “Trial of the Century.” Also, of note is the recent media fascination with Chief Keef and his recent exploits including accusing a security guard of racist mean muggin’ when he was allegedly busted in a hotel room smoking marijuana.

Like any addiction, the first step to overcoming crack music addiction is admitting that you have a problem. We must admit that it hasn’t been crack that has had the most far reaching effects on the Black community but “crack music” that has propagated a hoax.

Unfortunately, a whole generation has gotten high on the hype.

This Black Music Month Hip Hop needs a detox.

It’s gonna be a long hot summer, socially and politically for Black people and we need our minds sober and ready for action.

Like Pac said on Revolution:

“Can you imagine the damage we could do if we weren’t high?”

TRUTH Minista Paul Scott can be reached at info@nowarningshotsfired.com Follow on Twitter @truthminista

Check out Militant Minded Radio every Tuesday at 9PM EST http://blacktalkradionetwork.com/page/militantmindedradio

Atlanta Rapper In Critical Condition

(Atlanta) A popular Atlanta rapper is clinging to life tonight after a vicious attack. Twenty year old , Roger Sam Boman, known in the Hip Hop world as “Roger Ratchet” was  found critically wounded earlier today outside of Ratchet Recording Studio on Peach Street not far from his home. Details are still sketchy,  but according to police reports , someone on the roof of the building dropped a 50 pound Acme speaker on the rapper as he exited the studio around five o’clock this afternoon.

The once popular artist, who is credited with creating the genre, “Ratchet Rap “ has recently come under fire from Hip Hop fans who accuse him of destroying the culture . At this point there are no suspects.

Children's Story

Children's Story:
Should Hip Hop Have a Manditory Retirement Age?

TRUTH Minista Paul Scott




"He never grew up/ Thirty-one and can't give his youth up."

Second Childhood-Nas





Fred G is texting his homie, Shady Grady making last minute plans for his birthday as he places his fitted NY Yankee cap over his freshly done braids. After wipin' down his brand new pair of kicks he makes sure that his skinny jeans are saggin' just right as he gets ready to hit the club. That is, right after he drops his grand kids off at the babysitter and slides by the drug store to get his Viagra. After all, its not everyday that you turn 60...


More than 30 years since its birth Hip Hop is experiencing an early middle age crisis. It is increasingly hard to tell the difference between a veteran rapper who has been in the game for twenty years and one who was born in the 90's. What Chuck D once called the "CNN of Black America" has now become, to borrow from Slick Rick, a "children's story."

It is time that we seriously ask the question, "Should Hip Hop have a mandatory retirement age?"

Anytime 16 year old Diggy Simmons, is spittin' better lyrics then grown men twice his age, something is terribly wrong.

Neely Fuller in his book, The United Independent Compensatory Code/System/Concept , wrote that a child is "regardless of age in years, any person who is helpless in thinking, speaking, and or acting and who must depend on a man or women for help in each and every area of activity including economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics religion, sex and war."

So, we are not talking about the number of candles on a birthday cake but a level of maturity.

This is especially important to study when you have 40 year old artists signing with record companies that cater to teeny boppers or doing duets with rappers who are young enough to be their sons. Recently, both Busta Rhymes and Mystikal have signed with YMCMB (Young Money Cash Money Billionares). Unfortunately, the youth are having a greater impact on the elders than the elders are having on the youth.

Just look at the complexity of Busta Rhyme's lyrics 2O years ago when he was with the Leaders of the New School as compared to his recent work, proving that you can have a sick, supersonic, 60 -bars- a -second flow and still say absolutely nothing of substance. If you you don't believe me, just go back and listen to his verse on the LONS's joint, Understanding The Inner Minds Eye (TIME), where he spits "it's kinda ill when you don't know what time or whose time you are living in" and compare it with his song with lil Twist. I rest my case.

Although, Knowledge is infinite, when time is out of whack, ignorance becomes infinite and regression becomes perceived as progression. So rappers that spit ignorance are seen as hot but those who drop knowledge are seen as "old school" even though they may be a decade younger than the dudes propagating ignorance.

The worst example of the imbalance in Hip Hop is the scandal that broke last month when 40-something year old rapper , Too Short, gave a video interview teaching boys who haven't even entered puberty how to mack the lil honeys. According to Dr. William Grier and Dr. Price Cobbs in their work, Black Rage, this imbalance stems from the pressures that Black males are "seen as the ultimate in vitality and masculine vigor " but at the same time are "regarded as socially, economically and politically castrated in performing every other masculine role." And the inability to deal with this contradiction is handed down from older males to the younger generation.


Like most other social problems, the arrested development of Hip Hop is not by accident. According to The Black Dot, former member of the 80's Hip Hop group, Tall, Dark and Handsome and author of the underground book , Hip Hop Decoded, Hip Hop has been made stagnant by design and hasn't moved forward in the last ten years."

Could it be that the "powers that be " have developed a program to manipulate time in order to stop the social, economic and political progression of oppressed communities?

Although the late writer, Del Jones, claimed that Hip Hop was stolen by "culture bandits" the fact is that the genre is a victim of something even more sinister; time bandits.

Michael Bradley, author of The Ice Man Inheritance, has a theory called "the Cronos complex," which is man's attempt to control time in order to retard the development of future generations. Bradley wrote that western man has created various mechanisms to "hold the future back, to limit their offspring's access to progress" and to" hurt the future, cripple it with casualties and thereby compromise its ability to surpass them."

As Dr. Carter G. Woodson wrote in The Mis-Education of the Negro, "once you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions." So those who control the economics of not only the music industry but the entire planet don't have to worry about grown men and women with child-like mentalities ever challenging the current socio-economic order. Even if rappers become billionaires they will just waste their money on buying bigger toys.

Regardless of who caused the stagnation of the culture, Hip Hop needs to grow up.

While some may disagree with placing a retirement age on rappers, we must place a limit on the dissemination of ignorance. We need a new rule in Hip Hop that says that no rapper over 30 should, ever, ever be allowed on the set of 106 and Park. Or at least we should start some Rites of Passage program for rappers.

If not we will be headed for an odd future where grown men continue to exhibit mindless behaviour.

Like the Wu Tang Clan said on A Better Tomorrow..

"You can't party your life away, drink your life away, smoke your life away...cuz your seeds grow up the same way."



TRUTH Minista Paul Scott's weekly column is "This Ain't Hip Hop," a column for intelligent Hip Hop headz. He can be reached at info@nowarningshotsfired.com His website is NoWarningShotsFired.com Follow on Twitter @truthminista