11 years ago today, Tupac Shakur was gunned down in yet another senseless black-on-black murder, one that remains unsolved to this day by our fine police forces. You’ll hear a lot of things from both “sides” — that he invited it with his aggressive lyrics, or alternatively, that he was but an artist with a facade necessary to sell records — but as is almost always the case, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. It’s ridiculous that an art form as poetic and expressive as hip-hop, which has the power to illuminate the stench of poverty and hopelessness of second class citizenship to an apathetic, complacent constituency who otherwise would turn a blind eye to it, devolved into a machismo-driven jigaboo spend-off, complete with thoughtless anger and lack of self-preservation. Sure, many people can’t stand hip-hop, and for a variety of reasons, most of them understandable. But the fact remains that it has a reason for being. And it’s sad to me that so many forces conspire to eradicate it.
If I am going to suppose that a murder of a black rap star by another black man is a result of forces outside of such passable concepts as “gang war” and “that’s what black people do”, I probably should explain myself. The rap game isn’t representative of “black culture”, as many would believe. It’s representative of what rich people think people with expendable income want to see rich people who used to be poor doing. Upper class record executives know they can sell records to middle class kids who want to pretend they’re lower class scrappers by listening to people who used to be lower class scrappers pretending to be upper class high-lifers. Confused? That’s how they want you to be.
Black music in America used to be more tolerable to the white masses, and for good reason. There used to be signs of progress in society, and the accompanying patience manifested itself in the creative flourishes that give jazz its smooth caress. It simultaneously conveyed patience, desire, and faith. Jazz was inventive and impromptu, in stark contrast to the piano driven predictability of the time. Then race relations stopped improving as both “sides” dug their trenches, and black music became more about expressing despair, anger, and an increasing intolerance of the ruling class, whose callousness was increasing exponentially. White America’s “I can’t see you, homeless man,” walk-by was met with black America’s “Hey, jackass, I KNOW you see me!”
Is it really that hard to understand that the art people produce reflects their own feelings about their environment? So far, our best response has been to minstrelize them so it’s easier to either ignore or mock them. And make no mistake, in the record industry, underground sales don’t mean jack. It’s a numbers game, and white America has it rigged. So we’ve reached a point where we publicize and buy a trivialized version of what is really a worthwhile endevour. We want to hear about guns and weed and fuck you bitch. We don’t want to hear about how there are cockroaches in your sink or how your parents died of AIDS or how you want to go to college. Yes, there are guns and weed and fuck you bitch in the American slums that house a disproportionately high percentage of black people. But there are also cockroaches in their sinks and parents that die of AIDS and kids that are trying to get into college. In an unfortunate turn of events, one of the things we like hearing about is self-destruction. My theory is that it makes it easier for us to marginalize people if we think they don’t even want to help themselves. And what better way to project that image than to market it through their own music?
This false impression and its resulting aftermath were bad enough when we at least had a guilty conscience but didn’t do anything about it. However, any scan of the landscape reveals we’re in Fox News America now. Rich white Christians are the new victims. The world is stacked against them. Screw those damn minorities for their longing to be equal, because us white folk aren’t as more equal as we used to be. And if us O’Reilly fans want to know about being black, we’ll laugh at Nelly talking about champagne instead of reading Ralph Ellison.
2Pac’s death anniversary is but my shoehorn forcing this post into the boot of my expressive cagalogue. But sometimes you need an excuse to say what you’ve been wanting to say for a while. R.I.P.
