Black people are at the bottom economically and educationally. Just read some of the responses and posts throughout this board. It's hard to get through them because you can't understand them. Some of these people can barely write a complete sentence. I understand making typos, but some of this crap is borderline retarded. Our kids are the biggest losers in all of this. Drugs, alcohol, tobacco, mindless and meaningless sex and sexual imagery, violence, etc., are the last things we as a people need, especially young people. Our kids and culture are constantly bombarded with this crap on a regular basis. So much so that they think that everything TI, Lil Wayne, Lil John, Snoop, and all they say as being the truth and good and right. Most of these guys are thugs and gangsters who just happen to know how to rap. Why did we let these people infiltrate our homes and our kid's minds. We are being pimped and noone really cares. It's all lip service. Take away the money and they will all go away and get back to robbing and stealing and knocking "big mama" upside her head and taking her pocketbook. TI, Master P, Nelly, etc., are all bums and I can't wait until they all play out which will be soon. Having a lot of money doesn't ALWAYS mean that you're intelligent. Any fool can make a stupid rap song (Khia, Lil John, and damn near all the rest). Nelly can make a song about wearing his underwear around his head and it will sell and get airplay. Any of the popular young hip hoppers can make a song about taking a dump and it will sell. Rap appeals to our young kids and stupid sh@t sells. Rap and its fans are very *8*le. Everybody knows that. Get smart black people....... bird19780@excite.com

Good post.  Many of the top-sellers just stereotype us to their white audience.

Perhaps, you ought to take some time out, to  actually LISTEN to some of this 'so called'  renegade,  rap/hip hop   music, instead of being SO damn  critical  of it.  Narrow minded thinking, such as YOURS,  isn't getting us anywhere. You need to embrace this music, instead of shunning it, because rap is  here to stay.  No doubt,  there is a lot of garbage rap music out there, (as there is with every  musical genre ),  but, by the same token, there are  also plenty of wonderful rap artist out there......who are sayin' and DOING positive things......and, dare I say it......Nelly is one of them , even inspite of Tip Drill !!

Now,  I LOVE to hear people's comments and opinions, on websites, hell.......thats why I'm here.....but most importantly, I love to hear well INFORMED and well  thought out, comments and opinions.....but I have no respect for YOUR opinions. Because it appears to me that you have become so closed and narrow minded in your thinking, that you have forgotten, (if you EVER knew), what it's like to actually be free..and young...... aggresively opinionated....cool...sexually over stimulated ...militant.....intelligent....powerful... ..powerless...prideful....hated...poverty and YES......damnit...the freedom to be ..f-uckin' rude, and wrong as hell !! Because THAT is rap..& HIP HOP , in a nut shell, of course, it's much more then that.

The roots of rap/hip hop are very deep....in the black/latino communities in this country, and not just with the young folks. If you're going to speak on it you  simply MUST come correct with some REAL knowledge of this subject.....or just shut the hell up. Because these guys are not bums...and much of this music is  not all about the bling, bling and booty shakin', many of these young black men and women......are very intelligent..and they SHOULD be heard.....I don't tell my kids to turn their music down, I tell them to TURN IT UP.....so that I can  hear what these folks are talkin' about !!!

Truth.......

A 40yr old man doesn't have to embrace rap/hip hop. I've listened and I can't stand to listen to much more. I would never condenm the music without listening to it. Guys like Common, Mos Def, etc., are goood clean artists, but they don't get much mainstream air and radio play. Im not saying all music should be kid friendly or socially conscious, but when the majority of the music that's on the air is X rated, then something's wrong. People shouldn't have to shield their kids from BET and the average hip hip radio station at 8am or 5pm. Oh, that's right. These are primetime hours (morning drive/evening drive). These are the times when everyone's listening or watching. It would be different if the music was geared and marketed to adults and responsible adults, but it's not. Today's top 40 hip hop has at least one or all of these elements (sex, drugs, violence). Our kids don't need to hear this 24/7. I remember back in my time in the 70's. I remember my mom and dad and their friends listening to party records (Richard Pryor, Rudy Rae Moore, Redd Foxx, etc.,). I remember sneaking and listening from my bedroom (you know how kids are). I also remember sometimes how they would let us listen in with them (how inappropriate was that?). I also remember not personally buying any of those party records. I don't remember any of my friends having any of these records. The point is this, there have always been X rated music, magazines, movies, etc., but I don't remember buying any of it. I don't remember seeing any of it on TV. The only way to see or hear some of this stuff was to be sneaky (like kids are and always will be). Damn, times have changed, we have drug use and abuse now, black on black violence, baby momma drama, driving while black issues, racism, unemployment, pimping, etc. You see, we didn't have all of this in the 60's and 70's. Oh wait, we did have this kind of sh@t. We also had blaxploitation (remember, Superfly, The Mack, The Human Tornado, etc.) These movies were all garbage and they set black people back 30yrs. Oh sure, black people came up because of these movies. A few people made names for themselves, but most of us took it up the *25*in terms of perception. Everybody wanted a Superfly coat. Everybody wanted to be a Mack (we're still mackin to this day). Eveybody wanted a Cadillac or a duece and a quarter (today everyone wants the biggest wheels or the flyest whip). The fact of the matter is this, we looked like fools with the Superfly coats. We looked like fools with the fancy cars living in the hood. We look like fools with our pants sagging. We look like fools with our iced out teeth, ears, necks, and hands. We look like fools with our whips living in the projects. What's going on today is no different than what went on 30-40yrs ago. We are the biggest chumps and suckers around. Black people are being pimped. I have a unique perspective because I was born in the late 60's. I grew up in the 70's. I came of age in the 80's and I became a man in the 90's. I remember when James Brown was hot. I remember loving and wanting to be Michael Jackson and part of the Jackson 5. I remember P *8*. I remember when Gospel music was sort of sad and always had old people in the groups. I remember when Disco Duck was a hit. I remember when Barry White was hot. I remember watching roots on TV (and if you missed it, you just missed it). I remember when Rapper's Delight first came out. I remember the controversy of them "stealing" the baseline from Chic's "Good Times". I remember RUN DMC, D Nice, X Clan, NWA, Young MC, and all the rest. I've seen the good and the bad and it's bad right now. Things change though. And no, rap will not be here forever. It may seem that way to a young person. Oh sure it's been here for 25-30yrs, but music changes. Rap itself has evolved. Listen to today's hip hop and yesterday's hip hop. It's almost like night and day. People in the 1950's thought that Elvis and Rock and Roll would never play out, but he did, but Rock and Roll took several twists and turns (Kiss, 60's Rock and Roll, Grunge, Punk, etc.) Hip Hop is in a bad state right now and has been for at least 15yrs (in my opinion). I remember when Jay Z was pretty much a run of the mill rapper back in 99 and then all of a sudden he was elevated to being sort of godlike. Tupac is a legend. I don't know how because he had 2-3 good yrs before he was murdered in the streets. The same goes for Biggie (I wonder how he got that name. Kids wouldn't know about that). What happened to Ja Rule? How does he go from being everywhere to nowhere. That's old news of course and nobody remembers or cares. Where the hell did 50 cent come from. He just appeared out of nowhere a few years ago. I know that people pay their dues underground in the clubs and with the mixtapes, but damn. How do you go from being underground 1 yr, to having $100-$200 million dollars in the bank the next year. I'll tell you how, mass marketing. That's the american way. Nothing wrong with that. But what are you selling. This MF celebrates walking around with bullet proof vests and reminds everyone that he was shot in the mouth. A sort of badge of courage. All of this appeals to the thug element and they've somehow put our kids up on this thug type of sh@t (no snitching, hustling, smoking weed, etc.). Who needs all of that besides a thug or a gangster. But we accept it and defend it. We wouldn't want to take any money out of anybody's pockets. We are afraid of being perceived as haters. To answer what you said in your 2nd paragraph, why should anyone accept rude behavior and what does the freedom to be wrong mean? I felt most of what you said and I appreciate intelligent responses and conversations. Education is the way out the hood. Most people can't rap, sing, dance, or run with a ball good enough to earn a living. Our race and another generation is suffering and this modern day minstrel show that we see and hear everyday is holding us back. We can't blame rap for all of our problems, but rappers have the ears of our youth. MLK is dead, Malcom gone, Jesse and Al are dinosaurs and are irrelevant to the 25 and under generation. You can't scare kids with going to hell anymore. Jim Crow is long gone. Legalized segregation is gone. The only color that matters now is green and it's always been like that, we just didn't know it. Man, I've lived in the projects and have been broke, cold, and hungry. If I was a young person living under the conditions just mentioned and if I knew how to rap and if my style of rapping was gangster/thug oriented and if someone offerred me a $1million dollars to do it and glamourize it and promote it to any and everybody, of course I'd take the money and continue until I couldn't do it anymore. But rational thinking regular people wouldn't absolve you of personal responsibility and immoral behavior. Noone is going to "come up" at my expense. Noone should "come up" at the expense of an entire race of people. Our dignity, integrity, and values are at stake. Grown folks need to protect these things......... bird19780@excite.com

I TOTALLY agree with you.   **(Some)** BLACK people unfortunately, are just IGNORANT...no matter how you explain it to them, they prefer to GLAMORIZE NEGATIVITY.    And you just have to accept that they are that way.   I  like RAP!   But the stuff that CONTINUALLY glorifies GUNS and VIOLENCE, and degrades WOMEN, has gotten TOO much play.   But WE as Black people should NOT STOP trying.   Maybe they will realize LATER in life and FINALLY grow up.  I say, if you want to be a THUG or a GANGSTA...you still need to know how to COUNT and READ.  Otherwise you will be a STUPID THUG....who get his MONEY taken and can't read a MENU...and not even know it ! 

I'm smart and i listen to rap. actually, i'm brilliant and i listen to rap..... and extremely good looking. i actually think the state of children today is  due to bad parenting and that the music is a reflection of that. i mean babies and toddlers don't turn on radios, and they can't teach themselves how to read and write, and they definately can't write strong worded letters to radio stations and other corporations about the content of music that they distribute. Teens can turn on radios, they can teach themselves how to read and write but because they are part baby still most of them still need parents to motivate them, and most teens would not write a strong worded letter to a radio station. Adults can do all of these things. So , you have a bunch of teens and adults listening to these stations. Teen money, and adult money. Most teens are finacially dependent on adults. So the teen money is the adult money in most cases. So how do teens beat adults as to what gets played on the radio? And who's fault is that?

The Children are fine. So I have no idea what you are talking about.

Yeah, but how do we accomplish this when the powers that be continue to support the "dumbing down" of the children of black amerikkka. I think it just goes to show that people in general have lost their moral base. Positivity is bad and doesn't sell, and negativity get's all glory. I think we have to get back to basics and as adults we need to teach these kids (thru a ***-whoppin' if necessary) how blessed they are not to have gone thru the things our ancestors did to get us to this point.

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*proven greatness....is measured by those who hate this.

   Are you a black person? How can you say such a thing and generalize. Black people as a whole are better off now then ever. Majority are living in poverity an dcan't help themselves. If we are so Ignorant, PLEASE SOMEBODY EDUCATE EVERYONE. How do we make that happen?