Interesting Article

Let's see, brief weekend update: drank friday, watched City of God Saturday, saw LCD Soundsystem Sunday (thanks JP for the plus 1!). Good weekend.

Interesting article up at Alternet today:
Hip Hop Profanity, Misogyny and Violence: Blame the Manufacturer.

Lots to think about, and amazingly I haven't yet formed an opinion. I do have some good quotes from it that at least inspired me to attempt to think. Must be a Monday thing that's got me slow.

Re: the record industry is to blame for the misogyny, racism, violence, etc in hip hop:

As the great French author and revolutionary Franz Fanon would have understood perfectly, colonized and racially oppressed peoples internalize -- take ownership -- of the social pathologies fostered by the oppressor. Thus, the anti-social aspects of commercial hip hop are perceived as a "Black" problem, to be overcome through internal devices (preaching and other forms of collective self-flagellation), rather than viewed as an assault by hostile, outside forces secondarily abetted by opportunists within the group.

re: who listens to hip hop and what it means for society:

The most "active" consumers of Hip Hop, they discovered, were "tweens," the demographic slice between the ages of 11 and 13 [...] It didn't take a roomful of PhDs in human development science to grasp the ramifications of the data. Early and pre-adolescents of both genders are sexual-socially undeveloped -- uncertain and afraid of the other gender. Tweens revel in honing their newfound skills in profanity; they love to curse. Males, especially, act out their anxieties about females through aggression and derision. This is the cohort for which the major labels would package their hip hop products. Commercial Gangsta Rap was born -- a sub-genre that would lock a whole generation in perpetual arrested social development.

If you bother to read the whole article (only 2 pages), I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

I can say that one thing I've always struggled with was the fact that I totally listen to some of the worst woman-hating rap out there. I didn't listen to it for years, but it came back to me and I'm not sure how to handle it. It's definitely hypocritical of me. Not sure it helps that I also listen to females promoting misandry either...I mean equal opportunity to degrading lyrics doesn't make it right. Maybe I'll have to do another bad-lyric rap moratorium.