but I do share tom’s sadness about the state of most modern hip hop today, always brings me back to Common’s track “I Used To Love H.E.R.”, it seems to get more relevant every year

Those you’ve staked out as your enemies (or at least objects of perpectual scorn) can’t win, can they? If it were an all-white, all-indie lineup, you’d savage them for that, and then when they open up to someone like Public Enemy, it’s automatically a bad thing, a sign of some kind of false consciousness. Which would you prefer they do?

i don’t believe that modern things are inherently worse than older things, i just look at the evidence at hand and call it as i see it.

“- prior to 20 years ago there weren’t just less stereotyped black artists in the mainstream, there were *less black artists* full stop. could it be that that was a sign of there being more institutional racism, not less?”

what exactly are you basing those numbers on? when i go through record shops, i see a completely ludicrous number of records by black artists from the 50’s on in any number of genres. if somehow there are *more* black artists today, does it matter if there are less who are doing anything more interesting than lowest common denominator music? as if sheer quantity can make up for the fact that most of it is a joke.

“isn’t a lot of more underground and non-appropriated black music playing up to those stereotype? I’m thinking of the ghetto stuff here. it’s not just the mainstream that peddles that image…”

i am not saying that that image or stereotype needs to go away completely. it obviously exists for a reason. however, it shouldn’t be the ONLY image of black artists available in the mainstream. people honestly think that black people in the US are all like people they see in rap videos which is of course the farthest thing from the truth. but that is the only popular image in the media, so it becomes the truth in peoples’ heads.

“- it’s pretty much undeniable that, in today’s music marketplace, an act like PE would come nowhere near the success or visibility that they were enjoying 20 years ago. but doesn’t this say more about widespread and growing political apathy than about race specifically? in the west there’s a general drift towards a vapid kind of acceptance of how life is, isn’t that largely to blame?”

Erykah Badu’s most recent album was probably one of the most politically and socially aware albums in the mainstream in a long time, and she was pretty much universally praised for it by white and black critics and audiences. it is still possible! and it does still move people when it is made available! i agree that people are less likely now to be interested in ideas like that, but is it because of the same forces that have taken the ability for artists to talk about that out of the mainstream? people are consistently offered only vapid news and art, is it surprising that they would be less interested in anything of substance? record labels, film studios, networks who show news and television programs, and cable news networks are all owned by the SAME EXACT PEOPLE. it is in their interest to keep america dumbed down!

Specifically, my questions are:

- prior to 20 years ago there weren’t just less stereotyped black artists in the mainstream, there were *less black artists* full stop. could it be that that was a sign of there being more institutional racism, not less?

- isn’t a lot of more underground and non-appropriated black music playing up to those stereotype? I’m thinking of the ghetto stuff here. it’s not just the mainstream that peddles that image…

- it’s pretty much undeniable that, in today’s music marketplace, an act like PE would come nowhere near the success or visibility that they were enjoying 20 years ago. but doesn’t this say more about widespread and growing political apathy than about race specifically? in the west there’s a general drift towards a vapid kind of acceptance of how life is, isn’t that largely to blame?