Hip Hop vs. America

[Mastrmynd]

well?
what's the problem?

too many episodes of the 5ive to produce?

and did the 5ive get a better time slot becuz of the hot host?
 

[Hulkster]

Nice guys tend not to be aggressive. 

Bad boys are.  They can also be assholes, but until the nice guys step up their game (they figure it out much later in life) bad boys have the advantage.

In this context, I differentiate between "nice" guys and "good" guys.  Nice guys tend to cater to people and look to gain acceptance by being appeasing, accommodating, etc.  They often fear offending people or being rejected, thus they are hesitant in expressing themselves.  This ultimately becomes unappealing to a significant number of women.  Good guys behave a certain way not to appease anyone, but because they have been raised to behave in positive ways and they do so because behaving in such a way, in their minds, is the right thing to do.  I know many "good guys" who are very aggressive.

Good guys traditionally have been the ones women have been most drawn to in our society, but in modern times, young women seem to find it difficult to separate "good guys" from "nice guys", and thus are more prone to seeking the bad boys.  This seems most prevalent among black women today..

[Hulkster]

As to black kids.  Young black males seek affirmation and self-worth and, as all males,  they get that via their ability to access females.  They used to get the affirmation from PE and PRT and such, which was not only constructive, but cool in the girls' eyes.  Now they are being told that in order to attract women they gotta be thugs.  Young males follow wherever the females lead them.  That is, wherever they THINK the females lead them.  Without the video ho the whole Gangsta thing would fall apart in a heartbeat.

You've just described the sexual selection theory:

http://www.unm.edu/~psych/faculty/cultural_displays.htm

"Culture, rather than a system for transmitting useful technical knowledge and group-benefiting traditions down through the generations, can be considered an arena for various courtship displays in which individuals try to attract and retain sexual partners (Miller, 1993, 1997a, b).  When a young male rock star stands up in front of a crowd and produces some pieces of human ‘culture’ known as songs, he is not improving his survival prospects.  Nor is he engaging in some bizarre maladaptive behaviour that requires some new process of ‘cultural evolution’ to explain.  Rather, he is doing something that fulfils exactly the same function as a male nightingale singing or a male peacock showing off his tail.  He is attracting sexual partners.  As we will see later, the fact that most publicly generated ‘cultural’ behaviour IS PRODUCED BY YOUNG MALES points towards its courtship function."

"This cultural courtship model proposes that sexual selection through mate choice by both our male and female ancestors was a major evolutionary force in shaping human culture, i.e. the genetically inherited capacities for behaviours such as language, art, and music (Miller, 1993, 1997; in press, a; in press, b).  These behaviours, according to this model, function mainly as courtship displays to attract sexual partners, and show many of the same design features shared by other courtship displays in other species.  In short, human culture is mainly a set of adaptations for courtship.  This hypothesis doesn’t really come from Nietzsche, of course, or from Freud.  Rather, it is a relatively simple application of standard Darwinian sexual selection theory to a somewhat puzzling set of behavioural phenomena in one rather pretentious species of primate."

So could one narrow down the second highlighted sentence and say that "In short, Hip Hop culture is mainly a set of adaptations for courtship"?

[Curtis Metcalf]

I think that for many of the white consumers, it's also the modern day incarnation of the hipster.

Don't the 'hipster' crowd go for more Indie hip-hop (Mos Def, Co Flow, El-P, etc. I also heard that most UK hip-hop that gets a little listen over there (eg. Dizzee Rascal) is lumped in with this stuff, rather than getting play on Hot97 and that.

I was thinking of bebop era hipsters: folks who would hang in Harlem (or just buy Bird and Dizzy records). The kind who would romanticize and try to emulate <voice=Ted Baxter> the Negro jazz man </voice>. Acting the hep cat as a means of rebellion.  Usually they would grow up and become like their parents.  Kind of old school wiggas.  (See Norman Mailer's The White Negro.)

I think the word has been recycled for the Hip Hop era.  Sorry about the confusion.

[Reginald Hudlin]

Man this thread is banging and the show hasn't even aired yet. Whole lotta smart going on.

Whoo, after you all see it...this thread is gonna explode.

[Mastrmynd]

there u go again ... riling us up... with all that there anticipation and excitment.
 

[Michael Fisher]

Man this thread is banging and the show hasn't even aired yet. Whole lotta smart going on.

Whoo, after you all see it...this thread is gonna explode.

Hip Hop Hipocrazy And Its Academic Apologists

[Wise Son]

I was thinking of bebop era hipsters: folks who would hang in Harlem (or just buy Bird and Dizzy records). The kind who would romanticize and try to emulate <voice=Ted Baxter> the Negro jazz man </voice>. Acting the hep cat as a means of rebellion.  Usually they would grow up and become like their parents.  Kind of old school wiggas.  (See Norman Mailer's The White Negro.)

I think the word has been recycled for the Hip Hop era.  Sorry about the confusion.

Thanks for clearing it up. Oh, and I'd love to get a picture of The Negro Jazz Man and The Mystic Negro together.

[Reginald Hudlin]

Man this thread is banging and the show hasn't even aired yet. Whole lotta smart going on.

Whoo, after you all see it...this thread is gonna explode.

Hip Hop Hipocrazy And Its Academic Apologists

I look forward to your responses to the show.  Over the course of the three hours, you hear the full range of thought on the subject expressed.  I'm not promising resolution, but an elevation of the conversation. 

[Mastrmynd]

cool.
i'm lookin' forward to the show.

shucks, people at work were talkin' about the show today.  they can't wait.

[JAXN]

yep, can't wait to be enlightened by T.I.

[Mastrmynd]

hey... T.I. is The King.
I'm Da Kang but he's the KING.

ATL stand up!



but seriously... i'm lookin' forward to the show.
it's not coming on at the same time as BONES, is it?

[Wise Son]

it's not coming on at the same time as BONES, is it?

'Cos we know you love you some Boreanaz, right? (I forget, did you explain why you use him as your avatar? Cos you damn sure ain't no Angel! )

[Mastrmynd]

well since i can't figure out how to put my own dayam pics on this thang... and since there ain't no brothers (or sistas) as AVATAR options (can you believe that? on reggie's site there are no black folks.  "why you aint got no brothers on the wall SAL Reggie?"

WIth all of that said, since I"m a huge buffy and ANGEL fan, I had to choose him.

Next question.
 

[brotherkomrade]

I didn't look at the beginning to this thread, but how does one find out about events like this BEFORE they are taped and aired?
I wish I was there because SOMEBODY has got to challenge Stanley Crouch on his hypocrisy.
This man writes about the violence of rappers; the violence that they write about or the violence that they actually commit. Nothing wrong with that unless you the writer himself seems to have problems keeping his hands to himself!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Crouch

I really don't care about what Stanley did to Howard Mandel, but Nelson George?
The issue is this: being a self-hating right-winger doesn't get me, writing how Malcolm X was a "loud mouth" and writing off the state-sponsored violence against the Black Panthers as them being "de-clawed" doesn't bother me either.
What I hate about this human roach (and his two larvae over at Afronerd who have yet to have answered for their hero's actions) is his hypocrisy. You cannot expect to not be challenged on your actions when you never seem to want to shut up about the same actions committed by others.

It's good to see Chuck D on this panel, but it would have been better to see Boots from the Coup, Paris, and KRS-One because then, Stanley would have to be exposed for the REAL reason he hates rap and Hip-Hop. The Jeri-Curl era just gave him fuel for his fire, but Stanley has always hated rap and he always attacked Public Enemy as 'Afro-Fascist' (funny, coming from a black conservative).

Yeah, I can't wait to watch this.