(Long Island, NY) When I read about the controversey over the new Nas album, charmingly titled “Nigger,” I went in six directions at once. My first instinct was to rant and rave about double standards. When I haven’t had my first cup of coffee yet, my feeling is that you can’t have it both ways. Either “nigger” is a word that is used to disparage an entire group of people, or it’s. . . just another word. Like “bastard”. Or “ass”.
Once I’ve had a few cups of coffee, I mellow out, and remember that once upon a time, Richard Pryor released two very funny albums. One was called “Bicentennial Nigger” and the other was “That Nigger’s Crazy”. Richard Pryor had a point to make, however lopsided his approach may have seemed in hindsight, and he was breaking new ground when those records came out.
Not that Pryor was the first, but he was definitely one of the rising stars of his day, rubbing shoulders with Jesse Jackson and other civil rights leaders. Ever see the film Wattstax? A young Pryor had a prominent part of this musical documentary on the black experience in America. It seems on the face of it to be a film about a concert ala Woodstock, but when the whole thing is over you realize it’s about much more. See it if you can, it’s a great time capsule of the 70s through one very particular point of view. But I digress.
Hip-hop rapper Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, better known simply as Nas
Let’s go back to the title of the new album by Nas. “Nigger”. According to MTV.com, many contemporaries of Nas are in full support of the title. It’s controversial, it angers and shocks. but why? It’s a word that has been on rap albums since the very beginning. Why are people so freaked out over this now? The N-word is EVERYWHERE, and now it’s on this goofy record by Nas. Why should anybody act shocked? You’d think Hillary Clinton had sponsored a bill to bring back seperate drinking fountains.
Of course, another Nas CD title was “Hip Hop Is Dead” and knowing that is the key to getting to the bottom of the new CD. Yes, it’s a calculated attempt to get some more attention, stirring up a ton of free press before the record drops. After all, hip hop IS dead. It’s a carbon copy of a cartoon of itself, having become a shamelessly “me-too” genre that hasn’t spawned a new idea since. . .when?
I’ve been saying this since forever; the most exciting thing to come from this genre happened ages ago with OutKast, who did a fabulous job of writing their own music, staying away from sampling cliches, and putting
danceable, funky grooves on the albums. They basically make music you can listen to without hearing the same 16 bars (or samples of somebody else’s work) over and over again.
I remember hearing “Hey Ya” for the first time, marveling that somebody had made a hip hop record–the first in ages–that sounded like people were actually trying hard to play their instruments. I could name others before and since, but OutKast is a great example of what could turn the genre around. How many hip hop records can you listen to sporting some guy’s monotone voice droning on and on over a excessively minimal and repetitive backing track slapped together on a computer? Attitude is everything, they say, but on CD you need a bit more than a few boasts and a bunch of expletives to tie a record together.
So Nas needs a new gimmick, and he goes for the most obvious play in the book. 2007 had the summer of the “N-word”, let’s not forget, with everybody coming out against the word “nigger” and trying to get it
banned. We now see just how effective THAT campaign was.
What “white” people (I’m part Native American and part Scot, so I suppose I’m white more or less, but whatever) tend to forget is that there is no unified voice in ANY culture. In spite of the efforts of some activists in any group to tell you otherwise, no group of gay people, white people, black people, Asians, Polish, Iranian, or any other group has any sort of single voice or opinion. On ANYTHING. Some people in the summer of 2007 tried to unify against the N-word, lending a small amount of weight to the illusion that there is a unified feeling against the word. In spite of the move to stamp it out, the word “nigger” is here to stay. People are afraid of it, shocked by it, offended by it.
While I have a very bad taste in my mouth regarding the word itself, I always remember something that I saw as a kid in one of those old William Shatner episodes of Star Trek. The gist being that in the future, people learned not to be afraid of words. A word, even the word “nigger”, is still just a word. Yes, that particular word is used to erect a barrier between people of different groups in one form or another. But until society as a whole can take a lesson from Star Trek, publicity-hungry guys like Nas will be able to use this word to draw attention to a tired old genre of music that’s run out of ideas, is creatively bankrupt, and desperately in need of a blast of fresh new creativity. Until then, I guess “Nigger” the CD will have to do.
