YouTube Provocation Thread Vol. 1

[bobsticks]

Listened to the lyrics? I can't even understand what the guy's saying! The language doesn't offend me, it's the diction and cadence that makes my skin crawl.

I've never been a fan of protest music in the first place. I listen to music to be pleased, amused and thrilled, not to be whined at or preached to. If I want to be reminded of this stuff I'll just pay attention to the news. i don't need to be assaulted by it in my entertainment.

As an artist, don't you dare tell me how I'm supposed to feel. The best art should induce you into thinking without actually being told to. I like art that is more open to interpretation.

You have a complaint about crack bringing a longer sentence than powder? How about you don't do either and then you don't have to worry about stiffer sentences.

As with any other musical offering it's perfectly acceptable for anyone to have preferences. I'll try and remember it the next time evryone is waxing poetic about Dylan. It seems to me that between bong-tokes and acid hits he found time to formulate and express some opinions. Sid Vicious, Jello Biafra, Frank Zappa, Ice-T too.

One can assume that a member of the poor and disenfranchised class would prefer to not have the media and modern(white) culture dare to tell him how he's supposed to feel when members of the gentrified ruling elite commit far worse crimes and routinely receive easier sentences. As has been said, "They don't make no Uzis in Harlem".

And we know that this is not completely a race issue either. OJ's on his second crime spree and will probably get away with it.

I don't think anywhere in video there was an advocacy for selling drugs. Some people have fewer options. Some people are brought up in urban desolation.

I have to give credit to those that have posted whether they hold valid the message or not. There have been alot of views to this thread and it seems as if many choose silence when social inequality threatens someone from a different neighborhood. Evidently, P-Skies' would have us believe that his biggest beef is a visceral dislike for Omar Epps...

[BradH]

...the repetitive melody, over and over and over again, was a metaphor for the same predictable outcome, the victims caught in a cycle they can't get out of.

Crack has a higher sentencing rate than powder because of the violence surrounding it. Whether that's justice or not is a debate in itself but using entertainment media (the system) to glamorize the gangsta lifestyle is part of what results in the cycle of victims you're describing. Talk about predictable outcomes.

[MindGoneHaywire]

>using entertainment media (the system) to glamorize the gangsta lifestyle is part of what results in the cycle of victims you're describing.

[MindGoneHaywire]

It'd be lazy to blame Scarface for why gangsta rap is the way it is but it sure deserves some of the blame. I didn't realize to what extent until I rented the then-new rerelease of it a few years ago & saw all the people being interviewed talking about what an influence it had been on them, including people I thought knew better. It's as though none of them saw the end of the film.

Straight Outta Compton remains the only one in the genre I find listenable.

[kexodusc]

Crack has a higher sentencing rate than powder because of the violence surrounding it. Whether that's justice or not is a debate in itself but using entertainment media (the system) to glamorize the gangsta lifestyle is part of what results in the cycle of victims you're describing. Talk about predictable outcomes.

True enough...seems to me gang-life was a problem before the music caught on big and went mainstream...is the music fuel for the fire or just art immitating life?
And the glamorization (is that even a word?) certainly isn't unique to the gangsta lifestyle...from a society that has made heroes out of The Sopranos, every Quentin Tarantino character, and all the dope smokin', acid dropping, smack shooting rock stars you can name. For some reason there doesn't seem to be the same level of chaos associated with other pop-sub-cultures.

Not so sure this video even glamorized gangsta lifestyle - if anything it referenced inequality, hardship, and all the other stuff that sucks about it.
I wonder who's more to blame - the artists who write the music and continue to glamorize criminal behavior, or the white corporate music-execs who engineer it and make all the money off it?

[MindGoneHaywire]

>fuel for the fire or just art immitating life?

My take is it starting as art imitating life, and that reversed itself within a few years.

>the white corporate music-execs who engineer it and make all the money off it

At this point that's also something that I think was once true but is now a misnomer.

Or would that be a Slosh?

[3-LockBox]

It'd be lazy to blame Scarface for why gangsta rap is the way it is but it sure deserves some of the blame.

Seen the video game?

[bobsticks]

It'd be lazy to blame Scarface for why gangsta rap is the way it is but it sure deserves some of the blame. I didn't realize to what extent until I rented the then-new rerelease of it a few years ago & saw all the people being interviewed talking about what an influence it had been on them, including people I thought knew better. It's as though none of them saw the end of the film.

Straight Outta Compton remains the only one in the genre I find listenable.

The media has a definite role in this, Scarface and many others. While I don't think the video in question glamorizes anything I will be the first one in line to say that there are all-too-numerous examples within the genre which play to young and impressionable minds.

It's an indictment of our entire society's values in as much as the title Get Rich Or Die Tryin' is not a haphazard choice. It shouldn't be surprising that the poorest among us would be the first taken in by the lure of vast wealth, especially when legitimate avenues of advancement are perceived to be closed.

I can tell you right now the d-boys are the ones with the watches, the grills, the "bling-bling" or whatever you want to call money and the fruits of it. As long as a significant portion of females gravitate toward these things young men will be drawn to the allure of power and money by whatever are the quickest means. Just wondering across the keyboard but how many of us have done regrettable(stupid) things in our youth? I'm curious as to what the average age of first incarceration for the urban male is--we know this often leads to recidivism. It seems as if the "L" that some take for the hubris of the teen years is greater than the loss others take.

And as for the penalties being stiffer based on the secondary and terciary levels of violence, how much destruction and agony was wrought by the chairmen of Enron? How many years did they get and in what kind of facility?

Martha Stewart sure seemed uncomfortable on house arrest for the evasion of taxes on an amount that surely exceeded what anyone has ever even fantasized about making on four crack rocks.

And , yes, Straight Outta Compton is a classic. I'd probably throw in O.G. and It Takes A Nation Of Millions as well...

[MindGoneHaywire]

It Takes A Nation Of Millions is not gangsta rap.

[bobsticks]

Correct you are. It's from that era and I suppose goes on auto-inclusion for me as a favorite, but it certainly is more thoughtful and thought-provoking sans violence.

[BradH]

It's an indictment of our entire society's values...

That's why it's total bullsh!t. The entire society is not responsible everytime somebody screws up. And guess what? Hate is not a vision and it's not a strategy. You can, however, make money at it.

And as for the penalties being stiffer based on the secondary and terciary levels of violence, how much destruction and agony was wrought by the chairmen of Enron?

Nobody got shot in cold blood that I'm aware of. Murder is murder, not theft.