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Posted by Robert
Rap News Network
8/2/2003 9:13:46 PM
Tags and topics realted to this article include 2Pac.
Louis Harrison and Leonard Moore aren't fans of Tupac Amaru Shakur although they formed a class at LSU about the "gangsta rapper."
Terrell McGill, who took the course this summer, grew up idolizing Tupac and others. Jason Paul Thibeau, aka T-Bo, who has worked with Master P, aka Percy Miller, and others, says "a lot of rap is not positive, but it's reality."
They disagree about whether the profanity-laced lyrics, sexual innuendo and other images and lavish lifestyles hip-hop portrays and its marketing in sports send mixed signals to youths. How those messages affect self-images, behavior and aspirations will be discussed at a conference in Baton Rouge in September.
"Race, Sports, Hip-Hop and the New Millennium," is scheduled for Sept. 18-19 at LSU's Hill Memorial Library. It was sparked by another class professors Harrison and Moore organized, "Hip-Hop, Sports and the African-Americanization of American Culture."
The conference will focus on the same issues that the professors' courses and hip-hop feature. The issues include black entrepreneurship, incarceration rates, sexual promiscuity, gang-banging and other crime, family structure and poverty, racism, gender violence and substance abuse.
The professors, who mentor student-athletes and want their charges to consider more than sports and music because very few young people ever make it to the professional level, said everyone can benefit from their classes and the conference.
"It's relevant for everybody and especially white people, because they tend to be more sheltered in their understanding of African Americans," often depending on stereotypes or images the media presents, said Harrison, an associate professor in kinesiology.
Hip-hop started in the late 1960s as competitive, simple, street-beat rhymes about romance, partying, staying clean and getting ahead, according to http://www.rapworld.com. The music weaves reggae, funk, pop, jazz, disco, R&B, soul and other styles.
Break-dancing followed. Then hip-hop evolved into a multibillion dollar industry of record deals, shoes and clothing, videos and movies for Def Jam's Russell Simmons, Master P, and Bad Boy Entertainment's Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and others. That growth and cultural impact deserves study, said Moore, an associate professor of history.
The Sugar Hill Gang's, "Rappers Delight," helped coin the term "hip-hop," in the 1970s, about the same time "scratching" or mixing of records started, according to rapworld.com. The more controversial, explicit lyrics of "gangsta rap," surfaced in the 1980s with Public Enemy, Dr. Dre and NWA. Their racy language generally is protected by the First Amendment.
In their lyrics and interviews, many hip-hop artists proclaim that the music lets them leave the ghettos and potentially a life of crime or drug abuse.
Thibeau, a Baton Rouge area "gangsta rapper" who has worked with "Snoop Dogg," "Silkk The Shocker" and "The 504 Boyz," loves hip-hop.
"Me, being a white kid, I've lived everywhere from the country to the 'hood to the suburbs. I've always been a fan of rap. It gave me something do. I think if it wasn't for rap, I'd be dead right now. I think God blessed me with this talent," Thibeau said.
But the professors, who have written several research articles on the topic, see things differently.
Moore, 31, grew up listening to hip-hop and Harrison, 47, grew up listening to R&B, jazz and soul.
Said Harrison: "That was the black-power era. There was a lot of message music at that time and it helped to make people culturally aware and more conscience during that time with reference to race and social class.
"What I see from then and now is a loss of conscience. Back then, black people were wanting to do better for themselves and now, it's just do for myself," he said.
However, Thibeau says the criticism of hip-hop is misplaced. He said the music is "really entertainment," and it taught him "a lot of other stuff besides violence."
"I'd like to ask them a question: How many rap albums do they actually own? Before rap music, weren't kids getting into trouble? I think they're using rap as a scapegoat, just somebody to be pointing the finger at. Sure, a lot of rap is not positive, but it's reality. Sometimes people just can't handle the truth," he said.
"It (music) makes people happy every day. Some people get by listening to music. I could be down and out and hearing a song will bring me up. That's just as powerful as preaching. I don't go to church. Church is full of a lot of pointers and starers. They're supposed to accept you for what you are and who you are. Well, it's not like that," he said.
Two examples that Moore and Harrison say negatively influence young people are Allen Iverson of the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers, and Tupac.
"Iverson's athletic ability has enabled him to play by his own rules, a rarity for an African-American man in America," Harrison and Moore wrote in a 2002 research article, "African-American Racial Identity and Sports."
The professors noted that Iverson wears braids and tattoos, defies European-American authority by showing up late for practices and games, and recently released a profanity-laced rap CD.
"This behavior would be unacceptable in nearly any other work environment," they wrote.
The effect, the professors wrote, is that "young African-Americans struggling with identity learn at an early age that America views an educated African-American as threatening, while this same community will embrace, support, and encourage them in their athletic pursuits."
Meanwhile, Tupac, gunned down at 25 in 1996, led a contradictory and tumultuous, yet interesting life, Moore said.
Tupac attended performing arts schools and wrote poetry but later dropped out. He also starred in at least two movies, "Juice" in 1992 and "Above the Rim," in 1994.
Tupac was a voice with whom Terrell McGill, a 19-year-old LSU athlete who grew up in Miami's ghettos, and his generation could relate. Hip-hop influences McGill's clothes, dreadlocks, earrings, tattoos and silver-capped teeth.
"We weren't here for (Martin Luther) King and Malcolm X. But to us, Tupac was the world because of his image," he said. "I used to look up to Tupac, Notorious B.I.G. and Bone Thugs -N- Harmony."
Yet, Moore said, Tupac's arrests helped sell more records by "validating him as a true thug. To have street credibility, you have to go to jail based on victimizing African Americans."
"Why can't the standard be clean-cut?" Moore said. "In the hip-hop generation, we have a serious problem. It has become cool to make money in the underground economy."
The hip-hop classes also discuss students' accountability and responsibility to themselves and others.
Despite his hip-hop leanings, McGill, an offensive lineman who works part-time, remains focused. He knows that his behavior affects the team and his future and that he has to dress professionally for team functions, at home and away.
"I'm the first to go to college in my immediate family. It's important that I leave out of here with a degree," he said. "I basically had a ticket out."
Editor's note: Advocate staff writer John Wirt contributed to this report.
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