John McWhorter effectively takes apart the future Ath speaker, Ta-Nehisi Coates. McWhorter is right to go after the so-called academics who obsessively believe that Hip Hop will solve the black community's problems. He criticizes Coates for saying that hip hop taught him to think. Rap creates unfocused thinking that will not help black Americans. He says that there's a common element of rape that seeks a "confrontational cadence."
The general appeal of the music is pugnacious and progressive, "a middle finger" against society. But nowadays, you need to help the black poor, rather than teach concepts like "systematic racism." Teaching people to be angry at white people isn't constructive. Since 1970, he doesn't believe that aggressive cynicism works or helps anymore.
Coates argues that hip hop is about how you feel and expressing it through art. We don't go to art for our morals.
McWhorter asks Coates if he has a "bone deep" distrust of the white man and says that his view of racism as still very much out there. McWhorter says that he doesn't feel hunkered down and doesn't particularly fear white people or the New York police.
It's worth watching and really makes you wonder if we should have invited McWhorter instead of Coates.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Future Ath Speaker Ta-Nehisi Coates Versus John McWhorter on Bloggingheads.tv
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Subscribe in a reader
8 comments:
Hey, in this post it's not really clear where McWhorter's thoughts end and yours start.
Those are all his thoughts, but I'm writing them in the second person because I agree with them. The final bolded part is my thought.
"Rap creates unfocused thinking that will not help black Americans."
Do you actually listen to rap? I ask in completely good faith.
That's what McWhorter says. I do listen to rap and hip hop, but I don't listen lately as I don't find it that interesting. Give me classical any day of the week.
So you agree or not? I personally think that's a needlessly inflammatory statement with no real meaning, but I'm really not in the mood to defend rap again.
Most of it sucks, but then again, most popular music has always sucked. Classical music at least has the advantage of having been deliberatley preserved.
McWhorter is exactly the type of dude the rappers hate (for that matter citizenx is the type too). Smart, well spoken and "a sell out" in their eyes. In the urban Black streets good grades, success, get you beat up. Unless you get your bling in the NBA or from a record label you're a sell out to the man. Too bad. What happens if Obama becomes "the man?"
Yeah rap/hip-hop is a voice. Yeah Rock and Roll in the 60's was a voice. Sixties rock was about peace and love. Today's rap is about violence, hitting your bitch and using motherfu@ker like its a biblical word.
It's hard to believe that Atlantic Magazine actually hires a guy as inarticulate as Coates to write for them.
I agree, bring McWhorten to CMC to speak. He's one smart "sell-out."
elGuapo
Huzzah for racial stereotypes! And oversimplification and pedestrian views of an entire musical genre based entirely on what you hear on the radio! And they say rational thought is dead...
Huzzah Anon-
FYI-I don't own a" radio". I own a " boom-box" and I carry it around on my shoulder, smoke menthols, and drink 16-ounce cans of malt liquor.
Did you listen to the interview? Have you ever read any of McWhorter's plethora of books on Black culture?
Or is your favorite reading a Lil Wayne lyric sheet?
el Guapo
Post a Comment