As a kind of update to a heavily-trafficked list of decent white rappers I posted a while ago, I want to shout out two new songs directly addressing white (and light skin) privilege and its role in hip-hop culture and society at large. Credit to these guys for taking on a difficult subject and shedding light. There is way too much 50 Cent and Soulja Boy on the radio here in Haiti… Listen: Wale’s “Shades featuring Chrisette Michelle” and Macklemore’s “White Privilege.” (Macklemore is white and from my hometown of Seattle.)
Hip-hop was born of racial consciousness. You can’t divide hip-hop from the social and political circumstances from which it came. There may be new occupants in this house called hip-hop. Most of the people who built this house of hip-hop would say, everybody is welcome in this house, but the people who built it were people of color… you go into somebody’s house, then you gotta respect that. If you don’t have that [racial] humility, you won’t have the foundation that provides.
I’m not sure that Eminem and Asher Roth occupy a healthy space in the “house of hip-hop,” as Dan Charnas calls it in Jay Smooth’s latest video. Read More…
I was about to watch a program on Hulu last night when the site asked if I’d like to watch a single long-form advertisement instead of several short ones throughout the show. I went with the first option. What followed was a three-minute long mock-infomercial for Stride gum, presenting 17 absurd uses for a stick of gum.
The whole ad is stupid, but the scene at the 2:10 mark bothered me. Read More…
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