From r. kidwell Sent Tue, Jul 27th 1999, 18:09
From r. kidwell Sent Tue, Jul 27th 1999, 18:09
> You have to distinguish between writing from an antisocial point of view, > the better to hold it up for examination, and actually advocating those > things. Dostoevsky didn't murder anyone, but he did write "Crime and > Punishment." Not that Eminem is Dostoevsky. do the kids that listen to Eminem draw this distinction? I seriously doubt many of them do. when they hear first-person rapping about 40s and blunts and date rape and being hard, they're not laughing at the absurdity of it all... What Dostoyevski can do with a 500+ page novel is quite different than what Eminem can do in a 5 minute song. irony and absurdity can be developed as themes, and in Crime & Punishment, when Raskolnikov gets down on his knees and thanks God after being exiled, we know Dostoyevski's intentions and beliefs. Eminem is not drawing a clear line like Dostoyevski. And Eminem is heard on the radio, speaking in first person, by an audience of American teenagers many of which whom have no concept of literary irony (and i'm not referring to one socioeconomic class here.. i'm talking about teens in every mall in every part of town.) when your music is played over the airwaves and hyped by a major business and propped up by MTV, there is a certain responsibility you have to take. MCs who continue to rap about these tried-and-true, generic concepts like, "how great i am," "how much weed i smoked yesterday," and "how i fucked all these bitches since i was 13" are going to have to deal with a mad backlash one day. Yes, these are products of our society, but rehashing them in first person boasts does not excuse the perpetuation of sexism and classism... all these MCs do is give fodder to the reactionaries and conservatives who don't understand urban life or hip hop culture, and in that they're doing much more harm without contributing anything but what we've heard before. the whole "gangsta" stereotype has become a caricature that white folks can conveniently ignore. you can be from the hood and rap about things other than weed and St. Ives and having lots of sex. who else better to rap about revolution, injustice and racism? poverty is a serious topic, that is depreciated when surrounded by tracks about how fly my new Benz is, and how all the ladies love my jimmy. ,rj../ ___,">www.gl.umbc.edu/~nworth1