Rattle wrote:
] When you turn on the idiot box and see all the thugz, playaz,
] and gangstas parading around MTV, who do you think the enemy
] causing our culture to go to shit _really_ is?

Hrm, I think that there are lots of people out there who could be saying lots of things with rap music. I can't help but see the hands of the industry in all of this bling bling crap. There is lots of stuff that they could be promoting. I heard some very good underground hip hop in Atlanta that had lots of themes. They choose to promote this gangster stuff because its a simple formula and it works. Rent a few hot cars and some hot girls and have some dude from the projects talking about his rims. Anybody can throw that together in a weekend and it sells millions. The impact is aweful. There are people in poor neighborhoods in Nashville who spend their house money on cars. They drive escalades but they can barely afford a roof over their heads.

We need an alternative marketing system.

Decius wrote:
] Hrm, I think that there are lots of people out there who could
] be saying lots of things with rap music. I can't help but see
] the hands of the industry in all of this bling bling crap.
] There is lots of stuff that they could be promoting. I heard
] some very good underground hip hop in Atlanta that had lots of
] themes. They choose to promote this gangster stuff because its
] a simple formula and it works. Rent a few hot cars and some
] hot girls and have some dude from the projects talking about
] his rims. Anybody can throw that together in a weekend and it
] sells millions. The impact is aweful. There are people in poor
] neighborhoods in Nashville who spend their house money on
] cars. They drive escalades but they can barely afford a roof
] over their heads.

Yes. Same thing all over. Its sad.

As more time passes, I just really want to *destroy* all of the existing mass media powers that be. (Ok, destroy is too strong. "Render irrelevant" Better? More American?) What they promote causes problems. What they report on, and how they report on it, causes problems. A free and open media is the only way to go, but right now our media has some sort of "tyranny of the majority" effect going on. As it turns out, the majority are morons. There is defintally some sort of 80/20 split in effect when it comes to the distribution of intelligence in the population. Right now American culture is being driven by the morons. Its the double edge of the free and open media. Can Information Technology address this problem and save us?

We need our media to inform us of whats important and connect the dots, not just scare the hell out of us and feed us shit. It comes down to the need for more reputable sources being available to the masses in a mannor thats competitive with the "boiled down to the LCD" fuckers. Thats a hard problem, because being stupid is entertaining. And stupid people would rather be entertained then educated.

I saw Bowling for Columbine last night. Worth seeing if its playing anywhere in Nashville. Gave me alot to churn on. Moore was driving this "culture of fear" line that seems to be a meme coming out of many of our elders of late. Hunter S Thompson is another person ranting about that. He has a new book coming out soon entitled the "Kingdom of Fear".. This "culture of fear" meme has got me thinking. Its been popping up in odd places lately.

] We need an alternative marketing system.

Hopefully it works out better then alternative music did.

Rattle wrote:
] We need our media to inform us of whats important and connect
] the dots, not just scare the hell out of us and feed us shit.

I think there is some progress being made. The "IRAQ Dossier" that the UK put out was obviously far more widely read then similar documents a decade ago. A decade ago people simply would not have been able to get access to to that if they wanted it. Now, you can, and people will demand that sort of detail more often once they discover that they can.

Rattle wrote:
] ] I know you’ve been thinking it. And if you haven’t, you
] probably
] ] haven’t been paying attention. The art we once called hip
] hop has
] ] been dead for some time now. But because its rotting carcass
] has
] ] been draped in platinum and propped against a Gucci print
] car, many
] ] of us have missed its demise.
]
] Pretty much the same thing happned to every music movement
] that came out of the past decade or two. Its all boiled down
] to shit now. I wonder about the reasons often.. It seems to
] get easier by the day to point your finger at the Big Media
] say "stop fucking up our culture in the process of making your
] buck!"
]
] When you turn on the idiot box and see all the thugz, playaz,
] and gangstas parading around MTV, who do you think the enemy
] causing our culture to go to shit _really_ is?

While this article takes a particularly political bent (one that I can't argue with all too much, although some of its statements are not based in fact) - the real truth here is that people have said that hip hop (or rap, or whatever you wanna call it) has been dead, like 5 times since 1985. Each time, something emerges that gradually expands it. At some point, that will run its course, but I doubt that it's happened quite yet.

Check out the latest from De La Soul, Nas, Jurassic 5, and other slightly non-mainstream artists for a taste.

Rattle wrote:
] ] I know you’ve been thinking it. And if you haven’t, you
] probably
] ] haven’t been paying attention. The art we once called hip
] hop has
] ] been dead for some time now. But because its rotting carcass
] has
] ] been draped in platinum and propped against a Gucci print
] car, many
] ] of us have missed its demise.
]
] Pretty much the same thing happned to every music movement
] that came out of the past decade or two. Its all boiled down
] to shit now. I wonder about the reasons often.. It seems to
] get easier by the day to point your finger at the Big Media
] say "stop fucking up our culture in the process of making your
] buck!"
]
] When you turn on the idiot box and see all the thugz, playaz,
] and gangstas parading around MTV, who do you think the enemy
] causing our culture to go to shit _really_ is?

At first I thought you were talking about Hip-Hop artists and then I realized:

thugz -
Poindexter
Ashcroft
Rumsfeld

playaz -
Dubya
Condoleeza Rice

gangstas -
Cheney

It was that sentence about the enemy who was causing our culture to _really_ go to shit. I was confused until I thought about it some more.

Thanks! Good laugh...

--Rek

Reknamorken wrote:
] At first I thought you were talking about Hip-Hop artists and
] then I realized:
]
] thugz -
] Poindexter
] Ashcroft
] Rumsfeld
]
] playaz -
] Dubya
] Condoleeza Rice
]
] gangstas -
] Cheney
]
] It was that sentence about the enemy who was causing our
] culture to _really_ go to shit. I was confused until I
] thought about it some more.
]
] Thanks! Good laugh...

Its funny you should say that.. Because when I was writing that message, I almost put "MTV/CNN" where "MTV" was for whit value, but I felt it diverged from the point I was trying to make about our culture being lead by the idiot majority..

I guess the cynical angle my politics have taken of late is so transparent I don't really need to go into much detail.. :)

There is a degree to which I do directly blame the artists for alot of our problems in society. If I was Chuck D, or Jello Biafra, etc, I would feel violently ill whenever I watched MTV. Hell, I would most likely feel violently ill if I watched MTV myself, but I don't watch MTV, so its all ok. Its all bling bling and no actual content of importance. A little rebellion in a box every so offten, but nothing of substance.

But in the end, you can't fix much blame on the artists. The environment created for music by the "big media" system doesn't exactly lend itsself to being a fourm for new ideas or a place to challenge the flaws of our society. Its just a machine for making money off eyeballs. Its current potental social value has a very low ceiling. I see it as a problem because music has more potental power then mearly making a buck. Music is a very powerful way to communicate.

I remember back from the days of catholic high school.. Whenever we were being forced to sing hymns in the church, the teachers would tell us that singing was the highest form of prayer to God. At the time, I always thought that was so damn funny, you'd know exactly why if you've ever heard people sing in catholic church. Its a fucking joke, and a funny one at that. People sing like crap, putting in the same effort they would for any obligation they give 1/8 a shit about. Something about that idea stuck with me over time thou, sans the God part. Music is a very powerful way to communicate ideas. When powerful ideas find their way into music, it has effects, and the targets of those effects get worried. You could ask Peter Tosh or Bob Marley about this if they hadn't been killed by their government. There are many examples.

- nick