FROM A BLACK PERSPECTIVE
I try to make it a habit to purchase a copy of the Source every once in awhile. The Source is a hip-hop magazine that I used to read with high regularity as a teen, because that’s when I listened to hip-hop all the time.
Now I hardly listen to hip-hop at all, but all of the teens in my program do. Earlier on in my career in youth work, I would read the Source to try to stay relevant. And it worked, to some extent: being able to drop the right names, or know who was hot and who was not, won points with the teens, and gave me enough “cred” that it opened avenues to build more meaningful connections.
But now that I’m 31, I’m not trying to stay relevant; I’m just trying to understand. Sure, I still name-drop, but instead of acting like I’m in the know, I use this information to ask questions to get them to talk to me about things that are important to them. Because in doing so, every so often, we move from a conversation on whether Biggie or Tupac was better to something more meaningful, like what death is like or why there is so much violence on our city streets.
The most recent issue has white rapper Eminem on the cover, giving us the middle finger. Multiple articles inside explore tapes of racist songs he wrote when he was just getting started. I had heard of these lyrics, but wrote them off as the ignorance of being young and stupid, much like the pictures of him from those times with his finger up his nose and his pants hanging off his hips. I further rolled my eyes as I read a litany of responses from black men in the hip-hop community who expressed outrage at Eminem’s misogynistic comments and claiming solidarity “with their black woman,” something I found hard to believe when I knew that many of them had regaled in song about “bitches and ho’s” in their teen years.
But as I read on, I detected a legitimate sense of anger in the co-opting of black music by a clever white man; Eminem himself boasts that he’s like Elvis in this regard, which is either a delicious irony by a perceptive and sarcastic lyricist or a shuddering evil by an outright racist. I also picked up on the repeated theme of the double standard: the media seemed willing to forgive Em for his youthful dalliances, while if the colors had been reversed, would not a black offender been vilified and scorned? Some even wondered aloud if the (mostly white) media hadn’t pumped up Em on purpose, desirous as they were of a white man being number one in a black man’s musical genre; and this, just a few months after Rush Limbaugh had made similar accusations heading in the other direction.
One thing that I have noticed about magazines is that they are really not about the articles themselves. The articles, like the ads and the publicity and even the design, are about representing a certain kind of lifestyle. The goal of a magazine is to put out an image that can compel enough people who want to be associated with that kind of image that the magazine can monetize this assemblage of eyeballs to advertisers whose expenditures pay for everything. So I looked at this month’s Source from this standpoint, and sadly determined that what the magazine was pushing was sex, violence, and materialism. I’m not sure what’s more tragic: that there are advertisers who want to sell these values, or that there are readers who want to buy them.
Anyway, I’ve rambled on for too long. All in all, I found the $5 I spent on this issue to be well worth it. Maybe I’ll pick up next month’s issue, too.
I try to make it a habit to purchase a copy of the Source every once in awhile. The Source is a hip-hop magazine that I used to read with high regularity as a teen, because that’s when I listened to hip-hop all the time.
Now I hardly listen to hip-hop at all, but all of the teens in my program do. Earlier on in my career in youth work, I would read the Source to try to stay relevant. And it worked, to some extent: being able to drop the right names, or know who was hot and who was not, won points with the teens, and gave me enough “cred” that it opened avenues to build more meaningful connections.
But now that I’m 31, I’m not trying to stay relevant; I’m just trying to understand. Sure, I still name-drop, but instead of acting like I’m in the know, I use this information to ask questions to get them to talk to me about things that are important to them. Because in doing so, every so often, we move from a conversation on whether Biggie or Tupac was better to something more meaningful, like what death is like or why there is so much violence on our city streets.
The most recent issue has white rapper Eminem on the cover, giving us the middle finger. Multiple articles inside explore tapes of racist songs he wrote when he was just getting started. I had heard of these lyrics, but wrote them off as the ignorance of being young and stupid, much like the pictures of him from those times with his finger up his nose and his pants hanging off his hips. I further rolled my eyes as I read a litany of responses from black men in the hip-hop community who expressed outrage at Eminem’s misogynistic comments and claiming solidarity “with their black woman,” something I found hard to believe when I knew that many of them had regaled in song about “bitches and ho’s” in their teen years.
But as I read on, I detected a legitimate sense of anger in the co-opting of black music by a clever white man; Eminem himself boasts that he’s like Elvis in this regard, which is either a delicious irony by a perceptive and sarcastic lyricist or a shuddering evil by an outright racist. I also picked up on the repeated theme of the double standard: the media seemed willing to forgive Em for his youthful dalliances, while if the colors had been reversed, would not a black offender been vilified and scorned? Some even wondered aloud if the (mostly white) media hadn’t pumped up Em on purpose, desirous as they were of a white man being number one in a black man’s musical genre; and this, just a few months after Rush Limbaugh had made similar accusations heading in the other direction.
One thing that I have noticed about magazines is that they are really not about the articles themselves. The articles, like the ads and the publicity and even the design, are about representing a certain kind of lifestyle. The goal of a magazine is to put out an image that can compel enough people who want to be associated with that kind of image that the magazine can monetize this assemblage of eyeballs to advertisers whose expenditures pay for everything. So I looked at this month’s Source from this standpoint, and sadly determined that what the magazine was pushing was sex, violence, and materialism. I’m not sure what’s more tragic: that there are advertisers who want to sell these values, or that there are readers who want to buy them.
Anyway, I’ve rambled on for too long. All in all, I found the $5 I spent on this issue to be well worth it. Maybe I’ll pick up next month’s issue, too.
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