Televising the Revolution

You will remember Ludacris and 50 Cent's dust-up with Oprah last year, but in case you forgot, here's a reminder: After appearing on her show to promote Crash, Luda told GQ, "What I got was that by having rappers on her show, she feels like she is empowering in them..I don't see why Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle, who I am huge fans of, it's OK for them to go on Oprah. They speak the same language as I do, but they do it through comedy, so I guess that's acceptable to her." Now, Luda--whose lyrics, granted, are insanely misogynistic--did have a point: Why the free pass for the non-corn-rowed comedians? Why the total absence of any MC's on the Oprah show?

Well, that moment seemed to pass, but now comes word that Wynton Marsalis (pictured, err, depicted) also hates hip hop, except, unlike back-pedaling Oprah, he's not equivocating. This is the salient bit from his recent interview with the Guardian:

Old school minstrels used to say they were 'real darkies from the real plantation'. Hip-hop substitutes the plantation for the streets. Now you have to say that you're from the streets, you shot some brothers, you went to jail. Rappers have to display the correct pathology. Rap has become a safari for people who get their thrills from watching African-American people debase themselves, men dressing in gold, calling themselves stupid names like Ludacris or 50 Cent, spending money on expensive fluff, using language like 'bitch' and 'ho' and 'nigger.'

It's clear that there are generational and class divisions at work here, and far be it from me to opine about an issue that goes to the heart of contemporary black American society, being that, well, I'm not black, but still why is it that Marsalis, Oprah, Bill O'Reilly and others seem to think the paragons, the torch-bearers, of an entire genre of music--an entire aesthetic, an entire culture (not subculture, mind you)--are its worst offenders?

Okay, that's a rhetorical question. I can imagine what Nelly's album sales look like when compared to Jurassic 5's, but once, just once, I'd like to hear what universally renowned musical geniuses like Wynton Marsalis have to say about Mos Def's Black on Both Sides or Tribe's Low-End Theory or anything Viktor Vaughn's released. Hip hop may include all of the things that Marsalis hates it for--all of the things that I too hate about it--but, still, I know I'm not alone when I say, it's the greatest artistic invention of our lifetime.

In that spirit, and in honor of today's news that Scooter Libby is likely jail-bound, I give you Akon and Styles P's "Locked Up," which includes this gem, "Locked up, they won't let me out/ And I had a long day in court. Shit stressed me out."