Opinion:
Gerald Bowman
As much as I hate to admit it, Geraldo has a valid point. Hip hop is a negative influence in our community. As a child in the 1970s and 1980s I was inspired by much of the music I heard on the radio. Stevie Wonder, Gil Scott Heron, and countless other artists made positive, empowering anthems for black youth and promoted important political causes - like ending apartheid and getting a holiday for MLK. In the 1980s hip hop had artists like KRS -One and Public Enemy to balance out the NWAs and Ice-Ts. Today it is a race to the bottom - even former cops (Rick Ross) glamorize the gangster lifestyle. I cannot remember the last time I heard a positive, inspiring hip hop song. And you would think from listening to hip hop that selling drugs, having sex with skanky women, belonging to a street gang, killing other black people, and having disposable cash to spend on expensive name brand junk is all that matters in life. Gucci, Prada, Louis Vitton, Krystal, Dom P. It's like the white supremacists are writing the rap lyrics with corporate underwriters. The depictions we make of ourselves reckon back to those in "Birth of a Nation" a century ago- depraved, sex-crazed man-children. Personally, I have grown to hate hip hop.
