By shelz.
A legitimate argument can be made for “Niggas in Paris” as top rap song of the year. The quirky, animated track devoured hours of radio and concert time. It made it okay again for mainstream artists to call, not just their jump off’s, but their significant others their bitches and it spawned plenty of other quotables and possibly the catch phrase of the year. (Ball so hard.) Wait, maybe even two. Like Kanye said, that shit cray. What’s really cray though, is how quickly things change.
It was just a few years ago that mass hysteria ensued when Nas attempted a project with a very similar name. Def Jam refused the title. Outlets promised a refusal of promo and the fans cried shenanigans. He was looking for attention. It was a publicity stunt. No one in their right mind would call their album that. The hoopla led Mr. Jones to change the title of his album from Nigger to Untitled, leaving yet another whip mark on his infamous cover.
People felt it was abrasive and Nas had gone too far, but in a span of three years, the word has become acceptable, even from the lips of white folks. How’s that for change?
[pro-player width=’450′ height=’323′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-mNjh2y_rM[/pro-player]
The seemingly magical turn of receptivity leads me to believe this generation responsible for the proliferation of a word that brings tears their grandmothers eyes and fists to their grandfathers hands are trying mightily to erase the pain without tackling the issue. The cartoonish foundation, along with the oft done blunting of the power by removing the “er” and adding an “a” helped make “Niggas In Paris” and the word nigger more accessible to folks of all races. But black folks, regardless of how harmless Kanye and Jay’s lighthearted romp through inappropriateness may seem, allowing people who aren’t black to call you a nigga isn’t helping to engender this post racial America Obama allegedly ushered in. And regardless of how you stylize it: nigger, nigga, niggguh or even nigghhuuuu. It’s all the same thing.
Black youth don’t like to talk about it on the serious side. The oft ignored beast in the room is not a pink elephant, it’s a dead black man hanging by his neck from a magnolia tree with ears, nose and penis severed and flame lapping at his toes that will eventually turn him into a big, strapping roman candle. This fate was likely suffered just because he was black. The connection between the word nigger and that dark portion of this country’s history cannot be disengaged. There’s no way to share that legacy with others, to make it somehow okay, to delete the years of torment and terror simply by being open to more contempt draped in endearment.
This year we even saw black men defending the use of the word from their melanin challenged homies. Mistah F.A.B. said it was totally okay for V-Nasty to use that word. It’s part of the Bay culture. Why it’s easier to chastise black people for being offended and speaking out then to slap the hand of the offending tongue will never become clear to me. I’m sure that behavior speaks to internal issues of self worth or a baffling need to avoid conflict. Either way it’s sad to watch. But when has F.A.B. not been wrapped in some race-laden nonsense. V-Nasty said she would stop only because people were tripping. So even in her new n-word free lifestyle she still doesn’t understand the heavy past it carries. Nor does she seem to care. You can’t expect that from her though, considering the black folks around her haven’t taught her to.
[pro-player width=’450′ height=’323′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIXLX1i_GXA&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fresults%3Fsearch_query%3Dv%2Bnasty%2Bnigga%26oq%3Dv%2Bnasty%2Bnigga%26aq%3Df%26aqi%3D%26aql%3D%26gs_sm%3De%26gs_upl%3D928389l930965l0l931604l13l13l0l7l7l0l71l247l6l6l0[/pro-player]
The grey (or beige) area even crept in this year as DJ Khaled ineptly attempted to explain why his desire to call people niggas outweighed any black persons dismay in his act. Not only does he not care if you get mad, you’re a moron for doing so. And that is some seriously ballsy shit. Fuck the nigger legacy of pain…umm… nigga. Well, he didn’t say that but he may as well have. Oh and he quickly acknowledged, while totally blowing off any black persons opinion about him, that calling his folks sand niggers or sand niggas for that matter is really improper. But I think that’s the internet’s fault. This has to be the most absurd moment in the 2011 Hip-Hop nigger canon and where I will end my rant.
[pro-player width=’450′ height=’323′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hJBUIu11S9E[/pro-player]
2011’s nigger moments had no sense and even less sensibility. They did, however, have an abundance of misguided entitlement and confusion. At the center of all of this raging egoism and apathy may be a small nugget of thoughtfulness, an anemic effort to sabotage the baggage that comes with the n-word, but disarming it in this way is ..well… cray.
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It’s amazing to me how so much has changed but yet things still remains the same. The African American influence on not only popular culture but society as a whole is nothing new. To blame rap music for the loose usage of the N-word is not only dismissing the mental effects of Pan Africanism in this country but the mental effects of all parties involved who had a seen or unseen hand in our existence in this country. The sad truth of the matter is every movement of discrimination in this country uses our struggle historically in this country as the blueprint to every sympathy movement generated and this latest “I’m a nigga too!” ideology is no different. The only problem is that the people claiming legitimacy to a word that was intentionally created to mentally, physically and spiritually oppress a race of people don’t want to aknowledge the blood, sweat, tears and lives that went into their false sense of freedom of speech to be that “new” nigga. And the other sad truth is that we didn’t demand that respect because we were too busy trying remix our history to be accepted by the ones who hate us the most…ourselves. “Everybody wants to be a
nigga but nobody wants to be a nigger.” ~Paul Mooney
@illwilliam
i wasn’t suggesting rap music is responsible. Just looking at the issue within this year in the rap community. But i agree with you that niggas of convenience historically have wanted the cool or the pity without the burden. thank you so much for your comment.