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Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 23, 2004 - 01:50 pm: | 
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I'll let you weigh in first, Mr. Johnson. |
Troy
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 11:10 am: |
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Chris I'll refer you to the following post (which you've already read) from Thumper's Corner"
http://www.thumperscorner.com/discus/messages/1/648.html?1073600093
Posted on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 02:22 pm:
Generally, I don't consider myself a hip-hopper. I definitely did, consider myself one, 20 years ago. As a result, I have a great nostalgic affinity toward hip-hop. I have most of the 12" 45's from back in the day. I've been to parties that Grand Master Flash (argurably the inventor of scratching) dee-jayed. I live 3 Blocks from the old Harlem World and I have the resources to live pretty much live anywhere I want. So hip-hip is very much a part of who I am. I guess in a sense one could say that I'm a indeed a hip-hopper, by default, from a developmental or cultural perspective. -end post-
However if you saw me walking down the street one would point in my direction and say "...see that hip-hop Brother over there...".
I also know people expect me, as "Founder of the Afircan American Literature Book Club", to be running around in mud cloth and locks too, but I don't.
Chris, I'm a combination of many things (as are most people) -- including what you might term hip-hop. As a result, you cannot accurately or completely describe me by merely one facet of my personality.
My short answer to your question is: "Yes, partially."
Chris, what is the motivation for your question?
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Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 11:13 am: |
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Troy:
The question just popped into my head. |
Cynique
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 11:41 am: |
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Troy, you are a shining example of what can be gained when one realizes that hip-hop should never be all-consuming. |
Organized Lady
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 12:43 pm: |
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Amen, Cynique.
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Troy
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 03:18 pm: |
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Cynique any compliment coming from you is indeed an honor.
Chris, I can't let you off that easy. Clearly you were trying to discern something. Be honest, think about it a while, what prompted the question? How has my response (or any potential responses from others) contributed to your bank of knowledge or impression of me?
b.t.w. Are you hip-hop?
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yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 04:04 am: |
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I'm hip hip too, partially! It must be the New York thirtysumthin thing? I grew up in the music, lived the experience, .... in the beginning of brown suger, i was there in the parks, playing basketball, listening to people free styling in the streets, before the breaking it was just the music....i think late 70s...no breaking...Troy, do you remember?
Listen to Talib Qweli...he's hip hop, Common, The Roots.... |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 26, 2004 - 11:26 am: |
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Troy:
Honestly, at this point, the question just popped into my head. Maybe after I mainline my heroin and rest in the arms of opiated bliss another motivation may come bubbling to the surface, but that's all I can give you for now.
Am I hip hop?
I'm glad you asked that question. Pull up a chair. I fall outside the demographic generally used to denote the hip hop generation--birth years 1963-1980 or thereabouts. I would thus classify as a Baby Boomer, having been born in 1950.
BUT
As a babyboomer I partook and partake (and partay when I may) in the influences of that time--civil rights, the sexual revolution, non establishment politics on that end--but culturally I have taken from the afrocentric, hippie, or countercultural strains--
In music I would be gospel, blues, rock n roll, soul, funk and in that I am sort of proto hip hop, in that many of the roots of hip hop music are in that era.
Living in St. Louis during the time, I was unaware of the revolution brewing in the South Bronx, only became aware of folks like Kool Herc and Afrika Bambataa after the fact, but did get on to Rapper's Delight, Run DMC (didn't care so much for LL Cool J--cept "Mama Said Knock You Out"--that wuz muh JAM!. I got on board with Public Enemy and, I blush to say it, The Geto Boyz (they used a lot of P Funk licks)
I have then a great appreciation for hip hop. Great appreciation for hip hop writers and people of the hip hop generation, such as yourself, who have contributed to the cultural economic and polical mix.
Do I wear a lot of gold, tattoos, baggy jeans, baseball caps on backwards, flash gang signs or colors(I do live in Blood hood, but don't believe in set tripping and tribalism, though I give them their props) breakdance (too old and stiff) do grafitti art, rap or dj? No. In fact if you saw me, you'd probably take me for a harmless old duffer who smokes his tobacco pipe, reads the newspaper and sits by the potbellied stove in the evenings.
But I do have a great appreciation of the arts, especially as a poet and writer--and have worked with young local rappers to tighten up their flow--primarily more positive style rappers, though I have tossed a little street flava into their rhymes--after all, most of 'em ain't got nothing on Rudy Ray Moore. |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 26, 2004 - 02:17 pm: |
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CHris Hayden:
You're a hip hopper, don't allow silly socalled categories to define you! |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 26, 2004 - 02:34 pm: |
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Yukio:
Right thurr! Right thurr! |
Cynique
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 26, 2004 - 04:38 pm: |
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There are certainly elements of hip-hop in your persona, Chris. I confess to being mesmerized by certain Rap songs but I would never buy a Rap CD. I don't know what that makes me. |
Carey
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 26, 2004 - 08:00 pm: |
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Cynique......OLD  |
Cynique
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 27, 2004 - 12:09 am: |
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Old school, anyway. ;] |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 27, 2004 - 06:04 pm: |
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i don't buy many hip hop cds, either...i think the last one i bought was the talib qweli or was it the Common joint? Anyways, they're so expensive.....just burn dem from a friend! |
Cynique
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 27, 2004 - 06:52 pm: |
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Rap is my guilty pleasure. I catch about an hour of it everyday on BET, shakin' booties and all. |
Lambd
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Lambd
Post Number: 80
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - 10:17 am: |
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C-neek, I've read a sample of your writing, and from what I've read, you are indeed hip-hop. Your awareness and the contribution that you have made to this era makes you hip-hop. Because you are black and alive, you are hip-hop. You are the embodiment and the soul of hip-hop. Old? Hardly.
Old school? Maybe. Hip-Hop? Definitely. The hip-hop culture is a representation of the times. It isn't just rap music, or big jersey's, or even Timberlands. It isn't the music, or the dress. Those are only symbols. It's the way Black people think in general. The attitude of the masses, not just the youth. The way we refuse to be generalized. We are not in with the mix. We are a group of individuals that stand up to be heard and counted separately, together. I see Troy, Chris Hayden and Cynique as individual influences on our culture. Therefore, each in his/her own way---Hip-Hop. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 306
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - 01:04 pm: |
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Ummmm. I don't know about my being in the hip-hop loop, Lambd, or whether I agree with your benign definition of what hip-hop is. I'd kinda think of myself as being hip, but not hop especially since I reject the bling-bling tawdriness of this culture. |
Lambd
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Lambd
Post Number: 81
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - 08:39 pm: |
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Everybody hip-hop aint blingin' or tawdry. That's like saying everybody white got a sheet in their closet with holes for eyes that they wear on Saturday night...Ummmm! I probably could have come up with a better example than that. Sometimes I think everybody white does have a sheet, but that's besides the point. I suppose its possible that if you missed my point, you just don't get it, and if you don't get it, maybe you did miss the hip-hop train. Your comment about 'bling-bling tawdriness' is just the kind of generalization that I talked about in my earlier post. You see, you spell your username 'Cynique'. That's cool, but a hip-hop spelling would be a modern sort of revolutionary way of refusing to be tied down to the 'establishment's' way of doing things. Like not wearing a suit to a business meeting because you are the multimillion dollar CEO who can do that. I'm black and I'm worth millions and I don't have to wear a suit because you think I have to. Who's in charge here anyway? It's sort of like the 70's when men stopped cutting their hair and wearing tie-dye. People wanting to be different and do their own thing. Hip-hop is spelling your user name 'C-neek' because that's they way it sounds and I like it better that way because it's different. It's hip-hop. Sort of like rap. Those brother's are saying, "Look, I can say what I wanna say and put it to music and sell more records than if I tried to sing it." They built an industry around it. You don't have to like it. Hell, I think most of it should be called 'CRAP'. It's still just a small part of the culture. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 316
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2004 - 12:04 am: |
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I understand what you're saying, Lamb-d. But one of the things that amuses me about hip-hoppers is that they're convinced they're on to something new. Yet there's nothing original about the way they think. There have always been people who go against convention. They're called non-comformists - rugged individuals - free spirits. Hip-hoppers have couched this familiar mindset into a style of dress, a manner of speaking, a way of writing, a type of music and yell: Hey world! Look at me. Aint I cool? Never mind that what's good about my hip-hop culture is overshadowed by violence and misogyny and semi-literacy, I'm keepin it real! (One of my babies' daddies gonna get me a job in a video, shakin' my bootie!)
But, - everybody is entitled to do their own thing. Me, I live and let live. |
Lambd
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Lambd
Post Number: 84
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2004 - 01:31 pm: |
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You should judge the culture by a few. All hip-hoppers are not on that tip. Those types of things are just a sign of the times in general. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 319
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2004 - 01:58 pm: |
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But the entire hip-hop culture is polluted by the gangsta rap element, Lamb-d. Why? Because all hip-hoppers are not gangsta rappers, but all gangsta rappers are hip-hop, and there are a lot of gangsta rappers! And I would back off critisizing the hip-hop community if as I previously implied, its members weren't so smug and didn't think they invented the idea of confronting the world on their own terms. Free thinkers date back to cave man days when one of them decided to use fire to cook his food instead of eating it raw. I don't hate the hip-hop culture, I just don't take it as seriously as it takes itself. |
Lambd
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Lambd
Post Number: 89
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2004 - 02:12 pm: |
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You got some chip for hip hop. I love you too much to try to change you though, Babe. We can still make it if we try. I'll keep being an un-smug hip-hopper and you keep being anti without really being anti, and we can turn heads as we walk down the street. You wear something really sweet and conventional, and I'll wear a really big coat, a gold chain w/a Jesus piece, and a phat pair a Tim's! I'll knock of a convenience store so I can pay my child support and be able to afford some twenty inch spinners for my Escalade. I was gonna get you a set of gold teeth, but you probably won't even wear cause you still got tude from when I smoked up all da weed. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 321
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2004 - 02:28 pm: |
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Gold chain! I ain't walkin down the street wid no nigga who don't wear platinum. In fact I ain't into walkin too much anywhere cuz des fake Manolo Balaniks are killin my feet. I cain't have the wind messin with my hair, either. I jes got it did and dees extensions is tight. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 126
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2004 - 04:57 pm: |
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Sineeke! Sineeke!
Cum here rite now. Aiiight now! I ain't playin' witchu, guh! Um 'bout tah get ill 'round here.
Where my baby at? Didn't I tell you to stop leavin' him at cho' momma's nastie house. Last time I picked him up from der, he had roaches fallin' outtah his dypah.
And yu bettah tell dat fool Lambd if ah catch 'em sniffin' 'round yu again, I'm gon bussah cap off in sumbodies @$$. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 325
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2004 - 05:56 pm: |
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Oh-oh, my baby daddy done caught up wid me. We better chill out for a minit, Lambd. |
Lambd
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Lambd
Post Number: 95
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 09:44 am: |
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I aint chillin nowheres! I fittina stay right chair! He ack like he da only one got a gat! An dat aint cho baby so stop yo claim jumpin! Dats my brothas baby, fa sho! He was hittin it fo I was and dat baby look jes like him! So Abm, you kin kiss me an ma brothas azz cause both us bin up in yo gal! You right bout C-neek momma house doe! It is nastee up in nere! Whyont chall wipe da damn table off some time? |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 129
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 11:03 am: |
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And for momentary departure from "Ghetto Theatre":
My Dear (& oh-so-sweet) Cynique,
When wilst thou abandon the absurdity of blaming ill-bred & illiterate Black 19 year old Black rappers for what are really the dictates of privileged, middle-age White ivy league-schooled executives?
Blaming the hip-hop performer for Sony's machinations is tantamount to blaming a longshoreman for the environment havoc that is reaped by the venal decisions that are made by his employer Exxon. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 329
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 11:22 am: |
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Abm, I don't understand what you're saying. I ain't blamin nobody for nothin. I'd be naive if I didn't realize that despite the fact that many aspects of the hip-hop culture are negative, they are the pace setters when it comes to marketing products in the most sought after demographic. More power to them even if I ain't impressed. I said that I live, and let live. Hip-hoppers should do the same. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 330
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 11:25 am: |
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Lambd, who ever said chivalry was dead never met you, did they my darling. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 131
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 02:13 pm: |
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Cynique,
I just can't understand how someone who is obviously as smart as you can continue to belabor the evils of 'sheep' when it is the 'shepherds' who are herding them (and us all) to hell. |
Lambd
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Lambd
Post Number: 96
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 03:06 pm: |
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I wonder who voted five stars on C-neek's last post! |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 336
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 04:36 pm: |
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Abm, I still don't know where you are coming from and I think you should engage Lambd in this conversation. He gave a very good run down of what the hip hop culture is all about. Nobody is forcing people to embrace this lifestyle. Mainstream Rappers who are a part of the hip-hop scene have parlayed their craft into a lucrative industry. Gangsta Rappers took their lyrics over the edge when certain inner city artists wanted to expose their sordid envirmonment by holding a mirror up to it. All of these musicians sought contracts from the white record companies and were glad to get them. Yes, this industry captialized off of a situation, but they are in the business of supplying what there is a demand for and the people who make and buy this music have to share the blame for the negative ramifications of gangsta rap. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 337
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 04:41 pm: |
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In answer to your question, Lambd, it was probably someone who knows a joke when they see one. Heh-heh. |
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