I was watching an Indian comedian on Comedy Central a few nights ago. He wasn’t really that funny, but that’s beside the point. I was bothered by him constantly referencing Middle Eastern people as Brown. See that’s where this whole using a color to categorize race thing gets confusing.
A young militant Muslim boy is allowed to board an American bound airline with explosives, despite being on a terrorist watch list, and now the government wants airport security to get a good look at my nuts.
I was thinking about dreams the other day. You know how big our dreams are when we’re young? We think so grand. For me, I wanted to be a famous MC traveling the world with mad adoring fans, making millions of dollars, driving expensive cars, mad fine ass women, etc. As you get older, you find yourself having to make that compromise. You want to just do your art but “real life” gets in the way of that.
Who’s really to blame for this shit? I think everybody is. Even no action is action and those that have taken no action bear some responsibility. Record companies are businesses; businesses aren’t going to invest in what doesn’t make them money. The music people claim they want to hear, they don’t financially support or support in any other fashion. Everybody just feeds into the negativity, they roll with the mob shouting hip hop is dead, it’s a minstrel show, and it’s whatever. That time and energy would be better spent supporting an artist they feel does make the music they’d like to hear.
I hate when people talk about how much they hate “commercial” music. Commercial music is good music. Besides that, how many artist with a deal, whether considered underground or mainstream aren’t making music with the intent of profiting off of their music? Pushing a product for profit is all “commercial” means.
