I wish I was there for this. Listening to Krs-One and Immortal Technique, two of the most sincere and thoughtful mcs I can think of, comment on the idea of hipsters might have been interesting. Although whoever wrote this summary was obviously very disappointed. But even if I were disappointed, I’d be careful suggesting that these two artists are homophobes. Could it be that someone in the audience who considers him/herself a hipster was offended? Link
Summary: The CMJ “State of Hip-Hop Address” Panel.
From left to right, you see here Chuck Creekmur (AllHipHop.com), DJ Chela, KRS-One, our own Tommy Abu (Flight808.com), Immortal Technique, and Alaska (Hangar 18).
Things got off to a slow start – both KRS and Tech were running late. This didn’t really help things since the panel was only scheduled for an hour. The topic of the discussion was “Is hipster the new hip-hop?” An interesting topic to be sure: what impact does hipsters’ current love affair with hip-hop have on hip-hop culture?
Unfortunately, despite the efforts of some of the panelists, the ensuing discussion was tangential at best. KRS and Tech dominated the conversation without touching on the topic at hand. When the topic of hipsters was finally posed, all KRS One & Immortal Technique could muster were snickering comments about Kanye West wearing tight red jeans and guys in tight-fitting shirts. The veiled homophobia was less than compelling.
So what was accomplished? Not much other than hackneyed calls for the hip-hop community to “unite and organize” and a continuation of an “us vs. them” mentality. Granted, panels of any sort can easily digress into meaningless blather, but given the caliber of the panelists, we would have hoped for more.
Perhaps the reason that so-called “hipsters” are increasingly drawn to the genre is because of modern hip-hop’s breadth; be it political, gangster, abstract, pop, street, or grimey, the genre has something that can appeal to everyone. And that’s a good thing.
The blogger said “veiled homophobia” and that sounds like a reasonable call. I would add “thinly” to the comment if they were making such jokes in this context.
A lot of these well-respected activist types are homophobes and there is a long history of homophobia in left and revolutionary milieus.
Do you know of any public statements in which either of those two support gay rights?
Or are there just more interviews in which they suddenly have extremely complicated responses to questions regarding their lyrics or beliefs in relationship to homophobia?
Honestly, I’d be more surprised to find out that they weren’t homophobes than the reverse.
Off the top of my head I do not recall either Krs or Technique commenting directly on homophobia or homosexuality. I know Technique uses the term faggot a lot in his lyrics but I don’t think that makes him a homophobe. If you google the artists’ names with terms like homophobia you will find a lot of results where people accuse Technique of being a homophobe, but that’s about it.
I think someone should ask them directly how they feel instead of speculating. I don’t think they have anything to hide.
I’m also curious who was moderating the panel. A lot of times the moderator’s efforts can make or break a panel discussion.
“I know Technique uses the term faggot a lot in his lyrics but I don’t think that makes him a homophobe.”
You know what, that’s one of the main reasons I think the battle rap scene is bullshit in any kind of progressive political sense.
The term faggot is obviously homophobic speech. Whether or not a person is a homophobe for using homophobic speech can be left to those who split hairs over such issues and give passes for bad behavior because they like other things about the person or because it’s a condition of the artistic genre.
If you’re a real revolutionary, you don’t let the genre decide your course of action.
If he’s not man enough to use language that truly expresses liberation then I don’t really care anyway. Most of these hardcore leftists are a pain in the ass at the end of the day and their ultimate vision leads to restrictions on human freedom rather than the reverse.
i don’t know man, to me, that hair you mention is hugely significant. it’s what separates cultures and causes misunderstandings.
homophobe, again, to me, means you have some kind of unreasonable fear of homosexuals. or maybe an unfounded prejudice of the lifestyle that tends to lead to contempt. i just don’t get that from his lyrics. i grant you that the term “faggot”, especially coming up in certain neighborhoods, is based on the stereotypical image of an effeminate or weak male, but still, that doesn’t necessarily mean people who use the term walk around hating on gay people. they’re just using slang to express themselves. this jargon of a particular class/sub-culture probably does emanate from homophobia, but like a lot of slang terms, over years, the original meaning is lost and it takes on a life of it’s own.
about being politically progressive, i’m not entirely sure what you mean. i’ll just put it out there that i don’t think immortal technique will ever get elected to office. but i’ll tell you what, i think lots of people would consider him politically subversive and politically active.
what do you think about the title to Nas’ new album? have you read his justifications?
thanks for the feedback.
I don’t fully buy into your culturally based argument though it’s an understandable stance to take that I have struggled with myself.
Unfortunately the culture angle is often used to excuse things that are really sick, like China’s oppression of its citizenry, while ignoring that lots of people in that culture don’t like being oppressed and put up with oppression out of fear.
It’s like when people talk about slavery just being part of the culture back in the day when there was always an anti-slavery movement and the slaves certainly didn’t like it.
So I’d ask the gays and lesbians within whatever subculture we’re discussing what they think.
And then I’d step back and look at the bigger picture and ask if this is a cultural difference that we should respect, like different ways of deploying the English language, or is this a cultural difference that is unacceptable in the larger community, such as clitorectomy.
Another problem with the term faggot changing meaning and being more about manhood than sexuality is that those things can’t be so easily separated and the kind of manhood that is supported by calling other people faggot, no matter how disconnected the term may be from homosexual, is still a very toxic form of manhood.
On the Nas issue:
He’s done a good job addressing it to date. I’m fully supportive of that choice. But if the album doesn’t address the topic, i.e. if it’s only a title, it will end functioning as a stunt.
So we’ll see.
Thanks for asking.
There’s just one thing I want to make clear. I’m not arguing that his use of the term faggot isn’t offensive or that it doesn’t have the potential for doing more bad than good. I’m just saying it doesn’t necessarily mean he has contempt for homosexuals.
Man! Next time someone has a panel on hipsters, I hope I get to be on the panel. This has been a confounding topic for me for months. There’s no problem with hipsters and what they like or do – it’s that everyone wants to market to them and IS WHAT’S AFFECTING which DJs get gigs and where sponsorship goes to and the presentation of Hip Hop culture.
“I’m just saying it doesn’t necessarily mean he has contempt for homosexuals.”
I basically agree even though I have issues with the language and I feel that folks are fooling themselves about how language functions in relationship to human consciousness.
But thanks again for digging into this.
“it’s that everyone wants to market to them and IS WHAT’S AFFECTING which DJs get gigs and where sponsorship goes to and the presentation of Hip Hop culture.”
CZ, hope you don’t make me get a MySpace account to contact you but I will if I have to. That’s a very interesting statement and I want to find out more about what you’re seeing and if I should be writing about that at ProHipHop.
Or trying to get you to guest post or something.
Sorry to turn this into my bulleting board, but Mr. Good, that’s an always open invitation to you, by the way, though I’m sure you’ll be getting lots more links in the future from PHH.
on topic: Robbie from Unkut calls out Kanye’s fruity red pants
G is right on.
Why don’t we talk about the possible roots of this type of homophobia in hip-hop and communities of color within the systematic incarceration of young males, and the keeping of these males in an environment that is entirely comprised of other men.
That’s an actual problem. I don’t really understand what the ‘language of liberation’ is? If we stop saying faggot will the prison industry stop incarcerating a whole generation of black and brown males and placing them in a distorted environment?
I don’t think the orientation of Kanye was in question by the style of Kanye’s jeans, by Tech or KRS, after all b-boys used to rock tight jeans. It is that Kanye is a dandy, focusing on superfluous, frivolous, things. Not things that artists such as KRS and Immortal Technique have been trying to focus on.
Dandy in wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandy
on topic, newly published article by Baltimore Sun: The lyrics may be ugly, but gays like hip-hop
i was in the audience for the panel and i too was kind of disgusted by a lot of the “hackneyed” political posturing – when as you point out here some of the most pervasive problems in hip hop are truly ignored year after year – rappers may continue to pay lip service to caring about portraying women well in their music and CLAIM to be all about unity and community, but it’s clear that they’re just as close-minded as the people they point fingers at… they won’t even recognize their, and the entire scene’s, latent homophobia.
me = no homo
but dudes stop paying lip service to being some kind of community / unity figure when you are clearly not.
‘Hip Hop Homophobes: Origin & Attitudes Towards Gays & Lesbians in Hip-Hop Culture; As Perpetuated By Rappers, Thugs, Athletes, Reggae Rastas & Religionists; Essays On The 3,000 Year Old Polemics Against Homosexuality; A Religious Hoax!” The book by Khalil Amani (www.iuniverse.com) (www.myspace.com/khalilamani)