Human nature? I can cite biologists and anthropologists that would not only disagree with your pretty narrow conception of that, but deliver a pretty hard intellectual smackdown to the kind of tripe you just recited. I can tell you’ve never studied a lick of “evolution.”

Do some women “enjoy” parading around and men ogling them because it’s “natural,” or because the people that run society have raised us with very specific conceptions of what men and women are supposed to be? Human nature is fluid, and able to bend to the constructs of society. Does that mean society is right, or even more in tune with what is natural? Hell no…

Perhaps I am wasting my time responding to your post. From reading your screed about “summer homes,” “phone exec friends,” etc, it sounds like you’re much more at home with the record executive types who are perfectly fine with sitting in their ivory towers and using exploiting images of women as mere sex objects for their own personal gain.

Oh, and by the way, on that last (particuarly offensive) point “I’ve never had a politically correct screw.” Here’s one: screw you.

Actually, Common was on Oprah talking about the issue.

I like that this article touched on the issue of Clear Channel and their control of what is played on the airways across all musical genre’s. All of the music that is coming from the souls of our people are not violent, sexual, and angry. We are a diverse people but the powers that be may not see the profitablity in displaying it all. I think that we need to put pressure on Clear Channel and hold them accountable. At the same time we need to take control ourselves and make sure that we act responsibly and consider the impact of the messages that we send out like Russell Simmons has. We can debate the motivations of Russell Simmons but at the end of the day its something that needs to be done for the health of our community.

And yes, Deadbeat is right. Go to your record collection. Pick ten rock albums at random. You will find most of the mysoginy of hip-hop is just as prevalent in “white music” (once again, mentioned in my article).

The amount of hip-hop artists who really buy into sexism and exploitation isn’t any more significant than any other type of music. And that’s the bottom line.

Originally… partly… yes. But that statement becomes absurd in the face of the majority of hip-hop today that focuses solely on the topics of degrading women, doing drugs, beating or shooting people, and what can only be described as outlandish over the top hyper self absorbed greed. In the 80’s you might have had songs that discussed these issues in the manner you mention, putting them in the context of being imprisoned by culture and how the desire is to overcome them. Certainly there are those artists today that still hold those artistic values. Jurassic 5 can be added to the list you already mentioned. But the fact remains that a large majority of the artists are putting out pointless trash that doesn’t just talk about these issues minus the social concern, but actual glorifies them and does nothing more than perpetuate living like flat out animals, thereby perpetuating the oppression of the African American people without the need of help from the racist elements of white America one bit. The truth is, Russell Simmons is whitey, he’s keeping the black man in the ghetto because that personae makes him filthy rich.

Russell Simmons is merely a dirt merchant in this garbage, and he is 100% within his rights to produce and promote speech that is disagreeable, disgusting or even damaging to culture. But if he is trying to tell people that ALL this stuff is culturally significant art, then he is just being an insincere scumbag. If he wants to be a scumbag, fine, more power to you, but have the guts to admit you are an audio porn pimp and stop acting like you are some soldier for the downtrodden. Be a man and admit what you are, or be a man and change. As it is now, he is not a man, but a worm who just wiggles only as much as he needs to get out of the line of fire.

I’m hoping this debate will shift to all the flaws in our hedonistic Western culture overall, and lead to “white” culture “pumping the brakes” on their depraved culture of death as well.