When hop hip was born on the streets of New York, rhymes and dances drove the battles. As the genre traveled to the left coast, the world learned from Ice Cube, Dre and N.W.A. that south central L.A. was a powder keg ready to blow. Their music was real gangsters reflecting the unfortunate problems in their world through the medium of rap—in the footsteps of Pablo Picasso, Zora Neal Hurston and Salvador Dali.
Art imitating life or life imitating art? Of course, the hip hop culture includes positive elements who are real artists but some parts of the thug subdivision are recklessly affecting developing minds and our community as a whole suffers. Weak-minded kids are so brainwashed that they become detrimental to other kids and everyone else. When the moral code established by the teachings of family, church and school is ignored, we are in trouble. From leather jackets to Afro to punk to preppy, every generation gets to define itself but these my classmates’ children are making a concerted effort to glorify easy money, hustling, crime, and incarceration. And don’t get me started on the stripper style dancing from college students in regular clubs—maybe I am just getting old and grumpy but back in my day we saved that for the “hotel, motel, Holiday Inn.”
Lyrics are poetry set to music; Jill Scott should be Poet Laureate; Biggie and Tupac are our dead poets. Anyone with a strong mind can listen to music in its proper artistic context but as a community we need our youth preparing from the competitive nature of the global economy; kids in the developing are developing fast. The hip hop culture is big business with Black, White and Brown youth but under-prepared Black youth will struggle if the music adversely influences their mindsets.
The kids seem to us now how we must have seemed to our parents but Grandmaster Flash & the Furious 5 a “The Message” and John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Rain on the Scarecrow” meant something in farmland. When they reach 25 year old, they started with that “I wish I would have listened—I got caught up.”
Project Logic Ga 
The Message Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5
A child was born, with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but hes frowning too
Cause only God knows what you go through
You grow in the ghetto, living second rate
And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate
The places you play and where you stay
Looks like one great big alley way
Youll admire all the number book takers
Thugs, pimps, pushers and the big money makers
Driving big cars, spending twenties and tens
And you wanna grow up to be just like them
Smugglers, scrambles, burglars, gamblers
Pickpockets, peddlers and even pan-handlers
You say Im cool, Im no fool
But then you wind up dropping out of high school
Now youre unemployed, all null n void
Walking around like youre pretty boy floyd
Turned stickup kid, look what you done did
Got send up for a eight year bid
Now your man is took and youre a may tag
Spend the next two years as an undercover fag
Being used and abused, and served like hell
Till one day you was find hung dead in a cell
It was plain to see that your life was lost
You was cold and your body swung back and forth
But now your eyes sing the sad sad song
Of how you lived so fast and died so young
Its like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from goin under
Rain of the Scarecrow J.C. Mellencamp
The crops we grew last summer werent enough to pay the loans
Couldnt buy the seed to plant this spring and the farmers bank foreclosed
Called my old friend schepman up to auction off the land
He said john its just my job and I hope you understand
Hey calling it your job ol hoss sure dont make it right
But if you want me to Ill say a prayer for your soul tonight
And grandmas on the front porch swing with a Bible in her hand
Sometimes I hear her singing take me to the promised land
When you take away a mans dignity he cant work his fields and cows
Therell be blood on the scarecrow blood on the plow
Blood on the scarecrow blood on the plow
Well theres ninety-seven crosses planted in the courthouse yard
Ninety-seven families who lost ninety-seven farms
I think about my grandpa and my neighbors and my name
And some nights I feel like dyin like that scarecrow in the rain
Chorus:
Rain on the scarecrow blood on the plow
This land fed a nation this land made me proud
And son Im just sorry theyre just memories for you now
Rain on the scarecrow blood on the plow
How can u blame rap? Did not we watch Rudy Ray Moore, Jim Brown, Fred Williamson and Superfly with very little impact on our lives. It is the parents my friends or the lack of good ones.
Jerry: you know the “Black” test in our Capitol Hill apartment was center on knowledge of 70’s Black exploitation movies. “What do you mean the sister never heard of Cleopatra Jones…she has got to go. Old boy from Tufts did not see “The Mack” back in the day. What is he bringing to the cookout, asparagus spears.”
Kidding aside, if your mind is strong and you are an obedient child, you will be prepared for the devilish world.
I got to go…my asparagus is getting cold. Hey, we learn.