Project Logic Ga

We need more elected officials who say “You know what… the government can’t improve your situation as much as you can…hey, you shouldn’t have gotten yourself in this mess in the first place.”  President Obama and new U.S. Senator Cory Booker would say it just like reasonable conservatives if their hands or mouths weren’t restricted by liberals in the Dem Party.

I think hip hop music influences life in America more than Obama and Romney combined.  Like jazz, rap music is an original American art form.  But, life is imitating art rather than art imitating life.  Hip hop of my youth was kids expressing themselves or their alter egos.  Today, the music shapes the ego.  As kids, our moral compass was set by church, family, school and positive friends.  Today, all four of these influences take a backseat to music in my community and the music is shameful.  Don’t get me wrong, artists should have the right to express themselves but dam, these cats today are cary cary.

At Worth County High, econ was the class that supported the financial theories taught at home: delayed gratification, cost/benefit analysis, risk/reward and conspicuous consumption.  The hip hop culture is all about what you have or shall I say what it appears you have.  Yea, I have a problem a young family needing help from family or the government when they are rocking Polo gear—an $80 dollar shirt.  So, your baby wears Jordans before the kid can walk yet.

The education of our youth is really damaged by 200 T.V. channels and video games.  The images are so flashy that kids have a hard time focus on plain presentations in school and church.  Then the little monsters have the nerve to say “you’ll need to make school fun like a video game.”  I thank heaven that I went to the school and church when you sat down and paid attention for hours without glitz—look at the ceiling and see what happens.  Families should watch the old Cosby and Andy Griffin together.

The dudes today want to be thugs and the females want to be “garden tools.”  We are talking about the homies on the corners but we are talking about the Black, White, Yellow and Brown college students also.  In my day, it started with Luke and the Too Live Crew saying “I’m like the Peter Piper of the 1980s…I have long hard blank for all of the ladies.”  The rapper was right; they are the Pied Pipers who lead youth anywhere they want and increasingly it is into a culture that glamorize drug use, crime and disregard for societal norms.  Oh, 1960s involved some counterculture but that was a phase in a young person’s life.  Today, these kids have tattoos on their faces to permanently reduce their employability.  I walked into a dollar store this morning and jokingly asked the manager why there is a “no sagging” sign on the door.  The sista looked at me and said that she wasn’t having it.

The White boys had metal music back in the day but today the hard rock is laced with Molly and E.  When I was a young professional, the rapper Mystikal dropped “The Man Right Chea” and I could feel the hypnotic effect.  Later, the song “I Ain’t Never Scared” came out and I could see how the music emboldens those considering violence.  There are guys still in prison for actions that were driven by those type songs years ago.  “When I am outside of the club and you think I’m a punk…so I reach for the loaded Tech 9, I keep off in the trunk.”  That rapper later was on Celebrity Fit Club and he is a teddy bear; dude isn’t really that hard but he played the role to get money from studio executives who are only concerned about profits.

I knew we had turned the wrong corner on music when “That’s Just My Baby Daddy” came out.  Hey, I am not offering commentary about single moms…let Oprah have all the kids she wants because she has cash flow like that.  But, the person withwhom you have a kid is important; it’s a lifetime connection before we start to discuss DNA material.  Yea, some folks are dirtying up the gene pool.  Eventually, parents and Uncle Sam will get the bill.  Radio personality Doug Banks’ wife called into his show to say that her baby daddy is better known as her husband.

Bottomline: there is more to music.  It’s the soundtrack of our lives and the poetry. We should use it wisely and listen to more positive music like trip hop.