President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will host an evening celebrating American poetry at the White House tomorrow evening, featuring Grammy-winning hip-hop artist Common (Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr.). He’s scheduled to join Scott, Bill Collins and Rita Dove to celebrate the art form, and will take part in rap workshops with schoolchildren before performing in the evening.
The Atlantic reports that Fox News, The Daily Caller, and other right-leaning outlets are up in arms over his place on the guest list. According to Shawn Millerick at the New Hampshire Journal "Some of Common's poetry could ... raise some eyebrows among those who might find cop-killing and racially-tinged or misogynist language beneath the Office of the Presidency." He goes on to quote from Common lyrics: "Tell the law my Uzi weighs a ton ... I hold up a peace sign but I carry a gun," and "Flyer say Free Mumia on my freezer.” Fox Nation even went so far as to call Common a "vile rapper."
This is odd since not even a year ago Fox News had a different tone about the rapper. In an October 2010 report for FoxNews.com, reporter Jason Robinson interviewed the artist he referred to as a "rap legend" and told him, "your music is very positive. And you're known as the conscious rapper. How important is that to you, and how important do you think that is to our kids?"
Common replied that it's a "significant role. I just try to show who we are as well-rounded people and I'm happy to be known as the conscious artist." You can watch the interview to your left.
Reputablenews outlets have debunked the phony outrage over Common’s White House invitation. The Huffington Post's Jason Linkins writes that Common is "not what I consider to be a 'gangsta rapper' or particularly prone to any of hip-hop's legendary excesses. In fact, it was these excesses - 'poppin glocks servin rocks and hittin switches' -- that Common famously criticized in perhaps his most famous song, 'I Used To Love H.E.R.'"
As the Atlantic reports, Obama is far from the first president to host an artist whose work includes references to controversial – or even criminal – topics. Not to mention, anyone who is actually familiar with Common’s career knows that he’s from Chicago and renowned for writing socially and politically conscious lyrics and eschewing the gratuitous violence for which rap is often criticized. And the first word used to describe his work is always “positive.”
Perhaps Adam Serwer of The American Prospect sums it up best:
“Rappers are often conflated with the content of their material in a way other artists aren't because the narratives almost always take place in first person as part of an emcees' effort to create a literary persona. That's part of why William Shakespeare has never been accused of endorsing rape or domestic violence. Mix that with a black president whose spent the last few years facing accusations of covert black militancy from Republicans, and you've got yourself a faux-scandal.”
How do you feel about yet another attempt by Conservatives to deflect your attention from the real issues that matter? From Birth Certificate BS to demanding ‘proof’ that bin Laden is dead to this contrived attempt to be outraged by the MOST positive rapper in the Hip Hop industry, it would be laughable if not so incredibly sad.
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