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Gladys Knight's tirade on hip-hop
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If she were your woman and you were her man, there'd be no hip hop playing in the family van.
According to The Boom Box, Gladys Knight, from Gladys Knight and the Pips lambasted Hip-Hop recently while promoting her new film, I can do bad all by myself.
Knight is quoted saying:
"It's been bad, in my opinion, as far as the quality of the music and the stories that they tell. It's one thing to be raw about your history, but they took it to another level and it became vulgar,
I hate to question one of the greats, because I was raised to respect my elders but you have to wonder if this is criticism for the sake of uplifting and empowering the younger generation or just being old and out of touch.
I say this because Knight goes on to say that Hip-Hop has not 'elevated the industry musically' and that 'Hip-Hop has not done anything positive for the black community'. Now are these statements based in fact or just mere opinion?
Hip-Hop heads are the sons and daughters of Knight's generation and have constantly taken music form her hey day, re-created it and turned a whole new generation onto the beautiful sounds of the 60's and 70's while also adding it's own creative spin to the music. Hip-Hop heavyweights like the Wu-Tang Clan, Lauryn Hill, Ice Cube and Big Daddy Kane have sampled her music specifically and introduced her to a completely new audience. Knight didn't have a problem cashing those royalty checks I'm sure.
Hip-Hop has been a source of pride for many young African Americans who are empowered by the vivid stories of humble beginnings and then finally making it big. Lawyers, doctors, politicians, painters, poets, construction workers and even preachers find sources of inspiration in hip-hop and will tell you that this music has played as a soundtrack to their life, getting them through good and bad times similar to Knight's musical peers. So I wonder does Knight listen to the music, does she hear Kanye's arrangements, or Common's lyrics mixed with Jay-Z's flow or is she merely attacking something she has done very little research on?
Of course there's misogyny and vulgar lyrics in hip-hop, it's representative of society at large and not just the best of a people. Do vulgar situations not exist in the world? I for one respect the honesty and integrity. Hip-Hop is not all good, and we do have to work on accepting social responsibility for some of the things we say, but I disagree with Knight's assertion that it's all bad.
Without Hip-Hop many young men would still be relegated to the streets because in their neighborhoods there were no lawyers or doctors who showed them they had options. With the amount of entrepreneurs that Hip-Hop has created and the non-profit work from bone marrow education to art programs to programs designed to teach inner city youth about the power of education. One would be hard pressed to ignore the amazing contribution Hip-Hop has made to mainstream culture not just African Americans.
I respect the older generations right to not like Hip-Hop, maybe it's a generation thing, but to discount it's positives is unacceptable. Let's all meet on Oprah Ms. Gladys Knight and we can have this conversation. We love you, we respect you, we just ask that you do us the respect of paying a little more attention to our culture before you typecast us.
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