When The Smoke Clearz
By Taalam Acey
And it goes like this…
And it goes like this…
Sometimes…
Sometimes I believe that some of these emcees sit down and consciously try to figure out how to get more young black men shot.
Like they figured out a correlation between making money and delivering more young black souls into the hands of the cops.
I mean, for them, it’s all about moving CDs out of one-stops and record shops, even if that means convincing those young brothers to do whatever they have to do in order to get the things that the emcees videos say they got.
But, yo… they ain’t got.
So, how many more need to be caught shoplifting inside the Versace shop before we realize that they are not that successful.
And when Gil Scott Heron dropped “Message to the Messenger”, I really hoped that they would listen, but I’ll tell you something
When the smoke clears those emcees are gonna be all ears
When the smoke clears those emcees are gonna be all ears
When the smoke clears those emcees are gonna want to hear why BET don’t seem to be able to see as well as Univision.
Ninety-nine percent of the time pimping the worst parts of capitalism through record company ho’s, platinum coated egos, putting out bullshit lyrics hyper marketed to supersede those revolutionary mantras of yesteryear.
Si si watu
weusi watu wazuri
pamoja tu tashinda
pamoja tu tashinda
We are black beautiful people.
Together we will win
Together we will win.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, emcees going from record sales to prison cells.
From standing outside of strip bars to stripping behind bars: being stripped of their clothes, jewelry and cars.
Ass out, holding their jaws…
Ass out, holding their scars…
Ass out, holding their drawers…
While record execs continue to puff on fifty dollar cigars looking at pop charts trying to figure out how they are going to make the next self-deprecating black star and because there is so much apathy in the ghetto, they ain’t gotta look far and since talent is no longer necessary, no matter where they look, there they are.
Thinking that hip-hop is ever going to return to the high lyrical content of the late eighties is absurd.
Cats no longer want to follow the leader, now they want to follow nigga’ killers and black woman beaters and since no one forces us to watch BET and since no one forces us to buy the garbage-ass CDs and since no one forces us to support the no-talent-having-petty-thieves, I guess we simply get what we deserve.
Because if we really wanted to elevate ourselves through lyrical content in this new millennium, we would just listen to spoken word.
