Music Video Directors: Assassins 4 Hire?

“Watch what you’re watching/” —Nas, “Sly Fox,” Untitled, 2008. Images matter. The age of denying the insurmountable effects graphic material masters on the minds of young, impressionable viewers should be far behind us. In the last decade alone, we have witnessed the dramatic possibilities an irresponsible media state is capable of producing when held to […]

Read My Lips: No More Ni**adry!

            “And all you coon-a** rappers—ya’ll should all get lynched/ And all you fake-a** gangsters—ya’ll should all get lynched/” —NYOIL, “Ya’ll Should All Get Lynched,” Hood Treason, 2007. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been, and it seems some would hate nothing more than to see Ni**adry completely blotted out from Hip-Hop music. After […]

Ebonics 101: Big L & E. B. White Break Bread

“Euphemisms are misunderstood as mistakes/ But it’s a by-product of the ghetto music we make/” —Canibus, “Poet Laureate II,” Rip the Jacker, 2003. Of the many reasons Hip-Hop music dogged for, one of the most unremarkable is that it teaches bad English—broken English—Ebonics. Critics argue that it celebrates anti-intellectualism, with an emphasis on rhyme rather […]