UNITED STATES – R&B singer Eric Benet stirred up a rap culture frenzy when he posted a meme stating:
“Rap artist if all you rap about is: Killing Black people, degrading Black women, abusing drugs, materialization, living a low life, you are not a artist, you are a Black face for white supremacy. You are being used to destroy your own people.”
“Eric Benet giving me rap advice is like me giving him advice on how he could’ve saved his marriage. And I’m not married. #payattentionitsfree,” Jae Millz
Let’s rewind back to the meme for a moment. It says, “if ALL you rap about is…” somebody missed reading comprehension in class.
so exactly why was rapper Jae Millz offended? Should we suppose Jae Millz thinks it is acceptable for Black ‘artists’ to create music promoted to their Black family that ONLY raps about killing Black people, degrading Black women, abusing
drugs, materialization and living a low life? What thinking ‘artists’ would take offense to this meme unless they are paid
agents of white ‘supremacy’ hoping the minds of the people are not elevated beyond the degenerate tastebuds salivating for musical death culture programming? Or perhaps these rappers are victims of the system of racism/ white “supremacy” as the late Black scholar, MD. and Psychiatrist Dr. Frances Cress Welsing would have referred to Mill’s justifying statements.
TMZ caught up with rapper Fat Joe and shared Mr. Benet’s sentiments regarding rap to which Joe responded,
“I view music as just entertainment man, know what I’m saying. It’s just entertainment, you have different rappers for different messages. It’s all entertainment.” – Fat Joe
To be fair, the TMZ correspondent did not repeat Eric Benet’s instagram post verbatim, however is it just entertainment? According to what we know from the African oriented understanding of music and psychology it’s far beyond mere entertainment. Lets us intellectually travel across the Atlantic Ocean, the eternal burial waters of captured enslaved Africans. Let us time travel back to a cultural orientation pre-enslavement and pre-colonization to understand our Ancestral view of music.
According to the The Healing Drum African Wisdom Teachings passed down to the Minianka villages of Fienso and Zangasso of present day Mali, “the musicians were healers, healers musicians.” Healer is practically synonymous to musician and vice versa.
“From the Minianka perspective, it is inconceivable that the responsibilities for making music and restoring health should be separate, as they are in the West.” – Yaya Diallo
Now ask yourself are our rappers healing our communities or lyrically destroying them? What synonyms comes to mind when you think of todays rappers? Healers definitely ain’t it. Perhaps more change is needed in what we consider “entertainment”, while we appreciate and support those consistently working to change the negative musical narratives.
What rappers Jae Millz and Fat Joe, may have missed is:
If you do not understand white supremacy (racism) – what it is and how it works, everything else that you understand will only confuse you.” – Neely Fuller Jr.
According to the racial study and scholarship of Mr. Neely Fuller Jr., white supremacy (racism) operates in all areas of people activity: economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex and war. Entertainment is an institutional branch of racial oppression and we must recognize how music is used as either productive instruments for Black liberation or muSICK to maintain our oppression and destruction.
Mature adults recognize the power of the tongue. Our constant throw around quote, “speak it into existence,” radiates the consciousness of the masses. So let us be held responsible and accountable in our contributions to creation or destruction via what we speak as musical vibrations. If you desire rap success, you do not have to sell yourself, nor rhythmically sicken your community to accomplish those aims. Peep culture game from Hip Hop legend KRS – One.
Now rap is something we do but hip hop is something we live…Hip hop is about community, culture, nation building…The culture comes first, because with respect comes the cash, with mastery of your skill comes the cash.” – KRS – One