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Originally Posted by Rob Instigator
I just wish more MC's took to heart Chuck D's advice to focus on LEARNING SHIT to better their rhymes, because, it is true, one raps about what one knows.
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seen.
but to get at people you have to legitimize their existence, validate their worth. If you want to collaborative to grow and develop a community, you have to understand, respect and build within the circumstances of that community. The first stage is dialogue, which was must necessarily take place in the language of the community.. as you say, one raps about what one knows. This is not a detriment, it is a foundation to build upon. This is what Tupac was doing with T.H.U.G. life, having dialogue and in the hood over very real shit like drug dealing and gun violence. You can't condescendingly reject the lives of people in real shit. Can I be a teacher at Jefferson High and tell some youth, "Hey drug dealing is bad, its a crime, you are perpetuating a cycle of poverty in your community." How can he hear that bullshit? Do my kind and sincere words pay his bills? No..
Can I tell the youth packing a strap," hey, gun violence perpetuates itself. If you have a gun you will use a gun, stop having guns for the sake of peace." meanwhile, his homie just got shot in front of his momma's house on the block he grew up on? This is not a stereotype of a rap album, this shit happens to real people. On the block I played on since I was small, we got shot at on no less than three occasions, and my homie since 4th grade had his arm broken in three places by a bullet, ironically we were most upset over losing a bad ass Ralph Lauren shirt to the blood
on the block where my sisters aunt used to babysit me and her when she was a baby and I was in the 2nd-3rd grade, my best friend got shot in the cross fire five years ago, still has a bullet in his hip, ironic because we always called him Slug1..
I can understand why people in these communities can't hear that intellectual shit, because it doesn't stop bullets, it doesn't pay bills. But I am fully supporting of the conscious movement in hip hop, even all the gansta rappers are about positive shit now.. The way I see it, God is moving even through the street movement.