Hate is a bold word. As far back as I can remember, everyone and everything I’ve hated, I wanted dead. I spent hours thinking about how great it would feel to heat some Jiffy Pop, sit back in a recliner and watch people I hate hemorrhage slowly right in front of me: The cop who beat me up when I was 15 years old; my boss from an old summer job who knowingly exposed me to dangerous working conditions. Those two guys I would shoot in the face if I could pay a yearly $15 death maintenance fee and serve no jail time. That’s Brita-pure, Grade A hate. I have a difficult time treating general dislike or jealousy as hatred.
The irony of the word is none other than Generation X coined it, the same black sheep generation that remembers the dreaded equivalent of being a modern day “hater” from childhood, having the “cooties.” Cootie ostracism was real—it lasted for what felt like weeks before you passed them on to someone else. And being crowned “hater” is more than a nasty form of the cooties—it’s a schism that alienated the same people rap music was created to empower and it provided a diversion from addressing a greater set of issues.
The core of Generation X (and the main participants in rap’s lauded “golden era”) can pick up a family photo album and see their parents in the late 60s displaying anti-establishment sentiments in some way: Raising a fist in the air, growing their hair out, supporting their favorite athletes like Muhammad Ali, Curt Flood, John Carlos and Tommie Smith who jeopardized their professional achievements to make a point. Voicing discontent or disagreement with something was instinctive. But then something happened, which was best verbalized by Clarence Williams III in the 1989 film, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka:
“They got government jobs. The brothers weren’t maaaad anymore!”
Afros got cut, outrage didn’t make it past the mailroom and most Baby Boomers either climbed on board or succumbed to the residual damage of the 70s and the greed of Reaganomics. Our parents were such suckers. But we weren’t goin’ out like that. Rap spawned from virtually nothing if you exclude Boomer apathy and the class divide that cordoned its creators off from the rest of society. It was an exclusive club for inner-city youth, a security cam placed in the world of the underclass. One way something so geared to the poor can cross the town’s dividing line and aggravate the rich is when it engages in “hating.” And despite the breadth and variety of rap during it’s most celebrated time frame (at least according to those between the ages of 32 and 48), the “hater” element of rap is what finally put it on the news, in suburban living rooms as an unwanted houseguest and at the center of political agendas by the time the late 1980s rolled around. The original act of “hating” made rap a force to be reckoned with by all.
“Hating” served a purpose in rap the same twisted way crime serves a purpose in a small town. Without some crime, cops would be unemployed (and without a doubt, pursuing rap careers) and people would be oblivious to the ways of the cold world at large, eventually becoming shell-shocked when they enter it. “Haters” made us uncomfortable. They were there to remind you that not everyone would appreciate or agree with what you’ve got cooking. “Hating” proved someone somewhere had a pulse, an opinion and the cojones to voice it.
Chuck D “hated” on Elvis; N.W.A and Ice-T “hated” on the police; 2 Live Crew “hated” on specific politicians; Willie D “hated” on Rodney King; Tim Dog “hated” on an entire city; KRS-One “hated” on Richard Nixon, finding joy in his death. Everyone “hated” on President Bush, including Paris, who tried to ambush him on wax. Rodney King, Eazy-E, Bob Martinez, Elvis Presley and George Bush, Sr. span the chart when it comes to class and race, but that was the point. Be rich. Be another black man. Be from the hood. Be powerful and well-educated. Be gay, straight or bi-sexual. Run the whole fucking country or get your ass beat on videotape in front of it. When it came to rap, nobody was safe. Few things in life have brought me the excitement that realizing rap had no get out of jail free cards available did. After a 20-year lull in “fuck you” sentiments, rap and Generation X revived a raw form of megaphone awareness that was dormant in the disco ball-laden late 70s and hair product-soaked early 80s. But just as shit began to get interesting with the likes of Time Warner succumbing the pressure of Ice-T’s “Cop Killer” controversy and the role rap played in political campaigns from 1991 to 1993, the shiny suit era put the brakes on it all.
Don’t get mad. Get money!
By the mid-90s, it was no longer a question of rappers “hating” on rich white men with big houses and middle class black preachers with steamrollers. “Hating” took on an entirely new meaning—it became the main weapon in rap’s class-fueled civil war. It was fairly obvious that all the tension, rage and rebellion that encapsulated rap between 1988 and 1993 drowned in a bottle of Cristal by 1996, which was a strange year to be a rap-raised kid in college. With the gratuitous bottle popping, flossing and calling a Ph.D. “a player hating degree,” how could I really focus on buying books and shit? If you weren’t getting money or had anything but a five star review for Ma$e’s Harlem World or Puffy’s No Way Out albums, the Bad Boy contingent made you feel like a bitter, broke hater if you lived in New York. It was such a bizarre sentiment coming from flossy, bossy people who a decade later could no longer afford to make rent in their own neighborhoods and were pushed out in favor of a cozy little café erected for the comfort of Midwest transplants. The “hater” sentiment in rap’s class war is the disease that destroyed its most valuable assets: the unpopular opinion and the idea that life ain’t sweet for an entire class of people. With “hater” rules as they exist, the class of people rap was designed to lend a soundboard is completely mute.
There were glimmers of hope during the shiny suit era: Newcomer Canibus went after a much richer and more established LL Cool J; Hot 97 gave the neophyte a platform. A few years down the line, a young 50 Cent, fresh off being ambushed, blacklisted and forgotten, declared war on everyone and taunted rappers multiple tax brackets higher than him over their own beats. And it provided rap a set of balls that I hadn’t seen on a major scale in years. But that wasn’t a foreshadowing of the resurgence of the opinion in rap music, nor a return to the “hater” being nothing more than an opinionated motherfucker with a set of balls. Nope. Clubber Lang training in a dingy basement with a boulder on his shoulder was nearly extinct, so now Rocky was allowed to enjoy the festivities without anyone trying to bag Adrienne right in front of his face. Rich rappers not only were becoming financially secure, but they were safe from any dissonance rumbling in the waters from which they came. The mid to late aughts rolled around; there was never a cyclical return of the “fuck you, you, you, him, her and whatever you’ve got in the bank” that existed in 1969 and 1989. It’s not coming back, either. And that’s the fault of us approaching and just past 40, for allowing rap to become an oligarchy run by some of the most indifferent entertainers we’ve ever seen, completely unchecked. We value artist’s legacies, discographies and brands, but don’t want to uphold the principles these artists were groomed under when they place their stupidity on a platform, then hide behind their net worth. We’ve allowed the rap class division to grant immunity to issues that need addressing and rap personalities who need to be addressed. Because you can be labeled anything in 2014, but as long as it’s not a “hater,” you’ll live to argue another day.
Our Childhood Heroes Are Now Rich… and Above It All
Since I began to pursue and participate in rap in 1991, I understood that regardless of how much money I made or what my position in the music industry would be, I had a duty to call out what I felt was bullshit, whether by serious critique or lampoonery. Participation in rap was a dirty job, but the dirt was one of its greatest attractions. That’s what I assumed from my education of listening to just about every rap album released between 1988 and 1993. Times done changed, but Generation X’s rap fans were reared with such strong DNA that it’s an utter shock to see its members remain so silent. So when Jay-Z declines to comment on a dangerous race-class situation at a company he’s in bed with (Barney’s) or Russell Simmons solicits tips on exorcising the need for money from your life on Twitter (from the strong wi-fi connection at his mansion in The Hamptons), I instinctively react like like I’m s’posed to: with zero regard for bank accounts. Both men have made enough money to fill up the seat of J-Lo’s pants and been involved with great things musically, but when do you finally have enough “fuck you” money to start saying “fuck you” to people who need to hear it? “Hater” rules mean because all Russell Simmons did in his prime at Def Jam, Kimora Lee’s legs and his net worth, no rappers I know of besides Professor Griff put a fucking target on his head for endorsing a Harriet Tubman sex tape. “Hater” rules also let headphone guru, Dr. Dre, catch zero dissonance for being part of a joint letter that requests his work not be sampled, according to Billboard Magazine. The king of P-Funk replays and liberal Leon Haywood lifts doesn’t want to be sampled? Get the whole entire fuck outta here.
But it’s overwhelmingly bizarre to be attacked on Twitter by someone in my own tax bracket for critiquing the actions or words of someone who could match both our yearly salaries in three hours. It’s also strange to note that so few people born in the 70s find anything wrong with the aforementioned situations and feign ignorance to the tune of “they’re rich, fuck it!” But strangest of all is if the L.A. Clippers simply reversed their warm-ups and proceeded to play a game for an overtly racist owner 24 years ago, the man responsible for Are We There Yet? would probably cut a Clipper diss record and perform it at the Staples Center at half time in a Bitch Killa t-shirt.
Generational differences are natural and healthy. A 14-year-old kid in 2014 should not be like his equivalent from 1991. Wear your skinny jeans and dance at 25 BPM to molly rap, that’s not for me to judge. But utter indifference to what’s going on is not healthy, regardless of generation. Speaking with young adults regularly helps keep me in tune with where things are.
Why get mad when you can get money instead?
Instead of dissing that person, focus on your endorsements.
I’ve heard that a lot. While very adult-like, mature and diplomatic in theory, fuck that shit. It defies what made rap such a respectable force for many years. Even those who hated rap respected it enough to use it for target practice in the media. The firecracker opinion from the successful rap star is so obsolete that rap doesn’t even scare anyone anymore. Say it aloud: “Rap is not scary music.” Like, it doesn’t give rich white people, police chiefs and conservative black politicians nightmares. Daytime talk show hosts invite rappers to be guests and the vibe is positive and jovial the entire fucking time. Oh my God. Let that sink in. I feel like Ricky Baker was just shot in that alley and I’m bringing his bloody corpse back to mama.
As for rap’s internal affairs, nobody entered rap unchecked at one point in time. Even those who were established had to constantly jockey for respect regardless of record sales. That’s why there was something exciting about envisioning LL Cool J cashing checks from Deep Blue Sea at the bank, then heading to the studio to rip Wyclef a brand new asshole on “Rasta Imposter,” a white label diss that quietly ranks with “Jack the Ripper” and “To Da Break Of Dawn” in potency. Today, there’s something exciting about seeing Chuck D use social media as a platform to address issues that make people uncomfortable, but it’s odd to see so many people bring money (and the cloudy concept of music industry “relevance”) into the equation when it has nothing to do with the points being made. Some disagree with comments on Lord Jamar’s Twitter feed and they have a right to, but the fact that his outspoken nature is a shock to anyone is proof of how far in the rear view mirror a man with an opinion and the balls to voice it is in 2014. If that weren’t the case, deleted tweets and half-baked apologies wouldn’t be at an all-time high.
Like the outspokenness of prior generations, any spurts of expression or “hating” done in current times will quickly be silenced by money, the threat of losing it or accusations of not having enough of it. That has led us to a casually disinterested, stylishly aloof and coolly indifferent general outlook where we give everything in life a three-mic rating because we’re scared of giving otherwise. Anything more is dick-riding. Anything less is “hating.”
The music business in 2014 has the worst case of Stockholm syndrome I’ve ever seen. Our opinions have all been ambushed with tranquilizer darts. I mean, when a 23-year-old in customer service making $21,000 a year will hop on Twitter to defend a millionaire from “hater” artists making $50,000 a year who take swipes at said millionaire, everything is officially beyond repair. Maybe when the customer service rep realizes his career will cap out at $40,000, the “hater” artist one day asks him for a job because his shit dried up and the millionaire gets a stripper pregnant and goes flat broke, we’ll all have the same net worth and diss each other equally. So start “hating” on things again. Anger is a human emotion; it’s perfectly all right to be a “mad rapper.” If you’re not sending Keisha and The Duh-Duh man to someone’s crib with AK-47s, then you’re not hating on them. It’s just your opinion.
Epilogue: “Mad Rap”
I recorded this song, “Mad Rap,” over the summer—long before I wrote this piece. The disappearance of angry, opinionated, incendiary rap music and the demonization of the “mad rapper”—which effectively lumped hostility and frustration in with jealousy as a single emotion—in the late 90s made albums like Ice Cube’s Death Certificate, Da Lench Mob’s Guerrillas In the Mist and Onyx’s All We Got Iz Us obsolete. The indifference that wiped out that ethos has baffled me for years, considering the current state of affairs. There’s plenty to be mad about and plenty of people to call out, so I wrote a song about it. I released it on 7-inch vinyl and digitally two days ago.
Illustrations by J.J. McCullough
Follow J-Zone on Twitter @JZoneDontTweet.
Don’t miss a beat! Follow Cuepoint: Twitter | Facebook
