The Good Fight: May 5 2015
(A Rap album that I could play around my kids…and parents)
The first Rap records were family friendly, age-appropriate, play-at-birthday-parties-and-cookout type records. My mother could rap along to “Rapper’s Delight” (and considers Big Daddy Kane one of her favorite Rappers). The 90s rolled around and we wouldn’t dare play no Rap around our parents and when many of us had children, we wouldn’t play it around them either. Which is why I loved The Good Fight — I could play it freely.
Originally, I could play Rap on the living room stereo— me and my older brother Ade often did — and depending on the beat, my Mom would ask who it was. We would play it on our portable cassette players, play it outside. No one was offended.
My Dad, on the other hand, wasn’t having that. He hated that “hip hoppity bebop mess,” found the bass and lack of melody offensive, and was joined in that abhorrence by my Other Mother who didn’t even think it was appropriate to be played — especially not on Sunday.
Which presented a serious dilemma. Power 99 and Lady B’s Streetbeat aired on Sunday. So, we didn’t get to pick and choose the songs we wanted or didn’t want. We rewound a tape to the beginning, hit record, thirty minutes later, flipped the tape, repeat. Volume on zero.
First time I heard cursing in a Rap song was “the bitch was gone…” and “with your wrinkled pussy…” Yo. I could not play that full blast. By the time I graduated High School four years later, I couldn’t play nothing without headphones.
It got worst. People started getting stomped and killed on wax. Rappers were committing suicide at the end of their songs. Women were getting all types of abused. Children were kidnapped. Nose bones were rocked into brains. Nuns didn’t even get a pass…neither did Jesus.
No way in hell would I play this around my parents. I come from a generation that still had shame and wanted to be dignified. Even reading that last paragraph sounds like the words of a crazy person…and I ain’t even create em. But listening to, memorizing and repeating, ain’t too much better.
Think on how many murder scenes that you’ve been a witness to…on wax. Consider how many people you’ve heard rap themselves into the grave with substance abuse lyrics. Like food, we consume it. It becomes a part of our psyche — -trauma, we bask and wade in it.
When I had my youngest son, I was on a strict Debussy and Christian Atunde Adjuah diet. I may have listened to something else on my own, but if I was in the car with the children, that was what we listened to (or Stevie Wonder, everyone loves Stevie).
I can only listen to music that I know inside and out for so long. After awhile, it just becomes background noise and serves no purpose. I’d rather listen to Radiolab, Decode DC, Meet the Composer, or something; something that will have my mind working.
Which is why The Good Fight was a ‘god send.’ Up until that point I had been a casual listener to Oddisee’s music but as I sat in Cross County traffic, it occurred to me…I don’t think he cursed.
The next time I Metro North’d it to the city verified it. The dope beats and solid rhymes would have been enough — especially when he takes words out of my mouth like on “Contradiction” — but it’s clean?
I had to check iTunes to see if I made a mistake and accidentally downloaded the clean version. Nope. I had to be bugging. Looked up interviews to see if either he or a reviewer mentioned that oddity from Oddisee. Nope (Oddisee did speak on it later where he said that it makes economic sense to not record the same album twice and some other stuff).
Whatever the reason, it just reminded me of the old saying that only people who lack intelligence curse — that saying might be questionable— but what isn’t questionable is the fact that you can make an entertaining Rap album that ain’t all bubble gum and nostalgia without saying shit, fuck, damn, mothafucka, cocksucker or murder anyone.
And that…is why I love The Good Fight…and so do my children.
