Word: hip-hop
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...profile of Kanye West brought kudos for his sampling of soulful artists as he spins the hip-hop nation away from gangsta rap. His statement, however, at a Hurricane Katrina fund raiser about President Bush and race--two weeks after he appeared on the cover--got a decidedly more mixed response...
Your cover story on hip-hop musician Kanye West [Aug. 29] was a brave and smart choice. You gave insights into who he is and, more important, why we should care. West does everything a true musical artist should do: write, produce and perform. He not only employs the traditional hip-hop technique of sampling but also uses samples of influential artists like Nina Simone, Shirley Bassey, Marvin Gaye and Luther Vandross. West's songs pay homage to the origins of hip-hop and give today's generation a chance to hear legendary musicians...
...Nehisi Paul Coates off base and offensive in his piece about his disenchantment with black music, "Black Guy, White Music" [Aug. 22]. To suggest that an entire genre of music has not grown and evolved just as its listeners have is simply uneducated. There is more to hip-hop than the mainstream media choose to embrace. There is a whole world of music, from rapper Talib Kweli to hip-hop poet and singer Saul Williams, that isn't a painful "audio beat down." I have a hard time with labels like black music and white music. Why can't people...
Coates' Essay hit home with me. I am a 37-year-old black man born and raised in New York City. I grew up listening to R&B and of course hip-hop. But as the years passed, I too began listening to "white music." Let's be real: How many times must you hear lyrics about your hot car, how you degrade your (black) women, how you will mess someone up if he comes at you and your bling-bling a certain way? Sad to say, those repetitive strains are in R&B and rap music. I love Gavin...
...former Black Panther who is now a Christian marriage counselor), West went to good schools, received art and music lessons and, when he was 10, spent a year in Nanjing, China, where his mother was a visiting professor. Like many suburban kids, he developed a passion for hip-hop that was only enhanced by his awareness that the genre often romanticized bad behavior. His mother did not exactly approve; when West went to concerts, even in his late teens, she often followed. "He maybe doesn't know this," says Donda West, "but I was at a lot of those shows...