"Welcome to My Hood" (P&P vol.2)

Here we go again with the second installment in the Praise & Problems (P&P) series. Once again, P&P will review some of the most popular rap videos on youtube in an effort to celebrate the strengths of Hip-Hop and critique the weak spots in order to encourage greater growth in Hip-Hop and Hip-Hoppers. If you missed the first P&P installment, check it out here.

In our first P&P post we discussed a hood anthem featuring Rick Ross. I love hood anthems. But I mean, what true hip-hopper doesn't? So I figured why not take this second installment, and feature another hood anthem? And we have chosen none other than DJ Khaled's "Welcome to my Hood." Originally released in 2011, This song guest features some of the biggest names in southern Hip-Hop; T-Pain, Lil Wayne, Plies, and of course, Rick Ross. Boasting nearly 16 million views on youtube, and a remix with more than twice the rap stars and another 3 million views, I think it's safe to say, this one goes hard. Let's check the video again.

Praise: It's a Family Affair

Once again, we always wanna start with the positive. There's a few things I really like about this song and it's video. I think the thing I like most about this song is the hook. Welcome to my Hood!

Oppressed people must often band together to
meet the challenges of a depraved community.

I like how T-Pain says  it, "Everybody know everybody, and if I got it everybody got it." Maybe you're afraid when you drive around the hood because you don't know anybody, but in every hood I've ever lived in it's just like T-Pain said, "everybody know everybody." It's just like a big family. There''s often a strong sense of community and connectivity. I'll admit that ghetto communities have lost a lot of that familial flavor, but it still exists in many ways. That leads me to the other point. I spoke about this a little bit in the first P&P post and here it goes again. The poverty and degradation in the hood demands that oppressed people band together. So when he says, "if I got it everybody got it," it's a perfect description of how the hood pulls together when the need presents itself. 

My favorite verse (by far) is Plies'. when I'm listening to this dude describe the hood, I feel like I'm at home. Stealing cable, waiting out probation, garnished checks for back child support, eviction notices from shady property managers, and all the rest. As grimy and as detestable as it can get, it's home; and we learn to make due and appreciate the goodness that it does have to offer. I love the hood. Growing up in the hood demands a certain type of resiliency and toughness. I learned so many lessons from the street fights, poverty, drug abuse (S/O to Harry-O), and all the rest that I utilize regularly in my everyday life. It's long been said never judge a man until you walk a day in his shoes. Let's make those shoes air force ones and let's take that walk around my block in my hood.

Problems: Tell Me a Little More About Yourself
I'm not sure what Rick Ross and Lil Wayne were thinking. I suppose Lil Wayne was really excited about being out of prison because all he talked about was himself. I didn't get much about his hood.  Even less though is the content of Rozay's verse. I mean, rapping about one's hood/upbringing has got to be the easiest and most oft repeated themes in Hip-Hop. If you can't rap about your hood then I'm worried as to whether or not you can actually rap at all. However, it's not that they simply failed to rap about their hood, but rather that they talked so much about themselves.

Slick Rick shows proof that braggadocio and swag
isn't new, but rappers must pursue a greater good.

I've said it before, braggadocio is not new to Hip-Hop, but it often appears that the loudest voices in a lot of today's rap music are simply painting self portraits of their latest, wildest, most expensive exploits. Maybe it's the ultimate form of celebration having made it out the hood...then again, maybe not. Maybe it's just a sad display of new-school narcissism.  Maybe that's why more people don't give back to the hood. They have no intention of coming back to develop the community, they just came back to stunt and shine.

Again, I love the hood. But, with all the challenges that we're facing, we've got to commit to community development, family enrichment, and education reform. Welcome to my hood, where everybody needs everybody, and if we get it everybody got it. We're all in this together. That's my prayer. Welcome to my hood!

The Voice of The Streets

In June of 2012 rapper Ice-T directed and produced
this documentary that featured numerous rap legends. 

The credits are rolling and I'm sittin here bobbin my head to Rakim's classic "Microphone Fiend." Of all the songs that could lace the credits of a documentary about rap music, this one is perfect. The beat has that smooth guitar riff and the bass line is bangin at the same time, but what's most recognizable is Rakim's rhythmic and melodic, yet powerful and bodacious flow. The beat is a classic, but his voice is iconic. The film is Ice-T's recent Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap.

As I watched and listened to the film, I couldn't help but be re-captivated by these guys that I once heralded as my heroes. I listened to the beats that I grew up hearing and recited the lyrics I was raised up repeating. I watched them talk of their favorite rap acts and rap lines and recite freestyles and old songs.  They talked about everything surrounding hip hop culture, but mainly the...Art of Rap...rhyming, writing lyrics, structuring songs, rhyme schemes, subject matter, artistic influences, and everything else that has to do with the skill that it takes to pick up a pen and a pad write some words down and then stand in front of mic and try to impress the crowd.  It's nothing I never heard before...not for real, but some of the details reminded me how gifted rappers actually are.

These guys are ghetto poets. Homegrown in the grimiest conditions, forged in the fires of life's harshest cruelties, and then having their artistic skin thickened and fortified by the fiercest competitors; all fighting for the same stage with limited limelight. Don't get it twisted, rappers are artists. Some of them so brilliant, you and I simpletons have a hard time understanding them. And most people are just too stuck up to believe that despite the fact their clothes are baggy and they talk with a slang that they have something meaningful and powerful to say.

It's sad and significant, but from Primo to Jay-Z, they all seem to agree the key to hip hop is understanding the language. And if you don't understand the language you're gonna be frustrated and lost. It's kinda like standing in the chinese restaurant and swearing that they're talking about you. Most people don't like it, simply because they don't understand what the emcee is saying. Sad but true. You're lost. Your loss. Hip-hoppers gain, because what hip-hoppers hear is...a voice.

And that's the theme that kept jumping out at me throughout the film. Rappers work hard to develop their voice. What separates them from the cacophony of competitive noise around them? What do they bring that is fresh and authentic? What do they do that no one else has done? What do they have to say that has not already been said? Is anybody listening? Is this thing on?

That's where rap gets real because before "The Message," "White Lines," "Fight the Power," "Straight Outta Compton," and so many others, no one was listening to us. They tried to exploit us and confine us to the cages of concrete housing projects and silence us with the sanctions of institutional oppressive systems. But rap music started rebelliously blasting on the airwaves, and before long the world could see how much beauty was being locked away in those concrete cages. The world could feel the pathos of the beat. Then the world began to hear the powerful poetry and the ethos of the urban streets and ghettos.

That's why I love rappers. They represent some of the best of what Cornel West (in his book Democracy Matters) calls the tragiocomic--the ability to take something terrible and make something beautiful with it. They took the harsh reality and depravity of the ghetto and made music with it. They made Something from Nothing and that something beautiful is (at least in part) The Art of Rap.