It’s the elephant in the room that no one really wants to talk about, but it needs to be addressed. Is hip hop and hip hop culture’s embrace of democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama doing him more harm than good? To an extent, I say yes. To another extent, I say no.
Two legends in hip hop serve as good examples of both extremes (for me at least). Meet LL Cool J and Nas.
“He’s gonna win,” LL Cool J told MTV News matter of factly, as if the outcome of this fall’s presidential election were already a foregone conclusion. “We need to support Barack Obama and his quest for the Oval Office.”
The Queens-native has long been a crossover artist, making radio-friendly hits, even appearing on Sesame Street, but a temper tantrum with label Def Jam (and subsequent boss Jay-Z) and an artistic pairing with 50 Cent later, Cool J seems desperate, frustrated, and a tad militant. Militant hip-hoppers scare middle Americans teetering between the donkey and the elephant.
“I think Barack can help cure the country, not just [for] us blacks, but also with all Americans. I think there’s so much our president can do. [Obama] seems like a human being — I say that because a lot of presidents don’t seem like human beings, they seem like straight-up businessmen who care about nothing but the business,” said Nasir, one of 08’s more eyebrow-raising artists said. Having taken a bit of the “chill out homes” medicine, he went from tightening the fist, putting forth an album concept stirring the Don Imus pot, to loosening the fist and releasing a lot of racially non-descript and intellectually-giddy statements–surprisingly the less threatening.
Proposed question being though, do the oversized, bedazzled, and airbrushed t-shirts do Obama more harm? While they certainly might make the more staunch supporters shake their head, this is America after-all, and B’Diddy is certainly one to support freedom of expression. From speaking in Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects to Marseille, France, could the Illinois senator have his brakes squeezed by his own home country’s swagger?
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DJ Sidekick
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