Dr Boyce Watkins and Michael Eric Dyson debate hip-hop at Brown University

good afternoon and welcome to the Janice Forms third lecture series event of the year hip hop featuring dr. Michael Eric Dyson and dr. Boyce Watkins my name is Denise Dharma I am one of the co-directors of the Janice forum a group of undergraduates dedicated to promoting open honest and civil discourse about topics important to students and to citizens in our community I would like to take this moment to thank a few people who made this particular Electra possible first the Janice foreign steering committee composed of representatives from various campus political organizations who in the long tradition of brown students taking ownership of their education --zz devised this lecture the prompt chose the speakers and helped make this all happen and of course the political theory project for whose resources advise and trust we are always grateful in addition I'd like to welcome our guests from Miami University and the distinguished High School debaters from the Rhode Islander urban debate league who are here to join our conversation today and all of you of course so let's move to the topic at hand hip-hop we're going to be hearing from dr. Watkins first he'll speak for 20 to 25 minutes and then dr. Dyson will do the same and then there will be a extended Q&A period for all of you to engage and really hold their feet to the fire so I know we're all looking forward to that briefly let me introduce the speakers dr. Watkins is a scholar in residence at Syracuse University founder of your black WorldCom and the author of several books including I cannot read my own handwriting everything you ever wanted to know about college I got for minority students and what if George W Bush was a black man dr. Michael Eric Dyson is a professor of sociology at Georgetown and also the author of several books including come hell or high water Hurricane Katrina and the color of disaster and he recently edited a book called born to use Mike's reading nas's Illmatic please join me in welcoming dr. Watkins what's happening Brown University how are we today I'm pretty pumped to be here you know the weather is nice I'm from Syracuse where it snows in your living room and you know it's it's been real interesting talking to the students here and I'm excited about the fact that you are excited about this topic because this topic is very important to me I I know it's very important to my brother Professor Dyson who I have a lot of respect for and I will say this to the day that I died that actually the reason that I became a public intellectual was because of him I saw this man on TV in 1997 and I said yo that's what's up I want to do that so without him I wouldn't be standing here I'd be standing somewhere else so what do we start when we talk about hip-hop how do we even begin this conversation well at first I have to start off by making a confession I have a confession I love hip-hop music now I'm gonna talk about old school stuff I'm not talking about just you know the hill the hop the hibbity hibbity no no I'm talk about new stuff yo t is my favorite artists not just at this time but of all time yeah I know it's lyrics me and my kids we sit in the car we we start you know we just start busting and be like you know rarely I my element barely out together with one foot out and one foot in the challenge in this fellas get like we do all of that right listen let's settle this be clear I can fall back seven years still in 81 ahead of me like I know the lyrics right so so really to to confront hip hop to really talk about what's going on in hip hop it's kind of an awkward kind of conversation it's sort of like you know telling your brother that he's had too much to drink and that he doesn't need to get behind the wheel or talking to a relative about a drug addiction that is causing them to make decisions that are not good for themselves or their family and so it hurt it's real hard it's real hard to talk about it because when you talk about it you get attacked you get criticized when when you critique on any level people say over you're being too serious here you're going too far and the thing about it though the thing that's very interesting is that you can't live in the space that we live you can't see the things that we see you can't see the things that that I've seen in the hood on a regular basis and not understand the impact that artists irresponsibility is having on young kids when when the little boy that that my daughter babysits got shot in the head by a young thug I thought about the influence of the culture and what that did to create the this this person who had transformed himself into a monster that society had turned into a monster and of course it's not just the music we know that right we know that there are a myriad of sociological systemic factors that played a role in the creation of this this person that shot a three-year-old in the head but at the same time you have to confront that you can't just sit back and sort of say well it is what it is you can't listen to an artist like little Wayne and just say now it's just music it's just entertainment no that'sthat's not what it is it's it's a lifestyle it's marketing a product yeah I'm a Business School professor we know all about marketing and getting people to to to recite mantras and that that's that sink into their subconscious in fact little Wayne I little Wayne is another interesting cat because because see I hate him because I love him I hate him because his music is so good that you can't help but to like it you know in fact I hate him for the same reason that Eddie long used to talk about gay people because he liked gay people well you know it's the same way you know I like little Wayne's music I know the lyrics not listening to them I've analyzed them and in fact little Wayne is probably the most powerful mega pastor in America he's just preaching the gospel of ignorance and self-destruction and kids are eating it up when he raps about killing little babies and walking into your house and shooting your grandmother up and saying things that are just blatantly irresponsible people that up little kids are hearing this they're absorbing these messages in fact I remember hearing a song where he talked about how he could take your girl and make up I can make her kill for me and still for me and for me and nut for me and then I'll murder that and send her body back to yo ass that's what he said now excuse my French but I'm repeating what these artists are saying because I think we need to start from the foundation of truth we can't talk about this and sugarcoat it it's real when we hear Tyler the Creator the artist who said that I'll rape a pregnant and tell my friends I had a threesome what you're seeing is artists testing the limits they're seeing how far they can go they're saying wow people people the more that them the more outrageous I get the more they love what I say you hear Wiz Khalifa just casually on 106 & Park on B et a show that markets to teenagers singing a song about how he sloppy drunk looking for the keys to his car you see too short on the cover of double-xl magazine too shorts and OG he's old like me and I've seen his music evolved for many many years and i'ma tell you this he don't need to be given fatherly advice but that's what he was doing on double-xl they gave fatherly advice from too short on how you can is a 14 year old boy go past trying to get kisses from girls you get straight to the hole if you push up against the wall and put your hand down to pants and these guys I'm mentoring the young artists that are coming along too short is on the Wiz Kalifa track that was performed on bt 106 in part so how can you sit and watch all of this as a black man and not stand up and say something and deal with this when you look at artists and this is what what's really amazing to me about hip hop again hip hop I see this also through the lens as a a businessman right as a Business School professor and I see the genius of many of these artists I see 50 cent who is a brilliant brilliant businessman and what's so interesting is I remember one time 50 cent gave an interview with The New Yorker and it was it was so brilliant he talked about stocks and bonds and portfolios and asset occasion and branding and and all these other things that he had to do to become a successful businessman but then he goes over to double XL and doesn't interview it's all about flossing and stunting in and and wearing diamonds and and how many women he's got and how big his gun isn't all this ignorant crap so I thought this is interesting when he's talking to the rest of America he's talking about things that are productive that will lead him to be successful but when he comes to us he gives us the crap just like slavery some people ate the good food black people were fed the scraps and the thing is that as a professor we understand what how education kind of works and one of the things I think is so true and if you don't understand this I hope you know this after you walk out of here that most of the education that you receive during college is going to happen outside the classroom you see the classroom sort of gets you started it teaches you how to think but it doesn't give you everything you need in order to survive in this world so most of your education happens outside the classroom and artists are also professors just like little Wayne's Amega past and I was sitting there thinking I was like okay if I'm a little kid what what lessons am I getting from my professors that I'm hearing on the radio every day okay number one I'm hearing that I want to consume drugs and alcohol as much as possible I want to stay high and drunk because that that's cool like that uh that like that song that Nate Dogg gave back in the day at the end where he says hey hey hey hey smoke weed everyday' like it's a damn public service announcement like like drink your milk everyday smoke your weed everyday a reefer a day will keep the doctor away what's another lesson always keep your gun on your hip always stay strapped and never be afraid to use your gun especially if you're trying to kill another black man what's another lesson Oh have sex with everything that moves now we're not going to rap about wearing condoms but we'll wrap all day about how many holes I get what else let's see you another lesson well be ignorant and be proud of it education is for suckers what you doing acting white trying to read and stuff it's wrong with you and then Oh with money don't be stupid and it's even invest your money now don't don't do that now you you want to go to the club and pop bottles and and throw your money in the air and buy a 50 pound diamond-encrusted necklace shaped like Mickey Mouse so you can just lost all your friends I got I saw a cover on TMZ just two days ago with the rapper fabulous saying that he spent forty five thousand dollars the night before in a nightclub poppin bottles I said that's stupid that's not something that you should be proud of I said I hope he saves all that liquor because he's going to need to drink his problems away when his dumb ass goes broke number six what's the next lesson prison prisons nothing to be ashamed of it actually prison is a badge of honor you go to prison that's how you keep it rare what else oh and this is important this isn't what you can't forget this lesson you have to make sure you absorb this never under any circumstances ever show any respect whatsoever toward women especially black women you can use every word that you want to describe women but you can't say anything respectful those are the lessons that you get on the radio every day something to your brain that you're repeating is mantras on a regular basis and nobody says anything about it that's what these kids are absorbing so when you look at this and you see these messages can you really disconnect the messages that are being absorbed on a regular basis in pop culture by young people young adults etc can you disconnect that from rising HIV rates in the black community can you disconnect that from the worsening graduation rates the fact that handgun violence is the leading cause of death for black men in America and most of the time that death that murder occurs at the hands of another black man can you disconnect that from the growth in mass incarceration because I'll tell you that's the biggest mistake that any person in America can make black white or otherwise is to walk away from education but when I go into the hood when I go to the school that my adopted kids went to and I'm trying to talk to kids about this it's like talking to a brick wall because the the good pastor little wayne has already sunk his message deeply into the minds of these kids so they have to be deprogrammed in a lot of cases it does not work because basically every single day they've been fed a precise formula of self-destruction they've been taught everything they need to know to destroy themselves now I'm going to go into something that I noticed we got a mixed audience here and I want to I want to try to see if I can help you out a little bit I'm going to teach you something about about black people we're gonna call this black people 101 now I've been a black man for quite a while now and it's working out pretty good so I'm gonna stick with it when you which I see that there are students who do is when you reach outside of other cultures and you try to learn about other people namely black people's Black History Month we're gonna talk about black people if you want to learn about black people here's what you should not do here is the way you do not want to learn about black people number one you never want to learn about black people from what you see on TV especially be et because we can't claim those black people they from another planet some of them they they were planted by the Illuminati another way you do not want to learn about black people is you don't want to talk to your one black friend and ask every question in the history of all Negro kind from that one friend there is no one person that represents all the black America there's 36 million of us and so there's not one elected official that represents us all I don't care what Al Sharpton tells you because you see the thing is that if you look at media you think that every black kid grows up singing dancing rapping acting blinking ball and floss and shine and stunting or trying to make it rain on somebody and I mean what you'll be really even goes to the top even the president and the first lady are on TV singing and dancing every week and that trips me out of like is Obama trying to get a record deal like what the deal here I mean have you ever think about this have you ever seen any politician singing dance that much I'm not hating on the president but damn come on now what's the deal so these media images are not accurate reflections of who we are where every bit of said versus everybody else and I think most intelligent people understand that and if you don't understand it try to understand it a little more so when you talk about this issue and you talk about what's going on with hip-hop and we talk about the fact that something needs to change it doesn't mean the Java needs to be killed it doesn't mean that artists need to change who they are but it does mean that maybe they need to slow their roll and take some accountability for some of the things that they say who do you who do you who do you approach who do you blame if you want to call it blaming I don't like to use that word because it sound like we're attacking the artist and I'm not saying that but who did you reach out to one somebody do reach out to that 16 year old artist was getting his first big break that's not going to work you look at soldier boy who's a young artist who was effectively on TV thanking slave masters for bringing him to the United States because without slave masters and I quote I would not have all this ice so he said Big Ups to the slave masters do you blame the media outlets do you look at B et for example which I have passionately and and I think I believe accurately referred to them as the new KKK do you reach out to be et and and challenge them and say okay look we know that everybody likes some of these artists like little Wayne and Wiz Khalifa I don't like to pick on little Wayne but you know in China they say that the fattest pig always gets slaughtered so so basically maybe that's why I sound like such a hater on little Wayne and I'm just jealous because all the girls like him and the girls never liked me when I was young but do you challenge be et and say to them look you had your awards show this year and you gave more Award nominations to little Wayne than any other artist that you had on the document' so what message are you sending to the community into the public when do that what behavior are you reinforcing well effectively you're saying to every wannabe artist out here every executive who's trying to sell records that look if you do what he does we're going to reward you do more than that don't just do what he does do more of it because we like that kind of stuff and this guy in his last album is talking about killing little babies and old women and raping and murdering women all these other things that a drug addict might say on a record and you're not holding him accountable at all now fine if you want to acknowledge him as a celebrity absolutely if you want to say he's a great artist fine but do you have to exalt him as the example of what every artist should want to be and so the analogy would be et in the KKK with it was extreme I mean I got some people that didn't like what I had to say but I said look if I could name one thing that would make black him that would approve black America the most and I had a choice between getting rid of the KKK and getting rid of be et getting rid of be et would take the cake so because the fact is this there's some twelve-year-old kid out there right now who has a future that could be anything we want it to be he's innocent he's a good kid he's doing what he's supposed to do he wants to be somebody in this world but right now that kid is putting down his textbook and flipping on the BT Awards he sees little Wayne being honored by the adults around him and he sees him being rewarded for a certain kind of behavior he sees that little Wayne has money he doesn't have money little Wayne gets attention women love Lil Wayne so why wouldn't he want to emulate that behavior why wouldn't you want to attend the Church of little Wayne and then seven eight years down the road when he shot another black man in the head or he's headed to prison or he's uneducated or he's infected many of his hoes with HIV that blood is on your hands you are responsible for this you played a role in creating this person who has now turned himself into a menace to society because you see the thing about racism that's interesting to me is that racism is actually most effective when the racist has black skin so racism runs across the board it comes from black and white people and people of all ethnicities now who else can you look at obviously you have to go to the record labels right you know when when I grew up and I'll tell you this is this is something that I think helps put this in context my mother was young when she gave birth to me my mother was so young I think she and I went to elementary school together so she was this young 16 year old single mother and I stumbled through school I was a horrible student I never would have gotten admitted to Brown it wouldn't have happened and I guess but I got to college I went to college don't have anywhere else to go and they said well what do you want to study I said well I don't know well what's financal they said well that's money I said okay I want to study that because I figured about study money learned about money somebody would pay me money to talk about money so I kept studying money I got my PhD in finance and and I learned capitalism I know capitalism better than a man knows his ex-wife I know how capitalism works I know the capitalism is powerful it's powerful like fire fire can either cook your food and keep you warm or it can burn you and your family alive or like a drug a drug can can heal you and make you feel better or it can turn you into an addict I know the capitalism is a hungry beast with an insatiable appetite it's never satisfied with how much money you made last quarter because the focal point is always growth if you're not growing what have you done for me lately does not matter it's only what you're doing for me right now that's how capitalism works it never ever stops eating so this capitalist beast that is driving the commercialized weaponized brainwashing of black children all across America obviously has to be dealt with it obviously sees black America is kind of collateral damage I don't think that they get up wanting to destroy the lives of so many these are children I don't think that's the goal their goal is to make money if they could do it without destroying the children then they would probably do that but in a way you could almost compare it to toxic waste this transaction is happening where people are selling hip hop to each other and and the waste is kind of dropping on our kids our kids aren't always the ones that go out and buy the records and but they're the ones who absorb the messages they're the ones who absorb the role models because they don't have a multitude of role models to choose from when they turn on the TV and then you also have to look at capitalism because it's the capitalist executive who decides that we're going to pick the most ignorant person in the room and give them the biggest microphone and then when when Tyrone makes that record and he wants to say something positive no we tell him no just throw in a few more and hoes and and talk about being from the hood and shooting people and and that'll sell records the fact of the matter is that we know that this genre has to be confronted if you have the have the interesting experience of being a black male in America you understand the impact of these images you understand the dehumanization of both black men and black women that comes from the genre the fact that people somehow believe that black men that we love our children less than other people that we are a little less hard-working that we have an appetite for criminal behavior or that we love being uneducated now you can't talk about hip-hop without talking about all the systemic factors that come into play you have to talk about what we have done as a society when it comes to the prison industrial complex where we incarcerate five point five times more black men that South Africa did during the height of apartheid you have to talk about dysfunctional school systems where kids are put in special education I understand this because I was one of those kids your blackboard you go in and you do something a teacher doesn't like and next thing you know they they they show your mother a fancy chart that says that somehow your son is not as smart as the other kids that's what my mother went through because she was a poor single mother who couldn't necessarily fight the system we also know that art imitates life if you ask any rapper they're going to say well yo man look I just rap about what I see in the hood and I understand that I respect that fine whatever but the problem though is that art in life our recursive process our imitates life life imitates art when I look in the mirror am I am i mimicking the person in the mirror or is the person in the mirror mimicking me so when you get into this whole chicken or egg conversation and debate we cannot leave the core issue the core issue is that the problem has to be addressed it is a social virus it is a set of toxins that are entirely unacceptable and if you want to know the way to confront this problem obviously it doesn't start with the artists it doesn't just stop with the media outlets it doesn't just stop with the corporate executives you have to attack all three in fact this reminds me so much of the 19th century when you had a huge opium problem in China and it was an interesting relationship because you had the British making lots of money selling opium to the Chinese and then you have the Chinese addicts who were happy to buy the opium but then you have the people who said no we're going to burn down the opium houses and we don't care what either of you think and a war ensued because of that but as a result China became the powerhouse that it is today that there had not happened then China would never have risen to what it is right now so this whole idea that certain people should be held accountable because they're just following orders I don't buy that Nazi soldiers were just following orders in the Penn State sex scandal people were just following orders if you go back to slavery and and there's a revolt on the plantation the the slave standing in front of the Masters house trying to protect the massa from the revolt was just following orders but unfortunately you had to say to that slave look we don't want to hurt you you need to move and if you don't move we're going to have to take you out for the greater good and the same thing is true for these hip-hop artists because the same people that don't want to take accountability for their words are glad to take the rewards and act ladies that come with those words they are paid millions of dollars for those words so how can you expect to be rewarded for something when you are not willing to be accountable for the thing for what you're being rewarded I mean at that point you start sounding like a Wall Street banker that's why our economy screwed up it's because on Wall Street you had a mentality that says look we can take all these risks and if it works out we get the reward but if it doesn't work out we're going to get bailed out heads I win tails you lose when I talk to my kids and and they want to be grown when it's time for them to make their own decisions they want to be adults they want to be independent but then when those decisions go wrong they're like oh well I'm just daddy's little girl no you're not you go you're going to handle that so for anybody who understands where I'm coming from anybody who agrees on this issue anybody who sees what I'm trying to say here and agrees with me that this problem has to be addressed I encourage you to never underestimate your power to make a difference you don't have to change the whole world that's a big job but you can certainly change your world you can certainly pass a message that will be empowering for people with the most inspirational example I can think of in hip-hop with those women down at Spelman College several years ago who told Nelly look you have a video man where you are swiping a credit card through a woman's butt that is so degrading that is so disrespectful and you are not going to bring that trash to our campus and you know what happened Nellie's crew buckled and they crawled away and they haven't swiped a credit card through a woman's butt sense so the fact of the matter is all of us have power on this issue and the reality is that hip-hop must turn the corner and it's up to us to make that happen thank you very much first of all I want to thank Brown University for inviting us here to this wonderful forum and to engage in a serious and civil dialogue about important matters that certainly have consequence in our national lives I taught here at Brown from 92 to 94 so this is a homecoming again for me and it's always good to be back here my very dear friend Ruth Simmons of course is the president here and I know she has announced that she is leaving and she is an incredible leader and a wonderful friend and I know you shall miss her tremendous brilliance here as well shout out my very dear friend Tricia Rose who teaches here at Brown you are most favored to have a woman of her brilliance in your midst and I know that she continues to speak intelligently to issues and matters like the one we address here today I do believe that the renowned and legendary critic Greg Tate is teaching a class here I don't know if mr. professor Tate is here today but a remarkable critic and a soulful scholar as well we were we being professor James Peterson and and I he's here he's a director of Africana Studies at Lehigh University a brilliant hip-hop scholar who could as easily speak about these issues as I can we were speaking today at the prison over here at the detention center for young people and ironically enough we were addressing these very same issues so I appreciate his presence here today to engage in conversation and finally professor Boyce Watkins is a real a real power and a real force and I must admit I turned to his website each morning to get my news I shouldn't I guess I should be saying I turn to MSNBC and I turned other places but I go to your black world and I figure out what's happening and he always has provocative insightful stuff that I didn't know about on that website and very smart and sharp analysis as you saw from his quite riveting presentation here today so it's an honor to be on the panel with a gifted scholar like him it would be hard to argue with anything he said to begin with the landscape as Professor Watkins has expressed it it's pretty bleak when we look at many of the problems that confront young people in this culture there is little denying that there is chaos at every turn and on top of that that the culture that has most symbolically gained visibility in American society in representation of young black people certainly reflects many of the problems that Professor Watkins spoke of so it would do no good to deny that the pathology the drudgery the misery the grief the angst the misogyny the sexism though he didn't mention that because we don't have time to mention everything the homophobia the class grievances and so many more issues are both consciously and unconsciously reflected within the realm of hip-hop culture so if the argument was going to be whether or not all the stuff that Professor Watkins so ably articulated and insightful II identified were absent from hip-hop the argument would end there there and more more than he and I can cumulatively Express here today but when we look at the question before us should hip-hop should artists be accountable for their words I think we can speak about accountability in very serious terms while acknowledging all of the critiques that Professor Watkins expressed here today and still not throw the baby out with the bathwater there is little question that de vicious misogyny and the virulent sexism and the incredibly hostile homophobia that we have come to hear in hip-hop continue nearly unabated in their lethal ferocity and in their vicious particularity when directed toward vulnerable bodies and vulnerable ears of young people young impressionable minds are being shaped by ideas and concepts that flow from within the realm of hip-hop culture and yet I would dare argue that where hip-hop not to exist all the problems that young black people in particular and young people more generally face would persist rates of HIV forms of gender depression vicious home the intransigent and recalcitrant prospect of women's rights being denied the arthritic refusal of our culture to acknowledge the worth of women the reason I know that would persist or at least I feel confident in saying so because all that stuff existed before hip hop ever came into existence there's little denying however simultaneously if we can make the argument that hip-hop is glamorized and glorified many of the problems to which Professor Watkins has pointed in others that we might also add to the list but to find a causal relationship between one and the other a kind of human causality between the existence of fact a and the existence of fact B is a bit more troubled and I think difficult where that to be the case if there were one to one correlation between phenomena such as artistic expression of an idea and its subsequent embrace in the culture and the particularly interesting ramifications to which we could point as a result of that then a whole bunch more people would be rich because the endless discussion of bling and hip-hop and materialism is there but most of those folks are just renting they don't own they rent in the cars they're renting the bling they're even renting for a time the women in the videos who appear there these are not their girlfriends this is not their bling and these ain't their cars so if the expression of correlation the human causality between fact a in fact B were to exist then we'd have to be more stringent in our philosophical argument about the relationship between hip-hop culture and the negative pathological expressions that we see is their glorification and glamorization without question are there some moments of cause a in particular species of negativity to which we could point that would suggest that their origin indicates that they did begin during the time of hip-hop's birth and its subsequent rise to popular expression perhaps so but for the deeply entrenched and profoundly rooted elements of social dysfunction to which we might point those have little to do in their origin with hip-hop culture though they must be addressed in a very comprehensive fashion as Professor Walken spoke about and it doesn't leave off the hook by the way the people who take advantage of those pathologies and those dysfunctions to make a living and I'm not just speaking about Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum or the Catholic Church or the Baptist Church or institutions of higher education all of which by the way participate with nearly palpable fury in the exploitation of and the gross misrepresentation of people of color women gays and lesbians and others now I am NOT trying to assert a an equality of expression nor a functional equivalence between the vicious mischaracterization of minorities within hip-hop sexual minorities ethnic minorities gender minorities within hip-hop and the manifestation of such traumas in the broader American landscape what I'm trying to suggest however is that the unyielding relationship the lock and key relationship of causality between one and the other has to be troubled it is not to avoid responsibility it is to assign the appropriate measure of responsibility and accountability to hip-hop artists who engage in their craft so very easy I can answer the question should artists be accountable for their words absolutely and not just hip-hop artists but all artists of course hip-hop has garnered such incredible controversy because of its hyper visibility and its hyper visibility is rooted in the suspicion and skepticism in America about the fundamental place and priority of black life to begin with our skepticism about the place and priority of black life to begin with and furthermore the status of African American intelligence and humanity in the face of a culture that has been fundamentally in Emeco and hostile to black humanity and intelligence long before hip-hop Snoop Dogg was not the reason that a lot of folk didn't think black folk were human little Wayne and I love Professor white kids brilliant engagement with little Wayne or with Soulja Boy bless his heart I mean there are magnitudes of difference however between Soulja Boy and little Wayne little Wayne is a rhetorical genius of incredible imaginative powers that doesn't mean that there's not pathology and dysfunction in the myths doesn't mean that they're not hostile expressions toward women and other vulnerable peoples that need to be articulated expressed identified and resistant but but to mistake little Wayne who moves like a silent G as in lasagna he says and the kind of incredible fertility of mind that gives rise to queries questions wordplay rhetorical facility verbal invention and intellectual creativity is a magnitude of difference than say Soulja Boy with Superman that ho I'd rather be underground pushing flowers than indepen Sheeran showers little Wayne says that is an interesting couplet because it gives rise to the post-industrial incarceration of African American and Latino men disproportionately the professor Watkins has spoken about that incarceration cannot in any stretch of the imagination be ascribed to the preoccupation within rap lyrics and the glorification of prison as the locust clashes classist locust classic is for the development the the primary spot for the development of black identity as the ideal spot within which blackness can be located maybe the argument should be the reason prison becomes such an imaginative spot within the context of African American rhetoric is because it has been thrust upon black men as an unavoidable feature of their existence so maybe the causality works in Reverse in a kind of continent since we make a virtue out of necessity making a virtue out of necessity means since it's going to happen anyway I might as well extract some good from the situation or as pee-wee Herman would say I meant to do that and so the preoccupation with prison the romantic and if you will idealize notions of prison certainly which are self-destructive certainly exacerbate already existing conditions pre-existing conditions that are fundamentally profoundly problematic and that should be resisted when they're glorification and glamorization is put forth within hip-hop as a normative status of behavior and belief ain't no question about that but it ain't started in hip-hop hip-hop is grappling with asbestos care as best it can the profound devaluing of black life that is manifest in a prison industrial complex that Professor Peterson died just witness up-close again and the private contracts that are deeply inscribed within the narratives of imprisonment for african-american and Latino people in this society the outsourcing of resources the outsourcing of labor the outsourcing of tremendous capital for the purposes of reinforcing hegemony and dominance over the lives of vulnerable black and Latino people read Michelle Alexander's book about the new Jim Crow for reference so should artists be accountable for the glamour and glory they'll end prison of course but to ask the question that way in a one-to-one relationship cut down on the number of references to prison in your lyrics misses the point begin to challenge the function and status of prison in the general existence of black people then perhaps the preoccupation with the glamour and glory lent to prison will subsequently diminish so the relationship there of causality is not one that is sparked by the assertion within hip-hop that prison is a good place to be we then began to be a bit more sophisticated looking at the causes that reinforced black vulnerability and imprisonment Latino vulnerability and imprisonment and how those are handled within the context of hip-hop culture and hip-hop by the way hasn't been simply about glamorizing and glorifying prison it's also been about pointing out the vicious consequences of police brutality the police coming straight from the underground a young got it bad cousin brown and not the other color so police think they have the authority the killer minority that because I'm not the one for a punk with the badge and the gun to be beaten on and thrown in jail we can go toe to toe in the middle of a sale with me cuz I'm a teenage with a little bit of gold in a pager searching my car looking for the product thinking every is selling narcotic though old late 80s Early 90s though recalling Jerry curls and LA Raider hats Oh Ice Cube your evolution has been remarkable in that particular Parikh opee that bass egde of Scripture within the larger Bible of hip-hop what we began to see of course is the demonization of young black vulnerable men the ways in which their responses can be measured as an index of that vulnerability and their refusal to lose all agency even if parts of that agency are expressed in self-destructive fashion and in ways that begin to demonize other young black men and so when we look at Prison Prison ain't being made worse because some rappers are talking about it as silly and idiotic at is in Ain and ill-intentioned as that may be and yes maybe for some who were vulnerable who will hear their favorite rapper talking about prison they may be inspired to believe that prison is the place that I think professor Watkins is absolutely right about and we must point this out to our children not by censoring the artists but by informing the listener so that the listener begins to make a choice with his or her pocketbook and ears I'm not going download that I'm not going buy that and when I hear that it's just nonsense or entertainment the same way we look at Scorsese or Schwarzenegger or Pacino say hello to my little friend deeply inscribed in the narratives of hip-hop culture why is it that film makers seem to have so much more grace and aplomb so much more rhetorical facility so much more artistic room to paint powerfully complex portraits of life that don't get charged with either nihilism on the one hand or a repudiation of the humanity of others while examining in toto the full sweep of social trauma to which ulnar Abul minorities are air how come they get a chance to do that a film is deeper than a three and a half minute song but songs are made on albums so when we see the Godfather in the opening lines I believe in America America has made my fortune and we see the story of a ethnic battle pitched against the context of American immigration policy and the way in which Eastern and Western European immigrants begin to redefine the context of American life which surely is the backdrop to the contemporary immigration debate when those immigrants are coming from Europe they're seen differently than when they're coming from Central and South America so one generation of immigrants are hating on another generation of immigrants as a side note no extra charge for that particular insight and so the kind of artistic license that a Scorcese has that a Francis Ford Coppola has that a variety of American and other directors have is the presumption of the presence of artistic merit to engage in complicated explorations of difficult questions with intelligence and so when I began by talking about the lack of respect for black intelligence that's one talking about because at the end of the day you lose faith in young black people to be able to tell complicated stories and engage in more than merely realistic narratives about reality what about the surrealism what about the parody what about the self parody what about what about the self critique what about the fantasy what about the perverse imaginings that are in American culture Hunter Thompson and the ability of Johnny Depp to engage in drug-addled fantasies that get played out as postmodern post bushwa preoccupations with the expansion of American identity through recreational drugs ah it sounds so beautiful as opposed to the pathology and nihilism of young black people who lack artistic merit sufficient enough to engage in the most profound reflections on identity now to be sure there are plenty of examples of the lack of that ain't nobody claim in that but it's true in country music - it's true in Opera what is opera some stuff in the language you don't understand about basically incest and murder I know it's a lot more complicated than that come todo you know but but the problem is that we do not presuppose the presence of sufficient artistic merit and intelligence and skill so that when I taught a class on JZ at Georgetown people X in me that's what black folk do X questions and we get it right it's not asked it's X we're trying to cut to the heart of the matter let me ask you a question which is why we go to the libary that's where the lies are buried how dare you suggest that jay-z can be taught with Shakespeare or Chaucer or Homer alright sorry you mad I just happen to think that's true and I got a lot of evidence in terms of the rhetorical facility in terms of the verbal invention in terms of the preoccupation with a certain conception of the self narrated against the backdrop of philosophical arguments that may be more technically Express elsewhere but that have poetic expression within the context of his own language take for instance let allow me to reintroduce myself my name is hold H to the O V now if you listen to that song it's all kind of philosophical arguments up in there you was who you was for you got here player you might change but that's just the top layer that's deep philosophical argument that some Derrida and Foucault meets up with Dubois II and conceptions of duality predicated upon a very sophisticated expression of a marci like Brooklyn centric perspective and and I ain't just making that up I'm saying read it for your damn self so I presuppose the existence of artistic merit so that I can engage in critique which is an appreciation for both the presence of edifying elements that identify jay-z and a long lineage of creators who have a certain pedigree and the ability to call into question certain elements that are lacking that other elements of his work suggests are present which therefore suggests that there is a fall-off or a lack or by reference to issues that professor Watkins has spoken about teen pregnancy and HIV and misogyny I mean is anything too short and snooper don't and too short is ridiculous the abominable snowman melting in the heat of his own contradiction I mean trying to teach folk on a double XL that is just beyond ridiculous but that's does not Desson artist who happens to be doing something but not in his song he's doing that on a website for which the editor was rightly held accountable and too short should have been shamed and he was and should be but nothing matches what our conversation in the political world has talked about women this political season nothing done within hip-hop can measure up against a bunch of all white guys in the Senate speaking about transvaginal amniocentesis sound waves and aspirin as a measure of birth control Jiminy Cricket the lethal intensity of patriarchy is precisely more powerful because it's nefarious ends are masked unlike with hip-hop who's vigilant ignorant is put on display for the world to see and the accountability must be self regulated as well as creating a community of interlocutors who engage in argument about the virtue of the art now I don't know about y'all but I have rarely seen an art form create so many communities of scholars critics haters naysayers and engage persons as hip-hop I mean people debate Mick Jagger they debate Brian Wilson and the beach vote the Beach Boys Bob Dylan certainly is getting treated by the Oxford professor of poetry but I mean everyday people an opinion about the answer my friend is blowing in the wind they should I have rarely seen the kind of vigorous engagement of the public about issues of critical importance and vital relevance to the lives of young people so in contrast to others who are worried I am encouraged by the fact that there's so much verbal visible audible in engagement with these ideas the moment are too short pops up people pounce the moment some vicious expression arises people are there to deconstruct demythologize and interrogate websites have proliferate proliferated young scholars who were children growing up under one Golden Age of hip-hop now command a presence on the web including Professor Watkins who respond immediately and so that responsibility is not seen in a vacuum that accountability is enforced by the pressures of discourse brought to bear upon the practices of people he mentioned the couple Nelly these are V the sisters at Spelman too short in regard to the outrage that poured forth and many other examples of course might be expressed at the end of the day hip-hop culture is a vibrant powerful commercially laced and laden form of expression that expresses the worst and the best of what it means to be a fragile human being in the process of existential evolution in a culture that both supports and subvert our fundamental humanity and identity and this is partly what it means to be black in the modern world is to both be the object of desire and derision simultaneously and so I think that artists should certainly be accountable words that a play to young kids parents should police them and artists themselves should be conscious of the consequence of their words but as James Baldwin said the burden of representation is especially acute on black people who are constantly in the air about our grievances because of the relative paucity of the flooding of the marketplace with our ideas in any way that might represent our control over them we get certain areas that are flooded big-time hip-hop and professor Watkins is right a lot of the stuff we hear is whack and ill-informed and has no ultimately redeeming value and let a lot of stuff is going on there folk ain't even listening to and especially the folk who say they don't want the negative don't support the positive if we can you know go by that bifurcated stratum I can't do that I think the bigger debate is between productive and non productive not positive versus negative because you see people whose moral policing is predicated upon narrow heteronormative values believe it's negative to talk about sexuality and being gay that's negative to evangelical Christians so you can never escape the conundrum of and the canard of positive versus negative I think that's narrow in dicey it's got to be about productive and non productive edifying and uplifting in the most powerful sense of that word not in one tailored toward the ethical demands of a narrow community and as I end them for me that accountability that artists should bear is apparent the first accountability is to make great art not to be concerned about whether you're offending somebody you offend me with mediocrity and whack a sickness the first accountable measure is the measure of artistic excellence in the service of the truth that you desire to serve and to amplify and then the accountability is toward communities of a response that embrace your art and sometimes artists must be accountable for challenging their listeners art is not meant to coddle you and make you feel good sometimes the purpose of art is to make you awfully uncomfortable and then finally as I close that accountability exists in a dynamic sense constantly negotiating the contradictory and conflicting elements of our communal and political life as we give rise to new visions and possibilities in the intersection between art and reality thank you very much okay we're going to move now to a QA with both of our speakers can we get another hand for both of them please thank you guys so if you have questions that you want to ask there are mics there and there and we'll try to get through as many as we can a few things that'll make this go a little smoother is if I could ask all of you to hold your responses and applause until the end of the session and two when you're at the microphones ask questions please not just say things so let's start over here this is long this is oh thank you for very rich exchange gentlemen I just want to get your thoughts about two things regarding this particular discussion first dr. Dyson you know the the line that you quote from from little Wayne gravity pushing up flowers and then sharing showers it is integral to a line that we often quote from Tupac right right I rather be just about 12th and carried by six right and so I wonder if the two of you could reflect on that inversion and me as the Christian industrial complex gotten that much worse over the course of Tupac's truncated career in little Wayne's career or are they just they just have different experiences of different opinions of it and I think you both spoken eloquently about the role of the prison industrial complex plays in it then secondly and I think this is this goes a little bit more to to the audience and I think what young people are looking for out of discussions and discourses around hip-hop culture is we're usually pretty good at pointing out what's wrong what's negative in hip-hop like we're quite good at listening examples of people who we think are egregious or a negative or misogynistic or consumeristic and I wonder if both of you might offer up some more constructive proactive examples I mean I could do that if you wanted me to but just want to say there are a lot of other artists out there that are doing things that already challenging critique the things in the artists that you guys are talking about that a lot of young folk listen to but a lot of people who talked about hip-hop culture in the public sphere don't often have any awareness of so I want to first if you could comment on what's going on with the prison industrial complex in terms of how those two different artists have an inverted sort of look at that's a little way into pot and then to you know can you talk to us a little about who you're listening to that is already engaged in the kind of critiques that you guys are talking about though on the artists side you've ever sir okay I will say that the artists that I appreciate the most as far as commercialized artists would be Lupe Fiasco I like the fact that he's kind of carved his own niche and walked away from the excessive materialism and and just so many of these negative messages I think that he takes his opportunity to be a role model very seriously I think that that that whole I'm not a role model thing I guess that you're right to say that but if you're part of the community you simply cannot accept that I think that when you talk about the prison industrial complex you know what's so unfortunate is that prison has become such a serious reality for black me and my father was in prison professor Dyson has some tough experiences in terms of dealing with the complex it's destroying black families all across America and one of the things I love the most about what Tupac did was to pod did something that I don't think little Wayne would do you see everybody wants to say I in the next Tupac and and I think that little Wayne and Ti for example are as talented is to pop I don't believe this idea of sort of elevating somebody because they're did is sort of being untouchable no no they're they're artists I believe there are as good as Tupac was but one of the things I love the Tupac is that a lot of artists wouldn't do I think t I might he might do so much as at some point was to pot did a video in an interview but he said I want to tell young brothers that prison is not glamorous it's not a place you want to be it's horrible you know and I like that you know and I really don't get that out of Lil Wayne even though I think he's an incredibly talented artist he's good I know his songs because I listened to them and I liked them but you know at the same time it's sort of like you know I like chocolate but I know it makes me fat you know and and so so now to answer the last question and I think I did a little bit of Professor dicing it this but I think that there are a lot of great artists that that you do have on the internet that are sorted in this underground circuit and one of the biggest problems that we do have is that corporate America has sort of sort of really reshape the way media is delivered to people I mean if you go to any city in America the urban channels kind of sound exactly the same because they're all owned by the same companies and and so that has really created a space where you're hearing the same artists over and over and over again and I learned what kids are listening to by listening to what my kids are listening to and and they you know they know all the lyrics to all the same songs and all the songs are just whack and pathetic so um so I think that there are some positive examples unfortunately they don't get the same sort of backing that I think they deserve yeah just to figure back on that go those great points and professor Peterson's uh you know poignant questions yeah Park said I'd rather be judged by 12 and carried by six go face a jury than of course be carried in a in a coffin there has been a reversal when little Wayne talks about that I think and seeing imprisonment in a way as a form of death because given what professor Watkins just said and that interview that POC did of course that was seen in Tupac versus where I had a chance to to come and comment as well POC talks about hey all the time you know I heard prison was the place you kind of elevated it romanticize that they get here I can't write I can't do anything it just kills creativity so a little Wayne in one sense it's taking that to the next level and the rapid proliferation of prisons the prison industrial complex that Angela Davis joy James and others have brilliantly written about and now of course professor Michelle Alexander just just with a devastating critique of the pervasive character of incarceration for young black and Latino kids and you and I have literally just came from prison before coming here why we were a little bit late and we apologize we were with the captive audience and what what I don't imprison any wish your thoughts but uh you know the thing is we were spending time with young people over there you know who want to come to brown some of whom have talent to come to brown some of whom are smart but they don't have a chance for a variety of reasons and they have been misled and as Professor Watkins has talked about the kind of utter romanticization of prison and we spoke directly to that the woman who brought us in wanted us to speak directly to that whether rick ross a little boozy we spoke directly to that this ain't the place because we comin in here and we're leaving and you can't in this vicious my brother has been in prison for 22 years now I know the ins and outs of that place but I know that he was reared when hip hop was not popular and I know that the prison industrial complex does not rest upon the success of hip hop hip hop can reinforce elements of it the fetishization and romanticization and idealization of a certain kind of imprisonment as this you know spot in space for critical reflection was wiped away by Tupac and obliterated by little Wayne so I think there is a reversal I think there's an acknowledgement of that the both the empirical and existential dimensions of imprisonment and the narratives the stories when people return talking about that is not the place and let's get the heck up out of there although it's an inverse proportion to a lot of the romance we still see going on in a lot of hip-hop lyrics now to answer your second question you're the perfect person to answer this but you know learning from you and other younger people who listen to hip-hop there are a lot of people professor walkins talk about Lupe Fiasco and he and I did a similar thing at Drexel University in Philadelphia he then came to my class at Georgetown last year and closed it out did a brilliant job and then we had them on the radio an incredible artist I think Kendrick Lamar with section.80 is a tremendous underground artist is doing brilliant work listen to Keisha's song to talk about some of the complicated realities the young women face listen to Elza and elm attic a remaking of nas's Illmatic from the perspective of Detroit and now from Detroit so naturally I think it's a work of sheer brilliance but he's an incredible artist who worked with slum village and if you remember and recall J Dilla and the like these are just incredible artists I think Rhapsody was one of 9th wonders artists Jean Grey Jean Grey who's another artist doesn't get the kind of recognition she deserves and I want to know and these are young people who are doing brilliant work that deserve to be listened to and engaged and as Professor Peterson says makes they make a lot of the critique the professor Watkins and I are offering here today I mean we can go back to you know I often quote the Talib Kweli these cats drink champagne toast death and pain like slaves on the ship bragging about who got the Flies chained we can listen to the early and late listen to the new listen to the new what's most def calling himself now yes in big yes in bay listen to his remake of in Paris right wasn't it what's the name of a poor poor in Paris in poorest in poorest a brilliant a brilliant reworking of in Paris and by the way in Paris is a great song and by the way watch the throne was a great album and by the way above ground commercial artist who making a lot of money if you if you look at that album if you listen to it it's an extraordinarily complicated narrative that can never simply be dismissed as too hyper materialistic and consumers although it's all that but it's a lot more and if you dare to listen to it and engage it I mean from from murder to excellence I mean is one of the most remarkable songs in the consciousness of people on top 40 radio that an underground artist might not ever have the opportunity to make and be heard listen to - jay-z asking why queering why in the MoMA they only have white women and that women of color I mean there there's so many more examples of that strewn throughout that album so I think those are some of the artists that I would point to who do incredibly important work that needs to be listened to Professor Michael Eric Dyson I think that was a great Katti go especially about Kendrick Lamar's album section 80 I love the album but my question is directed to dr. Boyce Watkins I is well understood anonymous publicize your distaste for beauty but um I want to understand and rather than just completely get rid of Beatty or just do away with it what are you solutions for BT because I was that twelve-year-old at one point who came home from school and was able to put down my books to watch Beauty Rap City but then at the same time understand this is all fantasy and you know all this misogyny is not something positive and not something that I want to live my life at based my life around so I mean I understand you know people have their views and opinions about Beatty but I'd also see there's a lot of value and what Beatty does and especially in portraying blacks not necessarily always in a negative light but also in positive lights and there are very positive things going on Beauty and I have note to change and shift in the culture of beauty and not just the artists that they portrayed but also bringing put on political consciousness to light and also trying to educate our brothers and sisters so I mean what are your solutions rather than just getting rid of beauty because it also employs a lot of brothers and sisters we don't have a chance to work in the industry right well first of all I'll say that I'm the first to admit that I've been very angry at beauty for a long time because I think that that Bob Johnson had a great opportunity to do some good things and because he was a hardcore capitalist that felt that the bottom line was the only thing that mattered he created a whole generation of kids that are quicker to go shake their booty at the club and they ought to actually want to do anything productive it doesn't mean that that's that defines the whole generation we know that I have kids in that generation and that and they don't that that's not who they are they go to college they're productive people for the most part but there are some influences there that affected millions of our kids and I think that that simply can't be denied so much of the damage of B et has been done in the past I do cbet trying to redeem itself and part of the reason that I think that even though I should I lose my friend I think I probably been banned from be ETA probably never invited me back for anything but I feel that the sacrifice is worth it because I feel that those sorts of critiques those punch you in the face critiques are what causes them to become self-conscious and they backpedal and you see them modify their behavior because they want to prove people like me wrong and I love that even if you never ever you know reward me for what I say to you the fact that you're you're adjusting is a good thing so you do cbet becoming a better network but the problem though is that when you start making your money in a certain way it's very difficult to start making your money in a different way it's like if you go out and you become a public figure if you go out like Britney Spears and and brand and market yourself as the good little innocent little virgin you can't just suddenly turn into a vixen overnight and expect your fans to understand that right so BT built itself in a certain way and there there are some sins that BT has committed over the last 20-30 years that simply cannot be corrected they can't be redeemed so as Sheila Johnson the co-founder BT Bob's wife admitted that she feels that BT and the glorification of irresponsible sexual behavior etcetera played a role in the increase in the HIV rate in the black community anybody who spends a lot of time around black people I'm not disagreeing with anybody who disagrees with me I'm simply giving a perspective anybody who spends time in the community knows that hip hop is it's more than just a and art form it's it's a little bit more than going to see a movie you know there's something about there's something about hip hop that really sort of says that it's important that the artist keeps it real like the little Wayne says my flag is red he can't just say that and then not not be blood because he will get killed today right so in vanilla ice he was a great artist but remember what happened in when they found out that he wasn't really who he was he was gone so my point is so going back to what you were saying the focusing on beauty I know beauty is not going to disappear I hope they continue to improve what I really want to see though more so than seeing B et change is to see a diversity of images for black children so that every intelligent black man I know who's fighting for air time on television or where the case may be doesn't feel that their air time gets sucked up because every network wants to put flavor flav on or those black men they fit these stereotypical images yeah isn't that a critique more so of just an to team industry or media platforms in general rather than just focusing on BT right BT takes a lot of a lot of weight they get a lot of heat because for a long time there was our primary option okay you know just like I was listening to this song my shoulder Li and he was taught my BET's my channel right so basically you know for a lot of black folks BT was the main avenue for us to see people who look like ourselves and we took pride in BT because was owned by people who looked like us and unfortunately it was owned by a slumlord rather than somebody who actually cared about the progress of the community and that bothers me I don't care if you make a billion dollars you if you cost the community ten billion in lost productivity then that we've lost while you might have one hello hi thanks for your frankness on the top it was really great my question is about politics and the relationship between the my own politics and it particularly the controversy between Cornel West and Melissa harris-perry recently what kind of lot of play and also dr. Watkins your your sort of intervention in that situation so I want to know in what ways are public intellectuals also responsible or accountable for their their own language and their own words and rhetoric within the public sphere because it seems that there's also disorder is to look it's kind of sweet sabbatic or ratifying this critique that we have with hip-hop as well no relation so I just want to know your info all right all right all right I didn't think anybody read that article um well to what extent are we accountable for what we say is that that the gist of the question I can see me for everybody but I take full accountability or full IIIi am fully accountable for every single thing I've ever said in my entire life even if I said something stupid if you point out something a brother today actually I ran into a guy who's a in the ph.d program here who said that he was the brother of a scholar UCLA who wrote an article about me today where he said that I used some language that was not appropriate and that I I said something that was problematic and I read it and I said I didn't say this there's no way I said this you know I didn't even sound like me I know me pretty well and I wouldn't say that so I'm mad I emailed the guy you know I'm emailing him like an angry baby's mama you know I was like wait wait how can you say this you know I didn't say this is you're making this up and he said so are you trying to say that you you didn't say this on this video and I just I pause I said oh crap maybe I did so I went back I watched the video and I said what he said that I said and it was a while back I'd forgot said it and then I said you know I will tell you that AI didn't intend it in the way you interpreted it however I can see why you would interpret that way and I'm very sorry I take responsibility and I if I could say it again I wouldn't say it that way so I think that that accountability is important because a lot of times you see people that somehow become so deeply entrenched in their positions that they don't want to admit when they're wrong they think that they're always the professor and never the student and I think that if you think that your job is to always teach other people and educate other people but you're not being educated yourself then you're missing 90% of the game you know that's a brilliant question actually about about and then you see us equivocating in Hindman and hard but what happened was when we're so apodictic and absolute about the rapper that when it comes to the pundit rapper and the intellectual rapper and the political intellectual rapper in the public intellectual rapper and you're sitting I'm sitting next to one of the most gifted and visible young public intellectuals in America I must say though and when we talk about Cornel West we're talking about an iconic figure within American intellectual life and when we talk about Melissa harris-perry we're talking arguably arguably about the most visible black female intellectual in America now I mean arguably right so you know West is like our Father I'm the generation behind him Melissa's the generation behind me and I must say I turn to I told you I wasn't joking I turn to Professor Boyce Watkins and his sight and when she was announced as the new host of her show your website had five great reasons did you write that piece yeah that was yeah right five great reasons why belissa harris-perry she ever showed I was like wow Boyce Watkins I listen to this guy and I check it out named them one two three four or five week later I'm looking at professor Watkins and he's defending West and he's coming hard hard professor Watkins is at Melissa harris-perry now she's a big woman she can handle herself these are all big shots Boyce Watkins Melissa harris-perry Cornel West these are big shots these people have big platforms big mouths and the best sense of that word big ability to talk with big words and it's like that African proverb when elephants of fighting the grass suffers I mean I didn't get it right but you know what I'm talking about and you know I was I was amazed I said I got to ask boys why did you turn around a week later and beat up on Melissa in defensive and I figured it was his tremendous fidelity to Cornel West is admirable it is remarkable and I give professor Watkins much kudos for that but professor West has been very disappointing to me in his comments about Melissa harris-perry now don't get it twisted there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scene in its ugliness on all sides let me just say that but qd3 doesn't have to do a beef video only about hip-hop there's a lot of beef in the Academy we could have a forum next year public intellectuals and they beefs ray not their beefs Davies right and it's just as vicious is Nellie versus care as one of common versus IceCube a 50 cent versus ja rule of Tupac versus biggie and it's even more vicious because y'all supposed to know better and it doesn't throw in bold relief that all the stuff we intellectually at a distance talk about hip-hop when we doing the same thing in our own communities I think when Professor West called Melissa harris-perry a fake and a fraud that is very dangerous discourse as Professor mark Sawyer I think is his name pointed out the professor the head of african-american studies at UCLA and he talked about both both sides he talked about how Melissa might have been a bit more charitable in her engagement with Cornell and how Cornell was teetering toward in saying calling her dangerous as a traditional trope of sexist patriarchal surveillance of female existence it's a great point and I'm saying you're saying you're about love and dr. King but dr. King didn't call LBJ a cracker-ass president and yet you're calling a female intellectual who is your junior former colleague telling tales out of school you're not supposed to talk about who voted for who in a tenure committee that's unethical and just because Cornel West did it doesn't mean it's right it's a bad moment for him he's a genius he's an incredible human being he's a remarkable man and he's flawed in the way he talks about others flaws as we are all flawed part of it looks like hating on young people seeing them rise and your shine you say she's the darling of liberals when you wrote race matters you were too how you going how you don't say that that can't be the issue disagree with her because you have the rhetorical Arsenal to do so but I must tell you if we're going to be fully disclosing professor West was I think engaged to be here you took his place he withdrew when he found out I was here because he has a disagreement with me because I criticized them very briefly and gently in the public about his personal assault upon President Obama now what is that about we can't have civil discourse you can talk to white supremacist Rush Limbaugh and others I'm not saying he's a white supremacist necessarily you can speak to others but you can't talk to me because you and I disagree about how you handled Obama and I have criticized Obama but not having a ticket to the inauguration which then led professor West to unfortunately and I would have to say unfortunately in his interview with Chris Hedges say he wanted to slap Obama upside his head I thought that was rough I thought it was discourteous and I thought it was disrespectful and I thought it didn't betray it betrayed the worst elements of Professor West's argument and nullified the and critique that he had offered but to withdraw from even this platform because of your inability is a pattern melissa harris-perry then perhaps dealing with me is another younger scholar ad hominem assaults versus substantive arguments so I would say that yes public intellectuals have a tremendous responsibility we have enormous respect for professor West he has blazed paths and pioneered the way for so many of us we want to call him to accountability as well in the reckless use of discourse in the public sphere that may betray a kind of politics unintentionally of envy when of course he would laugh at that because he's enjoyed enormous Fame but at the same time you can't be seen and positioned against the rise of another person and speak about her rise is being used by liberal establishment even if you have legitimate critiques of melissa harris-perry so I think that yes to answer your question we are culpable we are responsible responsible we are accountable and we're also hypocritical because we making all these arguments about hip-hop in ain't saying nothing about ourselves Thank You professor we are going to take all three of these last questions but if we could move them a little bit more quickly please we're almost out of time here thank you that's my fault I'll be accountable I wanted to thank you both for offering up both Lupe Fiasco and Kendrick Lamar as elements within hip-hop that offers some as Professor Dyson's said not so much as in the positive or negative binary but in the constructive or destructive sort of spear but I wanted to sort of ask you both about if this you touched on this sort of this Du Bois in double consciousness that goes on you know we have artists who like say AJ Cole or a Chavez cam you know who college-educated do have elements of a high-minded lyricism and genius behind what they say but at the same time use elements of a more shall we say destructive elements of hip-hop's who gets that across as well I wanted to your thoughts on that well you know I think that many of the artists that we hear even those on the radio are quite brilliant in their own way you know I can easily as a college professor hear a guy who didn't graduate from high school and I could tell that he is a scholar in his own way and so or her only and I I think that you know what does kind of happen in hip-hop unfortunately or commercialize hip-hop is you certainly see elements of this hyper masculinity that ends up driving even those who who don't have that intrinsically is a part of who they are they sort of feel that that's that's kind of who you need to be in order to in order to to stake your claim into territory allows yourself amongst other men you know to kind of sort of earn your right to be on the throne and I and it's problematic because you see that you know even when you talk about artists that are trying to express something that is uh that is intellectually enlightened if you will it still has to come hard you know in many cases and and and you see this one a spillover effect into it into black America in terms of how black men interact with each other I mean it leads to that that homophobia and leads to just these instances of aggression where it's just not even necessary you know what's so interesting about the calculus of being a black man in America and hip-hop is not responsible for this hip-hop is is to some extent of product in this and it's glamorized this but and and I think it has made the problem worse but it didn't create the problem we know that but the hard part about being a black man I think in America is that it's not just about you making the choices that are going to lead to your success you have to deal with the complications of what people around you are doing if you're growing up in South Central Los Angeles and people talk about bullying and all this other stuff is a suburban kind of issue and stuff like that no nobody imagined being bullied by somebody who owns an ak-47 you know who might kill you and your whole family because you said the wrong thing is oh that's what some kids are dealing with is in their day-to-day life so ultimately I think this aggression is it's it's a it's naturally indistinctly part of us as men but a certain environment certain types of music certain experiences can bring that out of you even more and I've seen literally I've seen men who were nice normal kind honest good caring people become something else because they felt like they needed to be that way in order to survive and thrive in their environment and to be very very brief to piggyback on that and people who are quote positive rappers you know also want to talk about love and making love and people whose primary shtick is to talk about making love or socially conscious sometimes it's a complicated world and to get as a particular artist according to the major themes that he evokes or she elicits in her art and addresses and then as a result of that to pigeonhole them may be more problematic than to see the complicated expression of identities within themselves as an evolving artist you know I was going to say common you know and in common and a lot of the quote positive rappers who still use the N word or who talk about women in problematic ways right so J Cole is an extraordinarily well talent well gifted a well-spoken young man st. John's University the great books you know I've met him and he talked about me coming to his university and him responding to certain lectures of mine and me talking to him and so on and so forth so I have respect for him but at the same time we understand you know as I do a lot of these artists that I've gotten a chance to interact with and talk to and they're remarkably intelligent and lucid young people but you know life is complicated and I think that as Professor walkins talk about some of it is the pressure of conformity the peer group that you identify coming hard in a certain way or it could be the fact that this person went to college and they believed this stuff and they believe the stuff they say to that's less savory and this is what's difficult for us to to both admire which is understandable or accept which you know is part of the negotiation between an artist and his or her audience and responding to what they both demand and what they expect and I think in that sense it's a bit more complicated than if you're going to be an edifying artist you know one who is constructive in dealing and engaging in you know very powerful ways of expression of self and culture and community and at the same time you know dealing with the the traps that one feels and the honesty that one might feel about one's relationship to women you could be a socially conscientious person and still be mad at your girlfriend or you can be you know mad at your boyfriend or you could still be in a relationship of complicated you know character with people in your family and still bear the burden of revolution so I think it's it's a more complicated pattern than that though it bears the elements of peer pressure and abdication to a certain kind of narrow range of ideas that have been expressed in the culture that you feel if you're going to be popular and successful you have to respond to you talk about little wayne about him getting awards and little wayne is arguably and extreme his appearance is taken to the extreme his lyrics are as well but arguably he's said it yourself he's a really smart person are as are many of hip-hop artists so i think maybe we should realize that given that those people are smart they know that at one point they just represent really self-depreciating humor and they become parodies of themselves consciously and hip-hop is just another subculture who is becoming a caricature of itself and that has happened before the punk in the 70s it happened to rock in the 80s and maybe it's just happening to hip-hop right now so maybe we should realize that it's just an inevitable path for every subculture to take and maybe there's I mean arguably there's really negative elements of it like you said but maybe we shouldn't be so alarmed about it your question please okay is there a question in there that's I just want to get a comment on that okay um well maybe some of it is inevitable you know maybe some of it's happened before I don't care all I know is I see what I'm dealing with what I'm trying to mentor young boys who are being influenced by people who've also been influenced by what they hear on the radio remember the you know many of these artists are they really are you know pastors and every kid in America goes to their church if jay-z or Lil Wayne starts dressed in a certain way they change how they dress when they see Nicki Minaj use a certain phrase on a regular basis the kids start using that phrase so to me that might be true but I feel when I look at these artists I don't just see these these these these these people from another place I see my brothers and sisters I see people that that I know and I look to them and say we need to get away from this temptation to absorb rampant reckless capitalism and start at least considering a double bottom line then does it mean that you have to stop doing what you do you Crawley do 90 little Wayne even could do 97% of everything he does and I probably wouldn't say much of anything it's that last 3% or I'm saying look I don't want you to talk I don't want you trying to prove how hard you are by saying you would shoot a three-year-old in the face because I know a three-year-old who got shot in the face so be it so the truth is that everybody that that most of us knows who sort of engages in that certain lifestyle that you might hear about in music many of those people sort of use hip-hop as sort of a backdrop to their cultural norms the things they do every day are influenced by these artisan and I think that just in general we can not simply say that as long as you make enough money that any horrible thing you do is acceptable and that's the problem we have in America at large but in black America it's especially bad I'll just briefly add I think her point is very sophisticated I think it takes account of the self periodic impulse of a culture it judges the excesses rhetorically and musically of any evolving culture that has stratifications differences and the space demanded for self-expression which is the first call of the artist sometimes has to hibernate within those excesses in order to express itself against the dominance of a tradition from which it even emerges and I think that's very necessary to talk about and I understand professor Watkins in talking about the kind of empirical verification of the hurt and pain that we can see in those cultures that may be encouraged in some of the music and I don't dismiss that at all but I think that's a very sophisticated point that really has to be grappled with if we're going to account for molds and expressions of music and art and culture hi I'm a grad student here at Brown in urban education policy programs so my question is coming from the lens of believing that education should and could serve as a great equalizer in the vehicle for upward mobility so my question is um and this is the question that I constantly grappled with considering that I'm going out into the education on arena how do we get minorities to buy into the concept of Education to regain faith in a system that has perpetually failed them and to find power in an institution that in hurt that has inherently dismissed our identity and kind of also going against what is force-fed to us through hip-hop I would say that first of all I don't think that as a community that we have all just or even the majority of us have walked away from the value and the importance of education I think that as a community I think that we what I think everybody wants something everybody wants to be successful even that kid that grows out want money and power and fame and all that stuff he'd naturally instinctly wants those things because he's human right so to a point so so the part of the issue is that when he grows up like any other kid he's trying to figure out how to get those things you're going to respond to what you see in front of you what your friends are talking about right so you're more likely to see your first images of other black men are more likely to be athletes and entertainers than doctors and lawyers and professors and so what I find actually is that when you talk about getting people to commit to a system that has continuously failed them well there are lots of systems that we're committed to there have failed us if you look at the NCAA the n-c-double-a exploits black men worse than any other system other than the prison industrial complex they jack a billion dollars a year out of the black community and you see black kids spending eight hours a day on the basketball court hoping they can get a chance to play for some university it's going to use them up chew them up and spit them out right so so but the reason that they're committed to the system is not necessarily because they're evaluating what the system can do you know for them as a collective they're saying look if I play basketball I can be the man I can make money like Jordan I can get a big house whatever so when I come to them with education and I say look you're an athlete you know how to work hard you know how to practice everyday you know how to work and set goals and and and commit yourself to something that you want to achieve in the long term you know all that already but let me tell you this education can do that much more readily than trying to get that one MBA contract out of a thousand people and when you explain it that way where you don't judge you just say look I know it as a fellow brother I understand you know that the money is not right and you want to make this right you want to do things for your mother I know that you want to be successful you want to be the man fine let me show you a lot of ways to be the man and when you sort of plant that seed explain it in that way explain why they should want to be educated and then explain why they actually can be educated which involves a lot of deprogramming you find that that people naturally gravitate toward education because it's like the easiest thing to say to young guys that because I'm sorry but when I go to the schools you see so many black males that want to be athletes or entertainers it's all over the place so I say look fine okay you want to be an athlete I'm not even going to kill that dream let's just keep that on the table but let me tell you this even if you are an athlete in the NBA if you not educated you will get pimped and pumped in somebody's gonna take all your money let me tell you story about Antoine Walker who went through the University of Kentucky with me not knowing how to read and never thought he needed to learn how to read because he could dribble the damn basketball and - I made 110 million dollars now he's broke but guess what his lawyers not broke his agents not broke all the people that worked with him along the way his financial managers not broke so if you want to have money you want to have power here are some other ways that you can have those things that go beyond just dribbling a basketball so keep dribbling the basketball but supplement that because nobody wants to go through life in America without being smart and prepared to succeed so so I think when you present the message in a way that makes sense kids buy it I didn't buy education as a high school kid because I couldn't see what could really do for me to be honest once I found out what it could do for me you don't have to preach to me no more I did it myself there you go yeah I think very briefly Martin Luther King jr. is a very educated man got murdered for grilling Malcolm X extremely so so I agree with everything professor walking just said and I heard professor Peterson say it earlier at the prison telling these young men to be educated more than the fact that you're going to you know run a basketball or run a football or shoot a basketball through hoop or be an entertainer but hortense Spillers said in her seminal essay on black intellectuals that this is what the dominant culture asked of us to be athletes and entertainers so to speak to do physically demanding work and to to entertain and from slavery on that has set the paradigm the paradigm was in self-generated it was a survival modality so what's interesting is that we tell people about education but we don't tell them the truth that you've confronted tremendous resistance at Syracuse not because you're done but because it's precisely the opposite because you're smart and being smart has gotten a lot of people in trouble so we lie to young people thinking that if we tell them hey don't try to be an athlete or an entertainer because most of you can't do that anyway but do it this way because this is the successful way ask a bunch of middle managers in a America asked a bunch of people who've been educated what they've faced tremendous difficulty then that doesn't mean you shouldn't be educated of course in order to have that problem you have to have a certain amount of luxury and skill so I am suggesting that you get educated well but be consciously educated understand that you know they tell you in my generation generation before mine and several others you got to work twice as hard get up earlier be smarter than but they forgot to tell you there's a lot of resentment there's a lot of resistance there's a lot of hatred because of that we see it in the president look at Obama forget whether or not you agree with him or disagree with him but just as a human being and a guy who did it the way was supposed to be done he and dribbling no basketball he you know he's singing I know professor Watkins bad he say I'm glad your brother singing because I'm tired of hearing that horrible tune sung by the other side so Sweet Home Chicago is good with me and Al Green without the grits is beautiful as well but the thing is is that he does it the way they say it should be done and it's still not enough he does it with aplomb with skill with grace with intelligence with oratorical Flair he does it was cool and dispassion he does it with clinical distance from the problem he does it with an investment and it never makes the grade so let's not lie about the function of that education and how young people notice that and peep that they stupid they was like look dude you got all that stuff and you getting this - at least I control my destiny with X Y & Z so let's not act as if this is not rational choice Theory the young people don't as spy the tremendous contradictions that are inherent in a system that ostensibly rewards people for education but punishes them at the same time education is critical what's being force-fed to us you say through hip-hop what's being force-fed through us through ideologies of containment that are expressly linked to certain forms of education are just as troubling so I would say I'm David Lee we all got PhDs and we serious about education we teach it big-time schools the question is - what are we willing to do in a thorough examination about why some people get education some people don't why some people think it's a way out and for others it's not why deepa pager from Princeton University and sociology department can do a study saying you could be a black person with college education in New York and have less of a chance of getting a job than a white man who's a criminal and been to prison there is in a nutshell the fierce contradictions that we also have to address as well but education is critical in vital thank you everyone asked questions and thank you again to both of our speakers

Channel: The Dr Boyce Watkins Black Excellence channel

Views: 200,354

Keywords: Michael Dyson (Author), Boyce Watkins (Person), michael eric dyson, hip-hop, rappers

Id: 3QuOwST5o1Q

Length: 110min 5sec (6605 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 21 2014