those are two words i never thought i'd say in the same sentence.



in a scene from late 80's singleton film, boyz 'n' the hood, laurence fishburn takes his son and friend to one of the grimiest south central los angeles ghettos in compton. he points to a billboard advertising alcohol and then has this big meaningful speech about how corporations exploit the poor, especially blacks, by selling them corruption in the form of expensive s.u.v.'s, alcohol and guns. this was motivated secretly on a grand scale just the same when crack cocaine was brought about in the ghettos during the 80s.

before you read this, i want all of you to at least once, listen to his black on both sides album and blackstar album with fellow african bookstore owner (but better known to y'all as an m.c.) talib kweli. please, listen to these bodies of work before moving on. or at least look up their lyrics; both are my favourites of all time and both are masterpieces.

"This one goes to all them Big Will cats
With ice on they limbs and big rims on they Ac
You rollin' round town with your system bumped
And your windows cracked low to profile and front
Now I like to have nice things just like you
But I'm from Brooklyn, certain shit you just don't do"
- "got" by mos def

so cue today and how vexed i am after confirming what i heard from a coworker of mine last week. it is true - mos def is the main spokesperson for the GM denali. although i haven't actually viewed the commercial, i heard he's rhyming about the leather interior and the smooth ride.

how could you 'black dante', how could you?

some of you say, so what?...he rhymed about a truck - b, has bills to pay like you and me.
little do you know, there's so much more meaning to this than just that. i have a hard time typing this on my sacred ibook but the fact of the matter is...
MOS DEF SOLD OUT.

that's the worst thing that could happen to you as a hip hop artist. this has been the concrete manifesto of true m.c.'s for the past 30 years since hip hop's beginning. to sell out was the worst thing possible. to sell out meant to cut your soul out for the 'man'.

black eyed peas...they sold out. if you never heard their past works then you'd never know why or how they sold out.
talib with his latest two albums...i hate to say it, but he's borderline selling out. these are just a couple that most of you would be familar with.

i mean to me, it's not so much that he did an ad. that's fine. he has bills to pay and i have bills to pay. might as well ride the wave while he's made his appearances on broadway, the italian job, brown sugar, hitch hiker's guide etc. that's fine. we all have to hustle. rather, it's that he's rhyming about a fucking truck. a fucking s.u.v. this is in shear contrast to what he spoke out against during his "hungry" days when he just came out on the scene. to promote s.u.v.'s to black populations is just as bad as 50 cent promoting dealing crack or blowing some guy's brains out in a club when he's crossed your path in a club. it's just as bad as nelly talking about his 2 purs of air force ones; it's li- well you get the picture. it's selling dreams to the community while overlooking the process of attaining them. it's like saying "here, you need this truck. look at me. im the ish and ride in a nice leather-seated truck. now imagine yourself on your block rolling in this."

(1) truck = status = success

(1a) truck = success

the impoverished mind only sees the end product. by any means necessary they want to achieve this goal - this status symbol because anything better than ghetto is great. what the impoverished mind doesn't see is that there are many barriers that they have in front of them and me, as a minority, alike. instead of pimping the system and working through school, the impoverished mind wants the greatest goal for the least input and least time. the impoverished mind then turns to dealing drugs on his block, shooting and robbing. or more legitimatley and promising (if you can even say that) turns to playing basketball or rapping - disregarding academics and how minimal his or her chances are in actuallly making it to the nba or cutting a deal with sony records.

(2) dream x hard work = truck = status = success

on his new danger album, mos says "fuck you, pay me". he wasn't lying.

i'm heartbroken. i really am. i dont know what to think from here on. i do respect his work A LOT...but where does this place him on my continuum of credibility and integrity.
he is one of the few true artists left.

motherfuck you, corporations.


i still love mos def. i don't know why, but i gotta.
i look at how a person lives not how they die.

rapping is something we do; hip hop is what we live.
word is bond