By Shereem Herndon-Brown
I do not know if I am getting old or just bland, but when I am around my son, I am starting to disassociate myself with the music of my youth.
I love hip hop: the music, the culture, the hunger that helps me to keep going. Being from Brooklyn, I am a Big Daddy Kane devotee, and it was him who first uttered “Young, Gifted and Black” in a rhyme. My appreciation for Kane led to EPMD, A Tribe Called Quest, Smif -n- Wessun and countless others who spun tales about the depravation of the metropolis.
I called their struggles and triumphs my own, and I used their words to carry me to wherever I wanted to go. But nowadays, I am not hearing the same kind creativity or wordsmanship. Too often I am in my car and I am relegated to listening to today’s wannabes who want to talk about being hustlers. Little man, you’re 12 (or 40) and if you are really “hustlin'” the way you claim to be, you wouldn’t be stupid enough to talk about it. At least Jay-Z was clever, innovative and even a bit remorseful.
I cannot stand it when I am with my kid and even some of my favorite artists of now or yesteryear curse or say something derogatory that I know I am going to get a question about from my 6-year-old. If we are listening to local radio in Atlanta, I have to subject myself to the 145 lb. sexpots who can’t rhyme and will be broke and irrelevant in four years. Can’t do it. When I put on Sirius XM radio and want to rock out to Backspin or Shady 45, I know I can filter the message, but my son cannot.
I am not a hip-hop elitist who wants to censor music. Artistic integrity is on the artist. I just want to share hip-hop with my kid. After all, like jazz, rock, and R&B before it, hip-hop is OUR music. It inspires us, makes us laugh and even occasionally cry. I do not want my kid only to have to hear the instrumentals and I cannot do the Disney channel or the Fish anymore.
So what am I to do? Buy the clean versions and keep them on my iPod? Maybe. Or take hour-long trips to go get gas just to inhale the music that makes me think about being 15 or 22? I so desperately want to rhyme along with my people but I am afraid of what their words will do to my impressionable kid. I know it’s my duty to teach him — I do that — but music is an excellent teacher too and for the soundtrack of his life, I want him to have the same love and appreciation for homegrown Black music as I do.
Since I do not know which new rappers I can stomach, I will force feed him the good stuff: Kweli, Common and (a few) doses of Kanye should inspire. I will help him to sing along to “The Fire” off The Roots most recent album. My son will know what a Midnight Marauder is and that it was brother Q-Tip who said: “Quitters turn to losers and losers are forgotten.”
Committed to the wife he dotes on and the son he cherishes, Shereem Hereem-Brown is the mastermind behind the Black Family Man blog. Originally from Brooklyn, he currently resides in Atlanta, trying hard to help his wife to realize her dream of being a stay-at-home mom for their six-year-old son and all of the other children they may potentially have. Look out for his upcoming book, Do the Dishes and Other Ways to Make Your Wife Happy, due out this summer.
Best article ever written on this site!! Can this guy get his own section on your site!
Excellent post Shereem.
You said you will “force feed” your son the good stuff. I disagree. As a responsible dad you are rightfully feeding him what is nutritional. All my kids grew up on what I grew up on. And their musical palate has expanded beyond mine. So let him get filled on EPMD or A Tribe Called Quest.
Good job.
http://www.ruleyourwife316.com
Well written, cant wait to hear more from you Shereem. Looking forward to the book!
Great article! We share this struggle!! We’ve found that our ‘Heavy D’ station on Pandora plays a good mix of authentic but kid-friendly hip-hop. And my kids LOVE the Blueprint III…the Walmart version, that is. The struggle never ends…..;)
“Real Gs move in silence like lasagna”-Lil’ Wayne…I’m still trying to make sense of this line :-/
I really enjoyed your post Shereem. I am a product of the hip hop culture and I too am having a hard time connecting with today’s music. “Make it Rain…” type songs are really very narrow and void of any content. I’m going to get with your lovely wife and plan a Hip Hop Family Friendly Party!
Yo….. I feel you, best thing I read this year
Terrific post! I feel the same way. It’s even hard for me to go back and listen to some of the stuff I used to. Part of it is just getting old. Basically, I don’t plan on introducing my child to the music until they are ready to hear/see similar content in other media. I have a mental list of what I’ll share with my kid: Pete Rock & CL Smooth, early EPMD (before they started cursing a lot), Boogie Down Productions, Tribe. There’s definitely curses and adult subject matter even in those, but I can talk through those the same way that I would if the content comes up in a movie.
Thanks for understanding the 40ish crowd that couldn’t quite get the words out! My feelings to a T!
Great post Shereem. I totally agree. I wasn’t really introduced to hip-hop until I met Michael, so I have discriminating tastes. Every now and then, I slip a little Roots in, maybe some Common, we’ll hold off on the others til they get a little older; but they need to know what real good hip-hop is and not this over-hyped lameness that is in heavy rotation.
So true, i grapple with this stuff all the time, good hip hop artists are few and far between these days, not like the golden age when we were in high school.
I am going to post this to my work facebook page http://www.facebook.com/ptcusa on thursday morning, stop by and join the discussion – havent decided which point to focus on yet, there are a lot of different things to jump off from here. Let me know in the future when you write more stuff like this, i am always looking for well written conversation starters about media and families to put up there to get people talking and thinking
I feel ya on that. I actually had to create me a playlist on YouTube of some of that obscure 90s stuff. Of course there is a ton of stuff missing like the Wu, BCC, Special Ed, Mc Lyte, EPMD, Rakim, etc etc…but these were some of those not as popular songs we used to record on VHS when they’d come on Yo MTV Raps (with Ed Lover & Dr. Dre) or the Mayor Chris Thomas on Rap City…lol. Stuff like Mad Skillz, Ed OG & The Bulldogs, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5ape51NPdI&playnext=1&list=PL8DF9D6F711D76F0C