Michael Eric Dyson on Rap and Hip-Hop | Michael Eric Dyson | Big Think

Michael Eric Dyson on Rap and Hip-Hop

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Michael Eric Dyson on Rap and Hip-Hop.

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Michael Eric Dyson:

Michael Eric Dyson, named by Ebony as one of the hundred most influential black Americans, is the author of sixteen books, including Holler if You Hear Me, Is Bill Cosby Right? and I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King Jr. He is currently University Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University. He lives in Washington, D.C.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Michael Eric Dyson: Yeah. No. Conscious hip-hop is not nearly as profoundly and pervasively embraced as it should be. When you have a guy like Mos Def, “You can laugh and criticize Michael Jackson if you wanna, Woody Allen molested and married his stepdaughter. Same press kickin dirt on Michael’s name, show Woody and Soon-Yi at the playoff game...", holding hands. "Now sit back and think about that. Would he get the same dap if his name was Woody Black? O.J. acquitted by a jury of his peers. They’ve been messing with that ** for the last ten years. Is it fair? Is it equal? Is it just? Is it right? Do we do the same thing if the defendant’s face is white? White boys doing well it’s success. I start doing well it’s suspect." "They say they want you successful," he said earlier, "but then they make it stressful. You start keeping pace. They start changing up the tempo." No, we ain’t hearing that enough. We’re hearing from his song Ms Fat Booty. I understand why, “Behind so fat you can see it from the front.” As Arsenio Hall used to say, that’s something to make you go “Hmm.” The gluteus emphasis on maximus to be sure but let’s not reduce women to their behinds. They have brains, souls and spirits after all, but the point is we’d rather listen to one song as opposed to another and both of them are important. Conscious rappers often get outraged by the fact that they are segregated and quarantined as conscious rappers ‘cause that- that’s like vegetables. They’re good for you kids. No, it’s not other good food that you like; it’s the food that’s good for you. And so they don’t want to be made the broccoli of the rap world. They want to be like sweet potatoes too. So when we artificially segregate them that ends up doing a disservice to them because even conscious rappers want to make love some time and have fun and go to parties.

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