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  • » Name: Amanda Bassa
  • » Location: VA
  • » Member Since: 09/21/07
  • » Bio: student, future change maker, and everything you wouldn't expect me to be.
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The Undisputed Truth

Nas...What Are You Doing?!


October 18, 2007 | Tags: nas, O'Reilly, media, n-word


A little while ago I was enraged after I saw footage of Bill O’Reilly blasting Virginia Tech’s choice to have Nas perform at the free concert hosted for students at the beginning of the semester. I found O’Reilly’s mispronunciation of Nas’ name a blatant sign that O’Reilly didn’t know a damn thing about what he was talking about. First of all, if he actually listened to some of Nas’ music before the show like a well-trained media pawn should be doing, he surely would have heard Nas say his own name somewhere on some track at some point. I’m willing to bet money that O’Reilly wouldn’t recognize a Nas song if it went and bit him on his right-winged ass. But that’s not the point. I honestly felt that Nas would come back at O’Reilly in a more civilized manner, prove his case with integrity and credible information, and keep it movin’. Well, that didn't quite happen.



I thought after that I might not have to worry about Nas so much. He’ll take a media hiatus and go back to making beautiful afternoon noise with Kelis. Once again…Nas went and proved my ass wrong. Now, of all times to go and pull a stunt like this, he wants to talk about putting out an album called N****. (I hate bleeping out my own shit, but that word isn’t a part of my vocabulary, so for the purposes of this blog I’m going to refer to the album as “The Fuck Are You Thinkin’?!”). I knew this was going to stir up some controversy, but I have a feeling this might blow up more than I thought. Especially since yesterday’s Oprah show was dedicated once again to bashing hip hop and discussing the evils of the dreaded N-word (word to Meka). Oh, and did I forget to mention that Bill Cosby was on it too? Man, Middle America is probably crying tears of joy for the fact that two of their favorite media icons were on the same show at the same time. This, however, is my worst nightmare. Majority of people tend to believe every insanely biased word that comes out of these people’s mouths. It just never ends well for hip hop when it comes to these two. So, now the N-word debate and the evil entity that is hip hop is back on the minds of most of the country that typically wouldn’t be concerned with it at all anyway, and Nas is back at it causing commotion at just the right time.



This sucks for various reasons. First of all, even if “The Fuck Are You Thinkin’?!” never comes out, the publicity it’s attaining is going to leave some aftermath around to be dealt with. People might want to interview Nas to see what sort of logic is behind his choice in naming his album “The Fuck Are You Thinkin?!”, but what if those people are O’Reilly or Oprah? Is he going to get back on there talking about acting like an animal and shit? It just doesn’t work in his favor. Mr. “Shoot ‘Em Up” is gradually losing his claim to promoting any sort of positivity, and therefore any basis to defend hip hop the way it needs to be defended in the public eye. It’s a damn shame, too, because he’s such a large name in the industry and it would be nice to have somebody that has such a large part in the culture represent it properly and with the integrity it deserves in the media.



“The Fuck Are You Thinkin’?!” also means that Sharpton and all of those types are going to hop in on criticizing Nas for his choice…and all that ever tends to decay into is some high profile show taking the opportunity to once again blame hip hop for every negative thing going on in our country. Some kid shoots up a school? It was hip hop. Some kid starts a fight with a cop? It was hip hop. Somebody trips and falls down a flight of stairs and breaks their ankle? It was hip hop.



Well…ok. That was a stretch. But you get my point.



This is not what hip hop needs right now. We need undisputed positivity coming out and getting media attention so that the Oprah-esque media heads can stop trash talking the culture. We need notable figures representing the culture with class, intelligence, and a level head.* What Nas is trying to pull is doing nothing but putting a big ass target on hip hop’s back. I tend to think that this is all a publicity stunt, and one that’s working, but Nas needs to take a step back from furthering his own personal agenda and realize that this is having a negative impact on the culture as a whole. And although I don’t really give a fuck at all what he names an album that he may or may not be putting out, I do give a fuck when I see something that’s such a large part of my life becoming the media-determined cause to the world’s ills. And Nas is only giving O’Reilly, Oprah, Cosby, Sharpton, etc. more shit to bitch about.



 



 



*Credit to Common, because so far I haven’t seen him fuck up in public. And he’s doing some good things.





The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the writer and not necessarily those of HipHopDX.com or Cheri Media Group.

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