Maybe it was me being young and now I'm grown, but I figured out that running from our past isn't the best thing to do to get over it. Instead, we should all embrace the good and the bad about our history...there's a great audio sample in Nas' song in which Paul Mooney asks (I'm paraphrasing), "How are white people going to ask us not to say the word when they made it up? And they made a song out of it! Eenie, meanie, minie, mo, catch a nigger by his toe..."
For those of you who think music (i.e. Hip-Hop) has gone downhill the past few years, well, you're correct. However, when artists like Nas come out with a song like this, which causes you to re-think the beliefs you had previously thought correct, it's a life-altering event. If I ever have the chance to meet Nas in person, I will tell him that that on June 10, 2008 at around 8:40 am, he changed my life. Thanks, Nasir.
1 comment:
Nas will always be in my top 5, dead or alive, because of his poignant, thought-provoking lyrics exemplified in songs like this one. As Nas said in an interview at the Grammy’s, “it’s all the experiences we go through every day of all ethnicities. Black, white, indifferent…the meaning of the word is supposed to be ignorant. So, there’s money being made off us poor and innocent so-called ignorant people…no longer are black people niggers…it’s also me and you.”
Call me insensitive, but I’ve never been one to shy away from use of the word – using it in a positive, non-racially charged context and freely rapping along to mentions of it in hip-hop songs. Words ultimately can and should be able to transcend time and their original meanings…just as people can and should be able to rise above historical injustices. Like you said, you have to embrace the good with the bad…prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.
“N*gger” is a word with a long history, and with its extreme significance lasting just as long it seems impossible that it can ever be cleared of its reputation. If nothing else, Nas has got the masses thinking about the word, and perhaps that is an essential step in the right direction.
“N-I-G-G-A…I’m Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished”
~ 2Pac
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