Why do black/African men and women embrace music that destroys them?

This post has been on my mind for a while and I am glad it has finally come to fruition. I was not planning on writing it this soon into my blogging but I was on Twitter the other day when an @Africanindiaspo sister I follow wrote something on her feed that triggered a response from me. Her tweet was about how she cannot help but enjoy and dance to music she finds derogatory towards women due to the overwhelming talent of the artists. I was amused by this sentiment which is shared by many @Africanindiaspo sisters but never owned up to by @Africanindiaspo brothers who are also often insulted by many songs they consume.

 

As I said this is something I had been thinking about prior to this incident. I had been reflecting on the lyrics of Western/Caribbean/African black people's songs, lyrics such as:

 

1.      'Catch you slipping I'mma kill you, I aint playing hear what I'm saying homie I aint playing' - Heat - 50 Cent'

2.      'I just got rich took a broke n****'s chic' - Loyal - Chris Brown

3.      'That's why I f****d your b**** - Hit 'em up - Tupac

4.      'I stay flossing in that candy paint, Blowin dank, Sippin drank on 84 swangers, Tearin up the lane' - Flossing - Mike Jones

5.      'Wanna put my fingers through your hair, Wrap me up in your legs, And love you till your eyes roll back, I'm tryna put you to bed, bed, bed' - Bed - J Holiday

6.      'All I want is your waist' - Ur Waist - Iyanya.

7.      'So f***in inna wata f***in inna sea f***in inna bushes and f***in inna tree' - Dutty wine - Tony Matterhorn

 

This list could be much, much longer but I am sure you catch my drift?

 

Although, I have always known that black music/culture to be predominantly geared towards either promoting violence, taking each other's women, showing off to each other, the objectification of black women or the mass sexualisation of young black minds I had never thought of one thing. I had never thought of why black people embrace this imagery so much whilst white people do not - at least not to the same extent. After all this very music is available to whites as it is to blacks. In fact in the past I had even passionately debated with friends and colleagues about how the powers that control mainstream media are responsible for projecting certain behaviours onto blacks by constantly bombarding them with debased music and films as an acceptable way of life but here I was now asking myself whether it was fair to absolve black/African people of their part in this mess. To do so would be to suggest that black people are incompetent/mindless individuals who can be involuntarily programmed to behave in certain ways would it not?  

 

I know some may argue that it is typically the instrumentals and catchy choruses that lead to garbage music being widely accepted by our brothers and sisters and to a certain extent I think it is a fair thing to say but even then why does ‘white music’ not promote the same level of animosity towards your like-skinned brother/sister as black music does? It also has catchy choruses and well-produced instrumentals but how often do you hear a white RnB gangsta artist sing about how he wants to take the significant other/b**** of another white man who is not in a great financial position today but is probably one of the many that supported him to be who he is today? How does that even compute? I helped you Chris Brown to become a celebrity by buying your CDs/MP3s when you were a little boy with dreams of looking after your single mother and now all of a sudden you are calling me broke and taking my woman? My @Africanindiaspos is it still the white man's fault when I continue to buy tickets to go to Chris' show to listen to him remind me of how horrible my life is and risk having him take my new girlfriend backstage? I really have to be under a spell to do that don't I? At this juncture it would be expected of everybody to hate Chris (lol) or at least boycott him and yet the opposite happens as artists like him gain even greater followings amongst black. Also, as a side note, how does a man who hits such high notes as he does still maintain a respectable thug image? Imagine Justin Timberlake being embroiled in a thug lifestyle after singing cry me a river. I do not think his fan base would remain intact and yet we as black folks (although we may be stirred) do not seem shaken by the behaviours of people like Chris Brown and Usher.

 

Heck when we are not at threat of losing our better halves to Chris Brown and his other coloured friends (let it sink in) we are being threatened by the likes of 50 Cent and his G-Unit crew or whatever it may be these days. Picture a stadium packed with white people listening to an esteemed white gangsta person and his friends (who have genuine criminal records) singing to the crowd about how they will kill them and the crowd dancing away. This is what our brothers and sisters do, we buy into this culture of provocation and terror. Therefore it comes as no surprise that at times there are fights and/or shootings at these live shows as black men kill black men. Notorious B.I.G and Tupac died over a long-standing feud, T.I and Floyd Mayweather fought over insults, The Game beat up a man called Glocc 40 and was a victim of physical abuse himself at the hands of another thug who ended up being murdered. But hey it is not our fault though, it's them damn white folk and these good beats that have put weapons in our hands and sown dissension amongst us from the days of slavery. We have no choice in this. Yes we do not, because if the KKK released a mixed tape about lynching blacks and how they love slavery we would dance to it if the chorus was catchy and the instrumentation was ‘popping’. If not then that suggests to me that we (independently-minded and intelligent blacks) love the behaviours/lifestyles promoted by the songs sung/rapped by brothers and sisters, not just the beats. Now that is food for thought. To add, when have you ever seen white celebrities shooting at each other or fighting in public as I just previously mentioned?

 

I wish this culture was restricted to black Americans (who I no longer admire like I did as an impressionable teen in Africa) but it is also promoted here in the UK in places like Manchester, London, Birmingham, etc. by some pathetic Grime musicians and unfortunately this cancer has spread and affected African music/youth culture too. I have experienced, first-hand, young black men fighting over territories and school crests in order to live up to the fallacious, egotistical personas propagated by hip hop music which they know to be deviant based on their cultural values and religious upbringings. It seems then that the conscious attraction to this demeaning music subconsciously yields behaviours consistent with the messages it promotes. And unfortunately we cannot ignore how over-sexualised we as blacks are made to be from the sleazy R&B music that also forms part of our culture. Which other race of people has a genre of music they call baby-making music. Which other group of people has all of its teens rubbing themselves on each other in the name of dancing (Jamaicans are the worst at doing this)? This combined with the lack of sexual health education makes for a ticking time bomb with soaring rates of HIV affecting blacks more than whites. HIV may have been developed in a lab as some conspiracists believe, but we willingly spread it amongst ourselves with such music that measures a black man’s manhood not by his ability to provide for his family or to be the head of his home/clan but by how many women he can say he has slept with.

 

My dear @Africanindiaspo brothers and sisters let us boycott such destructive culture if we desire to be different. One thing that helped me was to realise, as an adolescent, that most of the rap music I was being influenced by was being written/produced by unintelligent thugs who have absolutely no care for the effects their music has on their own kind. Since then I have discovered more sophisticated genres of music such as jazz, neo-soul and I have even reverted to my traditional music heroes such as Oliver Mtukudzi, Leonard Dembo, etc. This music inspires me to be and to do better in life. It does not seek to rot my moral fibre and neither does it drive me to kill my brother nor push me to prove my manliness through infidelity.

 

‘The ‘demise’ of the black race cannot be entirely blamed on white supremacy but rather due to the lack of self-responsibility’ - @Africanindiaspo

Zimbabwean child swears at his mother, is he to blame?

Recently there has been a viral video (link to video: http://nehandatv.com/2015/06/07/spoilt-rotten-zimbo-kid-cursing-at-parent) making the circles of social media of a young black boy with a Zimbabwean mother it seems, and he was going off at her as well as his aunt for calling him into the house when he still wanted to be out playing with his friends late into the night. I understand that I am a little late to the ‘trending’ party but I feel as though I should express my opinion about this video as it is closer to home (being that I am Zimbabwean myself). I believe it is an incident many of us can take lessons from as it could easily become a recurrent theme amongst the @Africanindiaspo communities though I feel it is already more common than people care to believe.

 

Off the bat I must ask the questions, who recorded that video and why? How did it go from the device it was recorded on to being viral? There were two adult women who were present in that predicament and one of them recorded the debased ordeal. I find that disgusting and that should be more shocking to everyone who watches the video than any behaviour that the child displayed.

 

I believe that a child’s behaviour is mostly reflective of the upbringing and instruction he/she has had. Of course children are innately mischievous and that cannot be helped but not to the extent displayed by that little boy. Did anyone notice that as he was cursing out (and having his little tantrum) he was actually playing on an iPhone? I have found this to be a common trend amongst both African and British parents here in the UK - that is to give their children unfettered access to the internet. The diaspora-born child of your typical @Africanindiaspo is bombarded with sexual images from birth on TV and hears all sorts of explicit words in public, to give them unrestricted access to the internet at a tender age is to pour fuel to the fire. That means pornography and even more debased language is a click of a button away and many parents are making this mistake. I do not believe it is intentional but it is being made all the same. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that many @Africanindiaspo parents do not sit down with their kids to find out what is going on in their minds so they can deconstruct any build-up of western beliefs or ideas. Your typical @Africanindiaspo actually raises their child as though they were in Africa where there is very little swearing and sexualisation of men and women in the mainstream media and society. It is no wonder that even our religious beliefs are no longer palatable to children being born and raised in the diaspora, we are not taking the time to find out where they are at.

 

Another weird but prevalent phenomenon common amongst many of the @Africanindiaspo is this deep-seeded inferiority complex whereby many African parents are really proud to have their kids as removed from African culture as possible. Many love the fact that their child cannot speak their native language (which they never bothered to teach the child) and are even more elated to say things like ‘my child is the only black child at his/her school’. No word of a lie. It is no wonder then that children such as that young boy end up saying they have no affiliations with the motherland as they identify it as archaic and disease-ridden - just as the propagandised images show Africa to be.

 

There are serious conflicting thoughts going on in the minds of descendants of any @Africanindiaspo. At one juncture they are exposed to African values and culture with relatives and within religious communities which their parents do not teach them to value on a daily basis, at another juncture they are exposed to extreme Western ideologies and behaviours on a more consistent basis (i.e. in school and with friends) which their parents do not want them to fully adapt once more. It seems the Western ways typically prevail as these kids end up being more extreme than their Western counterparts due to their desperate need to receive approval within at least one group of people. @Africanindiaspo parents end up extremely disillusioned as their children become rebellious and they genuinely wonder why.

 

I must express this to my beloved @Africanindiaspo brothers and sisters living in the UK - if it possible for you to pay a little more in rental premiums or spend more on a mortgage to live in a safer neighbourhood then please do so if you have children. Whilst high-density urban areas in Africa are populated with well-mannered and responsible people, in the UK areas with cheaper accommodation are often populated with rough and substance-abusing individuals who often raise poor-mannered children which will inevitably school with your children and possibly be their friends.

 

Now this is where I turn into a chauvinist I suppose by asking where is the father of this boy? Where are the fathers of many of the children of @Africanindiaspo mothers? It seems many of my beloved sisters have traded the truth that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ for the lie that ‘girls run the world’. Sisters you cannot raise children, especially sons, without the presence of a male authoritarian figure. As a child growing up whenever I misbehaved my mother would say ‘I am going to tell your father’, and that would calm me right down. In the absence of a father, sisters please have brothers in your lives to have that influence over your sons and daughters. It will do more good than harm.

 

Finally, to the woman who called the ordeal with that child nonsense, you are the problem with children growing up in the diaspora. You did not diffuse the situation, you worsened it and you are the reason many children are embittered with their parents.

 

Until next time beloved, let us share, let us grow.

 

‘Children’s behaviours and attitudes are like mirrors that reflect the investment or lack thereof made into their lives by those charged with their guardianship’ - @Africanindiaspo