There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age. I missed it coming and going. – J.B. Priestly
I came across this quote recently, and it got me thinking. I always hear adults talk about how the youth is outta control. How hip hop and video games are destroying the minds of our youth and if they are our future, where will we be, etc etc etc… No need for me to recap them all; I’m sure you heard or have even spit out a few of these yourself recently.
When I was growing up, and got to that rebellious age, hanging in the park drinking a forty (I’m dating myself cause we had quarts then fortys came a little later), getting high, getting girls, and hip hop was all I cared about. Actually spitting rhymes I actually cared about more cause I just wanted to be cool and be the dopest emcee I could. It was proven time after time that outside of being the star quarterback or having a wicked jump shot, the emcees got all the girls. So I knew if my rhymes were tight, I could take out any emcee I came across in battles and rock the crowd, and the females would come to me.
It was the older cats on the block who used to holla at me about staying in school when it began to bore me and I traded Biology and Science for getting my rhymes tight and listening and studying Cold Crush Brothers tapes. Sure, my dad was around, but when my parents broke up, I actually went to live with my dad during high school cause Mom didn’t know what else to do with me. She thought what we were doin wasn’t music, just a lot of noise, and a college degree was the only thing that would keep me Paid In Full.
Sure, my parents instilled all the right stuff in me in my early days, but they broke up when I was 13. I was still running wild and became a rebel without a cause. It was the older cats who got at me. I mean, like all the other teens out there, I wasn’t tryna hear it. I told these old cats that were droppin knowledge on me from their experiences to leave us alone and let us be old, man. But you know what, even though I wasn’t tryna hear it, and we made fun of these cats when they left and went on to light up the next joint, I did here everything that had to say. It was just pushed to the back to retrieve like an old document on your PC once the right buttons were pushed.
So if its true that the youth is outta control right now, if it’s true, they seem like they don’t know right from wrong and can’t tell what rappers who live at their gangsta fantasy from what’s real. It’s not necessarily the youth who are failing us, it is us who are failing the youth. You always hear about the old days when you stepped outta line, the older neighbors would straighten you out, tell your parents who would then in turn thank them and straighten you out again. Well, how did we get to a point where the older generation is scared of the youth? When we start saying that kid down the block isn’t my problem, I’m raising my kids. Well, if that kid who isn’t your problem spends more time with your kid than you do, how isn’t he or she your problem?
We have turned our back to them and leave them tryna figure things out on their own. The reason I personally am not dead or in jail today was because of these older cats we laughed at, who got at me outside of my dad and uncles. Like a few of my teachers, these older cats saw something in me, and instead of turning their backs, they spent time talking to me. Tryna school me, telling me the harsh realities of the streets we found so attractive at the time. The problem was it was hard to hear what they had to say after the majority of the adults looked down on us, wrote us off as hopeless and basically consistantly complained about what we loved the most, hip hop the one thing that helped us get through the tough times and spoke directly to us and for us for that matter.
Now that we are the older cats, I ask you who is failing who. Kevin Powell recently wrote a book titled Who’s Gonna Take The Weight, dealing with just that. What’s the deal? Do we expect the youth to learn right from wrong and teach themselves? To learn what happens when they take certain courses of action. The problem is that most do finally figure it out. They usually do figure it out on their own, but it is usually while sitting in a cell, with years to think about their youthful indiscretions. Or on in a hospital bed being told they may never walk again from a stray bullet to their spine meant for someone else. And unfortunately, the cemetery is filled with too many others who didn’t figure it out in time or at all.
We, the older cats, complain about the current lyrics in hip hop when that was what we used to scream to the world what we wanted them to know about us. We screamed Fuck The Police and Fight The Power in Virginia Beach when the cops decided they didnt want us in their town. The lyrics of that Kool G Rap, Rakim, KRS One, Public Enemy, NWA, and many others spoke to us and for us. Painted pictures of the conditions in our cities that were usually just brushed under the carpet, from those outside our community that couldn’t be bothered. Not to mention, there were those in our community who forgot where they came from and turned their back on us. That was much worse, cause they made it look like us and we looked up to them, but felt they were better than us. The music has always been rebellious where we said if you solve the problems that are the causes of these attitudes we felt and developed instead on putting us down, things would be much better. We were screaming for help from our elders. The lyrics predicted the future situations that would erupt if we weren’t taken seriously like the riots in LA. Something had to give, and we were screaming for help.
It’s the same today; if we pay more attention to the lyrics of rappers of today, we may be able to prevent similar situations from going down in the future. Pay more attention, and you may be able to figure out what is in their head. Maybe even replace the hopelessness they are feeling with some hope.
I will say this though, there are too many that don’t live it and spit it only cause some A&R working for a major label owned by a major corporation sold them dreams of getting paid if you spit it like 50 Cent or whoever is the hardest chart topping/ multi-platinum artist making the most noise that year.
For you adults who are displeased with the lyrics being played on the radio streaming services your children are listening to, call these stations music and program directors, and if they don’t listen to what you have to say, you listen to the station all day write down the names of all their advertisers. Call the advertisers and tell them you will not buy their products if they continue to support stations that promote this kind of lyrics and images to our youth. Or look at what has worked: get a copy of the shareholders of these corporations who own these major labels and radio stations and send them printed-out copies of the lyrics to these songs (which you can find online by doing a google.com search). Threaten these corporations who make they living off our communities and who care more about the bottomline then what these songs and images are doin to our kids when they are forcefed this all day everyday.
This worked years ago when lyrics were sent to shareholders of Warner Brothers of Ice-T’s rock group’s song Cop Killer. This caused many artists to be dropped from all of the corporation’s record companies like Tommy Boy and every other label in the Warner family. It even spilled out to some of the other labels as well.
Not saying you have to do these things; some of them are outdated as I revised this original blog post I wrote in 2005, but use this as a template to come up with your own ideas and plans of action. But the thing is, do something or stop complaining. There is a saying that if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Sitting on the sidelines and complaining won’t solve the problem. But don’t stop there, it is equally important that if you tell the kids to just SAY NO to these lyrics, they need to know what to say yes to, too. If you only punish a kid for everything he does wrong and never reward them for what they do right, you will never get anywhere. Think about when you were a teen. Also, get involved and help the associations that are actually doing good things in your community, and if none of them exist in your community in your area, start your own. Find out what’s working in other areas and implement it in yours. The cutting of the arts programs like music and art classes in school and the lack of positive activies for the youth to get involved in, not to mantion the cutting of scholastic budgets nationwide (even more so in the schools in our communities) leaves them just these records and movies they that feel speak to them. They feel it cause they can relate to it.
This is very important; we need to speak to the youth and not down to them.
I could go on forever, but I will end it here for now.
The older generation needs to ask themselves: Who is really failing who? Are you part of the problem or the solution?
I would really like to hear everyone’s comments on this. Please feel free to post your thoughts and suggestions, good or bad in the comment section below.
Remember, we expect the youth to respect us, but we must also respect them. Respect is something that is earned, not supposed to be given to you because you are the older generation.
