Wynton meet Kanye. Kanye meet Wynton.
I’ve never been much of a fan of rap and hip hop. With some exceptions, it just doesn’t do that much for me. I consider it a matter of preference. Not that I don’t have my views about the music as compared to other forms, but in the end it all comes down to preference. And realizing that the music of the young has almost never been the music of the old(er) folks like myself. I’m not so old that I don’t remember hiding my Funkadelic album covers in my closet at home so my mother wouldn’t find them. Because if she did…?
Look, there has always been a band or musician that took it too far. But to single out those particular incidents and/or individuals to use them to condemn an entire genre is simply ignorant and lazy. To make these kinds of statements waves the red flag that somebody didn’t bother to do their homework before opening their mouth. After all, didn’t Kendrick Lamar just get a Pulitzer? Just like …uhhh…Wynton..?
So when someone with the supposed intellectual heft of a Wynton Marsalis decides to equate the damaging effect of listening to rap and hip hop to the relative, representative impact posed by the government-sanctioned statue of a man who believed without question that it was worth sacrificing the lives of thousands in defense of maintaining the indefensible institution of slavery, well, my eyebrow kinda goes up. And I’m thinking…is this guy trying to pull a Kanye and just say some stupid shit to get admitted back into the conversation?
To be clear, what Marsalis was saying in his interview with the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart was that black people should be just as upset about what he deems as the corrosive influence of rap and hip hop on our culture as we seem to be over the enduring statue of Robert E. Lee anywhere in the South, or of the Confederate flag for that matter. Because, in Wynton’s mind, rap is much more of a clear and present danger. Emphasis on ‘present’.
In his own words, Marsalis said that hip-hop is indicative of “how we’ve lost our grip on our morality in the black community… using pornography and profanity and addressing ourselves in the lowest, most disrespectful form.”
Is that so..?
The music of the young has been considered a threat to civilization ever since there were young people around to make music. The hips of Elvis Presley were considered too dangerous to view on TV. Rock and Roll was supposed to signal the fall of a nation (personally, I considered Lawrence Welk much more of a threat). Blues was considered the devil’s music by many in the black church (stoop down, baby, let your daddy see. There’s somethin’ down there baby worryin’ the hell outta me). Or how about Little Richard when he sang “Good Golly Miss Molly, you sure like to ball!” I already mentioned P-Funk album covers, but consider this song title; “No Head No Backstage Pass.” Or how about Prince’s song, which gets more directly to the point, “Head”. Or “Do Me Baby”..? And I’m wondering if Wynton ever saw Prince go nuts on “Darling Nikki” in the movie Purple Rain?
And yet, miraculously, somehow, we have survived. The young people haven’t killed us off yet.
Let me repeat: Kendrick Lamar just got a Pulitzer. At the very least, I think that just might suggest a dawning realization that maybe, just maybe, rap and hip hop has something to add to the American cultural conversation.
Nobody doubts Wynton’s talent. The man is a supremely gifted musician who has committed his life to the performance and promotion of one of the world’s premier art forms. He has also proven himself to be a formidable, if sometimes uneven, intellectual when he puts his mind to it. Which begs the question…
WTF, Wynton?
