These fools are why people don't respect rap as an art-form.
N*ggas in Poorest
When I was sixteen, a kid in my print shop class gave me a mixtape featuring the clear and powerful voices of The Wu-Tang Clan, A Tribe Called Quest, EPMD, Red Man, The Mighty Mos Def, and others. My exposure to hip hop had been somewhat limited before this point. I knew N.W.A. and West Side Connection, 213. I related to Gangster Rap, not that I was a gangster, but I grew up in a rough neighborhood, and I understood violence (as much as violence can be understood). But when Mos Def's Fear Not of Man breached my eardrums, something changed inside me. It was like I re-calibrated and found true north. Hip Hop was not the music of drugs, violence, and sexual misogyny, as I had previously thought, rather, it was the music of struggle: Struggle to be heard, struggle to be understood. Mos Def was not just a rapper, he was a philosopher, a politician, an advocate for change. He was Homer, or Mark Twain.
Mos recently changed his name to Yasiin Bey, but something that hasn't changed is his commitment to share hip hop's Odyssey. His track N*ggas In Poorest (his own take on the Jay-z Kanye collabo N*ggas In Paris) is a testament to the struggle of black people in America. I'm overjoyed to hear the voice that called me and brought me into the fold of hip hop, fourteen years later, just as fresh, just as passionate,
Mos recently changed his name to Yasiin Bey, but something that hasn't changed is his commitment to share hip hop's Odyssey. His track N*ggas In Poorest (his own take on the Jay-z Kanye collabo N*ggas In Paris) is a testament to the struggle of black people in America. I'm overjoyed to hear the voice that called me and brought me into the fold of hip hop, fourteen years later, just as fresh, just as passionate,
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