Yasiin Bey Releases “I Don’t Like (Remix)” (Stream)
For the past several years, Yasiin Bey has made a habit of standing in as your favorite mainstream rapper’s foil, re-purposing stuntastic records for more grounded discussions about weighty topics like poverty, corrupt governments, and the plight of blacks in America (see the incendiary “Niggas in Poorest“). Now Bey has hopped on “I Don’t Like“, calling card of trap rap scion Chief Keef, and the results are what you’d expect. Here’s a handy list of things the artist formerly known as Mos Def doesn’t like:
• “White supremacy”
• “The Bank of America”
• “The way the ghetto living”
• “The top 5 stupid songs on your radio”
• “Small claim corp clowns”
• “And strip club rappers out in broad day with their nipples out”
While some might pan Bey’s tirade here for being self-righteous or bitter, I’d argue that it’s no less abrasive than the song that inspired it. With his gruff delivery, Bey comes off as a veteran soldier determined to keep fighting as the battlefield shifts under his feet. The odds may be against his vision of a better future, but they always have been. Check out Bey’s “I Don’t Like (Remix)” and let us know what you think @DubJ and @WisdomFTF.
Listen to Yasiin Bey’s “I Don’t Like (Remix)” (Stream)
Full Lyrics:
Bismallah/Basmalah
First of all shout and respect to ?
Shout and respect to Lupe Fiasco
Shout out to Mr. West
Shout out to Rasheed Lonnie Lin
King Louie, L.E.P Bogus
Whole Chicago movement
Real Recognize Real
[Hook]
White supremacy, that’s what I don’t like!
Sugar-ass crackers, what I don’t like!
The Bank of America, I don’t like!
When they lynch and cynicism, yeah I don’t like!
I don’t like, I don’t like
The way the ghetto living
Man I don’t like!
[Verse 1]
Got us strapped up in the system, man I don’t like
Ain’t too different from a prison jacket, ain’t right
Ain’t no freedom at the trap, hustler’s everywhere
You could feel it in the air, pure despair
Hungry hands only take when they reaching out
Campaign, smoking, geek up, gun pow
Ugly politicians, new election year
Pretending that they care, they are not sincere
It’s the greedy and the rich ones that make war
That the hungry, young, and poor ones paid for
The little homie stretched out in a coffin
They dying younger, and they dying more often
The rent too high, the wage too low
The top five stupid songs up on your radio
I don’t like
All this cackling and carrying on, I don’t like
All this sucka-ness and scary shit I don’t like
All these Afri-coon Americans, it ain’t right
And that goes to crazy ass crackers
Small claim corp clowns, and strip club rappers
Out in broad day with they nipples out
With they stretch marks, blackheads and pimples out
Yuck, you suck, go away
You’re always talking, and you never got much to say
Yuck, you suck, go away
You’re always crowding space, fix your thirsty face
I don’t like
The way your shoulders looking sound, I don’t like
The way I see ‘em getting down, I don’t like
Make you wonder how they get around, it ain’t right
In the land where crooks get to write the laws
But people hide their eyes, and shut their jaws
Who the realest, nevermind
Who doing it for the best, there ain’t lies
What they wearing, who is that?
Ask yourself, why you care?
Somebody going ham on a gossip site
Catching feelings over rumors that are not your life
I don’t like
Sometimes I even hate
But not the people, their acts and ways
I don’t like, sometimes I even hate
Lord forgive, let us pray
For pussy posers, dummy greed
Polluted seas, them whacky weeds
Nazi police, wasted time
It’s only recruitment, legal crime
I don’t like
Rebuke, forgive, and pray for these fake niggas
Do me a favor. Visualize the mainstream hip hop landscape in the year of our Hov, 2012. Peer through the ranks of the dominant YMCMBMMGGOOD conglomerate¹, at the images and content promoted through your radiowaves and on your television screens, and all throughout your internet browsing experience.
Got it? Now tell me, does any of this content you are currently holding in your thoughts seem particularly sensitive to, or even concerned with, the well being of women? I’ll wait…
Wake me up when you’ve got the answer…
While I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule that mainstream hip hop is an entirely misogynist endeavor, you’d be hard-pressed to prove to an alien that many of the figures with the biggest platforms in our culture do not have a deep-seated, hateful relationship with women and femininity. This isn’t news – scholars with pedigrees in hip hop and African American studies, like Dr. Imani Perry of Princeton University (read chapters 5 and 6 of her text Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop) and Dr. Tricia Rose of Brown University (see her text The Hip Hop Wars for nuanced discussions of all things hip hop, including the subject of this piece) number the many who have confronted hip hop’s problematic relationship with women, calling out artists for their words and images.
This work of challenging artists and holding them accountable to the communities they reference and represent is one that the current generation of culturists, critics and scholars should not only pay attention to, but also actively continue. Consider what’s at stake: the continued unregulated commodification of sexism and misogyny in our culture at the expense of the next generation’s minds.
Speaking of the youth, Did you know Waka Flocka Flametotally advocates respecting women? During the promotional lead up to Mr. Let it Go‘s sophomore album Triple F Life: Fans, Friends & Family, the rapper sat down for an interview with Hot 97‘s Angie Martinez and unleashed the following gem while speaking about his step daughter:
“I don’t have kids of my own. [My step daughter is] my daughter. That’s my baby. It’s mines. That’s why I don’t like degrading women though. Because if I degrade women, she’s gonna grow up and listen to that. If I make it cool to degrade women, she gon be like ‘Damn, my ni**a could degrade me.”
Let’s give Waka, birthname Juaquin Malphurs, some credit here. Mr. Malphurs appears to genuinely love and support a child that’s not biologically his own, and seems to recognize the detrimental psychological effect his art could potentially have on her, and people in general. It could have been a watershed moment, but unfortunately, all one has to do to render it completely impotent is listen and read his album’s lead single, “Round of Applause“, featuring another rapper who’s earned recognition for his “sensitive” approach to women, Young Money‘s Drake. See below:
Some choice lyrics from Waka’s verse:
“When I hit the scene girls yellin’ and they scream Flocka can you be my baby daddy? Pimpin like Im Dolemite, hoes jump in my caddy Smoke like I got Cataract, In the strip club throwin up them stacks Got racks on top of racks, bust that p-ssy make that ass clap, clap, clap I aint done wit you baby bring that ass back Still got 20′s, still got 50′s, even got them 100′s Throw some money, throw some money, Imma let it go, Waka Flocka Flame better know as Mr.Let It Go”
The misogyny in Waka’s music (by no means limited to “Round of Applause”), taken in tandem with his statement suggests one of two things:
1) Waka completely lacks self-awareness and feels no cognitive dissonance between what he represents and who he is as a man
or
2) Waka is self-aware, pandering to an audience that will do little to hold him accountable for his contradictions, and ignores any cognitive dissonance between what he represents and who he is as man.
I’m personally inclined to believe the latter, considering this is a man who once said “I ain’t got no lyrics. That’s why I don’t trip when niggas be like, ‘Man, shawty can’t rap’. The nigga that everybody say is lyrical, they ain’t got no shows,” in response to criticism that his lyrics were lacking in the areas of substance and technical proficiency. Waka appears to at least pay some attention to how he is perceived as a figure in the game, which raises a complicated question: have disrespect, disregard, and degradation become so normalized in mainstream hip hop culture that artists can no longer discern instances of them?
Waka Flocka holds his god-daughter
I’m reminded of a jarring line from Drake on Rick Ross‘ hit “Ashton Martin Music” : “I hate calling the women bitches, but the bitches love it”. The “bitches” Drake refers to were once someone’s little girls, and that those girls felt the need to empower the word “bitch”, in a similar fashion to how black men empower the word “nigga”, suggests the lack of power women must feel while growing up and trying to find a place in this hyper “masculine”, misogynist culture. No wonder Waka, while speaking about his home life as Mr. Malphurs (wherein “That rappin’ [goes] out the window”), felt the need to voice his concern for his step-daughter’s psychological growth in spite of the pimpin’ implications of his art. Does this mean that Waka will stop degrading women in his music?
No. And in fact, he never claims that he will. Like Drake, Malphurs may feel uncomfortable with the way things are – “I don’t like degrading women” – but we currently have no reason to believe that this will lead to new behavior on his part. Why would he risk fucking up his money?
Maybe Lil Wayne has the answer. Could the author of countless odes to bitches, hoes, and the like, be a womanist sympathizer? He did author one of the more popular “Black Girl Lost” narratives in recent years, 2011′s “How to Love“. He is also responsible for cosigning and bringing exposure to the biggest female hip hop artist of the last decade, Nicki Minaj, consequently opening doors for other female rappers in a largely male dominated field. Should the line read “Weezy F. Baby and the “F” is for Feminist?”
Maybe the “F” is for “For Real, Bruh?”
The answer is obviously and unequivocally no, but that doesn’t stop Wayne from thinking so. In an interview he is quoted as saying:
“That’s a female; first and foremost Nicki Minaj is a female. I don’t know what anyone else believes, but I believe females deserve the ultimate respect at all times no matter, when or where or how.”
That’s a pretty audacious (and probably not well thought out) statement from a man who once rhymed “shut up bitch, swallow” with “shut up bitch, gargle,” but for the sake of my argument, give him the benefit of the doubt for a second while I give you some context (in case you were unlucky enough to miss out on all of the “fun”). In the first week of June, New York‘s Hot 97 radio station held its annual Summer Jam concert in East Rutherford, NJ. With about 60,000 fans in attendance, one of the hip hop shows of the year began with Nicki Minaj as its headliner. The event was going smoothly until one of Hot 97′s popular DJ’s, Peter Rosenberg, opined “I know there are some chicks in here waiting to sing along with ‘Starships’ later. I’m not talking to y’all now. Fuck that bullshit. I’m here to talk about real hip hop shit,” while on stage. Feeling (reasonably) disrespected Nicki apparently told Wayne about the comments, which led to Weezy pulling all Young Money personnel from the show. Nicki, unburdened from having to perform, tweeted several times as Summerjam continued, including the following:
Not blak but on blak radio dissin blak women > RT @JAE_MILLZ Radio personality with NO personality… fuck nigga!!! & u ain’t even black…
Fast forward to the present, wherein Lil Wayne attempts to justify pulling Minaj from the concert in an interview with MTVNews by implying that Peter Rosenberg is somehow a sexist for calling “Starships” “bullshit”. At this point, fellow field hands, I have to ask you: Am I missing something? Is there some underlying misogynistic subtext to Rosenberg’s comments that I’m not comprehending (If so, please enlighten me in the comments below this article)?
If not, I’m forced to conclude that Weezy is pandering to women and womanists in a wrongheaded attempt to gain the moral high ground by citing Minaj’s womanhood as the sole reason she shouldn’t receive criticism (criticism somehow = disrespect, a false equivalency in dire need of some unpacking). In taking this course, Wayne not only exposes himself as a hypocrite (not a particularly difficult task), but also trivializes the efforts of the women and men fighting for true equality and respect between the sexes in hip hop culture. This is dangerous; it isn’t hard to imagine some in Nicki Minaj’s extremely loyal and engaged fanbase learning the wrong lesson from this moment and going on to misidentify instances of real sexism and misogyny.
Some of you may read this and feel resigned, as though sexism in hip hop is a forgone conclusion; many times, I’ve felt the same way. However, in those moments of weakness, remember that there are folks in the field doing the work, holding artists accountable for their words and their actions, and gifting wisdom to those who seek it. But you must participate in the conversation, especially if you enjoy the music of Wayne, Waka, Hov or others, as I do. A well adjusted mind and psychology is the result of challenged notions and assumptions, and to consume this art without confronting it when it is problematic, is to allow hate to obscure your sight.
“Part of the power of sexism and racist sexism is their capacity to seem so normal they almost disappear from view: they recruit us all into participation even when we know better. But at the same time, we cannot continue to defend or si lently condone commercial mainstream hip-hop’s hefty contribution to the hostility and disrespect endured by black women. To do so is not to defend black men or hip-hop; it is to defend sexism against black women.”
This friendly reminder to check your vision regularly is brought to you by The Field.
NOTES
¹FYI: it truly is a family affair, as all three labels happen to be subsidiaries of Universal Music Group, where most of your favorite artists go to get sold.
[Note from the author: My fellow Field Folk: I originally wrote this for Princeton University's Hip Hop: Art & Life blog at 5:20pm on Friday, June 25, 2010, a year after the passing of the Gloved One. I find that my sentiments then hold true today, the third anniversary of his going home, and so I offer this post as a chance to reflect on the legacy.]
“Even the sun goes down. Heroes eventually die. Horoscopes often lie. And sometimes “y”. Nothin’ is for sure. Nothin’ is for certain. Nothin’ lasts forever…“ -Andre Benjamin
When I first heard “Stranger in Moscow“, on my aunt’s copy of HIStory, I was too young too understand what Michael Jackson was singing about in this song. At the time of the record’s release, he had been thoroughly vilified by a press that lost all sense of objectivity, and yet my family had been able to shelter my sister and myself from the ubiquitous accusations and media slander. Jackson had been a hero to us more than we could even understand, and I must thank my mother, for had she let us understand what the world was trying to do to this man, we would’ve quicker lost an innocence that was already suffering steady blows from the world around us. Had I been exceptionally perceptive those [15] years ago, I wouldn’t have let myself be hypnotized so completely by the echoing percussion that begins the song, lulled into the beauty without understanding the reasons why it was beautiful. My body and subconscious felt the cold, but my mind could’t fully grasp it. Clearly the song was sad, but what was all this KGB, Stalin imagery?
Years later, I come back to the song more critically aware and with more experience. I know that cold feeling very well. The darkness that comes with a rainy day as I sit at the window, forehead pressed to the cold glass. Tears fall down my face. When a song attempts to remind a listener of a feeling and succeeds, it can change lives. In his lifetime, Michael made countless songs that are effective at doing exactly that; but this song is different. It doesn’t attempt to sound like rain. Or attempt to sound like loneliness. ”Stranger in Moscow” simply is both of these things.
How can I connect with the planet – the billions walking the earth right now – when its hard for me to connect with even one person? Whereas in my adolescence I’d built an emotional wall around myself, Michael had to exist as a prisoner, a spirit surrounded by a fortress of early fame and responsibility. When he made “Strangers in Moscow”, and for the majority of the years of his life, there was no way he could have hoped to realistically connect with the people around him personally. I felt him as a teenager coming to terms with myself. I understood.
As a young man now, I hear the song and its metaphors are not lost on me. Everyone wanted a piece of this man. Yet no one tried to put themselves in his shoes. “Take my name and just let me be“. The media seemed determined to break him, and he was willing to let his name, one of the brightest among the world’s popular figures, be defiled if he could just have some peace of mind. Lord have mercy, because clearly no one else did.
I hear this song and my mind conjures the image of his statue on the HIStory album cover. A modern day Ozymandias. I read Shelley‘s poem, I hear Jackson’s song, and the conversation between them saddens me. Jackson describes the process of deterioration for the listener, the erosion of one’s spirit by outside forces that leaves a shattered visage on the ground. Michael was not faultless – the size of he ego is hard to describe – yet the way in which he used his iconic status makes his ultimate fate different than that of the Ozymandias in Shelley’s poem. People look at Ozymandias and are reminded that pride is foolish in the face of time. “The lone and level sands stretch far away from that colossal wreck.” Michael’s love, however, will remain intact in the hearts and minds of anyone who hears his music, now and generations from now.
The song moves me to tears. He screams at the end. Of danger. Of loneliness. It was frightening before his death, but now that he is no longer here, the warning is twice as dire. I hear it and I am motivated to make the most of my connections with people, to tear down the bricks in the wall around me. For that inspiration, that exposure to the extremes of desolation, I have to thank you Michael. Your work will of course live on, but if people really want to understand your spirit, they must look upon this opus and despair. And then love.
I hope you look down and feel us moving closer toward love as a people, even in these trying times. Even as things fall apart around us, you remain.
