Music that shackles

Music has always been and may always be a powerful medium as used by the race.

We identify with ourselves through our music. Celebrate and mourn through music. Some of our greatest truths about our struggle have been told to a tune.

Sadly we have been lying to ourselves. Selling ourselves short. Telling ourselves and others that our men are niggers. The woman, bitches. And that money is our god. We have become capitalist selling our people's dignity for a Lamborghini. We have done this before, selling ourselves for the enjoyment of others. And now we sell our very souls to the devil for a catchy beat and a chance on MTV cribs.

You want to know why we don’t trust ourselves? Because this is all we talk about: nigger this nigger that. There is a reason I say nigger instead of nigga. It is to make you realize that it is actually the same word. You cant hate the root of the word, nigger, without hating the fruit of the word, nigga. As Malcolm told us, you cannot hate the root of the tree, without hating the tree its self. And so I have come to tell you, you cant love apples, but then hate the apple tree. You cant hate nigger, but then have love for nigga.

Separating nigger from nigga is as futile and meaningless as turning an apple into applesauce. It just makes it easier to swallow, easier to digest, that you are calling yourself a nigger. That you associate with a word that is nothing less than shackles on your feet and cuffs around your wrists. And then you wonder why so many of us end up like that even today. See the difference between nigger and nigga is the same difference between an apple and applesauce. It looks different, but you still has the same taste, not as crisp but its still sounds the same. You still got an apple in your mouth either way, and you still got nigger coming out your mouth at the end of the day.

So when we understand that, we understand that the very same music that is supposed to uplift us is dragging us down. What used to be the truth is nothing more than a lie.

When you listen to that music you are lying are yourself. Or is it I who is lying to you now? Well, are you niggers and bitches? Is money your god? Then who do you listen to people tell you such?

Why is being a gangster cool, but speaking like I do white, and uncool? Why do whites have a monopoly on education? Brothers and sisters this should not be! It is a lie to believe being uneducated is black, it is a lie. But, where does that lie come from? Our music!

Understand, I am not against all music, or even certain types of music genres, no I am against liars. And we have a lot of music artists that are liars to you and me. Everyday they tell you

“you aint nothing, you aint nothing. Guns and Drugs its the answer, violence that’s the solution.”

If that is really their lives why do they glorify the same life style that often lands them in jail or in an early grave. Ask yourself this question, has your favorite music artist ever been in jail, is he in jail currently? If the answer to the question is yes, does he still talk about and promote the same lifestyle that got him in jail in the first place? For example could he go to jail if he still does the things he talks about in his album? Going to jail is not a automatic dis qualifier for anything, repeating the same behavior is.

Writers are told to “write what you know.” and if the only thing your artist every talks about is a crime filled life, with sex, obscenity, and dis respect for women, what is that artist teaching you? What will you know? If that is all the artists knows, than we ought to know better than to listen to that. There is more to music than that. There is more to life than that. There is more to us as a people than that.

Yet if all we listen to is that, it will be what we become. You are what you set your gaze upon. You are what you eat. And if all you eat is applesauce, well...what can we expect but to become just another apple?