Nas: Whose Word Is This?

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• Reader Comments (18)

  Page 1 of 1 pages

  How silly! Don Imus makes a comment that is not even particularly racist and he is vilified. Using the work niggardly has caused commotion, even though it is not racist in the least. Now you have some bozo spreading around the word “nigger” to make the big bucks.

  Fine with me. But i hope those who support this nonsense are not easily upset when they or their kids are labeled with such words.

  Posted by wolf on Feb 5, 2008 at 3:31 PM

  Unfortunately, Wolf, it’s obvious that you hope that exactly the opposite happens.  The only truthful statement in your previous comment was the fifth sentence (“Fine with me.”).

  Posted by Major Major on Feb 6, 2008 at 3:37 AM

  Ha. Major major you must be psychic! Guess you really got me this time! Now if you could divine which stocks i should buy. . .  :)

  Posted by wolf on Feb 6, 2008 at 3:55 PM

  Wolf must be white.

  Posted by liar liar on Feb 6, 2008 at 4:14 PM

  Hell, i am not only 110% white (definitely not pink or peach!), but a current slave holder. Not to mention i eat children for snacks, repress women for fun, and even worse, occasionally respond to idiotic posts with sarcasm!

  Cool to have a whole thread about the most important issue of all - me! :)

  Posted by wolf on Feb 6, 2008 at 8:20 PM

  As a young man of the 1960s raised by parents that were far above praising themselves for their anti-racist perspectives and felt debating the issue with racists was beneath them, I developed a strong aversion to use of what we call today the “N” word. Three years ago, working as a group-care counselor in what during my youth was referred to as a reform school and today is a residential therapeutic facility, I took the occasion of the Martin Luther King holiday evening to discuss my distaste for the word with some of the boys. They were white, Hispanic and African-American. What continues to perplex me was their common sentiment that I was confusing “nigger” with “niggah,” that, as we writers like to remind less literate folk, words that sound the same may not be the same and swapping them for literary affect can produce undesired effects. The boys did their best, despite my adamancy that their argument was absurd, to inform me that their frequent and intentional use of the word was to, as one insisted, make it clear that it’s “like that thing you old folks say.” To wit: sticks and stones will break my bones, but names can never hurt me.  Not convinced, I attempted to familiarize them with the struggles of The Sixties, the brutality and murderous scope of American racism, and the ways in which subcultures of the impoverished sometimes evoked things that proved detrimental to those subculture’s defeat of forces that maintained oppression of the impoverished, all of which seemed to be lost on my audience. Nonetheless, the boys left me with a perplexing and provocative take on my problem, as an evolving leftist and progressive, with the N word.  The “F” word and all its conjunctive variants was common to my white subculture that condemned the horrific foreign policy militaristically and imperialistically deployed in Vietnam. Today, use of such protesting vulgarity is uncommon while the establishment condemns a New York Times ad that uses “betray us” in an unclever rhyme scheme regarding a general’s lead of Iraq’s horrific occupation by our nation’s crippling black-and-white addictions: oil and opiates. Times change, we tap our feet to different tunes, language evolves. I’m very much hoping the increasingly common use of the word “niggah” (I’ll give the benefit to those who coined the word for usage in explaining what it means) might lead to those who would use the “N” word in its full connotative assault impotent in their intent to target the dark-skinned for vilification that bespeaks the absurd and dangerous notion that racism is in any way a supportable concept. Who knows, maybe I’ll learn to understand and appreciate rap. Ya gotta listen, if ya wanna hear.

  Posted by Bud Wizer on Feb 6, 2008 at 10:54 PM

  “There ain’t no in between, we either niggers or kings we either bitches or queens.”

  Mos Def and Talib Kweli aka Blackstar
  (real MC’s with real lyrical skill)

  Relevant to Nas are some Kweli lyrics

  “I’m looking for my people cause you ain’t here and your hero’s using your minds as a canvas to paint fear”

  Or

  “These cats toast death and pain like slaves on the ship rhyming about who got the flyest chain”

  If Nas thinks hip hop is dead, maybe he should get out of the game to make way for some serious socially conscious rappers.  I am not going to accept social commentary from the author of ‘The Life we Chose’, ‘Shoot em Up’, ‘Blaze a 50’ and ‘Phone Tap’

  Posted by Poppolphil on Feb 7, 2008 at 8:02 AM

  Were I familiar with the works of Nas, I might be inclined to agree with you, Poppolphil. I am inclined to listen and, if pertinent to what I’m hearing, learn.  Also, I’m pathologically posed and intrinsically inclined to prefer, as you put it, “to make way for some serious socially conscious” artists. DeNiro’s endorsement of Obama is music to my ears. My son, on the other hand, continually amazes me with hip-hop and rap stuff he brings to my attention, particularly that which reminds us of Mumbia’s predicament. I like to think he does so because I was able to familiarize him with Dylan’s efforts not long before my son was born, when Rubin “Hurricane” Carter was looking through bars in Trenton. Let’s hope that American music, in all its forms, continues to reflect the traditions of protest that, in addition to bringing tears to our eyes, has, in fact, led to what we progressives think of as progress. Regarding Blackstar’s notion of there not being any “in between,” I’d have to testify that, in my experience, there is: I ain’t a nigger nor a king;  being in the middle’s sometimes a more defining thing, about which I would sing.

  Posted by Bud Wizer on Feb 7, 2008 at 5:36 PM

  The point is that there isn’t any point in between having self-respect and not.  They clearly do not literally mean that all black men are monarchs.  And on the actual meaning of the line, I think it is pretty close to the truth.

  As for the other two lines, from Talib Kweli, he is right on.  There is a difference between telling people how it is in the ghetto and glorifying it.  NWA were doing the first more than 15 years ago.  At this point all Nas is doing is the second.

  Posted by Poppolphil on Feb 7, 2008 at 10:11 PM

  Nas using the word to make “big bucks”?  That’s stupid.  If anything, it’ll hurt record sales because all the major retailers will be too scared to put it on their shelves.  IT’S AWARENESS MORE THAN ANYTHING. Nas is all about bringing controversial issues in order to keep the “streets” thinking.  I believe that the rap game is way too commercial and all these rappers use words such as nigger too losely.  I for one believe that NaS is revolutionary in the way he presents his information.  His rhymes are beyond rap and his persona is not your typical mainstream rap artist.  I AGREE WITH BUD WIZER AND UNDERSTAND HIS POSITION.  He seems to know very little about NaS as an artist but does not judge him or his music based on the title.  However, I’ve been on several forums that talk about this issue without knowing the artist and/or any of his works.  It’s unfair and obsurd to draw conclusions about an issue if you are ignorant about the topic.  WOLF IS A BOZO for condeming the people that support NaS.  I can post up a million lines that justify the lyrical caliber of his rhymes, but I’ll let y’all listen to them yourselves.  I don’t even think that anyone against NaS has ever listened to his music.  Start by listening to ILLMATIC.  I’m not asking you to like it or even think anything of it, just listen before you make any assumptions.  Cuz that’s what’s killing the youth right now.  NOT “NIGGER” OR ANY OTHER WORD, IT’S IGNORANCE AND FALSE ASSUMPTIONS.

  Posted by DonCorleone on Feb 8, 2008 at 5:46 AM

  One of my dear friends and colleagues (she’s Af-Am, fyi) tells me that the word can’t be demystified or neutralized, in her opinion. She and I spoke of it recently and I asked that very question, but she said that Nigger has too much of a poisonous history, especially when said white-to-black. She says it comes across very differently than if another black person says it, has too much ugly historical baggage, for me to every be able to say e.g. anything like “my niggah” to her without triggering very bad feelings and possibly damaging our friendship. It’s a line she really (I mean REALLY) doesn’t want me to cross. Actually it’s not the sort of thing I say, but she was quite adamant in our conversation. She also doesn’t like it from other black folks, but she says it’s much worse and is plain unacceptable from a paleface.

  By the way, she’s in her late 20s, so she was not born until well after the Civil Rights era, during which I was a small boy. But for her the generational span isn’t important. It’s the word and its history.

  However, if Nas is actually able to undermine the assaultive power of the word for upcoming generations, more power to him. I’ll have to ask my (paleface) son about Nas’ other work, he’s far more familiar with it than me.

  (Judging from what I’ve seen as I’ve worked with teens of all races/SESs for 20+ years, looks like when Ice T and others foretold the infiltration of white youth by the hip-hop movement years ago, they were onto something. The proportion of hip-hop white youths is at least as big as, say, metal-head white youths in my experience, and I’ve taught one heck of a lot of kids in a lot of places, in the US and out).

  I’ll check out this Illmatic, also, Godfather.

  (To close, I have to say again that this business of blaming hip-hop for Michael Richards’ and Don Imus’ outbursts was absurd, as though white guys aiming racial epithets at blacks somehow coincided with the appearance of Grandmaster Flash. They’re grown men. They spoke with their own mouths.)

  Posted by Kuya on Feb 8, 2008 at 8:52 AM

  Hip hop and its association with the word “nigger” is disappointing to me because of the lack of creativity displayed by its continual use.  It use to be that when white folks started to adopt or co-op or mainstream parts of our culture we’d change up so we could continue to talk amonst ourselves.  Any decent spoken word artist worth his weight in salt can infer any variation of the contextually implied meaning of the term “nigga” for every listener he or she is communicating with, especially when coupled with a visual medium like a live performance or video.  For instance, Black folks are quick to refer to the thug/street element in our communities as “pookie n em”, or those who want to appear to live large without changing their hood ways as “ghetto fabulous”, or working and/or middle class Blacks who were born and raised and ususally still live in the hood but would rather disassociate themselves from the stereotypes as “bourgie”, or blue collar as “rough necks”; these and many others are terms Black folks signify with in everyday language understanding that they don’t apply to white people.  Why hasn’t hip hop moved on since using the term “nigger” is virtually mainstreamed?  I think Nas is seeking the spotlight and some ink to sell his CD, you see how well controversy worked for Kanye and 50.

  Posted by theloneous on Feb 8, 2008 at 7:18 PM

  “I think Nas is seeking the spotlight and some ink to sell his CD”

  I agree, but seems that DonCorleone thinks that makes us stupid. But everyone has a right to opine however they please, however foolish they may be. . . :)

  Of course, as a father i teach that the word nigger is like the work fuck - it has little place in civil society. And no place in public discourse (barring my use of it as an example, for example).

  Sure, i really love the major - i suppose that makes me coprophiliac, for example?

  Posted by wolf on Feb 8, 2008 at 10:02 PM

  What makes you a coprophiliac is your compulsive submission to authority and your obsessive attempts to enforce the submission of your subordinates to your will.

  Posted by Major Major on Feb 10, 2008 at 1:07 AM

  Why is it such an issue if a man wants to use a word to be the title of his next LP?  Why is White America so scared of a word THEY CREATED?  Now they don’t want a BLACK MAN to use it. Is it even about the word NIGGER anymore? 

  People get too bent out of shape and too busy trying to find a scape goat for blaming the problems of our youth.  Today it’s HIP HOP, right this minute it’s NaS.  I DEFINATELY AGREE with the fact that MOST RAPPERS ARE QUITE FOOLISH with the way they portray themselves on TV and with the records they put out on the radio.  But I know for a fact that Nasir Jones isn’t one of them.  If it’s the fact that the children these days use the word NIGGER or any other degrading remark, it certainly isn’t just from rap.  Why are fools like Bill O’Reilly sweating NaS for performing at Virgina Tech, and condemning Rap and the Hip Hop culture as a whole.  50 Cent and Kanye do not represent the likes of Nas, Common, Rakim, etc. if you only associate rap with A STEROID TAKING GORILLA WITH A HOLE IN HIS MOUTH & A TANTRUM THROWING METROSEXUAL COLLEGE DROPOUT then you shouldn’t even post your comments for your ignorance!  Let me put something out there.

  Why is it that a white man can direct a film, another one write it, and another produce it.  Then they cast someone like Denzel Washington to portray a corrupted cop (Training Day) or a drug dealer (American Gangster) and both critics/fans hail it a masterpiece and give out awards for the great job they did.  Keep in mind the amount of drug, violence, sex, and explicit language—not to mention the social degradation of the urban cutlure which includes blacks, latinos, and whites.  And NO ONE blames hollywood.

  SO WHAT if Nas says what he says, or does what he does.  Lets all just set a double standard for anyone trying to express themselves.  Matter fact, why don’t we all just tell Denzel to stop acting because the characters he portrays are too stereotypical, and maybe we should tell Tom Clancey to stop writing because of the violent content and ban all Kurt Vonnegut’s books because there’s people that are offended.  Or maybe we can keep our students from reading Mark Twain novels.  NO! We won’t do that because their books and movies are all works of art!  Do we judge them of what they said or did, or do we look at how they got their point across.  You won’t mistaken Edgar Allen Poe for Dr Suess, so don’t think Nas is like that Soulja Boy, 50 Cent garbage! 

  WE USE TO BE A GHETTO SECRET, I DON’T KNOW IF I WANT THAT OR THE WHOLE WORLD TO PEEP IT…

  I feel it’s a problem we gotta resolve
  Hip-Hop been dead, we the reason it died
  Wasn’t Sylvia’s fault or because MC’s skills are lost
  It’s because we can’t see ourselves as the boss
  Deep-rooted through slavery, self-hatred
  The Jewish stick together, friends in high places
  We on some low level shit
  We don’t want niggaz to ever win
  See, everybody got a label
  Everybody’s a rapper but few flow fatal
  It’s fucked up, it all started from two turntables

  an answer to the title of the article- “Nas:  Whose word is this?”
  ... THE WORD IS YOURS, you can take it how you want to.  either be mature enough to not lose sleep over it or just stop complaining because you apparently don’t understand the concept behind what a man is trying to do.  go read a book try Huck Finn and comment on that, I’m sure you’ll find enough of the N word to make up a good thread on it.

  Posted by DonCorleone on Feb 10, 2008 at 5:32 AM

  Don Corleone,

  First your name doesn’t speak much to your maturity.  Second, the fact that you don’ t think anyone can not like Nas after listening to his music is really silly.  Three, I have listened to about two albums worth of songs and I listen to all his singles as they drop.  Nas is simply not on the level of some of the underground and semi-mainstream rap artists.  No commercial rapper like Nas is.  This shouldn’t be surprising.  It is really rare for the commerical artists in any genre to be among the best that genre has to offer (Nickelback is a really popular band for example.). 

  The cultish attachment to Nas just makes rap look bad.  It makes it look like an inherently racist (like the lyrics you quoted ‘Jewish stick togerther, friends in high places’?  This is just an anti-semitic meme that has been around for hundreds of years in Europe and Russia) low intellect genre.  It isn’t.  But people like you make it look bad.

  Posted by Poppolphil on Feb 10, 2008 at 6:31 PM

  I understand we have very different points of views on this topic but I have to thank you for proving my point.  People blame hip hop.  I’m not asking anyone to like Nas or even rap.  I don’t even think that he’s the best rapper alive.  There’s always someone better than the next and who are we to single out that person.  He’s just another man, trying to lead a movement that quite frankly isn’t moving (at least progressing the way it should) rap is stuck in a rut.  too materialistic and degenerative.  It might not be the most sophisticated genre, but its not low intellect either.  Some rappers actually shed light on the genre but are not “commercial” enough to get a deal.  But nonetheless people like me appreciate it and embrace the hip hop culture.  I’m not going to defend the man anymore because I see I’ve said more than enough.  But why should he step down, what’s he going to do… take lil’ wayne’s rhymes?  I just wanted to see if this whole issue is even about the N word.  And it isn’t.  I see that people can care less about it and more about blaming hip hop.  Shoot i do too.  And I’m okay with one of the people that’s making it look bad, but damn, this isn’t classical music, does anyone seriously think hip hop was suppose to look good?  That’s the problem too many corny rappers with their dancing.

  Posted by DonCorleone on Feb 12, 2008 at 5:27 AM

  hi
  how u doing friend?
  well this is a fantastic article from your side and i was in search of same sort of information the part i like is as you mentioned above
  Predictably, Jackson and Sharpton have lambasted Nas 1z0-047 exam  for his decision, Fox News has denounced him, and New York State Assembly member Hakeem Jeffries is urging the New York Comptroller to pull an $84 million state pension fund invested in Def Jam’s parent company, Vivendi, unless the title of the album is changed.

  This enthusiastic campaign against a word is not just a distraction from real 1Y0-A06 exam issues, it is a debilitating diversion. Words are symbols with no intrinsic value. They derive their meaning from social context. Ascribing inherent qualities to symbols is the very definition of idolatry. Devoting such energy to attack them is like EX0-101 exam Cervantes’ Don Quixote tilting vainly at windmills, wasting precious resources.””

  Posted by jason.rocksmith on Sep 1, 2009 at 9:54 AM

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