RealTalk with Julia Kennedy Jayes! [Part 1]

Greetings All!

It's your MainMan, OuttaBoundz, right back in your area code! Please enjoy the following ghettoGEEK Radio segment with Julia Kennedy Jayes. Julia and I will engage in a genuine inter-racial dialogue on the subject of contemporary race relations in America. As we are sincere about fundamental social change, please leave any comments and/or questions that you would like us to follow up on!

Julia may be contacted at www.juliakennedyjayes.com, www.elementalcollective.com, and www.fortunecookiephotography.com.



Another A. Dub Production...

OuttaBoundz
www.ghettogeekin.blogspot.com

My MEMORIES as a YoungNigga...

One of Tupac’s strategies for acquiring empathy was through the use of adolescent experiences and perspectives in his narratives. Rap music, principally created and directed by the passions of young people, acted as an appropriate avenue for Tupac to connect with his young constituents. He was also able to relay the concerns of the inner-city youths to other young people less familiar with their atrocities. Surprisingly enough, he was also able to negate the generation and racial gap that often separates blacks and whites [and persons whose demographic doesn't typically identify with rap music or Hip-Hop culture]. Mary Tasker (1999), a middle-aged, Caucasian, social worker acknowledges this when she proposes:

Many people believe that these lyrics condone, glorify, and perhaps even promote violence, and that therefore this music contributes to the moral decline of teenagers today. The teens I work with, however, have very different feelings that I am learning more about each day. (p. 217)

Tasker (1999) offers this opinion as she transitions from a stance of ignorance to one of enlightenment on the subject of rap music. Through her experiences with a group of inner-city youth, she finds herself in a position to understand and appreciate the music from a more empathetic perspective. Tasker (1999) mentions the impact of Tupac’s death on, Zaddi, one of her students. As tears flowed from Zaddi’s eyes, she asked “Why Mary? Why I feel this bad...like it was my own flesh and blood?” This illustrates the acute affinity that the youth had in regards to Tupac and his music.

In order to acquire this level of empathy, Tupac utilizes young people throughout many of his rhyme schemes. By using adolescents in his music, Tupac was not only able to appeal to them, but he was captivated by them and illustrate a social-psychological bond. His ability to do so can be attributed to passages like the following:

Back in junior high…when we was barely getting by,
when daddy died…that's when my momma started getting high.
My neighborhood was full of drive-bys; couldn't survive.
All my homies living short lives, I couldn't cry.
Told my momma if I did die, just put a blunt in my casket
let me get my dead homies high.
Come follow me throughout my history,
it's just me against the world stuck in misery; as a young nigga. (Shakur, Young Niggaz, 1995)

Consistent with his use of first-person narrative, Tupac invited listeners into a reality that he stated as his own. Listeners were inadvertently asked to empathize with an adolescent whose family structure is characterized by a deceased father and a mother who is beginning a cycle of drug addiction. He continues this description of depression by informing the audience of a neighborhood terrorized by drive-by shootings. As a result of this ‘ghetto-terrorism,’ all of his close associates and comrades are meeting early deaths. Consequently, the young man in this narrative is left to cope with a harsh reality of ephemeral relationships that entertain violence, deteriorate in drugs, and eventually end in death. Using an adolescent rationale that attempts to merge the secular with the celestial, the child asks his mother to place marijuana in his casket so that he is able to bear gifts to his deceased brethren. After making this quixotic request, he concludes by empathetically asking listeners to remain attentive as he continues his tour through misery.



OuttaBoundz
www.ghettogeekin.blogspot.com

Hip-Hop Art or Misogyny?

Art or Misogyny? ghettoGEEKS need to hear from you!

OuttaBoundz
www.ghettogeekin.blogspot.com

Before Barack, there was Tupac [Excerpt]

How hypocritical is Liberty?
That blind bitch ain’t never did shit for me.
My history full of caskets and scars
My own black nation at war…whole family behind bars.
(Shakur, Letter to President, 1997)

Unlike empathetic understanding, which directs communicative energy on an audience outside of the inner-city, many of Tupac’s messages were directed at his community. These messages, directed at the community, are manifestations of the value of communalism. These types of messages were given in the form of lessons, encouragement, and beneficial advice through strenuous situations. Foster (1971) defines communalism, as it applies to African American referent, as the “relationship of the individual to the group in the larger quest for survival and the ultimate goal of social order” (p. 12). In many instances, this quest for survival and social order requires critiquing and criticizing the established order. By critiquing the established order, one highlights discrepancies in resources or treatment as it pertains to their group, therefore displaying communalism. This form of communalism is the basis for the small excerpt that introduces this section; the suggestion here is that the American value of liberty is hypocritical when related to the African American experience.
Tupac achieves communalism through the use of three general methods which include (1) assuming a pedagogical stance in relation to his audience, (2) making appeals for his young constituents to establish independence, and (3) direct confrontation with the agents of oppression, which in most cases, are the police. In his methodological approach to exercising communalism, Tupac assumes the role of a teacher and demonstrates qualities similar to that of a communal leader.

Go to Amazon.com and pick up your copy of Before Barack, there was Tupac! today!