Kanye West apologizes on Jay Leno

OK, so I'm from a different generation of pop music (Big Bands, Sinatra, Ella, Bennett), but good music is an absolute. In the sense that it is always absolutely capable of communicating to and uplifting the human spirit (eg. "Music soothes the savage beast," etc). What a lot of us ask anyone who chooses to speak for hip-hop & rap is this: (1) is this brand of music uplifting anything of human value to the listener or simply playing down to their primal instincts? (2) has someone so inarticulately immature like West earned the right to stand in the national spotlight as a spokesman for music, or for much of anything?

wow....I've literally never heard such an elitist statement/question. This "brand" of music is more than some banal expressionless genre. This "brand" of music represents an entire cross-section of American (and admittedly now, an international) culture. This "brand" of music has inspired literally an entire generation of people to believe that they can be more than what they are told they are. This "brand" of music does far more than "play down to primal instincts". Although I could surge down a tangent of why that statement could be construed as quiet racism, I'll choose to simply explain that if you look past the faceless music videos and expressionless radio music, you would see hip-hop as a living and breathing organism, made up of the many people who listen to and actively participate in it.

Kanye West, as insanely wrong as he may be at times, has done more to inspire than you could ever know. He holds concerts benefiting school children with perfect attendance, and he gives back to the community that birthed him. What you might not understand, is that while your "brand" of music may be absolute in the sense that it communicates and uplifts the...ya...hip-hop gives a voice to the voiceless. Hip-hop was birthed in a time when it was a crime to simply be an urban youth. A time when the color of your skin and the cut of your cloth was as much a badge of dishonor as it was in the 1950s, if not moreso than.

This "brand" of music raise US on the predication that we can take literally nothing and make it something, that we can be more than we ever were supposed to be. So while Kanye may seem immature to you, I would argue he's done more for my peer group than Sinatra ever did for yours. Hip-hop music, of which West is admittedly at the forefront of, is much akin to Blues and Soul and Mo-Town. Hip-hop speaks to the innermost and deepest dreams of an entire world of people. Hip-hop tells us we can when the world and our circumstances tells us we can't. Kanye West earned his spot by communicating that very ideal. That a boy of humble roots, not the poorest of poor but certainly not well-off, can overcome obstacles and be successful. Jay-Z shows us that a man from a project in New York can become a successful business man.

Hip-hop has moved past music, and has become a field rife with entrepreneurs and innovative minds. Just because the vast majority of this music has been dumbed down, seemingly by the very minds that told us we couldn't make it in the first place, you certainly do not have credence to insult what many of my own love with a passion. Hip Hop IS more than music and thus deserves higher regard than a subcategory of a subcategory. The feeling you got from the generation of your music is the same feeling I get when I hear "Through the Wire" or "Can't Tell Me Nothing." To say that Kanye West hasn't contributed enough to the world is a laughable misstatement. If we step aside from music; what he's done in terms of bridging gaps between subcultures is enough. Kanye makes it acceptable to be you. In a culture, as I have said grew from being more than what you're told, that grew to tell you what to be, Kanye and many others like him dared to be different, and thus allowed others to dare and to dream.

Insane rants included, Kanye West can speak for me anytime he so chooses.

Well, guys, I respect your two strong rebuttals. I sense that by identifying myself as an older generation (some like to use "greatest") I am sticking out my chin for you to take a poke at. Putting aside our arguable differences in musical tastes, you both raise a deeper issue -- the generational gap that always haunts every society. The inevitable us-vs-you syndrome!

I may be much older than you, but having taught teens for 40 years and having teen grand-children has kept me in touch with "your world." So I hear what you hear in hip-hop as an "expression" as well as just "music." And I think I understand that each younger generation uses its music to challenge the older generation (I did and now you do).

BUT....here's my problem! I am of an age and a disposition that believes there are still some absolutes left in life. Tastes and values may change, but some absolutes do and should endure. THAT is the bone in my throat about music & spokesmen like West. Is he really the best expression of what your generation believes? Aren't there still certain absolutes when it comes to (1)the beauty of music vs simply its capacity for anger and vulgarity? (2) the social taste of the musicians vs their freedom to rage?

Lets put it this way. I think your generation has some incredible musical talent, but hip-hop and rap by their very narrow angry nature are unlikely to speak to the spirit of the masses at large. Or to continue speaking down the ages. My experience is that every new generation sorta thinks the world began the day they're born. As you age you suspect there's really much more to this world than your own narrow generational agendas, no matter how well they are articulated by impressive commentators like you. Now if you guys can help me see it otherwise, I'm open...

You seem to only see the narrow view of hip-hop presented by the mainstream media. The roots of hip-hop aren't based in vulgarity and anger, but in fun and a sense of self. If you were to listen to a Kanye West album, not just watch his rants on television, you'd hear songs about how you can be better than you are, how home can make you stronger than you ever thought you could be, a loving dedication to his (then alive) mother, and songs about how much he cares for his grandmother. If you were to listen to Lupe Fiasco, you'd get biting critiques of the current governmental system and polictics world wide, you'd hear subjective insight into the dangers of mass media, you'd get a sense of someone who "used to hate hip hop because the women degraded". Hip-hop is more than what you see on BET and MTV. Hip-hop, again, is an entire culture. An entire mode of thought. Down to the dress, the language, the idiosyncrasies that help us identify who we are in the world.

The absolute's that you refer to most certainly do exist, but I challenge you to listen to the song "Hey Mama" and not find yourself face to face with that very beauty. A stripped down, totally exposed emotion given in music is ABSOLUTE beauty. A Lupe Fiasco album, a Common song, a Kid Cudi "record"...go deeper than just music. These artists push the genre into the conceptual range, often rivaling current literary efforts. The song "Put You On Game" or "Streets on Fire" are absolutely breathtaking efforts by Lupe Fiasco to describe current problems in the 'hood'. A description of "the game" or the criminal life personified. "I have been in the poems of many a poet and I reside in the work of many a artist. Some of your smartest have tried to articulate my whole part in this, but their fruitless in their harvests."

My point with these quotes and these track references is that what i am saying is that hip-hop is MORE than music. It takes the absolute beauty you refer to (re: the production aspect of hip-hop at times is moving, to say the least) and takes it to another plateau by adding a deep and meaningful commentary about the world each rapper sees. It is music AND poem. song AND painting. Hip-hop, simply put, is art.

I would also argue that the social taste of these artists is extremely well thought and well expressed. Again: Lupe, Common, Kanye, Q-Tip, Pharcyde, Dead Prez, A Tribe Called Quest...look into these and maybe you will see what I see. Social Commentary. Life without criticism is a doomed experiment, and in a generation where we are force fed Mocha Lattes from StarBucks and accept anything our televisions tell us, hip-hop is that very necessary commentary.

Also, may i add that hip-hop respects its musical roots more than any other "new" genre of music. BECAUSE of hip-hop people know about music they never would have. I have ten year old cousins who know Marvin Gaye BECAUSE of Kanye West. I know a seven year old who loves Chaka Khan because of Kanye's very first single. Hip-hop lives and breathes because of the music that came before it. And it speaks to a much larger percentage of the world than you'd care to admit, and to not tediously repeat my post ad supra, if you took the time to find GOOD hip hop to critique, you'd see that it's lasting power can be as great as any literary inroads. The allegorical and parable-esque nature of a lot of hip hop will singularly make it stand the test of time.

Lupe Fiasco's - Just Might Be Okay

My reaction is that YOU sound and speak like an artist...! Whether these singers & composers are ALSO artists or simply riding a hot commercial wave is open to question. Let me share this with you. I have written stories, teleplays, speeches and even some poetry over the years. What I find fascinating is how often listeners will read into my words deliciously exotic nuances I never intended. Like book reviewers and music critics so often do. This always leaves me to speculate -- is what I wrote or what they heard the real message? Probably a little of both.

But let me venture a guess. From what I've seen -- long-range admittedly -- of these hip-hop, rap performers suggests that very few could speak to their "art" as eloquently as you just did. Is it possible you're infusing them with more than they really have? or are? That's been true throughout the course of musical history from the classics to jazz and maybe now to this.

Either way, this might be a good opportunity to bridge two gaps: our age (I'm 78) and our race (I'm white). Wide as these gaps are, I'm glad I'm hearing your vision. Tell me more! In return, maybe I can share my walk with Ella, Louie, Frank, Tony, and two other dead guys named Mozart and Beethoven.

I love Ella Fitzgerald, for one. Mozart and Beethoven too, though I am partial to Bach. My point is that a long-range view of rap will only show you the terrible industry standard mainstream. The artists I mentioned, however, have specifically stated their intentions and deeper meanings, Lupe Fiasco most notably. Although I'm sure that I read a lot into things as any particpant in an artform does, I know that a lot of artists intend it. Lupe used a TRIPLE metaphor in a song once tying in Felix Unger from the Odd Couple, the eye of a storm and a recent Hurricane that was named Felix. When artists like THAT produce music, it is great.

That being said, I'm not a fan of all rap music. Rap music is just like every other genre. It is rife with trash and banal fodder, but there are quiet a few gems hidden beneath the filmy layer of socially normative stereotypes. I'm not saying hip-hop is without flaws, because it certainly has a lot. I'm simply saying that an afternoon of digging will leave you with some gold to take with you.

And i most definitely appreciate the classics.

Well, look now, another small step for mankind! Two different generations took the time to talk, and we find we have more in common than we may have thought before we talked. If only this fever-pitched society would try more talking than yelling. You weren't around for the violent killer-times of the late 60s, but I sometimes feel we're right back there again. Not just with mis-understanding each other's music, but each other's views and values. Bad time right now for America, because it seems we're once again busier hating than hearing one another!

Anyway, I've learned something about hip-hop & rock...and at the same time I've learned we can both appreciate music from Bach to Beethoven to Ella! Good for us..