Hip-hop on trial, but is the accusation false?

A discussion Intelligence Squared

rap, involving everyone from Jesse Jackson and Q-Tip in PJ O'Rourke and Emily Maitlis was more curious than anything else

Last night, about 1,600 people descended on the Barbican in London and was hailed as "the global debate for the first time in hip-hop." Organized by Intelligence Squared and Google - Organizers conference online as something similar recently played in the war against drugs - it was like a cross between the question and trial, with advocates and speakers for and against the motion ". Hip Hop does not improve society, it degrades "

was even a live online vote, with statistics presented on giant screens and references to "change" as a hip-hop version of Peter Snow on election night. To add to the seriousness of it all, we had BBC Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis chair the debate, speakers from Jesse Jackson and Shaun Bailey - special adviser to David Cameron on youth crime and well-being - to rapper KRS-One and the poet Benjamin Zephaniah, and a number of academics. There was even satellite connections with, among others, Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest and humorist PJ O'Rourke. Mystifyingly, Jemima Khan was our web host.

was both serious and ridiculous, or should be, Ludacris forgiveness Eamon Courtenay, lawyer and defender of the motion, which was the first joke. Courtenay was absurd, whose task was to present the case against hip-hop. But as he strutted, reciting rap for conspicuous consumption, the relationship between music and the proliferation of crime among young black murderer while quoting the words of 50 Cent Crime Wave ("I have a finger on the itchy trigger black / So if you hit me and you get me, I'll be back for you ") to hilarious effect, inadvertently, we could not help but wonder if this was a parody large, a parody of something long forgotten in the 80 roundtable yoof television. Where was Janet Street Porter? Certainly, waiting in the wings.

Get all hot and bothered about bling rap and the game of today's teenagers feel a bit after the fact. Next step: Private Copying and kills the music video - disrupting potential radio star? And can we really give a shit about 50 Cent in 2012, let alone hold him responsible for urban blight? He will.

• is a curious debate is now, when a better discussion topic could in fact: the rap is in crisis? There is not long he was declared dead, and all that was commercially with David Guetta-fied R & B enjoys hegemony rap for 10 years. Ironically, since 2009 and the RIP view rap was actually tougher health for centuries with amazing artists from America, like Drake, the Weeknd future, Odd, handles death, A $ AP Rocky, Danny Brown , Main Attrakionz and more ethereal, almost psychedelic music is so strange that the music here is hardly attacked the same sex.
• In fact, Tyler the Creator and his band of wild sound architects could make decent topics for face to face because they have an agenda which requires an examination of what is lyrical and is not acceptable, but did not mention tonight. Everyone on both sides of the fence, seems to militate This was the time when hip-hop was a unifying force for good, that baby boomers who still want in 1969. But in reality, there was only one public enemy - just as there is one Rolling Stones - and hip-hop in general has always been more about awareness shave. The excitement is in humiliation, a point made eloquently by PJ O'Rourke when he came on the screen, first ask, reasonably, "What am I doing in this panel?" For laugh a public that seemed to be the absurdity of it all, and after the truism that great art is not always morally defensible. "What will they do - rap on puppies?" Good question, that.

Overall, we have two hours of bizarre cases for and against the use of the words "ho", "whore" and "black" as if Eazy-E is dominated sea, after which arguments are trotted out former corporate greed, as if somehow the label of hip-hop stars should not make money from selling records.

was the kind of heat! debate! that would make a lot of sense in 1988, back versions of Public Enemy is that it takes a nation of millions, De La Soul Three Feet High and Rising and NWA Straight Outta Compton, and this is where most Heads of the speakers seemed to be: advocating for the agency report exchange (PE) and the joy that rises (De La), but against their incentives to destroy (NWA). The presence of Q-Tip, and KRS-One, to bring artists Agenda confirmed this feeling of late. The only time I vaguely contemporary, relevant rappers were cited was Jay-Z and Kanye, and yet no one could decide to praise or blame, the debate is largely not in its respective value or amplitude musical lexicon but in its use of the "n" and the words "b". Tricia Rose, professor emeritus at Brown University, has her panties in a twist on sexist terminology, as if somehow his career has been hampered by the misogynist invective Schoolly D's, while KRS-One, also face in. , tried to defend the last word with a frequent use of the dictionary - it seems, is in the dictionary as "black" is the king which means "neggus" but does not say what the dictionary, and they n have not answered when an audience member asked if you mind, then, if it's a white boy threw racial slur said in it, given its connotation real

was a victory for the self-righteous condescension, and nobody, not one person was able to nail the lure of music at trial. In fact, the panelist rage against rap as "the commercial arm of the prison industrial complex ..." done a better job of capturing the excitement of the arc defender Michael Eric Dyson, professor of sociology at Georgetown University, who raps seem almost as attractive as the poetry slam 24 hours.
finally went to Emily Maitlis, who reeled vote statistics (apparently there was a swing against the line of movement and room), after that there was nothing to do but shrink as initial J Jesse came right demagogue and showman, recalling its recent civil, strangely invited everyone to stand and repeat after him: "I am someone I respected protect my mind is a pearl If my heart that I can not believe it! Stop the violence! Save the children! Keep hope! Alive! "

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