Sorry Nas, You’re Not Calling That Album ‘Nigga’
The hot topic in rap this year has been the use of the word ‘Nigga’. After turning a blind eye to gangsta rappers using the word since, um, forever, the industry has suddenly decided to take offense. Is that a delayed reaction or what?
Onstage this week, the rapper Nas claimed that his next album will be called Nigga. From a marketing point of view, making such a controversial claim is bound to draw attention. Shame his record company didn’t agree, isn’t it?
Yeah, Def Jam Records have refuted that Nas even has an album scheduled for release, let alone one with such a controversial title.
Dear readers, was it Dumbledore or Gandalf who said “Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself”? Never underestimate the wisdom of the wizarding fraternity. I know to a lot of people, the word Nigga has racist overtones, but growing up listening to Ice-T, the word never meant slavery or racism to me. The vibe was more about gun-toting, drug-dealing, bitch-pimping dudes.
OK, so either way, the word doesn’t have much positive spin. One way, it’s a symbol of slavery, the other represents violent gang culture.
So, back to Nas. Was his stunt the other day more about self-publicity than trying to normalize a negative word? I think we know the answer to that one…
Chat about this on the Unreality TV Forum »
As a black man Nas can call his album what he dam well pleases.
Black people didn’t name themselves Niggers or Negroes, that was the white race.
The genie has been let out of the bottle, the egg has been scrambled.
All the pious whites can sit on their high horses, but for once it has nothing to do with you. Blacks shouldn’t be caring about the opinions of whites. If they do they are simply plantation coons, who have to validate their existence and opinions by a white slave master.
I find white people have a discussion about the word ludicrous. It’s not their argument and while it may have been a word invented by whites. It’s now up to the blacks what they do with it. So whites, butt out for once. Blacks can think for themselves.
What Nas needs are some powerful black companies, so he can do what he wants as a black man.
The most deplorable thing, that can happen. Is a group of white people getting together and discussing what is and what is not offensive to black people.
Once you do this, you don’t have to use the word Nigger, because that is what you are treating black people as.
Black people are far more educated than a lot of white people, who simply sit on their asses. Stating they are not racial narcissists because they like a few black actors and singers. Big Deal.
They feel it gives them the authority to speak on behalf of blacks, even though they have never conducted any academic research on race and attitudes. They simply speak to a few black people and then they become an expert on race.
There are hundreds of African-American academics who have spent years in psychology and sociology (studying this subject). Then some white guy buys a few albums and watches Wesley Snipes, Will Smith and Halle Berry. He starts thinking he is John Brown or Abraham Lincoln. Black people are not children and if white people wish to focus on the uneducated blacks, the inarticulate blacks and the blacks that agree with ever thing they say. So be it.
But you might as well join the Sons of Adam if that’s your view.
P.S For the record I am white and it infuriates me when white people push themselves forward to give opinions on issues that don’t affect them and they have no expertise in.
If you want to do research apply for a grant and spend four-six years of your life on the subject. Other wise you are nothing but a racial egoist and no better than the people who invented the word and used if so long. It’s 2008 and Nas should be able to do what he likes as a black man. Without going through a barrage of white men as if he is some Uncle Tom on a plantation.
When white men speak it is usually for themselves in the long-term and the argument for blacks is so weak it sabotages their cause. Let the blacks speak for themselves. White people shut-up, keep your opinions to yourself and for once just listen. You might learn.