Why the Thong Song is Wrong -or- Put Some Hip-Hop on Your Playlist and Change the World by Joining in A Dialogue of Social Consciousness

“Critical and liberating dialogue, which presupposes action, must be carried on with the oppressed at whatever the stage of their struggle for liberation. The content of that dialogue can and should vary in accordance with historical conditions and the level at which the oppressed perceive reality.” –Paulo Freire, from Reading the Word and the World

I am not joking. You might find this hard to believe if you have been around me, because I tend to joke. But there are things that some people might perceive as a joke about which I am serious; extremely serious.

The scenario might seem humorous; “there goes Singleton again with his S. Carter shoes and his ipod full of hip-hop. He likes that music, like the stuff by Kanye West that is humorous and makes us laugh. I like the rap music that is fun and funny or that makes me dance, but I don’t know about some of that other stuff… that stuff that Singleton listens to seems a little inappropriate.”

I admit that the appearance of my inclination to hip-hop music and hip-hop culture can be a humorous one, but I demand to be taken seriously. Hip-hop has become a vital part in my personal education concerning life and the world. It should be heard and listened to. Really listened to. Not awed at or simply seen as shock-value work.

Hip-Hop and rap music, the stuff not about thongs banging on your local AOL/Timewarner/Clear Channel radio station, but the real stuff of Hip-Hop that must be found and dug for, is a conversation that needs to be heard.

Particularly as a young middle-class white male who claims the Christian tradition, I need to hear hip-hop. I need to listen and learn from the voices of those in the “minority.” I need to listen intently to the voices of the oppressed and impoverished.

Stop dancing. Stop “dropping it like it’s hot.” Join a conversation. Join a “liberating dialogue.” Join in a discussion of how to make things right in the world. I don’t care if it’s “not your style.” It is a style and it is a style that needs to be listened to, that needs to be heard and addressed. We must stop ignoring the world around us.

“I don’t want to listen to music with harsh language,” you might say. The language might be harsh, but so are the realities. Our world may be comfortable and nice, but there are other worlds. We cannot ignore them. We cannot think that the welfare of our neighbors (or the people who would be our neighbors if we’d allow it) is not our concern. We must hear truth even when truth is hard. We cannot reject truth because of the package it comes in. (As a Christ-follower, do I not accept an offensively packaged truth already? A baby in a stable? A carpenter and some fishermen in an Arab country? A Jew who ate with Gentiles and walked with prostitutes?)

There is a scene in the movie Magnolia where I young black kid who has witnessed a crime tries to inform the up-tight and deeply Christian Police officer on who is to blame by telling him using rap. The officer keeps interrupting him and criticizing his explicit language and never hears the truth the kid is offering concerning the crime. “Did you just hear me? I just told you who did it?” – “Just watch the language little man.”

Hip-hop is more than a musical genre. It is more than entertainment. It is more than the stuff you hear on the radio. It is a movement and a social dialogue. Take notice and listen. There are issues we haven’t resolved. There are injustices that we turn a blind eye to. There are prejudices that we continue to perpetuate. Our nation is young and made plenty of mistakes in our start. We cannot ignore those implications. We cannot stop trying to make things right. Hear this:

From Mathematics by Mos Def

One for Charlie Hustle, two for Steady Rock
Three for the fourth comin live future shock
It's five dimensions, six senses
Seven firmaments of heaven to hell
8 Million Stories to tell
Nine planets faithfully keep in orbit
with the probable tenth, the universe expands length
The body of my text posess extra strength
Power-liftin powerless up, out of this, towerin inferno
My ink so hot it burn through the journal
I'm blacker than midnight on Broadway and Myrtle
Hip-Hop past all your tall social hurdles
like the nationwide projects, prison-industry complex
Working class poor better keep your alarm set
Streets too loud to ever hear freedom ring
Say evacuate your sleep, it's dangerous to dream
for cha-ching cats get {{they}} CHA-POW, {{you}} dead now
Killin fields need blood to graze the cash cow
{{It's a numbers game}}, but shit don't add up somehow
Like I got, sixteen to thirty-two bars to rock it
but only 15% of profits, ever see my pockets like
sixty-nine billion in the last twenty years
spent on national defense but folks still live in fear like
nearly half of America's largest cities is one-quarter black
That's why they gave Ricky Ross all the crack
Sixteen ounces to a pound, twenty more to a ki
A five minute sentence hearing and you're no longer free
40% of Americans own a cell phone
so they can hear, everything that you say when you ain't home
I guess, Michael Jackson was right, "You Are Not Alone"
Rock your hardhat black cause you in the Terrordome
full of hard niggaz, large niggaz, dice tumblers
Young teens and prison greens facin life numbers
Crack mothers, crack babies and AIDS patients
Young bloods can't spell but they could rock you in PlayStation
This new math is whippin ************* ass
You wanna know how to rhyme you better learn how to add
It's mathematics

Yo, it's one universal law but two sides to every story
Three strikes and you be in for life, manditory
Four MC's murdered in the last four years
I ain't tryin to be the fifth one, the millenium is here
Yo it's 6 Million Ways to Die, from the seven deadly thrills
Eight year olds gettin found with {{.9 mils}}
It's 10 P.M., where your seeds at? What's the deal
He on the hill puffin krill to keep they belly filled
Light in the ass with heavy steel, sights on the pretty shit in life
Young soldiers tryin to earn they next stripe
When the average minimum wage is $5.15
You best believe you gotta find a new grind to get cream
The white unemployment rate, is nearly more than triple for black
so frontliners got they gun in your back
Bubblin crack, jewel theft and robbery to combat poverty
and end up in the global jail economy
Stiffer stipulations attached to each sentence
Budget cutbacks but increased police presence
And even if you get out of prison still livin
join the other five million under state supervision
This is business, no faces -- just lines and statistics
from your phone, your zip code, to S-S-I digits
The system break man, child, and women into figures
Two columns for who is, and who ain't niggaz
Numbers is hardly real and they never have feelings
but you push too hard, even numbers got limits
Why did one straw break the camel's back? Here's the secret:
the million other straws underneath it - it's all mathematics