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Hip-hoppers/Rappers are a spinoff of the hippies of the 1960s. They are a counter-culture, emersed in free sex, drugs, and radical rhetoric. They don't trust their elders and shun conventional approaches to problems.They are different for the sake of being different because being different pits them against the status quo and gains them young rebellious followers. The difference is that those white middle class drop-outs were not materialistic or violent like the their black present day counterparts from the hood who are emersed in the bling and the gun. And the BS. All of these contrarians talk a lot of smack but they lack vision and initiative and are preoccupied with style over substance. No, the preceding generation didn't prepare them for understandindg the struggle. We thought the struggle had been won.

Talib is one of the Conscious emcees so it makes perfect sense that he was interviewed in Ferguson during the marches. I'm just looking at the idea that he wrote that lyric and then decides to lend his voice to a movement. This is the problem with these guys taking the mantle of activist. They want to be more than just an emcee, but they also want to show that they are apolitical since they think this shows how far removed from the system they are. It's a very flawed way of approaching the system and breaking it down. I had a long Facebook convo with a guy today and yesterday who was panning the upcoming film Selma because it is produced by Harpo Studios and he had a problem with 12 Years and The Butler. This guy is of the hip hop generation, my generation and yours Troy. I explained that the story of Selma has been all but wiped from the history books and that in popular culture only the group U2 has created a song in the last 20 years about Bloody Sunday. I also explained that the sister who is the director Ava Duvernay is one of the most important new directors in film and that she has done more to promote Black cinema in her short time with her AFFRM movement. She has created art and that this will be her first major film release and that talking it down before it comes out is not fair. More important, Facebook is now being indexed by Google and utilized in searches. This means that a person looking for info will now have Facebook conversations as a potential source. I stated all of these things because while those of us that consider ourselves conscious do a great disservice by not fully analyzing the situation. Talib created that lyric over ten years ago, on a song called the Beautiful Struggle. it's a beautifully composed song with thoughtful lyrics, but in today's climate those words undercut his ability to successfully convey his position in Ferguson. It also may have unfortunately created a situation where the people following his lead may have, just maybe, chose to listen to the direction of his opinion in music. He is definitely an artist with a lot to say, but his own voice betrayed the people who wanted to fight for... which tells us that the generation before us has done a very poor job of preparing the next generation to understand the struggle.