In a recent interview, rapper Slim Thug unleashed a very disturbing attack on Black women, here’s an excerpt: …Most single Black women feel like they don’t want to settle for less. Their standards are too high right now. They have to understand that successful Black men are kind of extinct. We’re important. It’s hard to find us so Black women have to bow down and let it be known that they gotta start working hard; they gotta start cooking and being down for they man more. They can’t just be running around with their head up in the air and passing all of us. I have a brother that dates a White woman and he always be f###### with me about it saying, ‘Y’all gotta go through all that s### [but] my White woman is fine. She don’t give me no problems, she do whatever I say and y’all gotta do all that arguing and fighting and worry about all this other s###.’… While many people dismissed it as a publicity stunt or the rant of an ignorant rapper, I felt compelled to respond to him in the form of an open letter.   Slim,   A few days ago, you made comments in Vibe magazine that have caused a great deal of controversy. While I appreciate your willingness to offer your opinion in public, you made several statements that were not only unfair and untrue, but deeply damaging to our community. Normally, I would reach out to you privately, but since your comments were made in a very public place, I feel compelled to respond in the same manner.   As an artist who is respected by millions of fans, particularly young ones, I found your comments to be hurtful and irresponsible. For good or for bad, our children follow the lead of you and other artists for everything from fashion and slang to self-esteem, body image and relationships. Imagine how a young black girl feels to hear from you, her role model, that her “standards are too high” and that she should “bow down” and “settle for less.” Consider the pain that our beautiful brown skinned babies feel when Yung Berg says he doesn’t date “dark butts.” Think about the self-esteem of our community when Nelly refers to our mothers, sisters, and daughters as “Tip Drills.” As celebrities, your public comments are not just your own. Instead they influence the choices, beliefs, and lives of an entire generation of young people who look to you for direction.   Of course, you have every right to say things that you think are true. The problem, however, is that there was very little truth in your comments.   In your interview, you talk about how much better white women treat their partners than black women. If what you’re saying is true, why do Whites have the highest divorce rate of any group? Do white men get tired of being treated like kings? In reality, it seems that you are buying into (and selling) a stale but dangerous ideal that constructs White women as ultra-feminine, loving, queens, and Black women as angry, selfish, and untrustworthy hoes.Even more disturbing was your comment that “Black women gotta start being down for their man more.” Since slavery, Black women have had to withstand rape, torture, and humiliation (from both white and black men) in order to sustain their families. Now, in 2010, 1 in 3 Black men between 20 and 29 years old are incarcerated or otherwise under criminal supervision. Every day, Black women are raising children without men in the house, working multiple jobs (for less pay!), and supporting brothers as they finish their prison bids.  With Black male unemployment as high as 50 percent in some cities, sisters are often holding down households without child support or other financial assistance. Black female incarceration rates are skyrocketing, partly because Black women are “riding” for their men, hiding guns and drugs, operating as mules, and refusing to snitch to authorities. In addition, Black women are the group most likely to be victims of domestic violence and the least likely to be married. Still, in spite of all this bad news, Black women are less likely to date outside their race than Black men.   How much more “down” do you want Black women to be?   I agree with you that both brothers and sisters have work to do. Over the last year, we’ve seen countless TV shows, movies, and bestselling books telling Black women how broken they are, how ugly they are, why they don’t have a man, and how they need to  behave. Instead of adding to this pile of pain and ignorance, I would encourage you to turn the mirror on yourself. How does the image of the pimp/player/baller/dopeboy promoted in your music help to create the “gold diggers” that you badmouth in your interviews? How might your own admitted failures at monogamy undermine the type of loyalty that you find missing in Black women? Criticizing the vulnerable is easy. Working on yourself is the difficult part.   I hope you don’t take this letter as an attack, but as an act of concern and love from one brother to another. Through your fame and wealth, you have tremendous power. You can use it to hurt or to heal, to injure or to inspire. The world is watching. What will you do?   Your Brother,   Marc Lamont Hill Marc Lamont Hill is Associate Professor of Education at Columbia University. He blogs regularly at MarcLamontHill.com. He can be reached at marc@theloop21.com.

You may think this is a strange title for an article at a website devoted to the culture and industry of music. But it has everything to do with the future of Hip-Hop. Let me explain. One day, in 1998, within 6 months of my no longer serving as a GM of Wu Tang Management, I visited the offices of both a music industry executive and an entertainment lawyer with whom we had done business. I was coming to their respective offices after having met with the Ambassador of Indonesia to the United States, who was in New York City that day. I was informally offering advice to the country which was in the midst of a monetary crisis – its currency, the rupiah was losing its value in relation to the U.S. dollar, Japanese yen, and the currencies of Europe. I was in the city having a series of meetings with businesspersons, economists and political leaders who understood that the fall of the currency was part of a larger story – that there was an effort underway to destabilize the largest Muslim country in the world. Not surprisingly, Paul Wolfowitz, an architect of the Iraq war, who had served as the US Ambassador to Indonesia, was an active player working against the Indonesian government for years. It is a story for another day. That day, when my industry friends saw me – both the lawyer and the executive immediately commented on two things about me – my reading of the Wall Street Journal and my wearing of a business suit. They were impressed and slightly amused at the same time. It was an interesting reaction that caused me to realize that for over a two year period these individuals although they respected me, and knew other things about me had never really seen me outside of the light of the always business casual side of the entertainment industry. That day was an important symbol in the process of my ‘moving on’ from the music industry. I write this because over the last several years I have seen or heard about many past friends, acquaintances, and associates either being fired or ‘laid off’ from jobs in the music business, or forced to have to make life altering career choices as the industry goes through massive restructuring. I have seen individuals – artists, models, producers, executives – absolutely crushed by the experience, struggling for months and years to find balance in their lives, a sense of self, and a career that can fill the financial and emotional void, work in the music business once provided. I can relate, sympathize, and empathize because I have been through it myself. When the second Wu-Tang Clan album, Wu-Tang Forever went through its sales cycle in the Fall of 1997, I was faced with the option of either working out separate management deals with individual Clan members or moving on. I was faced with this reality quicker than I ever expected and during a period where the group was in a state of disarray. There was no major in-fighting going on, but the love had gone a little cold, I’ll say, between artists, management, and producers, and I think we were all burnt out and reeling from a non-stop 4-year run at the top that was finally coming to an end. A few things took place which showed me the direction was not going to change and I thought that the time was ripe for me to move into the field of economics and politics, as I had long intended. I had no idea how difficult and rewarding this decision would be, nor the stages I would go through as a result of it. Perhaps they provide an instructive example for individuals who today are suddenly going through the the loss of the often intoxicating experience of music industry employment, status and lifestyle. The Emotional Shock. I had no idea how much my personal and professional identity had become associated and wrapped up with the Wu-Tang brand and identity. It was as if overnight I was learning that people in my personal and professional life were really not relating to me, the person, but rather to my association with the group. As I mention briefly in my bio video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2E5YfuSPik) the phone calls weren’t returned as quickly, meetings did not happen as fast, and people who I thought personally cared for me, could not be found. The experience was painful, depressing, and disorienting. For a period of time I lost confidence in myself and a sense of ‘self,’ though not completely. I could not even muster the strength to listen to the radio. I learned then who my real friends were, and to this day, these individuals are still my real friends. They are the people in my life who were attracted to and loved me for who I am, not who I happened to roll with. One of the reasons I believe my book, The Entrepreneurial Secret is being received so well is because much of it grows out of insights that I gained when I was at a very low point. In fact, I devote an entire volume to the suffering that comes from the personal struggle of ‘starting all over again,’ or being creative when you are at an emotional and financial low. I argue that it is when you are in that state of mind, if you can give meaning and find a purpose in the suffering and loss, that you can convert that energy into an even greater gain, and more powerful experiences. The individuals who can turn the feeling of emptiness, meaninglessness; the tragic and negative experiences of their lives into opportunities to develop inner strength, improve character and focus on a future goal will transform their personal lows into great achievements. It all starts with a change of attitude toward the painful experience. Thankfully I realized at some point that the end of my music career was the […]