3 parts of real success - 11.26.2007.1

Talent - a person who possesses unusual innate ability in some field or activity.

Work ethic - is a set of values based on the moral virtues of hard work and diligence. It is also a belief in moral benefit of work and its ability to enhance character.

Intelligence - the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience.

Which of those 3 terms is the most important? Does it matter what they are being applied to that makes the difference?

Why might I ask that? Because as I finally took some time to rest over the holiday, I watched a bit of television and spoke to people around the country. I heard several people complain about their work/pay. I heard several tell me how they intend to be stars. I noticed how much attention is focused on individuals in the media. And I realized that almost everyone had no idea about the above 3 items.

Of the 3, I have noticed that most people work on talent. Especially African Americans and minorities. It’s the E-ticket that gets you on all the rides. It’s the get-out-of-the-ghetto card. It’s the single most important factor ever. And it’s a lie.

Talent is like hope in Pandora’s Box. Perhaps the worst thing to afflict people en masse. It’s a tool that far too many without it use to become rich.

When I mention talent, most think of Michael Jordan or Snoop Dogg. They imagine Beyonce or 50 cent. But you don’t hear people say that Oprah Winfrey has talent (not speaking about her acting, but her ability as CEO of Harpo) or John Thompson, Myrtle Potter, Stanley O'Neal, Kenneth Chenault. Why not?

What about intelligence? You never hear that mentioned. You never hear anyone ask Ja Rule, Dr. Dre, Kobe Bryant, or Tiger Woods if/where they went to college. Because they have talent right?

And work ethics are likely the least discussed item of all. It’s like a plague when it is mentioned.

But when you consider the real successes, the people that really are meaningful and at the top of their game you find, more often than not, that they got their with this combination:

• 1. Work ethic
  
• 2. Intelligence
  
• 3. Talent (if any)
  

Best in the NBA? Michael Jordan. Practiced constantly, played with a 103 fever, and gave 110% every game. Mr. Jordan is a college graduate, and a better businessman than sports entertainer. While he may have made roughly 15 million dollars a year as an athlete, Mr. Jordan makes roughly 2x that a year now, with a net worth well in excess of $200 million, without ever touching a basketball.

Much the same can be said of Spike Lee, Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey and most every CEO that the average public couldn’t name if you paid them $50 a name. Each of them worked hard, every day with a plan in their heads. Each of them had an advanced education. Allowing them to understand business, contracts, money management and more.

If you want to know the difference between real success and a fad, look at the work ethic and education. 50 cent will be lucky to be around in 5 years, odds are. Tiger, Oprah, Michael Jordan, Stanley O'Neal, Kenneth Chenault, and others will be making money years after they are dead by contrast. And more of it.

So if you want to know how to become successful, there you are. Make a plan, work at it every day and get an education. If you have a talent you will just help boost your odds. But if you think that you bounce a ball, hum a tune, or sashay better than anyone and that’s all you need, be prepared to be let down.

Only 1 in 10,000 make it to professional level sports, even worse odds to make it in music or acting (how many people get rejected in the first 3 qualifiers of American Idol every year?). A professional entertainer has a career of maybe 7 years, regardless of the realm. Why limit your chances? Why give someone else the upper hand?

Does rap / Hip Hop sellout the Black Community? - 9.14.2007.1

Yes men. Uncle Toms. Sellouts. What do all these have in common? In the case of Hip-hop and rap music, the argument can be made that they all refer to the artists and entertainers that perform in this genre. Perhaps not all of them, nor all that they perform/produce but enough to be somewhat generalized.

Why might this be said? Well there are a couple of reasons. First there is the weakest reason, sometimes said as ‘I think you protest too much’. Basically the more defensive an individual is, especially when faced with a simple question, the guiltier they seem. How this might apply to gangsta rap (the near exclusive format of modern rap and hip-hop) would be in the responses various performers have made to the question of the lyrics used in their songs. A recent case in point is Ja Rule,

"And if it is, then we need to go step to Paramount, and f--king MGM, and all of these other motherf--kers that's making all of these movies and we need to go step to MTV and Viacom, and lets talk about all these f--king shows that they have on MTV that is promoting homosexuality, that my kids can't watch this sh-t," he continued. "Dating shows that's showing two guys or two girls in mid-afternoon. Let's talk about s--t like that! If that's not f--king up America, I don't know what is."

The defense seems to be, ‘It’s not my fault, blame someone else. They are worse.’ The protest ignores the question of what Ja Rule has done, and thus his responsibility, and tries to blame others. Now I agree that the media does have culpability. I’ve long said that executives are laughing as they go to the bank to deposit the money accumulated from the work of Ja Rule and other rappers. They are making boatloads of money (literally) for words they would never use in public (as Don Imus learned) by having rappers say it for them. And all it costs them are pennies paid out to the performers. That by definition sounds like a sell-out to me.

But that is not the only reasoning given by rappers and hip hop artists these days. There are also those, such as the ever quotable and ‘high’-ly educated Snoop Dogg and Fatman Scoop, who seek to redefine the terms they are using. Creating a lexicon much like the one used by Don King, they claim that they have redefined the meaning of words that have existed for decades and centuries before they were ever born.

In essence the argument made by Scoop was that the meaning of the words used by rappers and the youth of the nation today [I believe he means specifically African American youth but that is a guess] is separate of the meaning that has endured for centuries of use and is still maintained today.

If we were to follow this logic, the world-wide meaning of words are all incorrect, and their barely educated ‘I think it means this, and you are stupid if you disagree’ mindset is the only answer. Take Snoop Dogg’s definition of ho –

"It's a completely different scenario," said Snoop, barking over the phone from a hotel room in L.A. "[Rappers] are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We're talking about ho's that's in the 'hood that ain't doing sh--, that's trying to get a n---a for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain't no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC [which announced Wednesday it would drop its simulcast of Imus' radio show] going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them mutha----as say we in the same league as him."

If his comment makes little sense I interpeted it as

But in looking at the comment made by Mr. Broadus I come to understand that he states that any Black woman that is not in or graduated from college, that is living in a predominantly African American neighborhood, that is not earning a middle class income is a ho. If these same African American (actually he does not limit this to only African Americans) women seek a successful Black man [though he does indicate their search is based solely on the economic status of the Black man] and have not achieved equal status on their own, then these women are ho’s.

Defending the livelihood of his superiors, the executives that run the record companies and pay him a portion of the money that his sales gererates, and following the path their corporate ad designers have laid out in the face of community disagreement likens itself to a Yes man to me.

In the cases I have pointed out, and many others, we see a systematic response. The medium that once held massive diversity (there were songs by Run-DMC out at the same time as Public Enemy, N.W.A., and Da La Soul) is focused on a highly destructive and profitable genre. A new crop of entertainers are ‘found’ and promoted heavily (read solely) in this format. When the genre is accused of inciting harm to the community it is targeted to, those same entertainers are used to defend it. What does that sound like to you?

I will not say that gangsta rap cannot be made. The First Amendment guarantees that. But I will say that the exclusion of any other stylesis wrong. I will say that those defending this music genre, denying any responsibility for what they have put out on the airwaves and how it will affect the children and community, are at the least short-sighted. They are making money off the backs of the community and that is wrong. Much like a drug dealer I see it as inflicting harm just to make some money for themselves and 10x as much for the big bosses. I feel its just not worth it.

Before Ja started talking out the left side of his mouth, he might have taken some time to come up with a better argument. Perhaps focusing on the film studios for the limited roles available to Black women, as in, why do Black female actors always end up playing roles of prostitutes, drug addicts, welfare mothers, etc?

Gays aren't the reason that many Black families live below the poverty line. Lesbians aren't the reason that our prisons are overflowing with young Black men and women. Can't blame gays for the senseless gang violence in the our neighborhoods that is and continues to take the lives of many Black men. And it's unfair to blame gays for the number of Blacks that are unemployed in America. Oh, and gays weren't the reason that in 2003, he punched a man in Toronto for shouting at him in a crowd because of the 50 Cent feud. Nor were they the reason that in 2004, police investigated whether a feud involving The Inc. led to fatal shooting outside a nightclub party hosted by Ja Rule. Now were they?

And I can’t lay all the blame on the entertainers. The harm being inflicted is partially their responsibility, but also that of the parents that allow their kids to be immersed in this cultural addiction. This auditory crack reaches children in part because, as Jasmyne Cannick correctly states:

Now if you ask me, that's what's contributing to bringing down Black America. Our kids are being taught from a young age, by the lyrics of rappers like Ja Rule and by parents who care more about bumpin' their song, than the effects that hearing those lyrics day after day have on their children.

Sellouts, Yes men, and Uncle Toms. Perhaps they are not the well spoken, well dressed, hard working people that are often persecuted by some in the Black community. Perhaps their individual voices are not the ones we should be concerned about but the ones that are promoted, televised in music videos, and propped up like minstrels before us.

This is what I think, what do you think?

Curtis James Jackson has a problem - 7.23.2007.2

Snoop Dogg (Calvin Broadus Jr.) – accused of rape and murder (not convicted), self-acknowledged gang member and pimp. Ja Rule (Jeff Atkins) – arrested for speeding and gun possession. Lil Wayne (Dwayne Carter) – arrested for drug possession and gun possession. 50 Cent [an insanely stupid name in an industry of dumb names] (Curtis James Jackson) – self-acknowledged crack dealer, convicted felon, survivor of a murder attempt and star of the video game bulletproof.

What might all these ‘upstanding’ African American entertainers have in common? Hip hop/gangsta rap, guns, and violence. Each of them thrives and derives their livelihoods from promoting those 3 items to varying degrees, and violence has followed each. Not that violence, drugs, and other base negative elements of life are an unusual event for the hip-hop rap community.

But of these individuals only one is apparently thin skinned. Funny enough it’s the one that survived being shot multiple times. You see, 50 cent is suing a company that he claims is using his image in another video game. Of course the purpose of the game is to shoot his image. I can’t see him being upset about that part. As a drug-dealing criminal I have no doubt he’s been shot at more than the one time he actually got hit. Yet Curtis Jackson is asking for $1 million in compensation and the end of this game. I would bet that it’s because his character is being shot, and not shooting. Basically they hurt his feelings. Boo Hoo.

I obviously have no pity. I hope he loses the case and the game takes off. Symbolically it sounds like (I have not seen or played the game) getting rid of gangsta rap. I’m sure that is not the intent, which is troubling in it’s own right, but that’s the image I want to have right now.


Something else I want to mention. I feel the name 50 cent is ignorant. I don’t like it. I realize that the gangsta rap sub-genre is filled with ill-spelled, self-aggrandizing, near English terms. The kind of names you might expect a 4 year old to write (which may be the inspiration of some of these names, who knows). That’s given, but this one just grates my nerves.

Why? It’s the meaning of the name. While I understand Curtis Jackson took the name from a robber from Brooklyn because

“I'm the same kind of person 50 Cent was. I provide for myself by any means.”

If by same the meaning is criminal, I can agree.

But what it means is something more. It is obvious that it instantly states that there is a lack of knowledge of the English language, since the s is missing. It infers a value (since it references money) of less than a whole. It signifies incompleteness. Half a dollar is not worth a whole dollar. A half dollar buy nothing thses days and is virtually worthless.

It could ber further understood to imply being half as worthy of manhood, or being half a man. If you take cent and substitute sense (similar in sound and depending on the vocalization, accent, and intelligence of the speaker similar in pronounciation) if can be infered to mean half a mind, or half intelligent.

I have no doubt that Curtis Jackson has no idea that any of this can be concluded from his stage name. I’m sure his thought began and ended with the fact he was copying the name of a tough criminal he was aware of. Perhaps most fans don’t realize this either. But words have meanings, and we learn and retain the meanings for life. So even on a subliminal level we all know that all the above is there in that name.

I have no love of gansta rap nor it’s performers. The lyrics are base, it’s music videos crass, and it’s dependance on drugs and violence sickening. Even so, I cannot stand by and fail to mention that of the ill-formed names available, there must be something better for Curtis Jackson to call himself. Traveling the world, more importantly his image and music do so, thus promoting an image of Black men as so ignorant as to not be able to speak their own native tounge better than the ability of a 4 yr old upsets me.

But those are my thoughts, what are yours?