Following excerpt is from "It's Bigger Than Hip Hop: The Rise of the Post-Hip-Hop Generation" (M.K. Asante, Jr.)


"The late Russel Tyrone Jones-also known as Joe Bananas, Dirt Mcgirt, Dirt Dog, Ason Unique, Big Baby Jesus, Osirus and most commonly Ol' Dirty Bastard-died frontin'. Much like my brother, ODB spent his adult life dancing between jail, welfare, and stints with rap success. And also like my brother, ODB vehemently denied his middle-class upbringing, and instead promoted a poverty-stricken, dangerous one (as if being Black wasn't enough). In "Caught Up," he raps:

I'm a ghetto n***a dog so I get it how I live
Got Money, lock 'em off, f***ers still I got drama
Got two strike dog and five baby mamas.

"I was furious," said William Jones, ODB's father. "You know, that story about him being raised in the Fort Greene projects on welfare until he was a child of thirteen was a total lie," he added.
When Jones talked to his wife about their son's bogus claims of ghettoship, her response was simple: "he did it for publicity." Of course he did. ODB understood that boasting racist and classist stereotypes about Blacks would reaffirm them in the minds of a largely white consumer market. This would explain the correlation between ODB's run-ins with the law and simultaneous spikes in record sales.

ODB's story reminds us that most artists feel that in order to "make it," they need to portray a stereotypical image that is marketable to white America. As a result, artists like ODB downplay their middle-class origins and artists who are from the ghetto avoid portraying and calling out the savage injustices that created their condition."

I agree with all but that race angle.

given where hiphop was it was more important to be accepted by black folks to get on than whites.

Doesn't diminish the greatness of Return to the 36 Chambers one bit

representing themselves & where they come from through their art.

He didn't mention "Return to the 36 Chambers"

I think there lies an interesting discussion about authenticity & appropiation in all this.

The 'lower class is virtuous' thing isn't just in hip hop. Look at the Rolling Stones.....upper class kids pretending to be poor and hard whereas the band that actually WAS poor and hard, the beatles, didn't try to exploit their background.

>The 'lower class is virtuous' thing isn't just in hip hop.
>Look at the Rolling Stones.....upper class kids pretending to
>be poor and hard whereas the band that actually WAS poor and
>hard, the beatles, didn't try to exploit their background.

than having "everything" while growing up

No father to his style

......."protection"



smh

https://twitter.com/theerj/status/608317469414014978

nm

What a fraud!

I'm so tired of everyone demanding Hip-Hop artists be autobiographically accurate all the time when doing anything in first person. Its so fucking limiting and stupid.

It's also caused a ton of rappers and wannabe rappers to act shitty and risky in real life to justify the vibe they want to portray with their art.

We don't demand this factual accuracy from Poe or Bob Dylan or Don Cheedle. Johnny Cash can say crazy shit, Jimi can sing Hey Joe, but Pac has to show everyone he really will go to war in the streets

>What a fraud!
>
>I'm so tired of everyone demanding Hip-Hop artists be
>autobiographically accurate all the time when doing anything
>in first person. Its so fucking limiting and stupid.
>
>It's also caused a ton of rappers and wannabe rappers to act
>shitty and risky in real life to justify the vibe they want to
>portray with their art.
>
>We don't demand this factual accuracy from Poe or Bob Dylan or
>Don Cheedle. Johnny Cash can say crazy shit, Jimi can sing Hey
>Joe, but Pac has to show everyone he really will go to war in
>the streets

They ain't look middle class to me.

funk rock band, for several years. We worked at Tower Records together in the late 90's.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6GcbqZUlEk

(no, I'm not "bunny is the most" who made the comment on the video page)

Will Ramsey Jones is the MAN. He really was a cool very admirable guy. Real in the best sense of the word.

like a correspondent.


I guess I was realizing my referring to his well-spokenness might have been like a "poor people can't speak well" type of assertion.


but, uh, yeah doesn't have a "hood" vibe - to tone down the assertion/insinuation. Isn't nerdy at all, though.

you're right, they all spoke well.

but a lot of "hood" cats spoke "well." hell, i'm from the "hood" and did okay in that arena but i know I qualify as lower middle class.

My boy that played in another band worked at Tower with him also. Dirty is a distant cousin of mine and he was always trying to get me to meet Ram. Said he was a great dude, but we never met. I can't remember the name of that damn band!

on youtube or live if you can

on RAHM.. who's spits the verse:

"My style varies like a 12 speed bike/y'all dudes don't know who the hell be nice/I heard your LP twice? and it didn't move me not once..."

man I've been wondering that for years.

i'm not sure. maybe FLUD? i couldn't tell you.

it's about identity and creating a persona that fits into who the outside world expects you to be. Fame (for example) can intensify that experience and push individuals to certain limits of that persona, thus creating an 'other you' conforming to the status quo.

In the same book, Asante writes about an increased level of suicides amongst Black teens who come from higher socioeconomic backgrounds than the general African-American population. He continues writing that many psychologists speculate that this increase is due to identity crises perpetuated by the mass media.

Based on personal experience, people that are really really grimy weren't even really from the hood, they may have just spent a lot of time there because of unresolved stereotypical proclivities. Not saying that was ODB but it definitely does include a lot of entertainers.

There is also the education angle, most people that really grew up lower class didn't have access to good education. Some did, but how hood were they really if so? However, there are always exceptions

IDK

I'm confused. To my knowledge Dirty stayed making babies and stayed high. I don't remember him referencing his childhood much at all.

why did dude single ODB out when there are literally tons of worse offenders..

Either way i always felt like he was glorifying craziness. a hood upbringing? not so much...

of course there was the MTV/welfare thing, but even that was just sheer madness. What stereotype is ODB exactly pushin? he was definitely no pimp, hustler, gangster, player, kingpin or whatever

i don't think the bugged out, paranoid, alcoholic uncle who could get funky as hell when he was buzzed counts

"I came out my momma ****** -- I'm on welfare
Twenty-six years old -- still on welfare!"

I know my cousins came up rough like I did but I didn't grow up with Dirty an em so I don't know.

"Gotta come back to attack
Killin' niggas who say they got stacks
cuz I don't give a fuck
I wanna see blood, whether it's period blood or bustin ya fuckin face
SOME BLOOD!!!!!
I'm goin out my fuckin mind
Every time I get around devils
*breathes heavy*"


Among other pretty wild shit. Next yall will be using to song to prove that he
"vehemently denied" being a vampire due to the line about blood... or that he
"vehemently denied" being a murderer of rich rappers.

Lol @ taking Dirt seriously... ESPECIALLY in that song.

Geezus.

Huge Wu fan, but never got the appeal of dude…never saw brother as that talented on mic….yeah, some bangers he got down on here and there, but overall nah…and y'all need to stop coppin pleas, fraudulent is fraudulent….

and uncalled for. Just say he ain't your cup of tea and sip something else.
Disrespectful mufuckas man I tell ya.

let the guy rest in peace. His "On Parole" tv documentary was so sad...watching how everyone just used him for their gain. the price of fame, I guess.

it doesn't at all...you're right

>let the guy rest in peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1WFA0liN1o&t=3m37s

This guy could have gotten his story out to the media about his son in the mid-90s. Why wait until 2015 to set the record "straight"?

The whole time ODB was famous as a rapper, I literally never heard a thing from his father anywhere. Where was this guy?

I don't believe you, you need more people....

ps: where did you get this excerpt from? The author MK Asante? His publishing house? If that phrase "died fronting" appears in the book, MK is gonna get a lot of Wu friends and family coming for his head. Wild disrespectful choice of words.

Peace,

Spirit (Alan)
http://wutangbook.com

In that chapter he is deconstructing "keeping it real" ODB is just one example, he also writes about Ice-T and his own brother.

I posted this excerpt because
1) this is new to me

2) I find the being 'authentic' or 'real' narrative can weigh down artists who think they have to behave a certain way in order to be accepted.

1) coons/clowns
2) dangerous thugs
3) sexed out mandingo and dingettes
4: diluted ambigous non threatening
5) dignified and boring.

there are your 5 options.


this is VERY interesting because 2 things NEVER made sense:


1) his family is the OPPOSITE of him. cousins and siblings are like skateboarding punk rockers and are more Alt than street.---always confused me how HE was ghetto as hell but not his brothers.

2) all of his pop culture references were of the things you'd NEVER hear in the hood. i once saw a concert in which he sang BJ Thomas' "hey why dont you play one of those "somebody done somebody wrong song"---i was like "waitaminute!!!"

Wu more than Black kids, especially in L.A. in 94. I realize that a lot of their overall imagery seems to cater to "nerds" a whole lot, even if the music itself was gutter.

>
>2) all of his pop culture references were of the things you'd
>NEVER hear in the hood. i once saw a concert in which he sang
>BJ Thomas' "hey why dont you play one of those "somebody done
>somebody wrong song"---i was like "waitaminute!!!"

In an interview on swedish radio, he was going on about the Who and Janis Joplin and other stuff. Obviously, I know nothing about the "hood" and what people listen to there but I thought it was a bit strange because rappers at that time-as opposed to the post-Kanye era when it was suddenly cool to namedrop stuff from europe and sweden and Coldplay-rarely mentioned anything not "black" in terms of cultural status. That said, it doesn't beat Godfather Don talking about his love for norwegian black metal around the same time, that was just WTF?

So in other words, fraudulent? See if Quest says it, it's alright….Be easy y'all...