You hit the nail on the side, when you say folks don't address the social problems of the black community.

These "it's all the media" type posts attempt to lay a large portion for the very social conditions that allegedly made hip hop, on hip hop.

"Hip hop was born in the streets...poverty...despair...outlet for creativity...." - you know the drill. From a downtrodden people comes an uplifting music... This type of propaganda and non-thinkingness is all over OKP, academia, and the world at large.

Yet for some reason, those very same "conditions" that create the music, are now "caused by" or "exacerbated by" the music.

"Before rap I was in a gang. Then I started rapping. Now i'm out the gang, and I rap about gangs, so that creates gangs.

Wait a minute....? I was in a gang.....

Did my raps start the gang that i'm in?" *gets in Delorean*

Listen to 50 Cent, talking bout how he didn't know where Daddy was, and how he was confused about his Mom's lesbianism.

What's more important, his parents, or the fact that his favorite rapper said check out my melody?

Did he get shot 9 times cause of Rakim?

Am I gonna get shot 9 times cause of 50 cent?

one
k. orr