Check it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1L6Wiie8i0

…but did you just cite 50 Cent as having a potentially positive image?

Then something awful and bad happened. Yes, hip-hop became a part of corporate America and was packaged in a way as to induce the lowest and worse qualities of the human condition. Hip-hop began to focus on sex, drugs, violence and material greed. This new and Madison Avenue-based hip-hop was now marketed around the world, but also became an almost permanent fixture in Black neighborhoods around America. Young Black men most with little money or resources lured by the big cars, houses and other luxuries displayed in hip-hop videos found hope and promise in this phenomena called hip-hop. This resulted in numerous auxiliary businesses (clubs, clothings, design, etc.) that today help support and promote this billion dollar industry. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that music and the whole concept of the entertainment business has taken away too much attention from the more important things that our community needs to deal with like AIDS, crime, crooked politicians, etc. But admittedly, hip-hop has offered millions of disenfranchised Black youngsters around the world a peek into what is possible far away from the depressed ‘hoods that these youngsters try to live in each day.

One of the most impressive results of hip-hop is the righteous and conscious awakening of African communities in Central and South America. Once dormant and complacent, African communities in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Columbia, Cuba, Venezuela are standing proud and demanding that their ethnicity and heritage be respected and not defamed and belittled. And this bold and righteous stance is due to in large part to hip-hop which has grown beyond just being a music soapbox. Today hip-hop has become a political, economic and social movement that is and has changed the entire mental and spiritual landscape of this place we call Planet Earth.

But beware my peoples because the imperialists and the corrupt capitalists who tried to destroy and manipulate hip-hop are not done yet. They did not figure or anticipate that hip-hop would be such a fire rod of inspiration and opportunity to so many people; especially to those in American cities and to those in places like Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and other countries that are still struggling for their true independence. Nope, these raiders of originality did not think that people like Eazy E, Chuck D, Kanye West and the hundreds of well-known and not so well-known hip-hop orators could dare possibly help uplift and motivate depressed and oppressed peoples around the world to stand up and fight against their ugly and vicious machine.

Thus, I have come ’round full circle. I can now appreciate today’s hip-hop artists like Lil Wayne, Jay-Z and maybe even 50 Cent who boldly and strongly express their full wrath and bravado right in the face of entities that have for centuries worked to destroy their lineage. This display of “nerve” be it good or bad shows if anything that Africans are by no means weak, subservient or complacent. (And no, I did not need hip-hop to prove this out, but maybe others did).

Now if we could only create a formula to help restore the basic needs like clean water and agricultural potent lands in Africa, then I maybe could retire a little early. But I am here for the long haul and I hope you are too.

Fige Bornu, Chairman
Positive African Image Institute