This is one for the grown folks.
I’ve finally come to the decision that something has to be said about the Games people run on our youth. The entertainment industry has currently become a massive money machine for Hip Hop music and culture. The undeniable creative geniuses in this genre of music are Black youth. However the role models they see and goals that these very youth seek to obtain are tainted. Major corporations now control the sources that our youth read, watch and listen to. So the main messages that they are receiving are not positive.
When did it become “law” that the role models for our youth should be rappers and athletes? More and more young adults feel that basketball, football, and Hip Hop can get them fame and fortune. What became of the wholesome family oriented image of doctors, lawyers, corporate businessmen, clergy and teachers? Have we gone so far as to accept the imaging that the entertainment industry has GIVEN us as FACT?
Where is it written that righteousness, humility, honesty, integrity, loyalty and fidelity are “selling out”?
Things I’ve learned about the now hip hop generation.
- The game should be sold and not told.
The only way to pass on the culture is to tell someone about it. Our ancestors knew the meaning of listening to the elders to learn what NOT to do. The record and radio industry have been built on young executives, artists, entrepreneurs and others learning from older musicians, club owners and executives. Now the youth believe that you should only educate the people that pay you outlandish fees to learn a “hustle”.
- Give it to me FREE or on the “low low”
Bargain basement prices for services rendered will never be accepted as positive growth. A “now” generation youth would rather buy over priced sneakers, baggy blue jeans and an oversize T-shirt than to pay for accounting services, banking services, business consultation services at a reasonable rate. It seems that education means less than pseudo fashion styles.
- Instant Gratification – Let’s just jump over all the business stuff and go straight to the deal.
The latest ill is this new mentality of having instant knowledge. Artists, production houses, record company owners and “fake” producers ALL feel that they do not need an educational base to have a musical career. Unfortunately over the past few months I have been exposed to numerous young Black entrepreneurs that want to make a living in the entertainment industry. Almost to a person these young label owners and artists feel that they can make a song, expose it to a limited audience and by some miracle there music will become an unbridled universal hit. These very same individuals feel that some company will pay them for their music, then promote, distribute, handle there career path and “blow them up”. No where do they see the practicality of owning there own business, understanding this business and maintaining this business.
- Keeping it REAL doesn’t work for White America.
The majority of Hip Hop labels and artists are creating music in the “Thug” genre. This particular genre of music is based on their limited knowledge of “street” mentality business. What is being called “REAL” is far from the truth of everyday reality.
Keeping it real is being spoon fed to our youth by a corporate structure that is making millions from the drug game, the legal system, the news media and the entertainment industry. Our youth have become victims of everyone of these systems and help perpetuate them on a daily basis.
In today’s America true Thug mentality is corporate and the true “hustler “is the CEO of a major corporation.