James Howard Kunstler on Rap

[Steve M.]

James Howard Kunstler is a cultural and urban planning critic who criticizes America's suburban living pattern for destroying cities, turning the countryside into a nightmarish landscape of shopping malls and fast-food joints, and making us rely on cars to go anywhere and do anything. He argues that disinvestment in the cities has produced a pathological ghetto culture - which led to rap. Here's what he has to say:

For the past two decades, lower-class blacks especially have been encouraged only to become more separate, more different in behavior, more divorced from the mainstream norms of speech, manners, and costume. This dislocation is reflected ominously in pop music. Hip-hop has to be taken seriously because it is so pervasive, and it presents a range of compelling cultural meanings. The most threatening, of course, is its association with crinminal behavior - the rhetoric of gangsterism, the glorification of gunplay and murder, and the grandiose imagery of unearned riches. Street mythology has it that hip-hop clothes, accessories, and lingoare extensions of jailhouse fashion. Less obvious is how much these childish conventions of manner - exaggerated clumsy body language, pants many times too large, hats worn sideways - infantlize their followers. Children do not engage in politics, and so one of the worst aspects of this sector of pop culture has been the depoliticization of black politics, especially young adults. Another result of this surrender of politics to entertainment has been an amazing dearth of black political leadership at a time when it couldn't be more desperately needed to resolve the unfinished business of the social surface project. . . .

At their worst, the rap videos played on cable TV resemble the war chants of a conflict that has not yet been joined. Only among a group as narcissistically lost and clueless as white suburban America would these messages be welcomed as just another species of entertainment.

In short, rap is a very bad thing.

Kunstler argues that when we run out of enough oil to keep America going and we have a depression far worse than the one we had in the 1930's, the ghettos will explode again in even greater rage than before, and white people who have defended rap and its practitioners before won't be defending them again. They'll be too busy trying to survive the times. :(

[ABlairican Pie]

Yo, yo, yo, you no be talkin' trash about no rap, cuz, rap be da most illest muzik in da hood, yaknowwhati'msayin'? I'll kick any1's mofo ass who be talkin'
smack about rap, cuz it be talkin' bout universal theemz of da human experience and da plight of da sad state of human affairs in da post-modern wurld, like da po-po's, they be hasslin us bro's N homiez wile we be robbin N pimpin, like dey tink dey is da Bomb, whites is da Man, and dey be da worst NME dat bro's got. Like dere some bros who tink dey all dat, but I get out my Glock and show dem dat dey be respectin me and no be dissin me, yaknowwhati'msayin'? Or POW POW POW, dey get it upside da head! MFerz. :mad:

But wtf dat mean, "post-modern"?? :confused: How can s:censored: be post-modern, iz dat be like, "after modern"?? Like we be livin in da Modern Timez, how can stuff be post-modern, like izzat be like Da Jetsons in da Space Age push button world wit da bitchin' bubble-dometop carz N S:censored:? True dat. I think rap be post-modern like dat, cuz y'all just push button and y'all's gotz da illest beats, none o' dat guitars N drums, dat be WHITE boyz s:censored:, like I be learnin' how 2 play MFin' music?! :rolleyes: U be illin', what yo MFin ass be trippin' on, N kin I git some o dat you got? But like I'z be sayin, rap is da Bomb, we do like whutz homiez do best, STEALIN, like we be rippin' off otherz' tunes and not payin' nuttin fer royaltiez. Ya lose, MFer!

But WTF some professah be sayin' rap cause serious s:censored:, some MF like dat tryin' ta give us smartification, we be doin whut be required of da streets some time soon, a bro got to fight to live! Ya gotz ta do it NE way ya can, youknowwhati'msayin?

:soapbox:

[Steve M.]

Uh, you're being sarcastic, right? :confused:

[ABlairican Pie]

Uh, you're being sarcastic, right? :confused:OF COURSE!!! :lol:

[Steve M.]

Oh, alright. Carry on! :thumbsup: :)

[Steve M.]

Anyway, I think it's obvious that hip-hop is a threat not just to popular music but to civilization per se because of all the socioeconomic iompliactions and inferences involved. We need to reinstate music appreciation programs in urban schools - STAT! :eek:

[ABlairican Pie]

Anyway, I think it's obvious that hip-hop is a threat not just to popular music but to civilization per se because of all the socioeconomic iompliactions and inferences involved. We need to reinstate music appreciation programs in urban schools - STAT! :eek:That's the problem with rap, its appeal lies in the fact that it's NOT music, and that it conveys this image of the "musician" as a cool thug. If parents, preachers, and politicos don't like it, it adds "legitimacy"--"It MUST be good if they hate it!!"

Sad that real music, real rock and roll is taking a back seat to the overblown popularity of rap.

[Steve M.]

Sad that real music, real rock and roll is taking a back seat to the overblown popularity of rap.


I concur! :(

[Dr. Thong]

Fer shizzle.:crazy:

[Dr. Thong]

James Howard Kunstler is a cultural and urban planning critic who criticizes America's suburban living pattern for destroying cities, turning the countryside into a nightmarish landscape of shopping malls and fast-food joints, and making us rely on cars to go anywhere and do anything. He argues that disinvestment in the cities has produced a pathological ghetto culture - which led to rap. Here's what he has to say:

For the past two decades, lower-class blacks especially have been encouraged only to become more separate, more different in behavior, more divorced from the mainstream norms of speech, manners, and costume. This dislocation is reflected ominously in pop music. Hip-hop has to be taken seriously because it is so pervasive, and it presents a range of compelling cultural meanings. The most threatening, of course, is its association with crinminal behavior - the rhetoric of gangsterism, the glorification of gunplay and murder, and the grandiose imagery of unearned riches. Street mythology has it that hip-hop clothes, accessories, and lingoare extensions of jailhouse fashion. Less obvious is how much these childish conventions of manner - exaggerated clumsy body language, pants many times too large, hats worn sideways - infantlize their followers. Children do not engage in politics, and so one of the worst aspects of this sector of pop culture has been the depoliticization of black politics, especially young adults. Another result of this surrender of politics to entertainment has been an amazing dearth of black political leadership at a time when it couldn't be more desperately needed to resolve the unfinished business of the social surface project. . . .

At their worst, the rap videos played on cable TV resemble the war chants of a conflict that has not yet been joined. Only among a group as narcissistically lost and clueless as white suburban America would these messages be welcomed as just another species of entertainment.

In short, rap is a very bad thing.

Kunstler argues that when we run out of enough oil to keep America going and we have a depression far worse than the one we had in the 1930's, the ghettos will explode again in even greater rage than before, and white people who have defended rap and its practitioners before won't be defending them again. They'll be too busy trying to survive the times. :(

Could you provide a link to this article? I'd like to post it on a music forum that I frequent? Thanks.

[Dr. Thong]

James Howard Kunstler is a cultural and urban planning critic who criticizes America's suburban living pattern for destroying cities, turning the countryside into a nightmarish landscape of shopping malls and fast-food joints, and making us rely on cars to go anywhere and do anything. He argues that disinvestment in the cities has produced a pathological ghetto culture - which led to rap. Here's what he has to say:

For the past two decades, lower-class blacks especially have been encouraged only to become more separate, more different in behavior, more divorced from the mainstream norms of speech, manners, and costume. This dislocation is reflected ominously in pop music. Hip-hop has to be taken seriously because it is so pervasive, and it presents a range of compelling cultural meanings. The most threatening, of course, is its association with crinminal behavior - the rhetoric of gangsterism, the glorification of gunplay and murder, and the grandiose imagery of unearned riches. Street mythology has it that hip-hop clothes, accessories, and lingoare extensions of jailhouse fashion. Less obvious is how much these childish conventions of manner - exaggerated clumsy body language, pants many times too large, hats worn sideways - infantlize their followers. Children do not engage in politics, and so one of the worst aspects of this sector of pop culture has been the depoliticization of black politics, especially young adults. Another result of this surrender of politics to entertainment has been an amazing dearth of black political leadership at a time when it couldn't be more desperately needed to resolve the unfinished business of the social surface project. . . .

At their worst, the rap videos played on cable TV resemble the war chants of a conflict that has not yet been joined. Only among a group as narcissistically lost and clueless as white suburban America would these messages be welcomed as just another species of entertainment.

In short, rap is a very bad thing.

Kunstler argues that when we run out of enough oil to keep America going and we have a depression far worse than the one we had in the 1930's, the ghettos will explode again in even greater rage than before, and white people who have defended rap and its practitioners before won't be defending them again. They'll be too busy trying to survive the times. :(

Could you provide a link to this article? I'd like to post it on a music forum that I frequent. Thanks.

[vashti1999]

James Howard Kunstler is a cultural and urban planning critic who criticizes America's suburban living pattern for destroying cities, turning the countryside into a nightmarish landscape of shopping malls and fast-food joints, and making us rely on cars to go anywhere and do anything. He argues that disinvestment in the cities has produced a pathological ghetto culture - which led to rap. Here's what he has to say:

For the past two decades, lower-class blacks especially have been encouraged only to become more separate, more different in behavior, more divorced from the mainstream norms of speech, manners, and costume. This dislocation is reflected ominously in pop music. Hip-hop has to be taken seriously because it is so pervasive, and it presents a range of compelling cultural meanings. The most threatening, of course, is its association with crinminal behavior - the rhetoric of gangsterism, the glorification of gunplay and murder, and the grandiose imagery of unearned riches. Street mythology has it that hip-hop clothes, accessories, and lingoare extensions of jailhouse fashion. Less obvious is how much these childish conventions of manner - exaggerated clumsy body language, pants many times too large, hats worn sideways - infantlize their followers. Children do not engage in politics, and so one of the worst aspects of this sector of pop culture has been the depoliticization of black politics, especially young adults. Another result of this surrender of politics to entertainment has been an amazing dearth of black political leadership at a time when it couldn't be more desperately needed to resolve the unfinished business of the social surface project. . . .

At their worst, the rap videos played on cable TV resemble the war chants of a conflict that has not yet been joined. Only among a group as narcissistically lost and clueless as white suburban America would these messages be welcomed as just another species of entertainment.

In short, rap is a very bad thing.

Kunstler argues that when we run out of enough oil to keep America going and we have a depression far worse than the one we had in the 1930's, the ghettos will explode again in even greater rage than before, and white people who have defended rap and its practitioners before won't be defending them again. They'll be too busy trying to survive the times. :(


In short, rock is really a bad thing. There's no musicality to what so-called rock "musicians" do, it's all just noise. It's a culture filled with depressed, self-destructive slobs who either commit suicide, drink and overdose themselves to death or breed such fandom that their followers are willing to run up on stage and murder band members themselves. The music is so empty they know they can't perform with pyrotechnics, so they'll use fireworks on stage even in a small club, putting people's lives in jeopardy. That's all I see when I see rock. Rock is seriously a bad, bad thing and needs to be stopped, NOW!

Now does that sound like an absurd statement to you? Just as rock is not all about those things I mentioned, neither is rap/hip hop all about the negative things that you people who hate it seem to latch on to. The music is not based on incidents, it's not based on its influence either. Don't believe that the minds of the rap's young Black audience are so under-developed that they (we) can't separate any images in the videos or imagery in the music that they (we) see and hear from real life.

My nephew, the biggest rap fan in my family, has a good job, speaks proper English, has never committed a crime and doesn't walk around with his underwear showing above his pants. Yes, it exists, but the picture this article paints that that's all there is and that the majority of youth who listen to the music aren't bright enough to figure it out is really the "bad thing" here. Give them more credit than that.

Unfortunately they don't sell like 50 Cent, but Common, Mos Def, Dead Prez, The Roots and Talib Kweli are all making political hip hop. Then again, hip hop's detractors don't think about those types of artists when they're putting it all down. Just keep allowing the negative aspects (minority, not a majority) to be representative of the entire culture and being so powerful that "real rock" has been forced to the back seat. Wow.

Tell Kunstler to pick out some lottery numbers for me. If he helps me become rich, only then will I pay attention to his predictions for our future.

[Steve M.]

In short, rock is really a bad thing. There's no musicality to what so-called rock "musicians" do, it's all just noise. It's a culture filled with depressed, self-destructive slobs who either commit suicide, drink and overdose themselves to death or breed such fandom that their followers are willing to run up on stage and murder band members themselves. The music is so empty they know they can't perform with pyrotechnics, so they'll use fireworks on stage even in a small club, putting people's lives in jeopardy. That's all I see when I see rock. Rock is seriously a bad, bad thing and needs to be stopped, NOW!

Now does that sound like an absurd statement to you? Just as rock is not all about those things I mentioned, neither is rap/hip hop all about the negative things that you people who hate it seem to latch on to. The music is not based on incidents, it's not based on its influence either. Don't believe that the minds of the rap's young Black audience are so under-developed that they (we) can't separate any images in the videos or imagery in the music that they (we) see and hear from real life.

My nephew, the biggest rap fan in my family, has a good job, speaks proper English, has never committed a crime and doesn't walk around with his underwear showing above his pants. Yes, it exists, but the picture this article paints that that's all there is and that the majority of youth who listen to the music aren't bright enough to figure it out is really the "bad thing" here. Give them more credit than that.

Unfortunately they don't sell like 50 Cent, but Common, Mos Def, Dead Prez, The Roots and Talib Kweli are all making political hip hop. Then again, hip hop's detractors don't think about those types of artists when they're putting it all down. Just keep allowing the negative aspects (minority, not a majority) to be representative of the entire culture and being so powerful that "real rock" has been forced to the back seat. Wow.

Tell Kunstler to pick out some lottery numbers for me. If he helps me become rich, only then will I pay attention to his predictions for our future.

And who's on your avatar? Sorry, I can't take you seriously. :p

[Steve M.]

Could you provide a link to this article? I'd like to post it on a music forum that I frequent. Thanks.


I actually copied it from James Kunstler's latest book, The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century. In it, Kunstler explains how the world is reaching peak oil production, and how the United States is especially unpreprared for it. There's more from him at www.kunstler.com . Check out his essay "Las Vegas - Utopia of Clowns." :D

[vashti1999]

And who's on your avatar? Sorry, I can't take you seriously. :p


That's Madonna on my avatar, and...? What's your point? Do I need to change my avatar for you to not make a lame crack or do you not care to discuss any points I brought up?

[Steve M.]

That's Madonna on my avatar, and...? What's your point? Do I need to change my avatar for you to not make a lame crack or do you not care to discuss any points I brought up?

Okay, let's exmaine the evidence -


Hip-hop grew out of a simmering blakc resentment - quite justified - agianst mainstream white culture. It was based entirely on lyric and rhythm - not justified, given the great melodies Ellington and Smokey Robinson concocted. I mean, when did melody become a white thing that black music had to avoid?

Every hip-hop "song" I've ever heard seems to be indifferent to everything its progenitors don't care about. Everything includes musical instruments that don't have to be programmed, singing, coming up with riffs that aren't stolen from Rick James or the Jackson 5, and fashion sense. And I couldn't help but notice that whenever some white guy not named Eminem tries to rap, they're never taken seriously. Ice Cube once said he was glad white kids were listening to his records because they'd learn something aboutthe inner city and make America a better place. Oh, sure - buy his records, but don't make some of your own - and don't you dare date his sister!

You know, if white people in the suburbs moved back to the cities and restored their middle-class tax base, and if urban school districts were then to invest moneyt in music classes, there's be more kids playing guitars and pianos - and fewer kids playing turntables - and rappers would be out of a job owing to lack of ability to play jazz or sing rock or soul.

Oh yeah, my cousins were big Public Enemy fans. Last time I heard, they were voting Republican.

[Steve M.]

Oh yeah, if you tried to write rap music in notation, it would look like a Jackson Polack painting! But then we covered that. :D

[vashti1999]

Okay, let's exmaine the evidence -


Hip-hop grew out of a simmering blakc resentment - quite justified - agianst mainstream white culture. It was based entirely on lyric and rhythm - not justified, given the great melodies Ellington and Smokey Robinson concocted. I mean, when did melody become a white thing that black music had to avoid?


It didn't. Hip hop grew out of neighborhood park and street corner rapping. It grew simply out of being a form of expression of urban youths, not resentment of white culture. And I don't quite understand why lyric and rhythm only is a bad thing. It's not some universal rule that melody must be a component for music to be considered "music."


Every hip-hop "song" I've ever heard seems to be indifferent to everything its progenitors don't care about. Everything includes musical instruments that don't have to be programmed, singing, coming up with riffs that aren't stolen from Rick James or the Jackson 5, and fashion sense.

I'd argue this point, but I don't know what you're saying here. Indifferent to everything its progenitors don't care about? Hip hop songs are indifferent to previous hip hop songs? To previous recording artists?

And I couldn't help but notice that whenever some white guy not named Eminem tries to rap, they're never taken seriously.

3rd Bass was taken seriously. Everlast/House of Pain was taken seriously. Paul Wall was taken seriously. Maybe you haven't been noticing as well as you should.

You know, if white people in the suburbs moved back to the cities and restored their middle-class tax base, and if urban school districts were then to invest moneyt in music classes, there's be more kids playing guitars and pianos - and fewer kids playing turntables - and rappers would be out of a job owing to lack of ability to play jazz or sing rock or soul.

Music classes in urban schools are not non-existent, but either way using rap as the scapegoat is an easy way out. The Neptunes are hugely successful hip hop producers/performers who play instruments, so are The Roots, so is Wyclef Jean. There are exceptions to every rule. Even still, rappers are just as much interested in behind the scenes studio work and producing. For some of us, there's just as much worthiness in the creation of music that way as there is playing a guitar. Again, don't assume that urban youth are so brainless that they'll allow themselves to only be influenced by what they see in rap videos.


Oh yeah, my cousins were big Public Enemy fans. Last time I heard, they were voting Republican.

No comment. (I actually do have a comment, but it's better left unsaid.)


Oh yeah, if you tried to write rap music in notation, it would look like a Jackson Polack painting! But then we covered that.

Yeah, it was just as unfunny the first time.

[Dean Winchester]

And who's on your avatar? Sorry, I can't take you seriously. :p

you're so jealous of Madonna it's sick. Look at it this way, she and her "bad" music have touched more people and she's still adored by millions of music listeners while most of the blues based bar bands you champion are doing just that, back to playing bars.

I definately like the album on Vashti's avatar more than the album on yours :p

[Dean Winchester]

I actually don't care for hip hop, but Vashti has a point. People will make 1000 posts about why rap is everything that is wrong with the world that it gets old for those who do like the music and have dug a little deeper than just what's on MTV to make an informed opionion.

[Dutabi84]

There we go blaming one of the easier targets out there - music. I'd prefer to think that the problem doesn't lie in rap music, but in education. Chances are that most of the people that follow the actions they hear in their favorite rap star's music (yes, music), had a poor education and/or upbringing. I think it's unfortunate that music, video games, movies, etc., have to be scapegoats for the problems we have today.

[Steve M.]

You're so jealous of Madonna it's sick. Look at it this way, she and her "bad" music have touched more people and she's still adored by millions of music listeners while most of the blues based bar bands you champion are doing just that, back to playing bars.

I definitely like the album on Vashti's avatar more than the album on yours :p


Now, now, BuffyPerson, I'm not jealous of Madge. Why would I want to be a sadistic disciplinarian parent with a complete disregard for taste and dignity? Anyway, Music In a Doll's House is one of the greatest debut albums of all time, and apart from the Band's Music From Big Pink, the greatest debut album of 1968. I'm sorry you'll never listen to it because it only got up to #35 in Britain and didn't even chart in America, hence it couldn't possibly be cool. Don't worry about me and other losers who listen to albums only ten people in America bought- we're quite happy not being a part of the "in" crowd!

[Steve M.]

Anyway, here's some more of Kunstler's arguments:

While it is true that many blacks have joined the middle class, at least in terms of jobs and pay, a disturbing aur of cultural separatism persists, supproted by multicuilturalists in education, with terrbily demoralizing effects on that substantial minority of the minority who never made it into the middle class. . . .

There are real political issues facing the black underclass minority in America, and the outstanding one would seem to be how much longer significant numbers of them can afford to put off growing up. The twenty-year long peak oil blowoff has made this experiment in arrested development possible. If nothing else, it has kept enough surplus wealth sloshing the the eocnomy to keep the party going. The Long Emergency [the period Kunstler describes as the age when oil becomes scarce and Western civilization and especially what passes for civilization in America these days is irretrievably disrupted] will force the issue. No group of Americans will be able to party through it. Even among the nominally poor today, standars of living have a long way to fall. What remains of the post-welfare reform social safety net may unravel altogether.

The grievance and belligerence that smolders under the surface of the hip-hop saturnalia is unattached to any coherent political claims beyond the debatable cliches of "structural racism." But that belligerence is more a fashion statement than a political message. Glowering behind sunglasses in a rap video is a show business convention now, but the stringencies of the Long Emergency will change the way such posturing is intterpreted. The Long Emergenecy will be such a hardship for everybody, of all races and sexes, that claims of prior special grievance will be dismissed. The Long Emergency will demand so much of indiividuals in terms of personal responsibliity, civic cooperation, and adult skills, that large numbers of people will be unprepared to cope, and the rest won't be diusposed to excuse the truculence or misbehavior of those who cannot. They will be too busy working to feed themselves andto stay warm. The remaining question is whether the social fabric will be so tattered by hardship and destitution that the mechanisms of justice will no longer be in force.

The pathological inner-city culture that produced hip-hop, to be fair, was started not by the black underclass but by white flight from the cities and a complete disinvestment in urban areas, made possible by cheap oil and cheap tract housing that allowed suburbia to rise at the expense of cities in the first place. Anyone who's been to Europe would think that World War II took place in Detroit or Newark rather than Rotterdam or Berlin. The United States is the only country in the West that looks down on urban life, which is why "urban music" is a synonym for "hip-hop," whereas in other English-speaking countries "urban music" might refer to a symphony orchestra or big-band jazz. ohno:

[Steve M.]

The United States is the only country in the West that looks down on urban life, which is why "urban music" is a synonym for "hip-hop," whereas in other English-speaking countries "urban music" might refer to a symphony orchestra or big-band jazz. ohno:


I also heard the all-black UniverSoul Circus referred to as "urban family entertainment." Hip-hop clothing is "urban fashion." When Luther Vandross sang a ballad is was called "urban contemporary," but if you gave the same song to Phil Collins it would be "middle of the road." What's up with that?

How did "urban" refer to a race rather than to a living pattern that anyone irrespective of race could adopt?