Needle on The Record 10.23.07: Never Judge a Book By Its Cover!
Posted by Jamie Mitchell on 10.23.2007
It's been called hateful, socially irresponsible, and flat out ugly. But how are these descriptions justified when no one has actually heard the album? Today we revisit an old childhood lesson that should apply before picking up the new Nas record.
Once upon a time, in a land that closely resembles Las Vegas, a child and his friend made a visit to a local library. They were greeted by a plethora of colorful, wonderful pieces of reading material, and were both quite anxious to see what they could get their little hands on this trip into text fantasy.
With a budding interest in poetry, one of the children sought the assistance of a middle aged librarian to make a suggestion for a good intermediate book of rhyme. She obliged.
She led the boy over to the poetry section and proceeded to pick up an old tattered book. Instantly, he was turned off by the mere sight of the large manuscript. The hardback looked water damaged, and there were no pictures to be seen on the cover, so it was to the boy's immediate conclusion that the book was trash, and that there would be no redeeming qualities to it. Rather than take the suggestion of the librarian seriously, the child scoffed at the notion or even giving it a chance, discharging it with great verbal emotion.
"It's such an ugly book."
"Nothing good can come from that. I don't even want to touch it."
"How can you keep such garbage on your shelves?"
The librarian, sensing the boy's ignorance, offered to read the first entry. The boy declined, instead turning his back on the woman to join his friend, who was taking a look at more colorful, seemingly more comfortable to read book.
Suddenly, the librarian began reading aloud, for all the children in the area to hear.
"If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…
If you're a pretender. come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!"
"The Invitation" seemingly worked, as a formidable audience of children gathered around her sitting cross-legged as she continued into the next entry. The boy, who once scoffed at the librarian's suggestion, suddenly found himself intrigued by the terminology and made his way back to the woman, who by this time had already attracted not only most of the kids in the building, but his own friend who had accompanied him on his visit.
The boy was in disbelief that the lady wasn't free styling the verbiage, she was reading the material. However, he was more shocked about the source from which she was reading; it the same old tattered book.
Following the lead of the other kids, the boy sat down and took in the free poetry reading. After reciting a few more poems from the scripture, the children begged and begged the librarian to allow them to check the book out. She respectfully declined the children's offer, as he advised that she was holding it for a young man who she felt needed to read it first to learn an important lesson.
You should never judge a book by its cover.
Nas' Nigger Debate
Yes, it's an ugly word, with an ugly history. The look of the word isn't even attractive and yes, it will deter some people from buying the music simply because of the compilation namesake. It is these people however, who make up the ignorance that lies ‘outside the box' of hip hop culture.
The truth is that people have no idea of what has been recorded onto the tracks, nor has anyone spoken to Nas himself about the lyrical content. These individuals are quick to dismiss an entire record based on what is on the cover. To these individuals, Nas is just another one of those rap guys trying to make a buck off of a hot topic. Well, yes, he is. That is his primary job; and as a matter of fact, I think it's pretty good marketing since ‘the n word' is a hot topic at the moment. However, Nas is also known as a Street's Disciple and his role as such is to cater to the streets and empower/uplift his culture. With this release, he's admittedly using it for this purpose.
As a fan, or disciple of Nas if you will, I know that Mr. Jones is a lot smarter than your average rapper. Yes, I've criticized him for being contradictory to his own words at times, but I've never doubted the man's ability to make a statement through music and more importantly, I trust him as a spokesman for hip hop and have no problem with him providing commentary and drumming up publicity to positively influence the overall heath of our culture.
Nas is not going to do anything to damage hip hop, despite what early detractors are saying about his latest ‘marketing ploy.' If you recall, he declared Hip Hop as being dead last year, and it lit a fire under an entire industry to step their game up. By killing the culture with his play on words, Nas empowered people from the south, the west, east and north to be proud of what they are a part of, and to be passionate about the music again.
If there was anyone in the business who can take a controversial topic and make it a positive thing, it's Nas. Not to sound stan-like or anything, but honestly people, do you think that Nas is going to screw up something he helped create by putting out a piece of unintelligent socially irresponsible music? There's a lesson in there, I promise. It's just a matter of looking beyond what's on the cover, and being receptive to the street ideology that lies beyond Where the Sidewalk Ends.
And no, I didn't forget the promise of my previously announced topic; I'm holding it for next week as I really needed to comment on this nonsense.
For those who aren't up on the subliminal: the above poem is actually called The Invitation, and it comes from my favorite poetry book of all time, Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. It's a children's poetry book, but regardless if you have them, do yourself a favor and check it out! Hate on my street credibility all you want, but this book is the truth, real talk!
And while you're at it, check out The 37th Chamber every Wednesday, with my boy Patrick Robinson here on 411 Music!
On a non-music related note, WWE Cyber Sunday is this weekend. Let's make our own statement, and get Jeff Hardy in the main event, why don'tcha? Either way, I'll be at Sam's Town watching, getting blasted with all that cheap liquor and greasy stadium food, ya dig? Hit me up if you're in the Vegas area!
