So, you’ve probably heard that Nas’s new album will not be titled ‘Nigger’ or even ‘N****r’ or anything like that. It’ll be self-titled or untitled, or something. According to Nas, it’s the same album with the same songs and all that, just without that controversy-baiting– not controversial, controversy baiting– title. It’s a smart move because Nas was really clowning himself with the title, his gibberish, pseudo-intellectual defense of it, and stunts like showing up at the Grammy’s with “NIGGER” slapped across he and Kelis’ clothes.
It’s still unclear what his intentions were with the title, even in this post-album title change interview, so it’s probably better that his muddled politics aren’t painted all over the cover of the album. It would only result in a lot of rap-hating assholes having one more reason to complain and guys like me having to either give-in and be like “yeah this is stupid” or try, try, try to explain what Nas was doing, which is really hard because it doesn’t seem like Nas really knew. In his defense, his explanation of the ‘Hip-Hop Is Dead’ title wasn’t that clear either. The only constant in both “controversial” titles is that Nas comes up with a title that gets people talking and gets some pissed-off, then he back-peddles on what he actually meant, as not to really offend anybody. And that’s why dude’s a pussy.
If you’re going to call your album something controversial, be it something that riles-up hip-hop heads and gets rockist critics’ dicks hard, or something that’s going to confound and upset or at least make uncomfortable, pretty much everybody, you should have a clear sense of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Was ‘Nigger’ supposed to numb people to the word and therefore remove it’s hate-based context? Was it some reclamation of the word? Was he trying to shock us back into not using the word? Nas wouldn’t say. And now it’s not called ‘Nigger’ anyway and it’s just another album by Nas.
The only thing ‘Nigger’ really had going for it was that Nas didn’t seem to be backing-down on the title and in that sense, it was admirable even if it was wrong-headed but without the title, which he’s obviously backed-down on for financial reasons, it all looks pretty pathetic. Nasir can make himself look like a good guy and tell fans that he backed-down because the overall message of the album was more important than the title, but it’s because he’s still scared of losing major label support and the money that comes– or supposedly comes– with it.
The sequence of events is symptomatic of the kind of half-PR-grabbing/half-bullshit actions of every rapper around and presumably, the ones Nas maybe kinda sorta claimed were killing hip-hop. This is Lil Wayne or even David Banner’s claim that they have the “best hip-hop album in years” and it’s 50 Cent talking shit about how big his album will be and it’s Kanye reminding you of how next-level he is; Nas’s vaguely socio-political spin on the whole thing doesn’t make it more admirable if the result is still a whole lot of hype and little delivery.
As Eskay mentioned, Nas should just stop “fucking with those majors and [then] this wo[uld]n’t be an issue”. Nas simply isn’t the cultural figure he once was and as a result, his impact or the availability of his album wouldn’t really be diminished if it came out on a KOCH or Stones Throw or Def Jam. He could call the album ‘Nigger’ or whatever he wanted to, avoid O’Reilly-types who just want to muddle Nas’ already muddled version of the issue, and get his album out without delay. For Nas to jump to a small label (his appeal’s so wide that he would fit-in at nearly any indie label) and release any album, let alone one called ‘Nigger’, would do a great deal more for hip-hop and the culture at-large than starting some shit about the title, backing-down, and then over-justifying that inability to stick to his guns like every other rapper out there.
Are You A Serious Comic Book Reader?
There is a great share of your knowledge in the field in this post. I like how you put things. I’ve added you to my Google Reader RSS subscriptions and will continue reading your work. I did have a problem with how fast this post loaded. Might be an issue to fix.
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19 Dec 10 at 7:33 pm
Wanted to drop a comment and let you know your Rss feed is not functioning today. I tried adding it to my Bing reader account but got nothing.
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