I contend that there is a difference between “hip-hop fans” and “hip-hop headz”. The fans enjoy the music that is readily available on BET, MTV, and whatever “Hot 92” FM station rules the air waves in any given city. The “headz” go deeper, seek out the stuff that may not make it to the top of the Billboard charts. The fans listen to hip-hop; the headz love hip-hop.

So here I go with a statement that many “fans” might take issue with. The “hip-hop headz” may agree. I think Nas is brilliant. I will even go so far as to say that he may be one of the greatest MCs of all time.  The “fans” reading this will insist that Lil’ Wayne is greater, that TI is the king, and that Young Joc is what’s hot right now. I vehemently disagree.

If “hot” means great beats and meaningful lyrics, Nas has been consistently hot. In my mind, lyrics in black music must do something more than rhyme. The “art for art’s sake” argument cannot suffice for black folk because they have always been on the periphery of social and economic power.  Of all people, our art must inspire, tell our stories, do something.  The music that Nas creates always does something.

His new album is untitled presumably because of all the upheaval that was generated when he said he would call his album “Nigger”.  I’m sure that Nas’ pans were complicated by all the publicity surrounding the Don Imus hullabaloo, followed by the Oprah scolding of language in hip-hop, and the NAACP burial of the N-word. When I heard he was planning to use the N-word as the title, I grimaced thinking he might be looking for a way to sell albums.  What definition of “nigger” was he going for, I wondered.  Was he going to insist that the word has been redefined and reclaimed and therefore, all good? I worried.  With a title like that, he was sure to get so much publicity and curiosity, people would go out and buy the album.  Was this the ulterior motive?

But then Nas pulled back and decided to let the album go untitled. When it came out I saw the brilliance of the artist. The cover art shows the back of a black man with markings of the whip that marked African slaves. The lashes form the letter “N”. The image reminds one of the pain and evil of slavery.  It conveys the very etymology of the word “Nigger” and leaves no doubt as to the meaning that Nas puts to the word.

When I listened to the album, the MC’s genius was confirmed. Here is a thoughtful artist, one that walks in the ancient footsteps of the West African griots, those praise-singers and story-tellers who reminded the people of their histories.  On his song, “Hero”, he speaks of the universal apartheid that makes one set of rules for black artists.  He says that the censors should “try telling Bob Dylan, Bruce [Springsteen] or Billy Joel not to sing what’s in their soul.” In the track “Yall my Ni**as” he speaks knowledgably about the harsh historical legacies of a colonial map that has harmed African people for decades. Every track on this cd is outstanding but I especially recommend “NI**ER.” and “Black President.”

I appreciate the fact that Nas seems to lack the usual crime-infested drama that accompanies too many rappers. But here is the smartest thing about Nas.  In spite of his relatively media-boring persona, his career has evolved in such a way that he is now mainstream.  He is not quite as widespread as I would like but he is definitely more accessible than he used to be.  The “fans” don’t have an excuse for not listening to Nas.  

Forbes has just published the list of top ten music money-makers for 2007. I excitedly surveyed the list to see how many African-American rappers made the list. After all, throughout the 20th century, Black popular music – and most recently, rap music – affected and gave birth to various manifestations of pop culture around the world. In the United States, it has been reported that rap music (and here I deliberately refrain from using the term “hip-hop”) is consumed largely by urban youth and young white males. Utilizing this power and popularity, television advertisements for a wide range of products use rap music liberally to attract consumers. The image and message of a lot of rappers and their music revolves around money and all the things money can buy. Watch “Cribs” or any of the usual music videos and you may be convinced that rap is the way to financial glory.

The controversial messages in commercial rap have been debated so much that the debate may now be redundant. What is interesting though is that those who justify the misogyny and the explicit lyrics say that they are “keeping it real.” The recording companies seem to encourage this model of performance obviously because they feel that this is what their audience wants, this is what the audience buys. “It’s all about the benjamins, baby!”

So I was shocked when I looked at Forbes’ top ten list and found no black artists. Most of the money the top money-makers earned came from concerts. Police, Hannah Montana, Celine Dion, Rascal Flatts, Justin Timberlake, Kenny Chesney, and Josh Groban all raked in the dough from both music sales and concerts. Rap artists held concerts too. Where were their fans; where were all the young people of varying ethnicities who buy the music? Don’t they flock to the rap concerts as they do to the CDs and the downloads? I’m not expecting the thoughtful MCs with deep and provocative messages to make the Forbes list (that is basis for another blog posting), but I thought I’d find the more commercially conducive rappers breaking into the top ten. I was wrong.

This morning I pulled out my dusty Commodores CD and downloaded it to my ipod. I had not touched that CD for years and felt like listening to some old-school jams as I hopped on the treadmill. As I listened to “Nightshift” this morning, my mind reached back to my early college days in Nigeria. I remember this song playing at Friday-night parties on and off campus in 1985. As soon as the first distinct sounds blasted from the loudspeakers, guys would rush over to the girls and lead us to the dance floor to “rock out” to “Nightshift.” What a song!

This morning as I listened, I smiled, thought of old friends, old fashion, old attitudes, and the dance moves of 80s. I was having such a good time with these memories that I played the track again. This time, I listened closer to the lyrics. What? The entire song is an ode to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson! I never knew that. I never really listened closely. I guess I knew there was something in the song about a “Marvin” or a “Jackie” but who cares when you are trying to execute your best dance steps in the middle of a steamy dance party?

Besides, I was so far away from and uninformed about African-American musical history that although I was very familiar with Marvin Gaye (from “Sexual Healing”) I would not have known who Jackie Wilson was, that he was the fabulous Rhythm and Blues singer who, like Gaye, died in 1984. If I’d been here in the US, knowledgeable about Black music history, I’d have been a better listener of “Nightshift.” I’m intrigued and a little disturbed about the ability of pop culture and the mass media to widely disseminate cultural expressions like music around the globe to mostly uninformed consumers who look for the beat and ignore the message. They can only appreciate the very surface elements of the art.

I asked my husband – also Nigerian – if he remembered “Nightshift.” “Of course,” he enthused, humming the first few chords. I asked him what it was about and he looked thoughtful for a while. “I don’t know,” he said. “It must have been about having a good time with a girl at night, or something.” When I broke it down to him, about how it was a tribute to the contributions of Marvin and Jackie, he was amazed.

The fact that the song did so well as a dance track and yet is so meaningful got me thinking about today’s upbeat dance music that generally seems to be loaded with openly sexual messages. I know there are some that offer a socially conscious message but they get buried under the bulk of explicitly commercial music.

So two questions occur to me: Why are Africans so uneducated about the cultural history of African Americans while we consume African American music voraciously? And why can’t we have more pop songs on our radio that provide a good beat and a good message? The Commodores’ “Nightshift” reminds me that it is possible.