Beyond Beats & Rhymes

I’m watching the tail end of Byron Hurt’s documentary Beyond Beats & Rhymes on Independent Lens and I decided to post some thoughts on Mr. Hurt’s work. You can get a summary of the piece with background info on Hurt here and/or here, but I think the best review is here.

I’m a fan of hip-hop and old-school rap. I love the beats and the overall sound of hip-hop, but I stopped listening to anything new sometime in the mid-90s because the lyrics and the videos just became too violent and misogynistic for my taste. I think Hurt’s reporting about this is open, honest, and compelling. I’m encouraged by the women of Spellman and their request for Nelly to speak to the demeaning sexual imagery in his videos if he wanted to come to their campus. It’s too bad that he opted not to engage in that dialogue. I think it could have brought some interesting perspectives to light. I thought Mr. Hurt found some promising talent in the young men he filmed rapping on the street. I appreciated their keen insight and their frank comments regarding the current climate in the music industry and how they’d have a hard time breaking in to the business with positive lyrics. I’d like to see that proven to be untrue, but I’m not holding my breath. We have an entire nation of young men who have been raised on this stuff. I doubt if we can turn back now.

Statistics. The film shares a lot of them, mostly grim reminders of the disproportionate number of violent and sexual crimes involving African-Americans. I remember when Boyz N the Hood came out and showed so many people (myself included) about a kind of life we’d never known. I always thought of that film as Singleton’s attempt to not only expose, but hopefully, change some of those realities. I wonder if the inadvertent result of the film was an increased glamorization of the “hard” mentality Hurt references in the film, where men feel that they have to prove themselves by killing other men and with their sexual conquests (consensual or otherwise). Hurt’s discussion with a group of cross dressing men at a hip-hop show was enlightening. I’d been so put off by all the gunplay and objectification of women that I hadn’t even noticed all the homophobia he exposed among artists and fans. Hurt goes on to explore an angle on hip-hop that I’d never even considered: the homoeroticism of the gangsta image and how it ties back to the strong need of men to establish their masculinity by dominating other men. I’m not sure what I think about the theories presented in that segment, but it’s definitely fascinating fodder for discussion.

With all the accolades he’s received, I don’t expect that an ego stroking from me makes any difference, but I think Mr. Hurt has put together a fine piece here and I’m glad I had the chance to view it. I think it should be required viewing for anyone who owns a Snoop, Nelly, or Fi’ty CD.